Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 126. Nellie Cashman - The Angel of Cassier

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126. Nellie Cashman - The Angel of Cassier · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an air web media podcast. Have No
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Speaker 1: Delicious Friends and welcome to Who Did What Now? The
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Speaker 1: history podcast That's not your history class with me your
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Speaker 1: host Katie Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books. It
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Speaker 1: is November and if you are listening on the day
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Speaker 1: of release slash week of release, I am going to
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Speaker 1: be in Edinburgh and Newcastle. I've got live shows. They're
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Speaker 1: always more fun than these recorded episodes because I find
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Speaker 1: it's better not to do anything too repressing. I remember
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Speaker 1: I was doing a show with the Shit Talk History
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Speaker 1: boys Kevin and Jason, and we were like, oh, what
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Speaker 1: will we do? And I have this whole joke about
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Speaker 1: the Irish broad is always a really good fun one
1:01
Speaker 1: for us specifically, and we were trying to decide which
1:05
Speaker 1: one to pick, and it was between who was it now?
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Speaker 1: It was, oh, the first woman to be condemned to
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Speaker 1: the lectric chair in the US, so her and he
1:18
Speaker 1: and we were like, it was either going to be
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Speaker 1: her or it was going to be like the Saint
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Speaker 1: Patrick's Battalion, which everybody dies in the end of that one.
1:25
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I'm not sure that's a really good
1:27
Speaker 1: ending to a show and Kevin quick as a whip
1:30
Speaker 1: goes it worked for Shakespeare, the Bastard. The Bastard you
1:36
Speaker 1: can tell he's a professional comedians, so he's so fucking funny.
1:38
Speaker 1: And Jason is so quick the boys. I wish I
1:42
Speaker 1: was as quick witted as those two were, because they
1:44
Speaker 1: were absolutely fabulous, those boys. So if you don't listen
1:47
Speaker 1: to Shite Talk History podcast, it's an Irish history podcast.
1:50
Speaker 1: The boys are fucking hilarious. They get guests on. You
1:54
Speaker 1: should be listening to them. If you're not, like, do that.
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Speaker 1: So life news. I am just back from the Netherlands.
2:01
Speaker 1: I was doing some stuff over there, and I've got
2:05
Speaker 1: two shows this weekend if you're listening on day of
2:08
Speaker 1: release or even week of release, Saturday and Sunday, So
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Speaker 1: Saturday the sixteenth and Sunday the seventeenth. I am in
2:16
Speaker 1: Edinburgh and Newcastle, like respectively. So if you want to
2:20
Speaker 1: come see me, there's gonna be there's gonna be an
2:24
Speaker 1: option you can come see me. Right, it's gonna be fun.
2:28
Speaker 1: If they're always good, they're always fun the live shows,
2:31
Speaker 1: So come see me, that is what you should do. Yeah,
2:35
Speaker 1: I've been all over the place. I've got some pretty
2:37
Speaker 1: big stuff happening soon and then the and I am
2:42
Speaker 1: just solidifying those dates for the US too for next year,
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Speaker 1: and I am excited, and there's just so much happening
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Speaker 1: right now. It's it's wild. I've got stuff happening in Ireland,
2:58
Speaker 1: I've got stuff happening in the US. I'm working out
3:01
Speaker 1: some mainland Europe stuff, so like that will hash it out.
3:04
Speaker 1: I need a tour manager or something at this point.
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Speaker 1: I need an agent, is what I need. And I
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Speaker 1: remember talking about getting an agent, and my pal was like,
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Speaker 1: how do you not even have a speaking agent, which
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Speaker 1: is a fair question. I don't know. I don't know
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Speaker 1: why I don't have one yet. But I know what
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Speaker 1: you're thinking. You're thinking, Kaye, quit your jibbil jabba in
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Speaker 1: fact me, in fact you I will. But first we
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Speaker 1: have got to get our source on. And our sources
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Speaker 1: are A Mind of her Own. Women Prospectors in the
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Speaker 1: American West by Sally's and Janny. European Immigrant Women in
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Speaker 1: the United States, A biographical dictionary by Judy Barrett Littoff,
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Speaker 1: Nellie Cashman and the North American Mining Frontier by Don Chapout.
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Speaker 1: Nellie Cashman by John p Clem, Klondike Women by Melanie J. Mayer,
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Speaker 1: Stalwart Women, Frontier Stories of Indomitable Spirit by Leo W. Banks,
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Speaker 1: gold Rush Queen, The Extraordinary Life of Nellie Cashman by
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Speaker 1: Thora caerr Illing, and of course our favorites Biography dot
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Speaker 1: com and History dot Com. I was sitting comfortably good.
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Speaker 1: Then let's begin. Now today, I'm going to tell you
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Speaker 1: the tale of Nellie Cashman. Now, if you came to
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Speaker 1: my Cork show on the fourteenth of September in Coughland's
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Speaker 1: Comedy Cavin, you will know this tale because I told
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Speaker 1: it at that show. I but by recording equipment did
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Speaker 1: not record, and seeing as I was like, oh, I'm
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Speaker 1: coming back from Netherlands, I'm not going to have enough
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Speaker 1: time because I've got like an awards thing and then
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Speaker 1: another thing and then the shows. So I was like,
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Speaker 1: you know what, I'll I'll just do this and I'm
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Speaker 1: sorry if you heard this before, but you know, maybe
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Speaker 1: just put it on mute or maybe you want to
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Speaker 1: hear me tell her again. And so here we'll go.
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Speaker 1: Nellie Cashman was born Ellen oh Kitshen. I actually asked
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Speaker 1: people at the show how to pronounce this name because
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Speaker 1: it's kiss any, so I don't know how that's supposed
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Speaker 1: to be pronounced because letter K does not exist in Irish,
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Speaker 1: so I don't know how that's going, but I know
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Speaker 1: that it becomes cashman, so I assume it's going to
5:41
Speaker 1: be Kashane right or kushion right right. Anyway, So she
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Speaker 1: is born in either eighteen forty four or eighteen forty five,
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Speaker 1: not really the best time to be living in Ireland
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Speaker 1: at this point, but anyway, we know she's baptized on
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Speaker 1: the fifteenth of October eighteen forty five, so seems likely
6:07
Speaker 1: that she was born in eighteen forty five because they
6:09
Speaker 1: try and baptize you quick year, you know, just in
6:13
Speaker 1: case the Lord wants to take your fast because they're like,
6:15
Speaker 1: let's get this kid as close to Jesus as we can, like,
6:18
Speaker 1: let's get that going. Now, she's either born in Middleton
6:23
Speaker 1: or Cove, which at the time was known as like
6:26
Speaker 1: Queenstown in Cork. Definitely Cork the county, so somewhere there,
6:34
Speaker 1: and she is born to Francis and Patrick, and she
6:38
Speaker 1: is soon followed by a sister, Fanny. Now, at some
6:44
Speaker 1: point in the mid eighteen hundreds, Patrick dies of what
6:48
Speaker 1: whom's to say, I mean, you've got typhoid and cholera epidemics,
6:53
Speaker 1: You've got you know, and Gorta Moore the fucking famine,
6:57
Speaker 1: So it could be any of these. And so all
7:01
Speaker 1: of this happens before the age of five. So somewhere
7:04
Speaker 1: between eighteen fifty and eighteen fifty two, Francis, Nellie and
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Speaker 1: Fanny emigrate to the USA. What was that they emigrated?
7:15
Speaker 1: They were immigrants, huh. Interesting. So they end up in
7:21
Speaker 1: Boston because there's already a load of Irish there. So
7:25
Speaker 1: they get there because that's what you do, right, And
7:28
Speaker 1: that's why you have areas like Little Italy and Chinatown
7:32
Speaker 1: and whatnot, Because when you move somewhere, you move to
7:36
Speaker 1: the place where people who are like you are. You go, oh, look,
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Speaker 1: there's somebody who speaks my language, who shares cultural norms
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Speaker 1: with me and societal norms, someone who will make me
7:47
Speaker 1: feel more safe in this area that I am unsure of. Right,
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Speaker 1: That's that's what we do. You move to people you know.
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Speaker 1: And so Boston loads of Irish people in Boston, which
8:00
Speaker 1: you know, people who are like fourth generation American are
8:03
Speaker 1: like oh, because they're onto nativism, which is its own
8:07
Speaker 1: special form of bigotry. But anyway, in eighteen sixty one,
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Speaker 1: the American Civil War starts and it lasts for four years,
8:15
Speaker 1: and during this Nelly gets a job child labor laws.
8:20
Speaker 1: What child labor laws? Because she works in a Washington
8:23
Speaker 1: hotel as a bell hop and elevator operator. Going down, sir.
8:31
Speaker 1: That is a reference to Drupe from the movie Who
8:34
Speaker 1: Framed Towards a Rabbit. It is a classic, and it's
8:37
Speaker 1: weird as hell. The book is weirder though. So The
8:41
Speaker 1: story goes that Nelly overheard some Yankee plans in the
8:45
Speaker 1: elevator and snitched to the Union, thus helping them win. Also, allegedly,
8:53
Speaker 1: again take this with a pinch of salt, in the
8:55
Speaker 1: elevator was none other than Vice President Ulysses esque Rant,
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Speaker 1: who's also commander of the Union army, who tells Nelly
9:05
Speaker 1: to go west, hit some brousa and taking this sound advice,
9:12
Speaker 1: Nellie Francis and of course Fanny hit the Oregon Trail
9:16
Speaker 1: and then die of dysentery. I'm just kidding. They go
9:20
Speaker 1: to San Francisco, so the war ends and they're just like,
9:25
Speaker 1: you know, what, have we considered getting a tan anybody,
9:31
Speaker 1: So WHI they're contemplating this young Fanny. We Fanny meets
9:35
Speaker 1: a man and he is mad for Fanny, as many
9:38
Speaker 1: men are, and so they get married. And so your
9:42
Speaker 1: man and Fanny they start their own family. And in
9:46
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy, Nearly and Francis move on to Pastures New
9:51
Speaker 1: in Virginia City, Nevada. Now I know I said pastors New,
9:58
Speaker 1: but there's no pastors New. There's no pastures. It's a
10:01
Speaker 1: fucking desert. Nellie and Francis they're following tales of prospectors
10:06
Speaker 1: in the wild West, and so they're they're there, and
10:10
Speaker 1: Nellie gets a job as a camp cook because she's
10:13
Speaker 1: a woman and options are limited. Following news of gold,
10:19
Speaker 1: they head to Peoshan, Nevada. I have a feeling I've
10:22
Speaker 1: pronounced that incorrectly, But here we are. So and she
10:26
Speaker 1: goes there and she cooks, and then she saved up
10:28
Speaker 1: all her money and buys a house, and not just
10:31
Speaker 1: any house, a miners boarding house, like a rental for
10:37
Speaker 1: high hole pickaxe minors, like, not like a youth hostel.
10:41
Speaker 1: Clearly doing well for herself, Nellie manages to board and
10:45
Speaker 1: feed miners when they were sick and strapped of cash.
