A collection of historical tidbits about the Pony Express taken mostly from books, except as otherwise noted. This slider cycles through all of the Quick Facts in random order. I will be adding to these as I read through more sources. You can pause a slide by hovering your mouse over the Fact. To find Quick Facts on a particular topic, click on the appropriate tag in the sidebar. All Facts connected with places on the trail also appear under the appropriate state in the Route Reports section.
Payoff to Floyd
“From the very beginning two principal objects seemed to govern the [House Bond Scandal] hearings: to investigate Secretary Floyd’s acceptances [given to Russell], and to find the abstracted bonds. The firt effort was quite successful, the latter only partially so. . . .
In all the material of the Waddell Collection, there is nothing in the way of direct, conclusive evidence that Floyd received money from Russell, but there is much to arouse suspicion that he did.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 108-109
A Gallant Figure
A gallant figure, that rider of long ago! Young, for the wise heads of the company, realized that only to daring, reckless youth did such an enterprise appeal! Brave, for there were Indian attacks to be feared, wild beasts to be guarded against! Hardy and enduring, to face the burning heat of the deserts, the cold of the desolate mountain passes; picturesque and romantic in their buckskin jackets, their spurred boots, their pistols thrust through a gaudy sash! For seventeen months these boys journeyed across half the continent, their record achievement being the delivery of Lincoln’s inaugural address in seven days and seventeen hours. Then they vanished into the mists of the past and only the sound of their ponies’ hoof beats comes echoing down to us through the years. Their brief career forms a theme more fitting for the romancer than the historian, so colorful, so dramatic is it.
Louise Platt Hauck, "The Pony Express Celebration," the Missouri Historical Review, Vol. 27, no. 4 July 1923, p. 439
Desipere in Loco
“Unaccustomed, of late years at least, to deal with tales of twice-told travel, I can not but feel, especially when, as in the present case, so much detail has been expended upon the trivialities of a Diary, the want of that freshness and originality which would have helped the reader over a little lengthiness. My best excuse is the following extract from the lexicographer’s “Journey to the Western Islands,” made in company with Mr. Boswell during the year of grace 1773, and upheld even at that late hour as somewhat a feat in the locomotive line.
These diminutive observations seem to take away something from the dignity of writing, and therefore are never communicated but with hesitation, and a little fear of abasement and contempt. But it must be remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures, and we are well or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruptions.
“True! and as the novelist claims his right to elaborate, in the ‘domestic epic,’ the most trivial scenes of household routine, so the traveler may be allowed to enlarge, when copying nature in his humbler way, upon the subject of his little drama, and, not confining himself to the great, the good, and the beautiful, nor suffering himself to be wholly engrossed by the claims of cotton, civilization, and Christianity, useful knowledge and missionary enterprise, to desipere in loco by expatiating upon his bed, his meat, and his drink.”
[Note: “dulce est desipere in loco” = Latin phrase: it is pleasant to be frivolous at the appropriate time.]
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, ix
Five-Hundred Dollars Per Round Trip
“Whether from patriotism or in hope that it would lead to the coveted mail subsidy, William Russell stepped forward with an astounding offer: By using swift saddle horses in short relays, his firm would supply semiweekly ten-day mail service between St. Joseph and San Francisco for five hundred dollars a round trip.”
Ralph Moody, The Old Trails West, p. 294
Indians in Trail Narratives
“The Indians couldn’t win. They were the “best light cavalry in the world” as one army officer praised them, but they had to resort to stealth and the cover of night for their depredations. Pilfering and begging was their way of life, if we are to believe the pioneers. Skillful enough in plains warfare to overcome the horse-and-mule train guard in silence, they were clumsy enough to be spotted at night by Luella Dickenson’s greenhorn husband on guard duty, who crept up on two of them without their knowledge. The Indians in the narratives do seem more like creations of the whites’ expectations and fears than real people; very few of the reported incidents of Indian thieving, violence, and cruelty were actually witnessed by the writer. Always the atrocities occur in the other wagon train, the train “in advance of us,” or in a settlement before the writer’s company arrived. Perception of the Indian seems to have been formed east of the Mississippi, and little that happened west of that river changed the minds of many whites, nor was any experience going to be allowed to interfere with formulations already made. Doctor Wayman is one of the few observers who looked at Indians rather than at The Indian: “this afternoon I visited an Indian village,” he wrote in his diary entry of 21 July 1852, “and bought a good pair of Moccasins. They had 7 skin tents and as many families, in the whole, presenting all specimens from the most dirty ragged and filthy creatures up to some very fine looking men and squaws. These are the most noble looking that we have yet seen[.] They are sharp traders.”
Bruce Rosenberg, The Code of the West, p. 68-69
Mile 636: Courthouse Rock and Jail Rock
“Late in the afternoon, when the evening sky was lemon-colored and placid, we distinguished the dark bulk of Courthouse Rock outlined against the sunset and knew that this day’s journey was ending, as hundreds had ended in years past, within sight of the first great monument of the Oregon Trail. Tomorrow we would imitate the thousands of encamped travelers who took time out for a jaunt to ‘the courthouse’ intending to see for them selves how far away in the deceptive prairie distance it might be. No well conducted tour of the Emigrant Trail, either now or one hundred years ago, would be complete without the inclusion of a pleasure excursion on the side to Courthouse Rock.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 129
Mules to Pack Down the Snow
“Bolivar Roberts [Division Superintendent in Carson City, NV] was worried. The success or failure of the Pony Express might easily depend upon its first run. . . .On the first report of a blizzard [in the Sierra Nevada], Roberts had sent riders hurrying to the mountains with strings of pack mules. The mules were to be kept constantly on the move, treading out the trail through canyons or passes where blowing snow was beginning to drift. Even if it took the pony rider a week to reach the summit, the mules must keep the trail open until he passed.”
Ralph Moody, Riders of the Pony Express, p. 34
Prairie Spring
“[The emigrants] started in good weather, of course. The sun shone upon a ‘grand and beautiful prairie which can be compared to nothing but the mighty ocean.’ A succession of rich, shining green swells was star-dusted with small frail blossoms and splashed with hardier varieties like great spillings of calcimine powders. here a patch of mountain pink, here spiderwort—while ahead, a spreading of purple over a sunny slope proved, on closer acquaintance, to be larkspur. Bobolinks sang where currant bushes lined the meandering watercourses, and the line of white wagon tops stretched like a shining ribbon across the curving velvet breast of the prairie.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 24
California Money for the Union
As has been mentioned, the Golden State was very liberal with her gold in aiding the national cause. No claim or demand made by the national government was ever delayed or questioned. When Lincoln came to the Presidency, the finances of the country were in so deplorable a condition that Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, found it necessary to call on the people for contributions to keep the wheels of government in motion. California responded gladly and substantially. In all monetary matters—except the “Specific Contract” act, she (through the legislature) declared her devotion to the government; e. g., $24,600 was appropriated by the legislature to aid recruiting officers in filling up volunteer regiments, $100,000 to place the Coast in a more efficient state of defense, $600,000 for a soldiers’ relief fund, etc. Even the tax in 1864 on gold and silver bullion was patriotically paid without murmur of objection. And, it is generally conceded that the war could not have been carried oq by the North, had California not given of her wealth to the national treasury. General Grant, in fact, said: “I do not know what we could do in this great national emergency, were it not for the gold sent from California.”
