Alexander Majors’ Recollection
Majors remembered more than thirty years later that Senator Gwin urged Russell to experiment with the so-called Central Route to prove its viability. The competition in those days was the…
Russell’s Reputation
Various writers recall that he was known, in the parlance of his day, as a plunger: a risk taker, a gambler, a speculator. An early observer of Russell's business ventures, some of…
No-One Remembers Russell, Majors & Waddell
In the spring of 1860, following Greeley's overland adventure, with the nation perched on the brink of civil war, Russell, Majors & Waddell established a subsidiary business, a privately financed…
Lot Smith and Simpson’s Hollow
Very shortly, but farther west on the trail, the Mormon captain Lot Smith met an unguarded supply train, confiscated all its freight, and turned it back toward Fort Laramie. That…
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…
Russell, Majors, and Waddell’s Support of Slavery
From the very beginning of the vicious, bloody struggle to determine the status of Kansas as a free or slave state, Russell, Majors & Waddell, being slave owners in Missouri,…
Russell, Majors & Waddell Get the Army Monopoly
On March 27 of the same year [1855] he [Russell] and his partners, under the name of Majors & Russell, signed a two-year contract with Q. M. Maj. E. S.…
Name of the Pony Express Company
Another error that has gained wide acceptance is that there was a company called the Pony Express company organized for the purpose of founding and operating that institution. Technically and legally the company…
Russell, Majors & Waddell Set Up in Leavenworth
In the dawn of 1855 Kansas territory presented a scene unique in American history. Six months before, when its 22 million acres were thrown open to settlers, there were few…
Majors’ Freighting Experience
Among the freighters of civilian goods to Santa Fe in 1848 was Alexander Majors making his first trip over the Santa Fe trail with six wagons loaded with merchandise, 30…
Army Freighters to Santa Fe
When the war with Mexico broke out Col. S. W. Kearny was ordered to lead a small army of 1,701 officers and men on a forced march across the Great…
Russell’s House
In the meantime Russell increased his holdings in the Lexington First Addition Company until he owned 65 lots. Upon one of these at the corner of 12th and South street…
Russell and Waddell Work Together
By the latter 1830’s “Old Town,” which had not been advanta-geously located, had outgrown its original site. In the first place it was too far from Jack’s Ferry and the…
Waddell’s Gift of Slaves
This [taking up farming] proved to be a fortunate move, for nearby lived Susan Clark Byram, daughter of William and Susan Phillips Byram, a wealthy Kentucky planter, whom he married…