10:49
Speaker 1: I mean, she'd better be doing mel to be honest,
10:51
Speaker 1: because that's that's a pretty crappy business model, you know,
10:56
Speaker 1: feeding and boarding people who cannot pay you. But there
10:59
Speaker 1: you go. And her mum, who was pushing it away
11:02
Speaker 1: bit at this point, moves back to San Francisco because,
11:06
Speaker 1: you know, the rough Western life not super for her
11:11
Speaker 1: at this point. And when Nelly is almost thirty years old,
11:16
Speaker 1: gold is struck in the Cassier Mountains in British Columbia
11:19
Speaker 1: and Canada. Over two hundred miners and prospectors head up
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Speaker 1: that way, and so does Nellie. So she sets up
11:27
Speaker 1: a shop in Telegraph Creek and a boarding house. She
11:32
Speaker 1: almost didn't though. Nellie and a bunch of prospectors they'd
11:35
Speaker 1: heard of gold in Canada and South Africa, and the
11:39
Speaker 1: way they decided what to do was they flipped a coin.
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Speaker 1: Like all major life decisions should be, should we get married,
11:47
Speaker 1: let's lap a coin. Should we travel to South Africa,
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Speaker 1: Let's flip a coin. And so she has a shop
11:53
Speaker 1: and a boarding house, and she's also prospecting because she's
11:58
Speaker 1: learning from the fellas. Now all of the boys that
12:01
Speaker 1: she's got up in the up in the boarding house,
12:04
Speaker 1: like she's learning from them, Like she's paying attention. And
12:09
Speaker 1: she's got money, so she's investing in these fellows as well.
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Speaker 1: So she's not just you know, worrying about her own self,
12:16
Speaker 1: but she's investing in the people around her. Oh, what
12:22
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to do. Who knew investing in people
12:25
Speaker 1: would be a great way to build a community? Right? Weird?
12:31
Speaker 1: And of course she's a good Catholic gal, and like Jesus,
12:36
Speaker 1: wants to help the sick in needy, and she decides
12:40
Speaker 1: to invest in a hospital run by nuns. It's always nuns,
12:46
Speaker 1: isn't it. None nuts, none, And so she saves up
12:51
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars, which is nearly like fourteen thousand in
12:57
Speaker 1: today's money, right, and she delivers it to the sisters
13:00
Speaker 1: of Saint Anne's for the construction of the Saint Joseph's Hospital. Well,
13:05
Speaker 1: she doesn't quite deliver it because when she's on her
13:09
Speaker 1: way to visit the nuns, she hears that about twenty
13:14
Speaker 1: five to twenty six miners are stranded back up on
13:17
Speaker 1: Cassio Mountain due to like a freak snowstorm, and she
13:21
Speaker 1: decides that she's going to go and help them because
13:25
Speaker 1: the Canadian Army refused to. It's too dangerous, they say,
13:30
Speaker 1: and Nellie's like, fuck that for game of soldiers, grabs
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Speaker 1: six fellas, some animals, maybe a wee donkey, and off
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Speaker 1: she goes to help the miners. And so she's got
13:41
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred pounds about six hundred and eighty kg of supplies, heavy,
13:47
Speaker 1: heavy supplies. She's got rations and meds and I'm going
13:52
Speaker 1: to assume a wee bit of whiskey because I feel
13:54
Speaker 1: like that's just part of the part at this point.
13:58
Speaker 1: And they can't take dogs because the snow is too deep,
14:03
Speaker 1: and so they put on snow shoes and trudged forward
14:08
Speaker 1: like you know the things that look like tennis rackets,
14:11
Speaker 1: Like that's what they've got strapped to their feet. Like
14:13
Speaker 1: they are like rescuing them, right, They're they're doing it.
14:17
Speaker 1: And at one point Nelly is buried by an avalanche
14:22
Speaker 1: and has to dig her way out, and so the
14:26
Speaker 1: Canadian Army here that Nelly, six men and a donkey
14:29
Speaker 1: are attempting a rescue mission, and they feel that they
14:34
Speaker 1: have to go get her. And because they're like we
14:38
Speaker 1: can't let this women do this, Like what if something
14:41
Speaker 1: happens to her, a reputation for being good Canadian military
14:45
Speaker 1: will be up in the air. And so some troops
14:49
Speaker 1: do find the expedition camped on a frozen river and
14:52
Speaker 1: they try to get half of Tongue back and Nelly's like, no,
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Speaker 1: thank you, no, no, no, no, like like, hey, Nelly,
15:05
Speaker 1: miss Cashman bestie, it's not safe for you here, we
15:09
Speaker 1: need to get you back. And she's like, if it's
15:11
Speaker 1: not safe for me, it's not safe for the miners.
15:14
Speaker 1: So so either get with it or get the fuck
15:17
Speaker 1: out of the way. AnyWho, As they're trudging through all
15:23
Speaker 1: this bloody snow, like there were some places where it's
15:26
Speaker 1: like ten foot deep, Like are they swimming through it? How?
15:31
Speaker 1: I can't They're digging through it probably Like I've never
15:34
Speaker 1: had to traverse ten foot deep snow. The Canadians who
15:39
Speaker 1: listen will probably no better than I would. I don't
15:42
Speaker 1: that just it seems a lot. It seems scary, I'll
15:45
Speaker 1: be honest, I mean, I don't mind the cold, but
15:47
Speaker 1: that just feels a bit excessive for me, you know.
