It was a precipitous one-lane dirt road clinging to the side of Mount Madonna, yet the 1850s stagecoach “whip” was driving the six-horse team at a furious pace. One-Eyed Charley was called a “Jehu” after the Bible passage referring to “furious drivers.” (Kings 9:20). In the coach was a well-dressed merchant, his little girl, and a brawny woodsman riding in the facing seat. The little girl looked out the window on the cliff side and commented how steep the drop-off was. Her nervous father pulled her back from the window, afraid her shifting weight might tip the coach into the abyss. The merchant looked out the window on his side, but the road ahead was obscured by clouds of dust.
“How can you even see the road?” he yelled to the driver.
One-Eyed Charley replied, “I listen for the wheels to rattle, then I know I’m on hard ground. If they don’t rattle, I look to see if the road’s still there!”
This hardly calmed the nervous passenger’s fear. The merchant told the woodsman, “He’s driving too fast for someone with one eye awake and one eye asleep.”
“Relax!” the woodsman laughed. “All the best marksmen close one eye when they shoot. It helps them see better!” As the jittery man didn’t laugh, the woodsman said, “You must be new to the West, or you’d know the most revered stage drivers are Henry J. Monk, Cherokee Bill and One-Eyed Charley.”
“I just wish he’d slow down.”
“Charley’s the best in the business,” came the reply. “Once during a thunderstorm, he was driving so fast, he passed to the other side of a gulch before realizin’ the bridge was out!”
“What?” said the merchant skeptically.
“It’s true! I heard it from one of the passengers, who said when they stopped, they found the bridge lying at the bottom of the gulch. That coach must have been ridin’ on clouds!”
Or at least that was the legend. It was based on Charley crossing the storm-swollen Tuolumne River bridge, making a careful transit until the bridge began to sway, which sent him into a mad dash to the other side. The bridge collapsed the moment they reached solid ground.
The woodsman explained that a stage driver was one of the most difficult occupations around, requiring the ultimate in self-sufficiency. The driver needed to be a coachman, horseman, whip-cracker, road mechanic, marksman and guard. They assisted unsteady passengers, lifted steamer trunks, strongboxes, mailbags, crates and goods atop the coach. When Charley was driving from San Francisco to San Jose, a horse threw a shoe, so he stopped in Redwood City to nail a new one on. That was when the horse kicked out his left eye. But Charley has a perfect safety record of never a passenger injured nor coach overturned. The merchant asked, “But I thought he was robbed.”
“Yes, by Sugarfoot, an outlaw who wore burlap sugar sacks on his feet. Charley was so outraged at losing the gold dust in the strong box entrusted to him, that he kept his six-shooter beside him while riding. The next time he was held up, he fired at the outlaw, then hurried his horse team away. Sugarfoot was found dead near the scene. The last time Charley was held up, he cracked his whip and blinded the gunman in one eye. Old Charley’s a western hero!”
The stagecoach from San Jose arrived at last in Watsonville. Yet after such towering descriptions of One-Eyed Charley, it was surprising to be helped out of the coach by this 5-foot-tall driver. He was barrel-chested, with a sun-browned, clean-shaven face, blue eyes and a gruff voice. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, box-pleated shirt, and a coat, topped in cold weather with a buffalo hide overcoat and neck scarf. He wore blue jeans as a duster, with cuffs turned up to show his finer pants beneath.
The little girl exclaimed, “I loved the ride, Mr. Charley! I want to be just like you when I grow up!”
The businessman chuckled. “Come now, daughter. If few men could match Charley’s skill, then what woman could ever come close?”
Charley gave the little girl a piece of candy, and a wink.
The girl was dazzled by Charley’s gloves, sporting buckskin fringe and Indian beadwork on the back. The leather gave him a good grip and prevented friction burn. But Charley began wearing gloves after a time in his youth when as a driver, he waited in a snowstorm for a Rhode Island dance to end. When his hands froze, he had to turn over the stagecoach job to his friend.
California career
Charley was 39 when he came west in 1851, crossing the Isthmus of Panama, then up to San Francisco. He went from a drayage driver to a stage driver for James E. Birch, who’d known his driving skills back in Providence. Birch had come west for the Gold Rush, but found people desperate for quick transportation to the gold fields, and frustrated that all mail could only be received in San Francisco. So Birch opened a stage line and mail service with a ranch wagon charging $32 (2 ounces of gold dust) for a nine-hour, 50-mile trip. The service expanded and merged with other outfits into the California Stage Co. By 1853 it had 80% of all stage service in California. The first stage service linking Santa Cruz to San Jose was in 1854, via San Juan Bautista.
