Val Digital Art and AI
Saloma E. Larcombe Newland was a female prospector in territorial Arizona. She was born around 1838 in Massachusetts. It is unknown who her parents were, or if she had any siblings. Prior to 1880, there are no census records that list her, and what has been discovered comes mostly from newspaper articles.
She lived in Ohio at some point, as her daughter Flora Larcombe was born on January 14th, 1859 in Steubenville, Ohio. Flora had married Barry Baldwin in 1875 who was a United States Marshal for the Northern District of California.
Saloma also lived in California on and off for several years as Mrs. S.E. Larcombe, having married a Thomas B. Larcombe, a miner, at some point. She divorced him in 1870. In 1864, she worked as a sales agent in Virginia, Nevada Territory for the Florence sewing machine. In 1866, she worked as the manager of the Western Union Telegraph Office in Santa Barbara, along with another job as operator at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. She left California in 1877, and came to Arizona to pursue her interest in prospecting.
She would continue her mining endeavours in Globe while managing a hotel in “Watsonville”, a mining camp near Ramboz peak. After marrying Thomas Newland in 1878, together, they mined several claims, which included prospecting the Defiance, Pioneer, and Saloma Mines in the area of Globe. In 1896, Thomas died of chronic pneumonia at 66 years of age. Saloma continued mining their prospects, earning her notoriety in the Arizona Republic, and an article written about her in the The San Francisco Call in 1897 called “Arizona’s Lady Prospector”.
Saloma Larcombe Newland died of cancer December 31, 1898, and is buried in Loosley. She has no headstone. For more information on her, come to the Pioneer Military and Memorial Park to learn about this fascinating “lady miner”.
- bio by Val Wilson
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