15:53
Speaker 1: And so after seventy seven days, that's two and a
15:57
Speaker 1: half months, Nellie gets to the stranded minels. But when
16:02
Speaker 1: she arrives, there aren't twenty six or twenty five men,
16:08
Speaker 1: there's over seventy. And she's giving them meds. She's giving
16:15
Speaker 1: them aid and food and vetamin c because you know,
16:19
Speaker 1: scurvy which has made over tongue. What what is this?
16:25
Speaker 1: Lats now? In fairness, I would like modern problems, please.
16:30
Speaker 1: I want Wi Fi connectivity issues. Okay, that's what I want.
16:36
Speaker 1: I want Why is my blusher not blending properly into
16:41
Speaker 1: my face? Have I got blusher blindness? That's what I want. Okay,
16:45
Speaker 1: that's what I want. I want to be worrying about
16:47
Speaker 1: Sabrina Carpenter if she's wearing a wig or not wearing
16:50
Speaker 1: a wig. Okay, those should be my problems. I don't
16:53
Speaker 1: want historical problems. I don't want to worry about freezing
16:58
Speaker 1: to death in the winter. I don't want to worry
17:00
Speaker 1: about the return of rickets and scurvy like we cured
17:05
Speaker 1: polio and polio was back, like what is happening? We
17:11
Speaker 1: don't I don't want these. I don't want these medieval problems. No no, no, no,
17:15
Speaker 1: no no no no no no. Please modern issues. Okay,
17:20
Speaker 1: that's what I need. So Nellie is doing her best
17:24
Speaker 1: to reverse the scurvy and other such maladies. Like she's
17:28
Speaker 1: doing her best because you know, she's just trek two
17:30
Speaker 1: and a half months through fucking mountains to get to
17:34
Speaker 1: these boys, right, and she manages to save most of them. Right,
17:41
Speaker 1: She manages to save about seventy five men, although we
17:45
Speaker 1: do know that not everybody like survived through this, but
17:50
Speaker 1: she manages to save seventy five. And this is where
17:53
Speaker 1: she earns the moniker Angel of Cassier. So Nellie, she'd
18:01
Speaker 1: save these men, and she reopened her boarding house. See,
18:07
Speaker 1: I want to call it cashier, right, I want to
18:09
Speaker 1: call it the cashier, But that feels like that's probably wrong,
18:12
Speaker 1: So I'm saying, Cassia case you. I know I could
18:18
Speaker 1: look this up. I could easily look up this pronunciation,
18:21
Speaker 1: but I wait for you Wanle to send me angry
18:23
Speaker 1: messages about it. I love the fact that I knew
18:27
Speaker 1: this several weeks ago, but now the pronunciation has gone
18:30
Speaker 1: on me. So she opens her boarding house, and as
18:37
Speaker 1: I said, she hadn't gotten quite as far as the
18:40
Speaker 1: nuns to deliver the money for the hospital. But she
18:44
Speaker 1: does deliver it. In eighteen seventy six, after the Prospecting
18:48
Speaker 1: dies down up in Cassia, right, and she closes up
18:52
Speaker 1: shop and heads to San Francisco for a spell, to
18:54
Speaker 1: visit her mum and her sister. Nellie. The Prospector packed
18:59
Speaker 1: her try can head for two on Arizona. Oh if
19:03
Speaker 1: she went with her trunke teat trunk stomp stomp stop
19:07
Speaker 1: regret nothing. So yeah, she goes to Tucson, Arizona, which
19:11
Speaker 1: fun fact, was founded by an irishman, Hugh O'Connor. You're Malcolm,
19:19
Speaker 1: So yeah, has a we spell, visits family and then
19:21
Speaker 1: she's like, no, no, I need to venture, I need
19:27
Speaker 1: to travel. I need to just go somewhere and do
19:30
Speaker 1: something right because Nellie's nose is following the gold. And
19:34
Speaker 1: she sets up another establishment, the Delmonico Restaurant, the first
19:41
Speaker 1: business in town owned by a woman. That's right, our
19:46
Speaker 1: trailblazer Nellie here. By eighteen eighty, she's moved over to Tombstone, Arizona.
19:52
Speaker 1: And if that sounds familiar to you, that is where
19:56
Speaker 1: Doc Holliday, the Erp Brothers, you know, the Wild West lawman.
20:01
Speaker 1: That's where they are, and they're they're at this time
20:04
Speaker 1: like this is official World West time she's there and
20:08
Speaker 1: she's setting up businesses all over the shop. She's got
20:12
Speaker 1: the Nevada Boot and Shoe Store. It sells clothes, tobacco, cigars, shoes,
20:21
Speaker 1: and furnishings. She sets up the Tombstone Cash Store, which
20:27
Speaker 1: sells groceries, and by the following year she leases the
20:31
Speaker 1: Arcade restaurant. Now there's a story, and again this is
20:37
Speaker 1: an alleged lace, so pinch as salt there fellas. The
20:41
Speaker 1: story goes that in one of Nelly's establishments, there's a
20:45
Speaker 1: patron who isn't quite fond of Nellie's cooking, and so
20:51
Speaker 1: he insults it, at which point Dot Holiday Cox his
20:57
Speaker 1: gun at said patron and is like, you want to
21:01
Speaker 1: say that again, and he's like, best meal I've ever had, delicious, wonderful,
21:06
Speaker 1: ten out of ten. Now, this seems like a really
21:11
Speaker 1: appropriate time to just take away break, which means you're
21:16
Speaker 1: either gonna hear a word from our sponsors or maybe
21:19
Speaker 1: a host rate ad by me, or you're going to
21:22
Speaker 1: enjoy a moment of silence if you're ad free. Hmmm.
