One-Eyed Charley: The First Woman To Vote In The United States
Photo credit: The Gay Almanac
One-Eyed Charley was born Charlotte Parkhurst in 1812, but somewhere along the line, she changed her name. Charlotte put on a pair of pants and became One-Eyed Charley: one of the most feared names in the Wild West.
Unlike the other women in this list, One-Eyed Charley probably wasn’t just in disguise for a job. It’s believed that Charley self-identified as a man and decided to live as one. But man or woman, Charley made history.
One-Eyed Charley was one of the toughest, hardest-drinking cowboys on the American frontier. He’d lost his eye after being hoofed in the face by a horse, and it seemed to have left him bitter. He worked as a stagecoach driver and had a reputation for carrying guns and having an itchy trigger finger. The bandit Sugarfoot found that out firsthand when he tried to hijack One-Eyed Charley, only to find out that Charley was just as ready to put a bullet in someone’s stomach as Sugarfoot was—and twice as fast on the trigger.
Nobody questioned Charley’s gender until he died. Even for a man, he had an unusually deep and gruff voice. It wasn’t an affectation—Charley’s lifelong habit of chewing tobacco had left him with mouth cancer. That’s why it was such a shock when they got his body ready for burial and realized he’d been born a woman.
By then, though, Charley had already done something worthy of the history books. In 1867, he’d registered to vote in California—making him the first person born as a woman to cast a vote in an American election.
This story came from the folks over at Listverse. Crazy, isn't it?
Coffee inside this morning. Rain is coming back.
