Hank Monk, stagecoach driver...

Hank Monk (March 24, 1826 – February 28, 1883) was a legendary stagecoach driver in the 19th century who drove a stage between Carson City, Nevada and Placerville, California in the 1870s. More here.

Idah Meacham Strobridge gives an account of riding Monk's stage in her book, The Land of the Purple Shadow. She writes:

Hank Monk, the incomparable! The most daring - the most reckless of drivers; and the luckiest. The oddest, the drollest of all the whimsical characters who made Western staging famous the world over. ... It was a dream come true! I'm quite sure that had anyone asked me which of the two I would rather see - hear - speak to, Hank Monk, or the President (and that I mean Abraham Lincoln), it would have been the former I unhestitately would have chosen. Without a doubt my youthful judgment was bias, but the fact remains.

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