Mountain Charley: Not a man!

Discovery made after she emptied her six-shooter into the man who killed her husband

“It has come to the editor’s attention that Mountain Charley, the proprietor of the Mountain Boys Saloon, a man who can swear like a double-crossed cowboy, gamble like a swindler, and down Taos Lightning like an outlaw, is in fact, NOT A MAN!

“Yesterday, Mountain Charley emptied his six-shooter into a drifter named Jamieson and before the scoundrel passed, Jamieson revealed Mountain Charley was actually Elsa Jane Forest, formerly of St. Louis.”

—Newspaper account, 1860

The heroine of the book I’m currently writing is a Wild West cowgirl who is also a spy and often finds it necessary to dress like a man. Back then, wearing pants was not acceptable for women. Neither was riding astride or carrying a gun. In most communities a woman who wore male attire was subject to arrest. Women who did were breaking a taboo, but they were also finding freedom.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been so delighted every time I read another story about a woman who dressed like a man in the Wild West.

One of those women was Elsa Jane Forest Guerin, more commonly known as Mountain Charley.

Elsa was the result of an extramarital affair, and her mother left Elsa with her brother to raise. At the age of five, Elsa was sent to New Orleans to attend school, and she rarely saw her uncle, although they communicated through letters and he made sure she was well provided for.

At the age of twelve she met a man who she thought was handsome. He was not allowed to visit her at school, so they had to meet on the sly. One morning she packed everything she could carry and left through a window. Not long after, they were married.

Her new husband was a steamboat pilot, and they settled in St. Louis and had two children, a son and a daughter. Just three months after the birth of her daughter, Elsa’s husband died after being shot by one of his riverboat crew who was settling a grudge.

At the age of sixteen, Elsa was a financially hobbled widow with two children, “completely a beggar,” as she put it in her autobiography.

To make ends meet, she left her children with the Sisters of Charity, cut her hair and donned male attire. She began searching for work, and for her husband’s killer, who had been set free on a legal technicality.

She looked like a boy of fifteen or sixteen, and a previous asthmatic condition had left her with a bit of hoarseness in her voice, which further helped her disguise. She worked first as a “male” cabin attendant on a steamer that ran the St. Louis to New Orleans route where she earned $35 a month. She changed into women’s clothing once a month to visit her children.

After a year she found a job as a second pantryman. After that, she changed jobs about every six months. After her last river boat job, she became a brakeman for the Illinois Central Railroad in the spring of 1854.

Early on, she gave considerable thought to giving up her disguise and trying to find a job as a woman, but she later confessed that “I began to rather like the freedom of my new character. I could go where I chose, do many things which, while innocent in themselves, were debarred by propriety from association with the female sex. The change from the cumbersome, unhealthy attire of woman to the more convenient, healthful habiliments of man, was in itself almost sufficient to compensate for its unwomanly character.”

While in St. Louis visiting her children she ventured out in male attire and ran into her husband’s killer, a man named Jamieson. She followed him to a gambling hall and watched him for hours. When he left, she pulled out her revolver and shot at him. He immediately drew his gun and fired back at her. They exchanged gunfire one more time and Elsa was hit in her thigh. Jamieson had been shot the arm. They both managed to escape, but it took six months for Elsa’s broken thigh to heal. By that time she was broke again and decided to hit the gold fever trail for California. She found the job of gold miner to be unsuitable and found a job in a Sacramento saloon which paid $100 a month. She invested in the saloon and became part owner, and then entered into a freighting business that bought pack mules. But she was homesick for her children and went back to St. Louis to visit them.

On her next trip back to California Elsa lost 110 cattle to alkali water and was wounded in her arm when her party was attacked by Snake Indians. She bought a small ranch in the Shasta Valley to feed her remaining stock until she could sell them, and returned to Sacramento check on the business she had left behind. It had done quite well, and when she sold it she had $30,000 to bring back to St. Louis. But St. Louis was not as exciting as the life she had found out West. She donned male attire again and joined the American Fur Company before trying mining again at Pikes Peak. That venture didn’t last long, and she opened the Mountain Boys Saloon in Denver, which is where she may have acquired the nickname Mountain Charley.

In the spring of 1860 she was riding about three miles out of Denver when she encountered Jamieson.

“He recognized me at the same moment, and his hand went after his revolver almost that instant mine did. I was a second too quick for him, for my shot tumbled him from his mule just as his ball whistled harmlessly by my head. Although dismounted, he was not prostrate and I fired at him again and brought him to the ground. I emptied my revolver upon him as he lay, and should have done the same with its mate had not two hunters at that moment come upon the ground and prevented any further consummation of my designs.”

She had not killed him. Jamieson survived to reveal her true identity and explain the circumstances of the shooting to the authorities, relieving her of any blame. Her story made the headlines—Horace Greeley wrote about her in the New York Tribune.

Charley was still dressing like a man during the winter of 1859-1860 while she operated her saloon in Denver. When her bartender learned that she was a woman, he promptly proposed and she accepted. They eventually sold the saloon and returned to St. Louis to be reunited with Charley’s children.

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Cowboy Lingo of the Day

Habiliments: clothing, outfit, or attire
I don’t know if Wild West cowboys or cowgirls used this word, but Mountain Charley did!

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