 | ||
Books Two Women in the Klond, Two Women in the Klond, Two Women in the Klond | ||
Mary Evelyn Hitchcock (also, Mrs. Roswell D. Hitchcock; 1849-1920) was an American author and explorer. She was born in the U.S. state of Virginia, daughter of Capt. Thomas A. (of Norfolk, Virginia) and Cecelia (Fitzgerald) Higgins. She was educated at Lawrence Academy (academic honors). She married Commander Roswell D. Hitchcock, USN, and they had one daughter, Mrs. Harriman.
She accompanied Commander Hitchcock to Vienna Exposition, 1873, Paris Exposition, 1878, to Japan, 1882, where his ship remained two years; and again in 1892, when Commander Hitchcock was Capt. of USS Alert. After the death of the commander, she made a tour of the world.
In 1898, she went to Klondike with her friend Edith Van Buren, embarking from San Francisco on a steamer. Their luggage included multiple pets and an early motion picture device called an animatoscope. Hitchcock climbed Skagway Pass on foot before the days of the railroad. She was the author of Two Women in the Klondike, which described this visit to the Yukon.
Hitchcock was so impressed with the mining and agricultural possibilities of the Yukon that she returned to spread the knowledge she had gained in lectures, which added largely to funds for churches and hospitals. She returned to the Golden North, where she staked more than 100 claims and because so deeply interested financially that she spent the greater part of five years there.
In 1904, Hitchcock organized and was president of The Entertainment Club, in New York City. She was also a Fellow of the National Geographic Society, as well as a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy.