Pony Finances
Exactly what was the monetary worth of the Pony as a stake in this fabulous wager has been debated for years. At the outset, merely to equip the stations along the road…
Russell Admits the Firm is Weak
Russell's "great faith" in winning the coveted mail contract was obviously from a more modest viewpoint than as the reigning lord of the Central. A few days after Godard Bailey broke confidence and…
Russell Escapes Conviction
Within a week Russell's case was called in the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia. There his attorney must have been no less enterprising than himself, for the lawyer boldly argued that…
Secretary Floyd’s Acceptances
Typically, the form of the acceptances was: Washington City, September 13, 1860 $15,000 Eight months after date pay to our own order, at the Bank of the Republic, New York City, fifteen…
Pony’s Assets Attached in Utah
Out in Ruby Valley, William H. Shearman, an associate of Major Egan, began to hear grumbles from unpaid riders and other employees, and a number of them presented him with "certificates" attesting that…
Pony Express Finances
Theoretically, the combined assets of the partners exceeded liabilities by about $419,000. But unreported was a catastrophic loss of $150,000 in a herd of freight oxen, caught in a howling blizzard at Ruby…
Holladay & Russell
Obviously, he [William Finney] was a man of resourceful initiative. How much easier it would have been, in the face of the frightful Pah-Ute attacks, to close up shop and await the…
No Contract for Russell, Majors & Waddell
What had happened was this: the Post Office Department cut off mail service to California via steamer from New York with the expectation that the bill to forward it overland would pass Congress.…
Freighting delays in 1860
The contract for freighting supplies on the New Mexico Route in 1860-61 provided for loading and starting at the usual time, in May or June. Russell, Majors & Waddell, as usual, bought wagons,…
Bradford & Company, Denver
By midsummer 1859, Majors and Waddell were convinced that there was something substantial about the Pike's Peak business after all. Together with Russell they formed a partnership with Robert B. Bradford, a relative…
Miller, Russell & Company
Being bankrupt and going in deeper every day did not dampen Russell's sanguine spirit or put a crimp in his tendency to speculate. In the spring of 1858, when every dollar was…
Amount of Losses for the Mormon Conflict
With heavy forebodings he made out a bill against the United States for losses which was later presented to Congress. Summarized, it read $493,553.61. . . . Worst of all, when the…
Panic of 1836
The bitterest money war in American history and the wildest speculation of the nineteenth century had precipitated the first national depression. The final Specie Circular, Andrew Jackson's broadside at the…
Russell’s Pike’s Peak Venture
As one cons the history of Russell and Waddell and the record of their vast undertakings he is impressed again and again by the fact that many of their decisions,…
Russell Starts New Companies Instead of Paying Debts
Fortune favored them in 1855 and 1856, and their profits from freighting military supplies those two years amounted to about $300,000. That was the only period of unbroken prosperity they…