It’s here, it’s
here, it’s here! The Courageous Brides Collection, which includes my 3rd
novella, Mountain Echoes, came out on July 1. So I’ll be celebrating this month
with a giveaway of an autographed copy.
My hero in Mountain
Echoes is stagecoach driver Finn McCaffrey. In researching the men (and women)
who held such a job, I found them to be a colorful bunch, so I thought I’d
share a bit about them.
Stagecoach
drivers were a daring sort. They had to handle a six-horse team with great
skill while driving at top speed through sand, mud, inclement weather and harsh
terrain. They had to be able to make hairpin curves on rocky mountain passes or
cross flooded creeks without batting an eye. They needed the backbone to face
robbers and Indians who might be laying in wait along their path, all with the
mind to keep both passengers and any valuables they carried safe. They were
affectionately known by various nicknames. Charley. Whip. Reinsman. Or my
personal favorite…Jehu. This one was in reference to the Bible passage in 2 Kings
9, where the Israelite king, Jehu, was described as driving his chariot “furiously.”
The typical garb
for a stagecoach driver was a flat-crowned, wide-brimmed hat. They wore a long
linen duster coat to combat the elements, and long gloves to protect their
hands from the leather reins. Tall leather boots completed the outfit. Most
carried a whip which they’d crack above the team’s heads to encourage them
along the route.
So…who were some
of the real people who made names for themselves as stage drivers?
HANK MONK
 |
| Hank Monk |
Henry James
Monk, better known as Hank, was born in New York on March 24, 1826. He had a
great affinity and skill with horses and was said to have once driven eight
horses side-by-side in a Boston celebration. By the age of twelve, he was
driving wagons and stagecoaches in New York State. At the age of twenty-six, he
crossed the Isthmus of Panama and made his way to California where he began
driving stagecoaches for various different companies across his long and
storied career. He drove many routes for several different companies, but all
the routes fell somewhere between Sacramento, California, and Virginia City,
Nevada. Probably the best-known stagecoach driver in the West, he was imortalized
by Mark Twain in Roughing It, where
Twain described a stagecoach ride that famed New York Daily Tribune journalist
Horace Greeley once took. Greeley complained to Monk that he was going to be
late for a lecture he was slated to give in Placerville, California, so Monk
put on the speed, to the point that Greeley was so jostled inside the coach
that his head went through the ceiling! He was said to have called out to Monk
that he was no longer in such a hurry, and to please slow down, to which Monk
replied, “Just hang on, Mr. Greeley. I’ll get you there on time.”
GEORGE MONROE
 |
| George Monroe |
George Monroe
was born in Georgia and traveled west at the tender age of 11. Early on, he
showed great promise with training and driving horses. At the age of 22, he
hired on with the A.H. Washburn Stage company, which drove to Yosemite. Monroe’s
quick thinking and nerves of steel gained him the title of “best all-around
Reinsman in the West,” and when various U.S. Presidents (Ulysses S. Grant,
James A. Garfield, and Rutherford B. Hayes) each toured the west, he was the whip
chosen to drive them. Grant, an avid horseman himself, chose to sit on the
bench beside the driver on the most treacherous part of the path—an
unbelievably narrow 26-mile passage full of hairpin curves, potholes, and falling
rocks. Grant watched as Monroe navigated each difficulty with great skill and
later said that it was as if the six-horse team were one animal under Monroe’s
control.
CHARLEY
PARKHURST
 |
| Charley Parkhurst |
This driver was
an interesting person. Often called One-eyed Charley or Cockeyed Charley, this
Jehu drove for many different stage companies throughout California for over
thirty years. But rather than give you my brief description, I’ll let former
HHH blogger Winnie Griggs’ post (found here) on old Charley speak for itself.
It’s your turn:
Of the three drivers mentioned here, which would you have wanted to travel
with? Leave your contact information with your comment to be included in the
drawing for an autographed copy of The Courageous Brides Collection. Drawing
will be held tomorrow, July 26, 2016.
Jennifer
Uhlarik
discovered the western genre as a pre-teen, when she swiped the only “horse”
book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across
the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with
the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own
story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won five writing
competitions and finaled in two other competitions. In addition to writing, she
has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing
director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in
American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers
Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and
four fur children.
PREORDER NOW:
Ride
into adventures alongside nine determined women of yesteryear whose acts of
compassion and bravery attract male attention. Marcy helps displaced Indians.
Emmy tends wounds at Fort Snelling. Ronnie stows away on a cattle drive. Daisy
disguises herself as a Pony Express rider. Elinor becomes an abolitionist. Mae
tames wild horses. Hannah gets help for accident victims. Lucy’s curiosity
unnerves criminals. Kate nurses soldiers on the battlefield. Will real dangers
douse the sparks of love?
