When I travel I keep a Trip Journal. It's nothing fancy just a few notes to myself about the days adventure and some interesting notes about thing that I saw or learned during the day. Some entries are just a few lines while other are a page or two. Since most of us are social isolating and can't really travel I have been looking back on some of these trip journals. As a result I have been posting on another site little tid-bits of information that I found interesting. And from time to time I am going to Post them here just to keep this blog somewhat active. So here is the first little entry.
WHO WAS CHARLEY PARKHURST?
Last year when I visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City there was a temporary exhibit on old west transportation. One part of the exhibit was dedicated to the stagecoach. One of the people they mentioned was a stagecoach driver named Charley Parkhurst. Seems ole Charley was quite the character, hard drinking and driving his coach for days at a time while battling bandits in all types of weather. Charley once safely crossed a raging river during a storm that had washed out the bridge. Charley was a true shot with a rifle and pistol and shot at least two outlaws who attempted to rob the Stage. In Charley’s later years the time was spent mostly alone in a cabin on a small ranch near Watsonville, California. Noted stage Driver Charley Parkhurst died of Cancer in 1879 but when Charley’s friends and the undertaker came to prepare for the funeral, they discovered that Ole Charley was actually a woman whose real name was Charlotte Darkey Parkhurst
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