Imogene Spaulding, "The Attitude of California to the Civil War," Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California , 1912-1913, Vol. 9, No. 1/2 (1912-1913), pp. 125
Russell's Whining
Russell expected Majors and Waddell to join him in the venture, although he had not consulted them. When Waddell heard about it he was so infuriated that he wrote Russell a series of blistering letters. In reply Russell said,
“My poor from wife Lexington writes she deep that in is my have was and had that partners reported that distress, reckless I gone Peak pronounce them ruinous … into Pike’s to a extent false I my man and and on caluminators return hold any account will liars who me As has slandered have … able falsely oft repeated, regret I I much am you as as that involved, but cannot and help I sir, I it, may must way can … be out the get best able out to get of I I it my on and do return will try to so.”
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 25
Pony Bob Halsam's Ride
“The first Pony Express rider going east after the attack upon Williams Station was “Pony Bob” Haslam, who set out for [from?] Friday’s Station on May 9. If he was not aware of the outbreak when he started, he quickly learned about it when he arrived in Carson City. Since the volunteers had taken all the horses to chase the Pah Utes, there was no change for him. Scores of men were frantically at work fortifying Penrod Hotel and everybody was armed. After feeding his own mount he rode on to Buckland’s, 75 miles away. When he arrived he found W. C. Marley, the station keeper, and Johnson Richardson, the rider who was to relieve him, in something of a panic.
Richardson refused to take the mochila on and Marley offered Haslam $50 to continue with it. This he agreed to do not because of the bonus, but because he felt it was his duty to do so. Changing horses he pounded on to Sand Springs where he changed again. Making still another change at Cold Spring he arrived safely at Smith’s Creek, having covered 190 miles without a rest.
Jay G. Kelley took the mochila and raced eastward with the news of the tragedy at William’s Station. He made his regular changes along the way, briefly told his story, and pushed on to Ruby Valley, his home station. From there both mochila and news were rushed eastward. Every rider along the route, knowing the necessity for both reaching Salt Lake City at the earliest possible moment, outdid himself in an effort to make the best possible time.
Eight hours after arriving at Smith’s Creek, Haslam turned back with the west bound mochila, possibly on May 12, the day of the battle at Pyramid Lake. At Cold Spring he found that the station had been burnt, the station keeper killed, and the horses driven off. After watering and feeding his own horse, he rode on. Upon reaching Sand Springs he found only the stock tender there whom he persuaded to accompany him for fear he would be killed if left alone.
At Carson Sink he found fifteen men, probably the most of them survivors of the battle at Pyramid Lake, barricaded in the station. Leaving them to hold the place he rode on to Buckland’s, arriving only three and a half hours late.
Marley was so overjoyed to see him back alive that he doubled the bonus promised him. After resting an hour and a half he sped on to Carson City, which he found a city of mourning for those slain at Pyramid Lake. He reported to Bolivar Roberts, then rode on to Friday’s Station. When he arrived he had covered 380 miles and had been in the saddle thirty-six hours.
Settle and Settle, Saddles and Spurs, p. 150-151
Million Dollar Mail Contract
“During the Congressional short session of 1860-61, advocates of the Central route renewed their efforts for an adequately subsidized mail service on their favorite line. They at last succeeded and the law of March 2, 1861, provided for a daily overland mail on the Central route and a semi-weekly Pony Express, the compensation for the joint undertaking to be $1,000,000 per annum.”
“[The secession of of seven states] perhaps helped Congress to decide the features embodied in the above law, but the Civil War was not responsible for the establishment of the daily overland mail on the Central route. As noted above, Hale’s bill in 1860 provided for such a daily service. The defeat of all overland mail legislation during the first session only stimulated greater effort in the next.
The feature of this legislation of March2, 1861, that was affected, if not produced by the secession and its probable consequences, was the provision for the transfer of the Butterfield line to the Central route.”
LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849–1869, p. 188-189 and 213-214
Mile 969: Sweetwater River
“It was four miles and more from the end of the alkali stretch to the Sweetwater River—a beautiful mountain stream, swift, clear and full, which received its name from the accidental loss in its waters of a pack containing all the sugar of an early-day trading expedition. Then the travelers had drunk and bathed they went up its bank a mile to Independence Rock, the most famous of all the landmarks—the first and almost the only trail bulletin board of names and addresses that absolutely everybody had to pass. For the first time since leaving home the migration was now in one set of wheel tracks.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 207
Russell, Majors, and Waddell's Contributions
“[Russell, Majors, and Waddells’] contribution to the settlement of the Rocky Mountain region in the form of transportation, express and Mail facilities, and the freighting of supplies was incalculable. They, more than any other individual or group, bridged the wide gap between the Missouri River and the broad West in those few important years between the Mexica War and the Civil War.
The fact that they suffered bankruptcy and that the limitless empire on wheels they built, at tremendous expenditure of energy and money, passed to the control of others, in no wise detracts from the credit due them. On the day they relinquished control of [the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company], the chug of the steam locomotive and the click of the telegraph instrument were heard west of the Missouri River.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. xiv
Virginia Slade's Talents
“Virginia, we know, was an expert seamstress as well as horsewoman, dancer, good shot, and excellent cook. . . .
“Often when [Jack Slade] was sober—or at least partially so—he escorted her to dances in Virginia City where she was the ‘belle of the ball,’ as she was considered the best dancer in all the Northwest Territory.”
Virginia Rowe Towle, Vigilante Woman," p. 127
Woodson's Mail Contract to Salt Lake City
“Samuel H. Woodson won the first federal postal contract to provide monthly mail service over South Pass to Great Salt Lake City for $19,500 per annum on July 1, 1850. . . .
Woodson contracted with Mormon mail carriers Ephraim Hanks and Feramorz Little, Brigham Young’s nephew, to handle the service between Fort Laramie and Salt Lake . . . Bad weather trapped Little and an Indian assistant with the November mail in 1852. ‘They were lost for several days about South Pass, and struggled though the snow for almost a month. The two men eventually abandoned their horses, cached the bulk mail, and dragged some of the letters over the mountains. The route proved unprofitable, and Woodson abandoned the business early in 1854.”
Will Bagley, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, Location 3820-3825 [Kindle Edition]
Mile 1835: Dry Creek
“[W]hen Streeper was ready to return, two prospectors traveling toward Salt Lake City, asked him if they could accompany him, to which he replied that they could if they were not afraid of Indians. They fared forth and saw no Indians or anything else out of the ordinary until they neared Dry Creek station. They saw no signs of anyone about and a herd of cattle was moving away from it.
Riding on in Streeper dismounted, walked to the door of the station and looked inside. Years later he said that what he saw caused his hair to stand on end. Before him lay the scalped, mutilated body of Ralph Rosier, the station keeper. John Applegate and Lafayette (“Bolly”) Bolwinkle were not there. Later, he learned what had happened.
A day or so before, after he had passed on his westward way, Rosier and Applegate rose early as usual to begin the days work. ‘Bolly’ was enjoying an extra forty winks before joining them. Applegate started to make a fire to get breakfast while Rosier went to the spring for a bucket of water.
Suddenly a rifle shot rang out and Rosier screamed. Applegate leaped to the door, looked out, saw his friend upon the ground dying, and turned back. Another shot, and Applegate fell to the floor, a horrible wound in his hip and groin. A moment later McCandless who was alone in his trading post, dashed across the road and took refuge in the station.
‘Bolly’ leaped from his bed in his stocking feet, and seized his gun. For some minutes he and McCandless worked like beaver piling grain bags in the doorway and making other preparations to defend the place to the last ditch. Applegate, who was suffering intensely, urged them to abandon him to his fate and attempt to reach the next station. When they refused he asked for a revolver. They gave him one, thinking he wished to take a shot at an Indian. Instead he shot himself through the head.
After the first two shots the attackers seem to have remained quiet, for nothing is said about ‘Bolly’ and McCandless having fought them. At length the trader declared they had to make a run of it to the next station. When ‘Bolly’ objected on the grounds that the Indians would certainly cut them down in the open, McCandles assured him such was not the case. They were not after him, he said, and since he had always treated them well they had a friendly feeling for him. If ‘Bolly’ would stay close to him they would nut dare shoot for fear of hitting him.
‘Bolly’ at length agreed co make the attempt. When everything was ready, the grain bags were removed from the door and they leaped outside. As they dashed down the road McCandless kept between ‘Bolly’ and the Indians. A few gave chase on foot, but the fugitives outdistanced them. Being satisfied with the blood they had already shed, they turned hack to loot the station.
‘Bolly’ and McCandless reached the next station in safety where they found three or four men ready to defend it. Having covered the ten or twelve miles without boots ‘Bolly’s’ feet were so cut by stones and filled with cactus thorns that he was laid up for some time.”
Settle and Settle, Saddles and Spurs, p. 155-156
Hale's Bill
“Early in March, 1861, congress passed a law (essentially Hale’s bill) providing for a daily mail by the Central route to California and a semiweekly Pony Express, at a total annual compensation of $1,000,000. The Butterfield mail line was to be moved north to the Central route, to function thereafter as the Overland Mail Company, with a government contract. This firm entered into a subcontract with the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company to run a daily mail and Pony Express from the Missouri river to Salt Lake City, while the Butterfield firm, now better known as Wells, Fargo & Company was to continue the service from Salt Lake to Sacramento.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 65
Selecting a Mule Team
“In selecting a team, there were a number of well-established rules. The largest pair, or span, was selected for the wheelers. This was the span that controlled the direction of the wagon through the wagon tongue and held the wagon back on downgrades. The nimblest and most knowledgeable span were selected for the leaders. It was they who imparted direction to the whole team. On sharp turns, they often had to leave the trail to swing wide and scramble over rocks and bushes. The nigh, or left, leader had to be particularly smart as it was he that received orders from the driver by means of the jerk line and determined the direction for the whole team.”
Henry Pickering Walker, The Wagonmasters (1966), p. 104
War Department's Sale of Arms at Cost
“Considering the heavy armament favored by overlanders—fostered in part by the War Department’s enticing 1849 offer to sell pistols, rifles, and ammunition at cost to California and Oregon emigrants—it was not surprising that a great many gunshot victims made their way to the fort hospitals. . . .
According to Texas senator Thomas S. Rusk, the rationale for the 1849 congressional authorization of $50,000 for the sale of weapons at cost was that westbound emigrants should not go forth without adequate ‘means of defence.’ . . . The cut-rate prices for rifles, muskets, carbines, pistols, and ammunition remained in effect during 1850.”
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 229 and 412
Butterfield Wins the Bid
“The victory of advocates of an overland mail to the Pacific Coast, as represented by the passage of the Post Office Appropriation Bill and its amendments in 1857, appeared to offer an opportunity for the express companies not only to rid themselves of the obnoxious steamship monopoly but also to enter into the business of carrying the overland mail. Therefore the great companies, Adams, American, National, and Wells, Fargo & Company pooled their interests to form Butterfield & Company, or, as more commonly known, the Overland Mail Company . . .
Postmaster Aaron V. Brown, a Tennesseean, was strongly in favor of the [southern] route Butterfield named. On September 16, 1857, he awarded the contract to the Overland Mail Company for six years . . .
The line was gotten ready within the required time and service began September 5, 1858. The coaches ran regularly the year round and not great difficulties with Indians were encountered. The line rendered good service on a reasonably well kept schedule. Northern interests, anti-Administration newspapers, and friends of the Central Route, however, maintained an uproar of criticism and ridicule. Since they could find no fault with the efficiency of the service, their main complaint was against distance and time consumed. In reply, friends of the Southern Route, and even Butterfield himself, admitted that the Central Route was shorter but argued that it could not be traveled in winter time.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 68-69
Praise for the Pony Express
The newspapers in California competed in praise of the Pony Express, a reflection of the genuine significance the overland mail relay had on the far coast. Californians had always been the strongest and most romantic supporters of the Pony. They had every reason to express some sentimental loss when the long riders ceased to run. “A fast and faithful friend has the Pony been to our far-off state,” eulogized the California Pacific. “Summer and winter, storm and shine, day and night, he has traveled like a weaver’s shuttle back and forth ti! now his work is done. Goodbye, Pony! No proud and starcaparisoned charger in the war field has ever done so great, so true and so good a work as thine. No pampered and world-famed racer of the turf will ever win from you the proud fame of the fleet courser of the continent. You came to us with tidings that made your feet beautiful on the tops of the mountains … We have looked for you as those who wait for the morning, and how seldom did you fail us! When days were months and hours weeks, how you thrilled us out of our pain and suspense, to know the best or know the worst. You have served us well!”
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 123
The Coast of Nebraska
“The Platte River dominates Nebraska geography, and its dominant characteristic is its flatness. ‘Nebraska’ is the approximate Omaha Indian equivalent for ‘flat water,’ and the French word ‘Platte’ is synonymous. The earliest explorers and emigrants sometimes used ‘Nebraska’ to refer to the river and not the territory. Thus, ‘Coast of Nebraska’ and ‘Coast of the Platte’ were interchangeable. It is not known who invented the term, but it was used by the explorers John C. Fremont and Howard Stansbury and appears in occasional emigrant journals and in late-period travelogues. It was not widely used, but it expresses beautifully the impact upon the emigrants of this strange river which made possible a road which would take them to the Continental Divide and California. The term is particularly poetic in its imagery, for the vast shimmering flatness of the Platte valley, at the edge of the sand dunes, did have a remarkable resemblance to the seashore of the Atlantic Ocean. It was prophetic that this first exposure to the Platte produced an eerie, unearthly (or at least unfamiliar) atmosphere that created an aura for the remaining journey.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 161
Butterfield on the Central Route
“The Butterfield Overland Mail contracted to manage the express operations east of Salt Lake in April 1861. The company launched the first daily overland stage and mail service from St. Joseph, Missouri (and later Atchison, Kansas) to Placerville in July 1861.”
