|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Charley Parkhurst, or "One Eyed Charley," was known as the bravest stagecoach driver in the Sierra Nevada. But perhaps Charley's most daring feat was posing as a man for thirty years. Some twelve or fourteen years ago . . . there was a young man running a two-horse stage from Redwood City to Searsville. The man's name is withheld for good reasons; but all the old residents of this section no doubt remember him well, as a stirring, industrious business man. In 1855 or 1856, he drew off his stage from the Searsville route and went into the southerly part of the state, but eventually settled down in Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, and engaged in other pursuits . . . He had always remained single, and no suspicions were ever raised as to his sex until . . . circumstances which he found impracticable to control revealed the long hidden secret. The young gentleman who used to drive the Searsville stage gave birth to a child. The matter was known to but very few friends at the time, and the whole thing was hushed up, as the child lived but a few hours, or was dead when born, we are not positive which. The mother did not change her attire and still passes for a man as before, and although looking slightly feminine, still not enough so to raise any suspicion that she was not what she pretends to be.Charley's secret was not revealed until her death in 1879. A registered voter in an 1868 general election, she may have been the first woman to vote in the United States. –Contributed by Anna Baldasty. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
below to hear radio segment.
