The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1883-04-19
Hank Monk,

has been Oh the down grade a long time.
Recently his foot lost its final hold Oh
the brake and his coach could not be
stopped until, battered and broken on a
sharp turn, it went over into that canon,
black and deep, which we call death.
In his way Hank Monk was a character.
In the old days, before the feathers
under his coach were so soaked with
alcohol, there was no better balanced
head than his. There was an air about
him which his closest friends could not
understand. There was something
which seemed to say that stage driving
| was not his intended work; that, if he
pleased, there were other things, even
more difficult than handling six wild
horses, Which he could do quite as well.
Generally, he was reserved of speech,
sententious III his ways, but often,
while battling with high-strung team,
would pronounce an cpigram worthy of
lngcrsoll or Emerson. After his little
episode with Greeley, distinguished
men passing over the Sicrras, where
Monk drove, would plan to ride outside
with him. Many one has ridden
twenty miles, trying in vain to call him
out, and at last has settled back with
the belief that he was but stolid idiot :,
When half dozen words from Monk l.,
spoken with his peculiar drawl, showed
that when he drove Grceley's coach
over tho mountains there was, perhaps,
as big Il man outside as there was inside
the vehicle. AS he was not like any
other man, so he WAS not like any other
stage driver. In his prime he would
| turn siX-horsc coach in the street with
the team at Il full run, and with every
rein apparently loose. But the coach
would always bring up in exactly the
spot that the most careful driver would
have tried to bring it. His eye never
deceived him, and his estimation of
distances was absolute; the result which
must be when leaders, swings and
wlcclcrs all were playing their roles,
was with him an exact science. His
driving was such a perfection of art
| that il did not seem art at all, and
many an enVious whip, watching him,
has turned away saying, She is the luck
lest man that ever climbed on top of Il
box" 1t was not luck at all, it was
simply an intuitive, exact calculation
from causes to effect, and his whole
duty ended when he fixed the cause.
| The effect had to be. He has often
driven from the summit of the SierraS
down into the valley, ten miles, in forty
five minutes. Other drivers have done
as we'll, the only difference being that
with others 1t was a strain upon eye,
and hand, and arm, and foot; with
Monk it was Il matter Of course. lie
was to stage driving what the German
papelr say Edwin Booth was in Hamlet:
''lt was not played, but lived" OF
course we speak of him as lie was Of
| In Il
the SlerraS, and when staging over the
Sierras was something finer than staging
ever was before, Or ever will be again.
or late years Monk has been but a
ghost of himself. Ills physical strength
has been so wasted that no wild horses
have been given him; the grades up tiii,
mountains have not been sprinklcd; the
locomotive took away the glory of stag
ing, and bad whisky sapped the finer
springs Of the old dryers life. a year
ago, for the first time, a coach capsizci
under him, and while The accident
seemed trivial in itself, it was ii notice
to him that his hand had LOST it's cum
ming, Il llat his lamps were going out,
that dark canon was before him, and
there was no moOn TO rise. When this
winter closed down he went into his
little den of house and knew that he
was going to mire down in a few weeks.
! When friends tried to have him consent
to be removed to the hospital, where he
collkl have more comforts, he refused
and waited where he was, until We'd
ncstlay last, when he drove into the
home station. He died simply disSp.
atcd old stage driver; but if in the long
ago, when life WAS bright and hope was
| nv 1fn, nj 1,i, - 4 -
wound which changed his whole life.
and all its purposes, than mans face,
and acts, and moods, and models of
thought are no indication of what he has
done and suffered.