Ellen Wight

Tales of the Express Ellen Wight

TALES OF THE EXPRESS This true story begins in 1826, at a small farm in New Hampshire. The main character is a scared, thirteen-year old girl, named Charlotte Parker. An alcoholic and abusive stepfather and stepbrother complicate her life and she runs away from home with an old horse. After running as far as the horse could take them, Charlotte disguises herself as a boy and tries to find work at a stable. She meets a kind-hearted man named Ebenezer Balch, who owns a livery stable and tavern called the Balch House. Eb takes the boy under his wing and vows to make a man of him. Reinventing herself as Charley Parkhurst, the "boy" becomes part of the family business. Charley stays on at the Balch house and learns to become a respected coachman. In 1844, when the Balchs' relocated to Providence Rhode Island, Charley, now 31 went along as well. At the "What Cheer House", in Providence, Charley meets two young men named James Birch and Frank Stevens, who are hired on as stable boys. Parkhurst trains them well as coachmen and during the California gold rush, Birch and Stevens helm a wagon train to the west. James Birch starts a stagecoach business in Sacramento and is wildly successful. Here we are introduced to a lawman named William Wallace Byrnes and see California hang its' first woman. Several future outlaws are introduced before James Birch can convince Charley Parkhurst to come to California to drive stagecoaches. Parkhurst travels to California with Birch and another coachman named Hank Monk, aboard ship, stopping in Jamaica, before taking a boat ride through the jungles, then riding mules over the mountains to Panama and a waiting ship, with cholera still lingering on her decks. When they get to California, Birch shows them the ropes and sends them down the road. While driving a stagecoach in the Mariposa mountains, Parkhurst is attacked by a sadistic killer named Tres Dedos and left for the bears to fini