Will Bagley, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, Location 4019 [Kindle Edition]
Yoking Oxen
“Our cattle were soon driven into corral for us to yoke.
Our train crew of a wagon boss, by the name of Chatham Rennick-a big, six foot two inch man, an assistant wagon boss, twenty-six teamsters, and two extra hands, malring thirty men in all. But we had ten extra men to help us get the train started.
We went into the corral with three lasso ropes to catch our cattle and fasten them to a wagon wheel to put their yokes on, as they were so wild it was the only way we could get them yoked. We would then chain this one to a wheel till we got another and so on till each team was yoked. Then to get them hitched to a wagon tongue was another big job, but at two o’clock in the afternoon we succeeded in getting them all hitched on and started to break corral, and a lively time we had. Now the fun began, not for the teamsters, but for the lookers on. It was life work for us to keep our wagons right side up. Twentysix teams of nearly all wild cattle going in every direction -three hundred and twelve head of crazy steers pitching and bellowing and trying to get loose or get away fr:om the wagon, and teamsters working for dear life to herd them and keep from upsetting or breaking their wagons; and every. now and then a wagon upsetting, tongues breaking, and teams getting loose on the prairie.
It kept every extra man on the jump to keep the cattle moving in the right direction.
Fourteen men on horseback and twenty-six teamsters had a lively experience that afternoon and evening, and finally, at nine o’clock that night had succeeded in getting nine wagons two miles from starting point and getting the cattle loose from the wagons in a demoralized condition. Some of the teams had one or two steers loose from the yoke, and the others were dragging the yokes. Everything was in confusion.”
William Clark, "A Trip Across the Plains in 1857," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 20 (1922), p. 167
Relations Between Paiute and Whites in Nevada
Relations between Indians and whites had never been good in Nevada. The first recorded incident of the cruelty of whites venturing into Paiute country was in August 1832 on the Humboldt River when a mountain man named Joe Meek shot and killed a Shoshone Indian for no reason. When asked if the Indian had stolen anything, Meek supposedly replied, “No, but he looked as if he was going to.” Shoot first, ask questions later was the standard practice for whites dealing with Indians in Nevada. The year after Joe Meek shot an Indian for looking like he might steal something, members of another expedition shot dozens of Indians (some writers claim as many as seventy-five) without provocation, also along the Humboldt River. Three decades of wanton violence against Indians in Nevada preceded the= Pyramid Lake Indian War of 1860. In addition, white encroachment in Nevada was wiping out pinion nuts. Starvation was a real issue in the spring of 1860.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 67
The Pledge
“[N]o man wold be entrusted to carry the mail until he had signed this pledge:
I do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God,that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russell, Majors & Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language; that I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers. So help me God.
As each rider was hired, he was given a lightweight rifle, a Colt revolver, and bright red flanel shirt, blue trousers, a horn, and a Bible.”
Ralph Moody, Riders of the Pony Express, p. 20-21
Mile 437: Cottonwood Station
“Eighty miles west of Fort Kearney the emigrants found a spring surrounded by cottonwoods. Near it the ravines were filled with scrub cedar. It was always a favorite camp and later became an important stage stop with the unimaginative name Cottonwood Spring. The cedar wood was freighted by ox train for a hundred miles in each direction to supply the stations, and the cottonwood logs were cut and hauled for building purposes. When the Indians became troublesome Fort McPherson was established close by; and we saw its flag, high and tiny but unmistakable, long before we arrived in sight of the buildings. The stage station disappeared long ago, but the fort remains, surrounded by the beautifully kept grounds of a national cemetery.”
[N.B. The Fort McPherson marker is just before Mile 435 on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route.]
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 100-102
Pawnee
“[D]efinitely undependable were the Pawnee, whose territory extended from the Big Blue Crossing to the forks of the Platte. The Kanzas, the Potawatomi, and the Sac and Fox were semi-civilized, at least to the point that there was some semblance of legality to their extraction of funds from the emigrants. The Pawnee were warriors and buffalo hunters who roamed their vast domain looking for trouble. They found plenty of it in the form of Sioux and Cheyenne to the west; and emigrants who had found themselves in the thick of tribal warfare on the Kansas River might have the experience repeated along the Little Blue and the Platte. . . . For the most part, however, the rumors of battles and massacres [between Pawnee and emigrants] were untrue, and the Pawnee merely threatened and blustered, demanding tribute of some kind for crossing their lands, although they would not be above robbing and sometimes murdering stragglers.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 156
Mile 0: The Patee House Patee House, MO
“The Patee House was a 140 room luxury hotel that was built in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1858. Beginning in 1860, its first floor served as the eastern terminus of the Pony Express Company. Mail carriers would ride into the building on their horses to receive the westbound mail!”
“In 1859 Slade was employed by the Overland stage lines to bring peace and quiet to the stagecoach divisions stretching along the south border of present-day Wyoming. This he did in the most effective way, with gun and rope, suppressing Indian predators and highway robbers in a manner which offered the miscreants neither time nor opportunity to reform into good citizens.All agree, outlaws came to fear Jack Slade more than they feared the Almighty. . . .
“Jack Slade was a man of scrupulous honesty, unflinching courage and herculean energy. Although he was a reputed gunman and was reported to have killed twenty-six men, he was never accused of murder or robbery, and was himself a member of the Montana Vigilantes. Whiskey alone was his undoing.”
John B. McClernan, Slade's Wells Fargo Colt, p. 13, 14
Breaking Oxen
“Most of [the oxen] were broken to work, but some were not. Over by the corrals sweating bullwhackers were busy making up their teams, yoking them together, and allowing them to become accustomed to each other. If a young one was to be broken and trained he was yoked with an old one, and, their tails tied together, they were turned loose so that the youngster might learn how to conduct himself in that situation. When he had learned to walk quietly beside his companion, they were hitched to a wagon and driven about for a while.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 27
Mail Contracts and the Mormon War
[William M.F.] Magraw lost his contract [to provide mail service between Salt Lake City and Independence] in 1856 for unsatisfactory service and was succeeded by a Mormon, Hiram Kimball, the new low bidder. Brigham Young then took over Kimball’s contract, planing a great Mormon commercial enterprise which would carry not only the mails but all goods between the Missouri River and Utah. . . . [T]he contract was summarily annulled in June of 1857, on the pretext that Kimball was late in fulfilling its terms. The charge was true but only because winter blizzards had, as usual, delayed the mails. . . . Magraw’s unhappiness at losing his contract, and Mormon unhappiness at losing theirs, were contributory causes to the ensuing ‘war’ of 1857-58.”
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 241
Mile 937: Horse/Greasewood/Sage Creek
Horse/Greasewood/Sage Creek was a Pony Express and stagecoach stop. This is also where the Martin handcart company, struggling west through early blizzards, first met rescue wagons from Salt Lake City.