21:29
Speaker 1: The course of a year, she raises money to build
21:33
Speaker 1: the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, So obviously Tombstone does not
21:38
Speaker 1: have a place of worship, at least for Catholics, and
21:40
Speaker 1: Nelly's like, I want to change that. Meanwhile, you know,
21:46
Speaker 1: while they're waiting foresaid church to be built, Nellie convinces
21:51
Speaker 1: Wyatt Erp to host Mass every Sunday at the Crystal
21:56
Speaker 1: Palace saloon. Like she's like, hey, legendary lawman Wyatt Erp,
22:03
Speaker 1: how would you like to hold Catholic Mass in your saloon?
22:08
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, sure. Nellie, like nobody says no
22:12
Speaker 1: to her. I think at this point, I don't feel
22:14
Speaker 1: like I'd like to cross Nellie because she seems really nice,
22:17
Speaker 1: but she's like such a hard ass. I feel like
22:19
Speaker 1: maybe not. Now she is bloody good with money, and
22:24
Speaker 1: she becomes the treasurer of the Miners Hospital Association and
22:29
Speaker 1: she brings in nuns to look after the Miners three
22:33
Speaker 1: at least from the Sisters of Mercy and Tucson. So
22:37
Speaker 1: the place where she had like built hospitals and stuff
22:41
Speaker 1: or invested in hospitals. She's like, Okay, I'm just gonna
22:44
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do a money for nunswap. So like brings
22:48
Speaker 1: some of them over and she herself gets a job
22:52
Speaker 1: as a nurse at a county hospital. Yes, run by nuns.
22:56
Speaker 1: It's always nuts. Oh and when a nasty illness sweeps
23:01
Speaker 1: through tombstone, Nelly and a saloon girl. Right, That's that's
23:08
Speaker 1: all the information I have. Now, well that's a lie.
23:12
Speaker 1: She's either a saloon girl, which is the term that
23:15
Speaker 1: has been written down in books, or the other term
23:20
Speaker 1: used for this lady is sex worker, which she may
23:24
Speaker 1: very well be. Doesn't matter, not really relevant, but just
23:29
Speaker 1: context because I was like, saloon girl, what a really
23:32
Speaker 1: vague description? Like what is this? So? Yeah, her and
23:38
Speaker 1: the saloon girl convert a restaurant into a makeshift hospital
23:42
Speaker 1: to help the sick. And not only that, but Nellie
23:46
Speaker 1: is sending money to the Salvation Army, the Red Cross,
23:51
Speaker 1: and the theater because she is also a patron of
23:54
Speaker 1: the arts. Is there nothing this woman cannot do? So
23:59
Speaker 1: she is collecting donations and everybody everybody's donating. You've got
24:08
Speaker 1: saloon gals, cowboys, business people, the whole shibang. You know,
24:15
Speaker 1: when they say somebody is a good Christian, like, I
24:18
Speaker 1: think Nellie Cashman is like genuinely, genuinely a definition of
24:24
Speaker 1: a good Christian. Now, as far as I know she
24:26
Speaker 1: hasn't done any racist shit, right, I couldn't find any
24:29
Speaker 1: racist shit about her, right, And she's out there just
24:34
Speaker 1: helping everybody. She's doing good deeds. I mean, she's an
24:37
Speaker 1: independent woman who is thriving and surviving in a capitalist economy.
24:43
Speaker 1: But she does go out of her way to raise
24:45
Speaker 1: money for the less fortunate, and she manages to get
24:49
Speaker 1: other people to also donate to Like, hmmm, I don't know.
24:53
Speaker 1: If we help people in the lower rungs of the
24:56
Speaker 1: economy and it boosts everyone up a little, doesn't that
25:00
Speaker 1: make it better for everyone unless you're a capitalist because
25:06
Speaker 1: capitalism actually relies on debt to survive. You need debt
25:11
Speaker 1: in order for the capitalist structure to work. Like that's
25:14
Speaker 1: that's just how it is. That's just a major factor
25:16
Speaker 1: of it. So in order for it to be a
25:20
Speaker 1: non capitalist society, there has to be no debt. And
25:23
Speaker 1: that's not to confuse commerce with capitalism, Like you can
25:29
Speaker 1: buy sell trade, that's not capitalism, that's commerce. Capitalism is
25:36
Speaker 1: the structure in which this happens. It's like, it's like
25:42
Speaker 1: Marxism is actually quite funny because Marxism exists within capitalism, right,
25:49
Speaker 1: because all that Marxism says really, I mean, it says
25:52
Speaker 1: lots of things, but the main defining feature of it
25:55
Speaker 1: is that the rich should not be as rich and
25:58
Speaker 1: the poor should not be as pool, and we need
26:01
Speaker 1: to close that gap a little. Like that's what that is.
26:06
Speaker 1: It means there shouldn't be too much over here and
26:09
Speaker 1: this shouldn't be too much over there, Like the distance
26:13
Speaker 1: between rich and pool should be closer, you know, like
26:17
Speaker 1: there's no reason for billionaires to exist, Like what's that
26:21
Speaker 1: thing of Like if you have somebody gets like nine
26:24
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety nine million, nine nine nine or whatever,
26:27
Speaker 1: and as soon as they hit a billion, like whatever
26:30
Speaker 1: the extra is, it gets taxed and it just goes
26:33
Speaker 1: into funding shit, you know, like boosting the economy and
26:38
Speaker 1: actually helping people, which is the whole point of existence.
26:44
Speaker 1: But yeah, anyway, she's like legitimately a good Christian, is
26:47
Speaker 1: my point. Not the people who are like hmmm, the
26:50
Speaker 1: gazzer d vent and they're twisting the minds of children.
