“Charley Parkhurst”

Watsonville, Jan. 2— A fact was brought to light here a few days since that is well calculated to cause surprise to all who may learn the circumstances connected with its revelation. On Sunday last there died at the Moss ranch, near this city, a person known as Charley Parkhurst, aged 67, who was well known to old residents here as a stage driver. He was in early days accounted one of the most expert manipulators of the reins who ever sat on the box of a coach running from Stockton to Mariposa, from Oakland to San Jose, and from San Juan to Santa Cruz —when San Francisco was reached via San Juan. For fifteen or twenty years he had been engaged in farming, working in the woods, etc., and it is said that he accumulated several thousand dollars. For several years past he has not done much, being greatly troubled with rheumatism, which caused great suffering as well as considerable deformity. The immediate cause of his death was a cancer of the tongue. It was discovered when friendly hands were preparing him for his final rest that Charley Parkhurst was unmistakably a well-developed woman. It could scarcely be believed by persons who had known Charley Parkhurst for a quarter of a century. It is one of the most wonderful of the few such cases on record. That this woman, living among men for thirty years or more, going through all the dangers and vicissitudes of California life, should conceal her sex, could hardly be believed, but it is a fact. On the Great Register of this county of the vear 1867, appears this entry: “Parkhurst, Charles Durkee; 55; New Hampshire; farmer; Soquel’”—where he then lived. It is said by several who knew her intimately that she came from Providence, R. I. Of course great curiosity is excited as to the cause that led this woman to exist so many years in such a strange guise. There may be a strange history, that to the novelist would be a source of inspiration, and again she may have been disgusted with the trammels surrounding her sex, and concluded to work out her fortune in her own way. More light may be thrown on this wonderful case.