“Robert Campbell [who built the original fort that became Fort Laramie] had cannily built his picketed stockade in the angle of the two rivers [Laramie and North Platte], so that all who approached from the east must either ford the Laramie or ferry the North Platte. Both projects provided plenty of exercise and some risk. Thos companies who had attained the west bank of the Missouri River at Independence, St. Joseph, Nebraska City, or nearby ferries, and who consequently traveled south of the Platte must now ford the Laramie. And the Laramie was deep, swift-flowing, and ice-cold. Those who ferried the Missouri at Kanesville or Council Bluffs, and remained north of the Platte were now faced with the thankless job of ferrying to the south side only to cross back again just west of the Black Hills, where the river swung too far south for their purpose, and the road left it definitely and forever. The did so up to and including the year 1849. . . .
There was no necessity, as it later proved, for any man to risk (and sometimes lose) his life in ferrying the Platte at Fort Laramie: there was an easy route on the north side. The officers [at Fort Laramie] were suspected of giving out misleading information to induce the emigrants to cross—at first, on account of the profit they could make from selling supplies at exhorbitant prices, and later because they ran a government ferry at five dollars per wagon and had unlimited opportunity to line their pockets.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 161
The Slades' Horses
“Another favorite and shared pastime of Virginia and Jack Slade was horse racing, which was a popular Sunday sport in early Virginia City. As both appreciated a fine horse and both owned good horses (Virginia’s a gorgeous black stallion from Kentucky named ‘Billy Boy’ and Slade’s ‘Old Copper-bottom,’ which got his master home, drunk or sober) and were excellent riders, they rarely missed a Sunday race.”
Virginia Rowe Towle, Vigilante Woman," p. 125
Mile 1502: Willow Springs Station
“A great deal of controversy has arisen over the location of the Willow Springs Station. Descriptions given by Nick Wilson (an Express rider) and Sir Richard Burton do not describe the location of the place now claimed to be the station site. A foundation, identified tentatively by the authors as dating to the proper period and similar to the structure depicted in the sketch from an 1868 photograph, has been found at the spot where an 1882 survey plat locates the Willow Springs Stable. This structure, located on the Dorcey Sabey property, is approximately 100 feet northeast of F. J. Kearney’s boarding house. This facility is about 3/4 mile east of the structure popularly known as the station house. Further archaeological investigations are necessary to establish the true location of the station.”
“[In the Black Hills of Wyoming], Lydia Waters wrote: ‘ The hoofs of the cattle became so worn they had to be shod. Now the amateur blacksmiths had to show their skill. George became quite proficient shoeing both horses and oxen—To shoe the cattle a trench the length of the animal and the width of the shovel was dug. The animal was then thrown and rolled over so that its backbone lay in the trench and all four legs were up in the air. In this position it was helpless and the shoes were nailed on readily.’ In very bad cases protectors made of buffalo hide were tied clear up over the hoofs like bags. Even dogs had leather moccasins. A few owners hardened their animals’ hoofs with alcohol and omitted the footwear.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 185-166
Oxen on the Trail
Oxen gathered their living entirely from the prairie. Feed had to be transported for horses and mules, but cattle would become stronger and fatter during a summer spent on the trail . They might come out of the winter ‘poor and scrawny,’ but would return t o it ‘fat and hearty’ at the close of the freighting season. If driven properly, oxen would travel 2,000 miles during one season, or an equivalent of making two round trips to Denver from the Missouri River. “
Floyd Bresee, Overland Freighting in the Platte Valley 1850–1870, p. 30
Utah Territory and the State of Deseret
“Although the Church had deliberately built its new home in a region far removed from other settlements, its leaders in 1849 realized that Salt Lake Valley would need a more temporal government, in form at least, than the one they had at first devised. . . . In early March, therefore, a convention of Church members drew up a constitution for the proposed State of Deseret, and immediately upon ratification of thi document the people elected men to fill the offices. . . .
When the United States acquired possession of the Salt Lake Basin as a result of its war with Mexico, the Mormons found themselves once more encamped upon American Territory. Now under the jurisdiction of the federal Congress, they needed its acknowledgement of their new state if it was to have any pretense to legality. Accordingly, the General Assembly in July 1849 delegated Almon W. Babbitt to secure this recognition from the Government. The choice of emissary was an unhappy one . . . As a counterweight to this agent the Mormons had two other advocates, men of greater ability than Babbitt. Dr. John Bernhisel, who had in May brought the formal petition for statehood to Washington, soon proved that his quiet lobbying was more effective than Babbitt’s brash conviviality. The other spokesman for the Mormons was young Thomas Leiper Kane, a self-chosen champion of the oppressed who, though not a member of the Church, used his considerable political influence throughout the 1850s to advance its interests. . . .
Despite Kane’s and Bernhisel’s enterprising work, the Saints failed to secure the desired position of statehood, receiving only territorial status. . . . Congress voted early in September 1850 to establish the Territory of Utah, and Fillmore signed the bill on September 9. Too late, the Church leaders tried to forestall this event by instructing Bernhisel to withdraw their petition, since they realized that they would suffer less from Gentile interference as an unsupervised provisional state than as a territory under congressional regulation . . . The law, however, had already been enacted. . . .
Upon learning of the President’s territorial appointees, however, the Mormons in Salt Lake Valley felt no great concern for their future. Of primary satisfaction to them was Brigham Young’s continuance as governor under the new dispensation. In this selection Fillmore had depended on the counsel of Thomas L. Kane . . .”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 6-11
Gives Vent to His Spleen
“” A mean streak will come out in the Plains.’ N.A. Cagwin cautions a man when he ‘gives vent to his spleen’ or ‘fans the spirit of discord.'”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 71
Importance of Pony Express to Keeping California in the Union
It is of course a well-known fact that California never did secede, and that soon after the war began, she swung definitely and conclusively into the Union column. The danger of secession was wholly potential. Yet potential dangers are none the less real. Had it not been for the determined energies of a few loyalists in California, led by General E. V. Sumner and cooperating with the Federal Government by means of the swiftest communication then possible—the Pony Express—history today, might read differently.
Glenn D. Bradley, The Story of the Pony Express, p. 79
Female Stereotypes
“As for the historical understanding of Western women, the perspective of the old Western history could have been capsulated in three stereotypes: “Molly, Miss Kitty, and Ma.” Molly, the Eastern schoolmarm in The Virginian, comes West to find “a man who was a man.” Miss Kitty, the enterprising but fallen saloon keeper of television’s long-running western series Gunsmoke. And Ma, the supportive farm wife in The Little House books of Laura Ingles Wilder. These stereotypes shaped not only hundreds of Western stories, images, and movies, but also what passed for history.”
John Mack Faragher, Women & Men on the Overland Trail, p. xiii
Delivering Mail Over the Sierra Nevada
“Also in late 1858, Chorpenning attempted to dispel the prevalent attitude among congressmen and the postmaster general that scheduled service was impossible over the Sierra Nevada in winter. Accordingly, he negotiated a $2,000 contract with John A. ‘Snowshoe’ Thompson to maintain the road through the Genoa-Placerville passes. A longtime associate of Chorpenning, Thompson had carried mail to Carson Valley between 1854 and 1858. In 1858-59, he used snowplows and sleighs to conduct regular weekly crossings of the Sierra Nevada. When storms closed the passes to sleighs, ski couriers carried the mail across the mountains. To the surprise and disappointment of Chorpenning’s rivals, the Sierra Nevada posed no insurmountable obstacle during a particularly miserable winter.”