26:56
Speaker 1: But you know, polyester is fine. What your Bible's word, man,
27:01
Speaker 1: That's all I'm telling you. Also, don't read the King
27:03
Speaker 1: James Bible. It's like terrible fan fiction anyway, she does
27:10
Speaker 1: try and lise a hotel in Bisbee. Back to Nelly. Now,
27:15
Speaker 1: even in the show, I'm really bad, I will sidebar you,
27:19
Speaker 1: but usually my sidebars are funnier as opposed to a
27:21
Speaker 1: lecture and economics. So Nellie she tries to lease a
27:26
Speaker 1: hotel in Bisbee, but it doesn't do well and so
27:29
Speaker 1: she ends up staying in Tombstone. So she ends up
27:33
Speaker 1: in Bisbee. And okay, I suppose I should add context.
27:40
Speaker 1: So the Bisbee mascer or the Bisbee raid by the coach,
27:44
Speaker 1: she's cowboy outlaw gang. That's a lot of names. Just
27:49
Speaker 1: can you make your gang name shorter and make it
27:51
Speaker 1: easier for us to remember? It would just be really
27:53
Speaker 1: handae after you're going to have like a cowboy gang
27:57
Speaker 1: in the wild West, just go back and make it easier.
28:01
Speaker 1: And it's not the point, Okay. So it's a bank
28:04
Speaker 1: robbery gone wrong and six people are killed, including one
28:11
Speaker 1: lawman and a pregnant woman. Now being the eighteen hundreds,
28:17
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be a public execution for the outlaws
28:21
Speaker 1: because you know that's they're from entertainment, because they didn't
28:24
Speaker 1: have Love Islander, the Late Lake Show, and so this
28:27
Speaker 1: is big news, National news. So they're like capitalism, that's
28:32
Speaker 1: a thing. We're back again into it. I know, one
28:37
Speaker 1: entrepreneur decides to build a large grandstand and sell tickets
28:42
Speaker 1: to the hanging, and that's up to like one fifty.
28:47
Speaker 1: So it's dynamic prices. You got a roll with Sorry,
28:55
Speaker 1: that still stings for a lot of people. So yeah,
28:57
Speaker 1: it's got dynamic pricing. So like it's just kind of
28:59
Speaker 1: like price gouging and just raising ticket prices for whoever,
29:04
Speaker 1: just to you know, because they want to make as
29:06
Speaker 1: much money as possible. And Nellie, she's showing Christian kindness
29:13
Speaker 1: to the outlaws. She's talking to them. She even heals
29:16
Speaker 1: two fellows confessions because I guess the priest was busy
29:20
Speaker 1: that day, I don't know, or maybe the priest just
29:22
Speaker 1: couldn't get round of everybody's confession because it was taking
29:25
Speaker 1: them too long because their outlaws and are therefore like
29:29
Speaker 1: sinning and whatnot. But yeah, so instead of a priest,
29:33
Speaker 1: they have Nelly, which just feels actually like probably the
29:36
Speaker 1: most comforting out of those options. And she takes pity
29:41
Speaker 1: on their souls and also thinks that selling tickets to
29:44
Speaker 1: someone's death is a shitty thing. To do, and Nellie
29:49
Speaker 1: lets we forget does have a wee bit of sway,
29:52
Speaker 1: and so she calls in a favor, the favor being
29:57
Speaker 1: getting a bunch of minyls to show up and smash
30:00
Speaker 1: the grandstand. And they do, and it's caused a wee
30:05
Speaker 1: bit of issue, and by issue I mean riot, because
30:10
Speaker 1: again this is the wild West. You know, the criminals
30:15
Speaker 1: do end up hanging. You know, they have a public execution,
30:18
Speaker 1: but no one paid to see it is the difference.
30:24
Speaker 1: So one of the Cotchies, Cowboy Outlaw Gang seriously seriously
30:30
Speaker 1: shorter names boys shorter names, Daniel Kelly originally from Cork
30:35
Speaker 1: as well. He's there on the scaffold and before you know,
30:38
Speaker 1: the short drop and a sudden stop, he just shouts,
30:41
Speaker 1: let her loose, which I think is probably the most
30:44
Speaker 1: cork thing ever. Like, the only way it could be
30:47
Speaker 1: worse is like tis a great day for drying out?