Charley first drove two Mother Lode routes: the Sacramento to Placerville route, then Stockton to Mariposa, before sticking to the San Francisco Bay Area with a route from San Francisco to San Jose and Oakland. In 1856 he was living in the logging center of Searsville (now Stanford area) with a route to San Mateo, then ran down the Santa Clara Valley from San Jose to San Juan Bautista. By 1857 his route ran from San Jose over Mount Madonna to Watsonville. At last, he was running from San Juan Bautista through Watsonville and Soquel to Santa Cruz.
In the 1850s his guest from Placerville to Virginia City, Nevada, was famed writer-adventurer J. Ross Browne, a major influence on the writing of both Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Browne rode with Charley atop the coach, a place of honor by those who would treat the driver to chewing tobacco, cigars, whiskey or food. Browne wanted to show his gratitude for a man whose skills and knowledge made a safe passage through a fearful wilderness. Yet Charley was ready to retire. “I’m no better now than when I commenced. Pay’s small and work’s heavy … rheumatism in my bones.” Yet Charley had gained such a trusted reputation that Wells Fargo hired him to transport a gold shipment from California to New York.
About 1863, the 51-year-old Charley retired from driving. He bought a ranch near 12-Mile House (about where Cabrillo College is today). He built a two-room cabin, an apple orchard, raised potatoes and produce, and opened a stage stop to refresh horses and passengers. He partnered with Frank Woodward, who ran the farm when Charley was busy. The Soquel Odd Fellows Club was thrilled when Charley accepted their invitation, and he became a lodge member Oct. 18, 1867. Charley also cast his first vote in a presidential election Nov. 3, 1868. The polling place in Soquel was at Mann’s Hotel (now the site of the fire department).
Charley and Woodward grazed their cattle in the mountains, escaping frequent grizzly bear attacks, until they’d had enough, and in 1873 sold the cattle to Charles Moss of Moss Landing, and sold their Soquel farm. It was replaced with a farm at 7-Mile House, (about where San Andreas Road crosses Highway 1). But he sold the land to Mr. Harmon in 1876, while permitted to live in a cabin near the Harmon home.
Surprise ending
In 1879, Charley started complaining of a chronic sore throat, then developed a lump on the side of his tongue. The Soquel cancer physician Dr. Plum, said it was oral cancer, and recommended a tracheotomy. But Charley wouldn’t have it, preferring Woodward’s care, with frequent visits by teenager George Harmon. Charley made arrangements in Watsonville with Otto Stoesser Sr. for his estate and burial. In unguarded moments with George, he told of how after his mother and brother died, he was put in an orphanage, until he escaped at the age of 12. He went to work for liveryman Ebenezer Balch, who treated him like a son, and taught him all he knew. Charley told George’s father he wanted to tell him something important, but that it could wait.
Then on the 35th day of convalescence, he died. Woodward laid Charley out after death, only to discover he was a woman. The news was met with disbelief. In Providence, those who remembered Charley as a little boy were so convinced it wasn’t true, that they speculated Charley must be an intersex person. But several county physicians did a joint report that concluded she was a woman, who it appeared had once given birth. A little red trunk of baby clothes was also found in Charley’s cabin.
Woodward was the most enraged by the discovery, possibly embarrassed, and fearing he would be the subject of ridicule for some fictitious secret relationship. And while this local story turned into national news, there was no outrage, just amazement. Some felt Charley had escaped the restrictions of her gender, gaining freedom of action, but also a prison of secrecy. Mrs. Andrew Clark of Hungry Hollow (near Watsonville) said when Charley worked at her ranch, he came home intoxicated once, and her 14-year-old son put him to bed. When the boy discovered his secret, she told her son to never mention it, or Charley would be humiliated.
It was now clear Charley had first disguised herself as a boy at age 12 in order to escape the orphanage. Her life was reassessed item by item. She was the first woman to vote in California. She was the first woman to belong to an Odd Fellows Lodge. Instead of purging her from their roles, the lodge felt no one was more of an Odd Fellow than her, and decided to give her full lodge burial services and honors. Her friend Otto Stoesser Sr. gave her a cemetery plot, and Mr. Hanson gave her a headstone.
And the kids who idolized her growing up, remained proud for the rest of their lives that they had known her, recounting her deeds and kindnesses, even when the story had a twist of an ending. For they realized it wasn’t just One-Eyed Charley who saw things differently, but everyone who met Charley D. Parkhurst could only see her with one eye awake, and one eye asleep.