John M. Townley, "Stalking Horse for the Pony Express: The Chorpenning Mail Contracts between California and Utah, 1851-1860", Arizona and the West, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1982), p. 246
The Idea of a Pony Express
“Russell was hardly the first dreamer to conceive a horseback relay system for delivering mail across distances: Marco Polo found a similar system in thirteenth-century China, operating with ‘post stations twenty-five miles apart, and stations for foot carriers three miles apart, on the chief routes through his dominion.’ . . .
The idea of a cross-country express appears to have been first conceived by Ben Ficklin, who planted the idea with California’s U.S. Senator, William M. M. Gwin, while the two men traveled across the continent on horseback in 1854. . . . Russell himself came up with a similar idea in the winter of 1857-58 while traveling across the plains to Utah to deliver supplies to Albert Sidney Johnston’s army there, and he subsequently broached the ides in Washington to Secretary of War Floyd and various senators and congressmen.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 158
Twenty-Six Coups
“Directly opposite General Mitchell was Shan-tag-a-lisk, which is translated as ‘Spotted Tail.’ He was the greatest warrior in the Sioux nation, said to be the greatest either past or present. He was said to be able to count twenty-six ‘cooz.’ He belonged to the Brule Sioux. On his right was my friend, ‘Bad Wound.’ On the left were ‘Two Strike,’ and ‘Two Crows,’ and the ‘Big Mandan.'”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 148
The Great Migration of '46
“The “Great Migration” of the histories is variously the first big push toward Oregon in 1843 or the more populous one of ’45. The phrase is rightly used in that, as the texts say, those years made Oregon American soil no matter what might be said in Congress or Downing Street. Yet the migration of ’46 was the decisive one – this was the year of decision – and though [Francis ] Parkman failed to understand it, he was right in calling it great.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 119
Mile 284: Lone Tree Station
“In time or course climbed slightly to a flat upland covered with grain. This was evidently Nine Mile Ridge, where in staging days stood Lone Tree Station. The solitary tree for which the station was named used to be visible for a long distance in each direction and helped to break the monotony of the bare, rolling prairie hills. It was hard to imagine such a condition faced, as we were, with ranches and roadsides planted thick with shrubs and shade trees.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner,p. 77-78
Mile 568: Nine Mile Station
Nine Mile Station was two miles southeast of Chappell, NE. It’s not marked on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route, and I can’t find an exact location for the marker. I’ve found references to a Pony Express Park, but not on Google Maps.
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 471
Petitioning for Postal Service
Encouraging the people’s expectation of a place on the country’s communications grid was essential to the republic’s physical and political development as well as the post’s. Pioneers were likelier to venture into the wilderness if they anticipated maintaining a link to the great world and having an outpost of the federal government, a place on the map, and a civic identity. The first step in the so-called petitioning process for mail service required a community to badger the Post Office Department or their congressman for it. In many instances, the congressman then submitted the constituents’ appeal to the postmaster general, who had retained the constitutional power to establish post offices. If service was deemed warranted, he authorized a new post office, and Congress, responding to the direct will of the local people, determined the route by which the mail would reach it.
Petitioning processes were very often successful, especially in the freewheeling territories, as areas under federal jurisdiction but lacking the status of an official state were called. Indeed, complaints about the overabundance of post offices created by legislators’ pork-barreling were voiced by the turn of the century. Nevertheless, Americans had objective proof of their national government’s responsiveness to their direct input, which not only brought them mail but also turned clusters of cabins in the middle of nowhere into villages with names, and rutted trails through dense forests into roads on a map.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 35
Pikers
“Our fuel, if we are fortunate enough to camp by timber, is the dryest branches we can find, but in certain districts we used ‘buffalo chips.’ This last was not repulsive, only by association, and I have seen ‘Pikers’ roasting hoe cakes in their embers, with mouths a-water. ‘Pikers’ and Missourians were synonymous.”
Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, A California Tramp and Later Footprints, p. 33-34
Army of the West on the Plains
“They left the high grass behind and timber with it, so that part of the duty of the soldier was to collect buffalo chips during the last hour of marching. This was another strangeness and some thought the fires stank abominably but others found that they gave a welcome tang to the salt pork and corned beef. So many things were strange: jack rabbits, antelopes, and especially the buffalo, the great legend now gaped at by these rural youths, who tried to hunt it and some times succeeded. The country was unimaginable, plains on a scale they had not dreamed of diminishing one to a dot that seemed to travel on the bottom of a bowl, the vast heave of the swells that seemed like the swells of the ocean they had read about, many miles long. Most of all the sun. Missouri sun is nothing amateurish but the sun of the plains flattened the life in you, filled your eyes with the color of blood, and baked you to the bone with sudden overheated winds and violent dust storms making it worse. The boys kept going and began to stink.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 254
Meaning of "Pah-Ute"
“The Piutes belonged to the Ute band at the time that the original Shoshone tribe broke up through its own weight and unwieldy size. They settled about the lakes—Humboldt, Pyramid, Carson, and Walker—and were therefore called Pah-Utes; that is, water Utes, “pah” being the word that sininifies water among all the Indians of the Great Basin region, Finally, the Utes and Pah-Utes, or “Piutes”—as the name is now generally, though improperly, written—became separate tribes.”
Dan DeQuille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 260
Extra Cattle
“The wise freighter would send or take with his train several extra cattle. In case of lameness or accident to an animal on a team an extra would be used and no delay on the trail was occasioned. An entire cattle train would number from 320 t o 330 animals, including extras.”
Extra Cattle
Feramorz Little's Mules
His initial trip was a farcical epic. Fort Bridger, 124 miles distant, was the nearest speck of civilization east of Salt Lake City; beyond were 400 lonely miles to Fort Laramie. Years later, Little wrote that he and Hanks reached Fort Laramie nine days out of the Mormon town. When they arrived the animals were so used up that they were unfit for the return trip. So the two men importuned the owner of a nearby ranch and obtained five wild, unbroken mules, the only stock available. These they wrestled to the ground, bound them and tied on blindfolds. Four of them they managed to work into a harness, and on the fifth one Ephriam Hanks put a saddle. All was ready, the blindfolds were yanked off and the bindings cut. A lively performance commenced. Hanks took the lead, trying to assist in keeping the wagon on the road, but his mount “was guilty of all the antics that a wild Mexican mule is considered capable of performing under the circumstances.”
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 9
Establishing Camp Floyd
“Upon their arrival in Cedar Valley on July 8 [1858] the officers and men of the expedition established a military post which they appropriately called Camp Floyd, in honor of the War Department’s foremost Mormon-hater. The little valley was strategically located, for it was of approximately equal distance from the Territory’s largest towns, Salt Lake City and Provo. It had the further advantage, in this semidesert climate, of a modest creek. . . .