30:49
Speaker 1: Like what are your options there? So after executions, bodies
30:55
Speaker 1: typically are littered or doctored with so Nellie arranged her
31:01
Speaker 1: minor men to watch over the bodies for like ten
31:05
Speaker 1: days before they're buried, so like they're protected and they're
31:10
Speaker 1: going to be decomposed to a point where they're not
31:13
Speaker 1: going to have like anyone wanting to use their kidavers
31:16
Speaker 1: for study. And this is not the only time Nelly's
31:20
Speaker 1: stuck her or in right. The very next year, this
31:24
Speaker 1: mine owner he wasn't providing a living wage and work
31:29
Speaker 1: was dangerous as fuck, so the minors were angry and
31:33
Speaker 1: wanted to lynch him. And Nellie she is an older
31:37
Speaker 1: lady at this point, and I don't know if you've
31:39
Speaker 1: ever met somebody over the age of forty, but they
31:43
Speaker 1: really start not giving a fuck. And it's a fabulous,
31:47
Speaker 1: fabulous point in life. That age where women just no
31:50
Speaker 1: longer give a fuck is just a mindset that I
31:56
Speaker 1: aim to be in. Like that is fabulous. So Nelly
32:02
Speaker 1: leaps into a horse and cart and drives headfast into
32:06
Speaker 1: the crowd of very angry minus like I can just
32:10
Speaker 1: imagine her pulling up and just being like, come with
32:12
Speaker 1: me if you want to leave, and she cuts them
32:15
Speaker 1: off to Benson after that, like chuck the mine on
32:20
Speaker 1: around takes them away, and I hope she has a
32:22
Speaker 1: good talk to him about you know, I don't know,
32:24
Speaker 1: increasing wages or making the job, you know a bit safer,
32:28
Speaker 1: perhaps you know something, because you know, she did save
32:31
Speaker 1: his life. Meanwhile, good old Fanny, her husband dies, So
32:39
Speaker 1: Fanny no longer has her man because you know, he's dead,
32:43
Speaker 1: and as a woman in the past, not really a
32:46
Speaker 1: lot of options for her. And so she and her
32:48
Speaker 1: five kids moved to Tombstone. So they're in Tombstone and
32:53
Speaker 1: in the care of Nelly effectively, so she's like financially
32:56
Speaker 1: supporting them. And in eighteen eighty three, Nellie decides that
33:01
Speaker 1: she's going to take away trip to Baha in California,
33:04
Speaker 1: which is now I think part of Mexico, but at
33:07
Speaker 1: the time it was just a part of California. And shock,
33:11
Speaker 1: the desert is hot as balls, and so they don't
33:15
Speaker 1: find any if much gold, and her and the twenty
33:19
Speaker 1: prospectors are sort of lost slash stuck in the desert
33:24
Speaker 1: and other allegedlies. Nelly goes for aid. Some say she
33:28
Speaker 1: was guided by an angel, some say it was heat strock.
33:33
Speaker 1: Either way, she finds like a mission or a church
33:37
Speaker 1: thing of some kind, and a priest gives her water.
33:43
Speaker 1: Now apparently there's like gold around this church, and he goes,
33:46
Speaker 1: please don't take the gold around my church, because it's
33:51
Speaker 1: it's we need it to survive. And she promises never
33:54
Speaker 1: to tell a soul, which is weird because like, how
33:58
Speaker 1: else would we know this story if she told no one?
34:00
Speaker 1: And this priest told no one because obviously he wants
34:02
Speaker 1: to protect it. Like what is hmm, just saying so
34:08
Speaker 1: empty handed? The prospectors made up with more prospectors who
34:13
Speaker 1: go and jump in a boat. Unfortunately, the captain of
34:16
Speaker 1: that boat is drunk, and so somebody has the great
34:20
Speaker 1: idea of tying him up. Now did the men tie
34:24
Speaker 1: him up? Did Nelly tie them up? Who's to say?
34:29
Speaker 1: All we know is somebody bondaged up that captain. And
34:34
Speaker 1: in Gwamouth, the crew and the prospectors are arrested for,
34:38
Speaker 1: you know, said captain bondage because it's like a partial
34:42
Speaker 1: mutiny situation slash kidnapping, you know. And so the captain
34:49
Speaker 1: presses charges saying that Nelly did it, and the American
34:54
Speaker 1: consul was like, she's fine, let her go. So she
34:59
Speaker 1: goes back to Tombstone and Fanny is getting so sick
35:04
Speaker 1: she has contracted TV tuberculosis, and so she's then sent
35:09
Speaker 1: to the nuns for like extra care in San Diego
35:12
Speaker 1: and in eighteen eighty four, she dies of TV, leaving
35:19
Speaker 1: Nelly to support her nieces, nephews, and her elderly mother.
35:26
Speaker 1: Like Francis, is still alive. Now, all of these kids
35:31
Speaker 1: are educated mainly by nuns because they never stop appearing
35:35
Speaker 1: in this and some go to college. One of them
35:38
Speaker 1: becomes a nun. Well, Nelly continues running stores, restaurants, boarding
35:44
Speaker 1: houses wherever there was a want, and so she's just
35:48
Speaker 1: moving around establishing businesses, just like following the gold and
35:53
Speaker 1: she does this for a good few years. Men in
35:58
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety eight, she moved to the Yukon in Canada,
36:02
Speaker 1: like she's in her fifties, and she was among like
36:05
Speaker 1: thirty thousand people had gone there, and like most of
36:08
Speaker 1: the good claims were gone because it's the Klondike gold Rush.
36:12
Speaker 1: And also technically as an unmarried woman, she couldn't technically
36:18
Speaker 1: make a claim, but she made it work because by
36:21
Speaker 1: nineteen oh one, less than one percent of women mind.
36:26
Speaker 1: And so being Nelly, because Nelly is just a power
36:31
Speaker 1: to be reckoned with, right, she sets up the first
36:34
Speaker 1: female owned business in the Yukon, another Delmonico restaurant and
36:39
Speaker 1: a grocery store. She goes up to Dawson by floating
36:44
Speaker 1: up a spring for five hundred miles. That's dedication. I
36:48
Speaker 1: don't think I'll be doing that in my fifties, to
36:50
Speaker 1: be honest. And after a while she heads to Nolan's
36:54
Speaker 1: Creek in Alaska, where, surprise, surprise, she's still keeping up
37:00
Speaker 1: with her charity work. She's still donating to all these
37:03
Speaker 1: different like groups and charities and just everything. And she
37:10
Speaker 1: just keeps making her story right, like the women just
37:12
Speaker 1: cannot stop being a fucking badass. In nineteen twelve, at
37:17
Speaker 1: the age of like sixty eight, I think at this point,
37:22
Speaker 1: she becomes the first woman to vote right, and she
37:29
Speaker 1: becomes a champion women musher of the Yukon and ran
37:33
Speaker 1: a dogs led team from Nolan's Creek to Anchorage in
37:37
Speaker 1: seventeen days Justice for Togo. If you haven't heard the
37:42
Speaker 1: Great Race for Mercy episode, go back and listen to it.
