![]() Was “Clifton” really Charley Parkhurst? The San Francisco Call left a further clue shortly after Charley died. He told us that he’s married to a Boston merchant where he is keeper of the American’s house…In short, he is a very queer fellow indeed!” “He says the reason for passing under an assumed name was that he was an important witness in a case and wishing to have nothing to do with it, adopted a false name to get out of the way. “assengers on board call him ‘Thunderbolt’,” wrote Duchow. While traveling overland in Nicaragua, John Charles Duchow, on May 18 mentioned in his journal a passenger who called himself “Charles Clifton.” A San Francisco businessman named John Morton called Charley “an agreeable ‘companion de voyage’.” He told Morton he planned to drive a stage, and Morton, who ran a drayage company, offered Charley a job.Īnother fellow passenger may have left a clue to the missing pages of Charley’s story. On board, Charley chatted with his fellow passengers. Charley lived in California by then.Īfter two decades of driving in New England, Charley boarded the steamer R.B. In 1854-55, the Providence directory listed Charles D. ![]() Then at 77 North Main, then Central and finally Weybosset streets. Parkhurst, hostler, living at “College, corner of Pine and Dorrance” in Providence. In 1837, the city directory listed Charles D. Ever afterward, Charley wore his signature gloves.Ĭharley also drove coaches in Georgia, though it isn’t clear whether he moved there or not. Once, in Patuxet, he waited outside for passengers at a dance and his hands froze. He earned a reputation as a skillful hostler handling teams of two to six horses – her favorite, a team of six matched grays. Still young, he drove stage routes along the Boston Post Road to Boston, Providence, Worcester and New York. Providenceīalch then bought the Franklin House and the What Cheer stables in Providence. This Concord Coach ran from Charlestown, N.H., to Springfield, Vt. She watched the Concord coaches that came and went, and she learned how to doctor the horses that she understood so well. “Charley” had an aptitude for horses, and Balch taught her how to handle them. She cleaned stalls, washed carriages and scrubbed floors. She ended up in Worcester and got a job in Ebenezer Balch’s livery stables. The Providence Journal, just after her death, reported, “While in the poor house he discovered that boys have a great advantage over girls in the battle of life, and he desired to become a boy.”Īt the age of 12 she dressed in boys’ clothes and ran away from the orphanage. After her brother died in 1813, Charlotte and Maria went to an orphanage in Lebanon, N.H. She had an older brother, Charles D., and a sister, Maria. She was born in 1812 in Sharon, Vt., to Mary (Morehouse) Parkhurst and Ebenezer Parkhurst as Charlotte Darkey (or Durkee) Parkhurst. “It was an honor to sit in the spare end of the driver’s seat when the fearless Charley Parkhurst held the reins of a four or six in hand.”Ĭlients got into the habit of asking for One-Eyed Charley. 9, 1880 (reprinted from the San Francisco Call), shortly after his death. “He was in his day one of the most dexterous and celebrated of the famous California drivers, ranking with Foss, Hank Monk, and George Gordon,” wrote the New York Times on Jan. People called Charley “boss of the road.” She drove special missions for Wells Fargo, and in his later years drove between San Juan and Santa Cruz. He drove over the big hump of Mount Madonna, in and out of the Central Valley and down to San Francisco. When the roads opened to Virginia City and the Nevada mining towns, Charley drove those. His profane vocabulary sometimes left his passengers spellbound.Īt first he drove from Sacramento to the rough mining towns around Sutter’s mill, the gold region known as the Mother Lode. He drank whiskey, chewed tobacco, smoked cigars and talked to his horses. No matter the weather he wore long-fringed, beaded gloves – perhaps to hide small women’s hands. He dressed in tailored coats, handmade boots and a broad gray hat. Charley ParkhurstĬharley had arrived by steamer in San Francisco in 1851, nearly 40 and aiming to be “the best damn driver in California.”Ĭharley stood five feet tall and had only one good eye after a horse kicked him. The news that Charley was Charlotte made news around the country. To be a stagecoach whip required nerve, courage, coolness, endurance and skill, qualities not associated back then with the fairer sex. The amazing part was that Charley - or Charlotte - had been a legendary stagecoach driver in gold rush country. Women dressing as men was not all that unusual in the Old West, a place where people came to reinvent themselves. Ross Browne in an illustration by Browne for Harper’s magazineīut that wasn’t the astonishing part.
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