Mary Donoho: New First Lady of the Santa Fe Trail 25th Anniversary Edition

"Susan Magoffin was long believed to be the first American white woman to travel the [Santa Fe] trail. But Santa Fe historian Marian Meyer discovered in 1987 that Susan had been preceded by a trader's wife 13 years earlier. 'Mary Donoho, 25 years old, arrived in Santa Fe in 1833, with her husband William and a nine-month-old daughter,' Marian said. 'They were with a party of 150 Missourians and great wagon train of freight...'" -From The National Geographic, March 1991 Marian Meyer has written the story of Mary Donoho who was the first woman to survive the rugged and grueling crossing of the Santa Fe Trail in 1833. Mary Donoho, "the new first lady of the Santa Fe Trail" was a woman of uncommon substance who lived in Santa Fe until the 1837 Perez Rebellion and then moved with her husband to Clarksville, Texas. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Donoho ran the 'legendary' Donoho Hotel in Clarksville, Texas, and raised her six children. Mary Donoho's life lives up to the image of the undaunted pioneer woman of the past.