Ten Years in Nevada: Or, Life on the Pacific Coast (1880)

"One has to admire Mary McNair Mathews for her spunk and independence." -Wyoming Library Roundup
"Endearing, familiar style, recounts a decade of experiences in mining towns of California and Nevada" -American West
"A rich source of information about a woman's life in a Nevada mining community." -Into Their Own: Nevada Women


Mary McNair Mathews (1834 1903) was a Nevada historian. Her memoir and early chronicle of life in Virginia City, Nevada, Ten Years in Nevada or Life on the Pacific Coast, was published in 1880. She was born in Livingston County, New York in 1834, Widowed early, and learning of her brother's death in Virginia City, she sold her hoop skirt factory and left for Nevada in 1869 with her young son.

Once in Virginia City, she ran a laundry business, a school, a boardinghouse, and a soup kitchen; she invested in stocks. Mathews returned to New York in 1878, published her memoir two years later, and then headed back to the west to be with her son. She died in Ukiah, California in 1903. In 2009, a chautauqua of her life was staged at the Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park in Minden, Nevada.

In introducing her book, Mathews writes:

"I HAVE been frequently requested by my Eastern and Western friends to write up my life in Nevada, and tell them how I managed to sustain myself and child, carry on law, and lay up property. They wish to know something of Pacific life; the manners and customs of the people; all about the Chinamen, the Piutes, and the mines of the Comstock. They wish to know all I can tell them of the Pacific Coast after a ten years' sojourn in California and Nevada....

"They will also see with what tenacity I clung to my purpose, never allowing any obstacle to hinder, or fear deter me. They will see that while accomplishing it we had to endure a great deal of sickness, privations, trials, and hard work. We did not shrink from honest labors, but engaged in anything that would further our purpose, regardless of the opinion of the high-toned."