[T]he monotonous routine of the cantonment, seven hours away from the nearest towns, soon began to erode the morale of the troops. The camp itself offered few opportunities for relaxation . . . When they had the opportunity, the enlisted men crept out of Camp Floyd by night to nearby ‘Frogtown,’ [present-day Fairfield, UT] where a few shanty saloons dispensed an alcoholic drink that tasted vile but at least did not blind.
None of these official or extracurricular diversions dulled the misery for long. . . .According to Captain Tracy, ‘life in this camp gives one the feeling of convicts in prison for life clamoring to be let out and hung by way of relief.'”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 205-206
Buffalo Chips
“[F]or the most part along the Platte a camp fire developed from the ubiquitous dried droppings of the buffalo, sometimes called dung or manure, but more commonly called ‘buffalo chips.’
The reaction of easterners, particularly the ladies, was predictable. At first they found the chips nauseous, but they rapidly learned to accept, the welcome, this aromatic fuel of the Plains. The stuff would not burn when wet, of course, but when perfectly dry, W. McBride found it resembled rotten wood, making a clear, hot fire. Since it burned rapidly, it took two or three bushels of chips to heat a meal, and Cramer found that the chief objection to its use, therefore, was ‘the vast amount of ashes which it deposits.’ Often an unusual concentration of chips would dictate the selection of a camp; more often, a camper had to cover a lot of teritory, as Lavinia Porter says, to get a supply.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 57
European Mormon Emigrants
In all its history, the American West never saw a more unlikely band of pioneers than the four hundred-odd who were camped on the bank of the Iowa River at Iowa City in early June, 1856. They were not colorful—only improbable. Looking for the brown and resolute and weather-seasoned among them, you would have seen instead starved cheeks, pale skins, bad teeth, thin chests, all the stigmata of unhealthy work and inadequate diet. There were more women than men, more children under fifteen than either. One in every ten was past fifty, the oldest a woman of seventy-eight; there were widows and widowers with six or seven children. They looked more like the population of the poor farm on a picnic than like pioneers about to cross the plains.
Most of them, until they were herded from their crowded immigrant ship and loaded into the cars and rushed to the end of the Rock Island Line and dumped here at the brink of the West, had never pitched a tent, slept on the ground, cooked outdoors, built a campfire. They had not even the rudimentary skills that make frontiersmen. But as it turned out, they had some of the stuff that makes heroes.
Mainly Englishmen from the depressed collieries and mill towns, with some Scots and a handful from the Cape of Good Hope and the East Indian Mission, they were the casualties of the industrial revolution, life’s discards, to whom Mormonisrn had brought its irresistible double promise of a new start on earth and a guaranteed Hereafter.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 221-22
Mile 930: Red Buttes Station
Located 10 miles from North Platte Station and 12 miles from Willow Springs Station about 200 feet southwest of the Red Buttes Oregon Trail Marker and south of the old Goose Egg Ranch house. Red Buttes Pony Express Station was located on a ridge overlooking the North Platte River at Bessemer Bend. Explorers, fur traders, mountain men and emigrants camped at this site. Although the main route of the Oregon Trail was located a few miles north of this site, many emigrant travelers crossed the North Platte River here for the last time on their trek to the west. They preferred using this favorable ford rather than waiting in line and paying the tolls and ferry fees required at lower crossings. Ample grass, good water and pleasant surroundings made this a favorite campsite for some travelers, since the route to and from the Sweetwater River was three days of rough, dry country and poisonous alkali water.
Pony Express lore recalls than William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, one of the youngest Pony Express riders at the age of 14, made the longest non-stop ride from this station. Completing his own run of 116 miles between Red Buttes and Three Crossings, he found his relief rider had met any untimely death, causing Cody to ride an extra 76 miles to Rocky Ridge Station. He immediately returned from Rocky Ridge to Red Buttes, completing the route in record time. http://www.expeditionutah.com/featured-trails/pony-express-trail/wyoming-pony-express-stations/
Sources generally agree on the identity of Red Butte(s) as a C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. or Pony Express station, also largely because this name appears on the 1861 Overland Mail Company contract. Franzwa specifically lists Red Buttes as a Pony Express stop on his maps.
This stretch of the road, from Julesburg to “French Louie’s” [Pole Creek Station] was known as the “Jules Stretch.” The stretch of road going from the Pole Creek crossing and “French Louie’s” northward, to the next Pony Express Station, Mud Springs, and was known as the “Thirty Mile Stretch.”
Loren Avey, The Pole Creek Crossing, p. 24
Sources of Pony Express History
In 1912, the year Pony Bob died in Chicago, Professor Glenn Danford Bradley published The Story of the Pony Express: An Account of the Most Remarkable Mail Service Ever in Existence, and Its Place in History. Unlike Colonel Visscher, Professor Bradley was a historian with a doctorate from the University of Michigan, but unlike Mrs. Loving, Professor Bradley did not bother to interview anyone associated with the Pony Express. Bradley fully mined the few existing sources: Majors’s memoirs, Root and Connelley’s The Overland Stage to California, Inman and Cody’s The Great Salt Lake Trail, and “the file of Century Magazine,” which includes W. F. Bailey’s 1898 article on the Pony Express. Virtually all information about the Pony Express descends from these works.
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The year before the centennial, Roy S. Bloss, a California historian, published Pony Express-the Great Gamble, a 159-page book billed as “a fresh, unbiased approach to an emotion-packed historical episode.” The editors of the Union must not have read its preface. “Probably the final, complete and authentic word on the Pony Express will never be written. For all of the notable episodes in United States history, few have been so scantily annotated as the horseback mail, the trail of which has been indelibly—but only grossly—etched in the panorama of American pioneering. Even the parade of Caesars, or the Gallic Wars, or our own Revolution—all in the days when historical narration lacked the incentive of the common man’s literacy even these events have been better documented and more accurately interpreted than the relatively recent Pony Express.”
Noting that there were few records of the mail service, Bloss added, “In several instances, the inexorable wear and tear of time caused buncombe to be offered as gospel.”
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Bloss argued that the Civil War eclipsed the memory of the Pony Express and noted that nearly half a century passed before the first history of the fast-mail service was written. “But by then most of the principals, the riders and station keepers had passed from the scene. That raised a problem for the early historians. Seemingly, few records of the nineteen-month mail service were then (or now) extant. The living participants, pressed for their recollections, occasionally resorted to colorful embellishment or a self-serving memory.”
Bloss acknowledged that what he set out to do—sort out the story of the Pony Express—was not going to make him popular. “Whenever sympathetic legend or nostalgic romance has threatened to collide with objective deduction (a recurring hazard in this lore-laden subject) objectiveness deliberately has been given the right-of-way. Admittedly, such arbitrariness may find disfavor among some devoted followers of the Pony; if so, their displeasure is risked with apologies.”
Bloss was not the first to make these observations. It had been a theme for half a century—although it had made not the slightest impression on the American public or Pony Express devotees.