37:45
Speaker 1: It's a good and it's some good news. Okay, we
37:48
Speaker 1: are good newsing it this month. And so she used
37:52
Speaker 1: to hang outside this is my favorite thing for collecting money. Actually,
37:58
Speaker 1: she used to hang outside salins and when the pot
38:01
Speaker 1: was large enough, she'd saunter in, like if you can
38:04
Speaker 1: afford to gamble, you can afford to donate, and everyone
38:08
Speaker 1: would just be kind of shamed into donating to charity
38:11
Speaker 1: because nobody's gonna mess with Nelly. Nobody messes with Nellie Cashman, right,
38:19
Speaker 1: So she raised funds for mining equipment, she's raising money
38:23
Speaker 1: for like care of people, education, healthcare, like she's she's
38:30
Speaker 1: a one woman government, Like she's just going for it.
38:36
Speaker 1: She just can't help herself, like she just does all
38:39
Speaker 1: this amazing stuff, like she's she's a dog michell like
38:44
Speaker 1: everything anything you know. In December nineteen twenty four, Nellie
38:53
Speaker 1: ends up in Saint Joseph's Hospital in Fairbanks. She's got
38:58
Speaker 1: pneumonia and pheumatism, and she's sent to Seattle, and Nellie,
39:04
Speaker 1: not being an idiot, becomes very aware of just how
39:08
Speaker 1: ill she is, and so she requests to be sent
39:13
Speaker 1: to the Sisters of Saint Anne's Hospital, the hospital, the
39:17
Speaker 1: very hospital that she had raised funds for fifty years earlier.
39:25
Speaker 1: And on the fourth of January nineteen twenty five, Nellie
39:30
Speaker 1: Cashman passes away from pneumonia are probably complications from pneumonia,
39:37
Speaker 1: and she is buried at the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria.
39:43
Speaker 1: British Columbia. And when Nelly dies, right when she passes away,
39:52
Speaker 1: she is so well known across the country in all
39:55
Speaker 1: of these societies and groups for everything that she did.
39:59
Speaker 1: At the time the wind who passes away, her obituary
40:05
Speaker 1: is printed in papers all across the region, like it
40:09
Speaker 1: in all of the mining towns, Like every single mining
40:12
Speaker 1: town is publishing the news of Nellie Cashman's death because
40:18
Speaker 1: of everything that she did, because of how important she
40:22
Speaker 1: was to them. And what I love about Nellie is
40:26
Speaker 1: there's never any mention of a man in her life.
40:31
Speaker 1: Like I think there was one moment where she was
40:32
Speaker 1: like they were like, do you want to get married?
40:34
Speaker 1: And she's like, m no, I'm good, Like I don't
40:38
Speaker 1: need that hassle, and like so she's so focused on
40:41
Speaker 1: doing everything else and like she doesn't want a man,
40:44
Speaker 1: She doesn't need a man, she has no interest in it.
40:47
Speaker 1: Like she just wants to go live her best life
40:50
Speaker 1: and that's what she does and she helps so many
40:54
Speaker 1: people in the process. It's like a genuinely good person
40:59
Speaker 1: in history who most of us would have never heard about.
41:04
Speaker 1: And I found her by accident, by accident, you know,
41:10
Speaker 1: just because I was reading something that cross referenced, something
41:13
Speaker 1: that made like a reference, and I'm like, hang on
41:15
Speaker 1: a second, who is this person? And that was how
41:18
Speaker 1: it discovered her, and so ends the story of Nellie Cashman.
41:27
Speaker 1: If you liked my retelling of this, you can feel
41:30
Speaker 1: free to rate in review five stars, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.
41:37
Speaker 1: If you want to follow me on socials. I interact
41:40
Speaker 1: quite a bit when I'm not exhausted. Honestly, I'm pretty
41:44
Speaker 1: decent these days, and I will have any news of
41:49
Speaker 1: tools will be posted as soon as actual stuff locked in.
41:53
Speaker 1: And I guess it's time for the usual recommendation time
41:59
Speaker 1: for this. I'm going to tell you to go listen
42:01
Speaker 1: to Shite Talk, an Irish history podcast, because those boys
42:05
Speaker 1: deserve more love because they do because they're fucking great.
42:08
Speaker 1: So go listen to them and tell them I sent you,
42:12
Speaker 1: unless you're going to say mean things to them, in
42:13
Speaker 1: which case, fuck off and say none, because those boys
42:17
Speaker 1: deserve better. I thought you're listening for watching Hacks. Hacks
42:24
Speaker 1: is so good. There's so many unlikable characters. I'm here
42:29
Speaker 1: for it, like one hundred percent. It's funny, it's it's
42:33
Speaker 1: a little cringeing and depressing, at points, but it's funny.
42:36
Speaker 1: It's funny, and for reading. I don't know if I've
42:40
Speaker 1: recommended yellow Face yet. Butter. There is a book called Butter.
42:46
Speaker 1: It was recommended to me by a man in withtherstones,
42:49
Speaker 1: not wetherstones, waterstones, waterstones. And it's actually a very good book,
42:56
Speaker 1: I know, And so I think you should read that.
43:00
Speaker 1: And with that I shall put you good night. Adeous
43:03
Speaker 1: au revoir avuirazem my friends, A Bibbe