Idea of a Pony Express
The idea behind the Pony Express, soon affectionately abbreviated to "the Pony," was not new, even in America. Postmasters general John McLean and Amos Kendall had sent horsemen racing day and night to…
Post Office Monopoly
The post had either broken even or generated small surpluses until its expansion in the 1820s, when it generally began to report progressively greater losses. By 1844, the department was losing so…
Panic of 1837
By the early 1840s, the post's vast system of 150,000 miles of mail routes had unified an ever-expanding America, but the institution was one of many enterprises, both private and public, to…
Post Office Police
The post had long lacked the means of enforcing its own stringent laws, particularly regarding the theft of money from the mail. Such robberies had only increased as the population grew; immigrants…
Creation of the Post Office
Finally, however, they saw that the war's outcome would depend on a secure network that could both sustain popular support and allow communications between politicians and the military. On July 26, 1775, the…
End of the Spanish Empire
Toward the end of the Columbia's winter stay the Americans had witnessed the incidents that produced the "Nootka Sound Controversy." Vancouver Island, which was not yet so named, was Spanish…
Claiming Oregon for America
So [Robert Gray in 1792] gave the United States a claim recognized by the polity of nations. Discovery and entrance of a river mouth gave the discovering nation sovereignty over the valley…
First Settlement West of the Alleghenies
Two years later [1774], following hard upon the "Intolerable Acts" that undertook to punish an already rebellious Massachusetts, the policy thus formulated became law in the Quebec Act. . . . Ratifying the Proclamation…
Colonies’ Purpose is to Serve the Fur Trade
The Lord Commissioners for Trade and Plantations formally represented to the ministry: that "the great object of colonizing upon the continent of North America has been to improve and extend…
American Territorialism
At the beginning of his climactic volume Francis Parkman says, "The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent was: Shall France remain here or shall…
English Land Charters to the Pacific
The Pacific was so near that the charters of Massachusetts ( 1628 and 1691) granted the colony the full extent of the land west to the ocean. Virginia (second charter…
Pony Express Mail Too Expensive for Newspapers
While the California newspapers were eager for the Pony Express, they griped about the high price of news from the East. "We regret that the prices of telegraphic dispatches of news by…
U.S. Population in 1860
In the last year of Democrat James Buchanan's one term as president, about 31.4 million people, including slaves, lived in the United States, according to the census of 1860. But only about…
Motive for the Pony Express
Much has been written of the famous Pony Express, but most accounts have stressed the romantic and spectacular side, failing to show the motives which actuated its founders, or to portray its relationship…
Daniel Boone’s Grandsons
Irving says that two of Daniel Boone's grandsons were with this party. But a grandson of Daniel Boone was by now standard equipment for any adventure story.