Set in a Gold Country classroom in 1920, One-Eyed Charley tells the amazing but true story of an authentic California hero, stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst.
Charlie ran away from an orphanage in New England and eventually ended up driving stagecoaches during the California Gold Rush. When Charlie's life ended in 1879, it was discovered that Charley was not only a woman, but the first woman to have voted in a U.S. presidential
election - having done so as a "man" in 1868!
The tale is told in the words of kindly Mr. Perkins, who shares his memories of Charley with nine-year-old Margaret Kincaid and the other children of Manchester School. Mr. Perkins regales the children with vivid accounts of Gold Rush-era Sacramento, bandits and holdups, perilous stage rides, wild races, and, best of all, the astonishing secret of the famed California Whip. Along the way, Margaret and her friends learn that women and girls can be just as brave and resourceful as the hardiest of men.
84 pages, illustrated
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