Super Secret Powers

Sometimes our secrets reveal more about the people around us

The Edinburgh and London Royal Mail by John Frederick Herring, Sr., 1838 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons)

“The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.” — George Eliot, 1876

Charley Parkhurst died on December 18, 1879 in California at the age of 67 after a lifetime of being a farmer, a lumber worker, and a stagecoach driver.

A challenging and hardscrabble life, for sure — but not uncommon in the days when the western frontier of America was expanding.

But with Charley’s death came a surprise that made that lifestyle seem all the more remarkable, given the realities of the day.

Born in Vermont in 1812, Charley was orphaned at a very young age and raised in an orphanage. As with any establishment of the time, it was a depressing scene, with the children doing chores from dawn until dusk, overseen by stern …