Writing in 1932, Arthur Chapman, journalist-turned-historian, offered his assessment in The Pony Express: The Record of a Romantic Adventure in Business. “The records of the Pony Express, as kept by the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company were long ago either lost or destroyed. The fact that the Pony Express was not a Government institution, but was privately owned and controlled, absolved postmasters from the duty of making official records of arrivals and departures. Old letters and diaries, which have been submitted, have only tended to make the confusion greater, as they too have been conflicting in the names of riders.”
Even Raymond Settle and his wife, Mary, in whom the Union placed such faith, had doubts, noting in Empire on Wheels, their history of Russell, Majors, and Waddell’s freighting empire:
“The Pony Express was a romantic, glorious yet brief incident, which although it proved nothing except that it could be done, is eminently worthy of remembrance. Even though the amount of mail it carried was relatively insignificant and out of proportion to the fame it achieved, nobody begrudges it the spotlight. The tattoo or me nymg noorbeats, awakenmg the echoes by day and mght along the two-thousand-mile stretch of boundless prairie, lonely canyon, and mountain slope, wrote into the body of strictly American folklore such a romantic tale of youthful grit as is given few peoples to possess. It has been the source of a thousand tales of daredevil courage and will continue to make its contribution to that thrilling body of literature which concerns itself with stark courage and dauntless enterprise.”
In 1958, William H. Floyd, yet another amateur historian in St. Joe, produced Phantom Riders of the Pony Express to sort out this “web of fancy,” as he called it. Floyd pronounced the whole Pony Express story part of “a dim bob-tailed era in which fact and fiction can be hopelessly scrambled.” He deemed the saga “fragmentary and often conflicting.” Floyd’s exasperated conclusion: “This was the Pony Express. Fact and fiction. Truth, half-truth, and no truth at all. These have become so thoroughly blended that, after nearly a century … legend has largely replaced and superseded a clear and unclouded record, if indeed such a chronicle ever existed.”
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 210, 214-15
Burr and the Mormons
“The short period between 1852 and 1855 was in general a peaceful interlude in the relations between the Mormons and the nation. Although Steptoe, [Secretary Benjamin G.] Ferris, and [Indian Agent] Holeman had raised brief disturbances, the years were as free of painful incident as any before 1896, when Utah gained statehood. But the harmony, such as it was, soon faded. Within a few months voices more powerful and strident than those heard in the past were demanding federal intervention in the Mormons’ country: and a stormy petrel reached Salt Lake City in the person of David. T. Burr, the newly appointed surveyor general of the Territory.
Almost at once Burr ran into trouble with the inhabitants on the Valley. their title to the land they occupied was tenuous at best, in the absence of an Indian treaty or congressional enactment. Knowing this, they looked upon a survey of their region as a move preliminary to their eviction by the Government. Their fears had some justification, for Burr soon wrote to his superiors that the Church had illegally appropriated areas of the public domain, a reference to the recent introduction of an experiment, tried without success in earlier communities, to persuade the Mormons to deed their properties to the Church.
In alarm, the Saints sought to impede the surveyor general’s labors in every way possible, using intimidation, violence, and their influence over the Indians. . . .Garland Hurt, whoe position as agent brought him into greater difficulties than Holeman had encountered . . . charged that a bishop had stirred up the Indians in southern Utah by circulating the lie that surveyors were really a posse sent in disguise to arrest Gunnison’s murderers. Other Mormons in Fillmore, Hurt added, had stoned a house where Burr and his men had stopped for the night.The surveyor general himself reported the Mormons’ removal of corner posts, the theft of animals, and other obstructive acts, none of which could be prosecuted in the Church-controlled courts.
In the spring of 1857 Burr gave up his work in Utah, offering a number of explanations for his decision. His life was in fanger, for the priesthood was denouncing him from the pulpit. One of his associates . . . had been beaten nearly to death, perhaps permanently crippled, by a grouop of the infamous Danites. . . . and Brigham Young had ominously declared in public that his, Burr’s, work was at an end. In this lawless atmosphere three apostates had been murdered; Burr’s friends predicted the same fate for him if he remained.
As was frequently the case in more significant episodes, the truth about Burr’s clash with the Mormons is not easily found. . . .From the statements of burr, Hurt, Crain, Mogo, Wilson, and Landon it appeared that the people of the territory were, if not actually rebellious, at least ready to impede the work of duly appointed federal representatives.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 45-47.
Mile 927: Emigrant Gap, WY
“Our road started uphill and rose higher and higher, but very gently. Wyoming makes less fuss about its elevation than any place I know. To our left was the wide sandy pass used by migrants of the sixties. A later generation of indigenous Casperites have named it Emigrant Gap, one of a long series of Emigrant Gaps that puncture the trail clear to the Pcific coast. The highway uses a parallel pass nearby. Just beyond it we found Poison Spider Creek, all the wrong colors for respectable water and very scummy, but wholesome in comparison with the neighboring supply, for the emigrants now had a new trail bugbear—alkali.
The travelers had seen alkali water along the Platte, but with the river running near by, the discolored pools were little temptation to the cattle. Now the migration wallowed in billowing dust (also tinctured with alkali) that choked and almost blinded the animals. Their ears, ey rims, and nostrils were coated an eighth of an inch thick, and the implacable brassy sun baked it solid. Anyting that looked like water caused a rush in its direction. . . .
And here again, it was all a matter of preparedness. After the enormous migrations of ’49 and ’50 had learned what not to do, later comers handled the fifty-odd miles of semidesert much better. After all the was good water at short enough intervals to preserve the stock if they could be kept from the poison pools between.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 202
Placerville Becomes the Western Terminus
“On July 1 [1861], Placerville became the western terminus for the Pony Express.”
William E. Hill, The Pony Express: Yesterday and Today, p. 71
Mile 970: Independence Rock
“The great granite loaf of Independence Rock signaled temporary relief from the thirsty barrens, for it stands where the emigrant trail meets the Sweetwater River. Trail tradition held that reaching this milestone by the Fourth of July meant the emigrants would arrive safely in Oregon or California before early blizzards blew.
Independence Rock also marked the beginning of South Pass, for the pass was not just the single point where the trail crested the Continental Divide. It was, in the minds of emigrants, the entire 100- mile climb up the Sweetwater to the divide. “
“Continued population increase and settlement of Oregon, California, and Utah sustained a growing necessity for an east-west mail service. In response to these migrations and population increases, post offices were officially established in San Francisco (1848) and Salt Lake City (1849). Thereafter, the federal government let contracts to companies to provide east-west mail service.
For the next decade or so, vital questions regarding delivery routes (ocean versus overland), frequency of service (monthly or semi-monthly), speed of delivery (number of days for delivery), and costs were answered through pragmatic means—trial and error.”
Anthony Godfrey, Historic Research Study Pony Express National Historic Trail, p. 5-6
Ancient Pony Express
Some four thousand years ago, Middle Eastern monarchs established the first postal systems, which were designed to transport official government communications. Herodotus famously praised the ambitious 1,600-mile-long system of the Persian emperor Darius I (r. 522-486 BCE), which used “post riders,” or mounted couriers, to carry communiques etched on clay tablets: “It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed [italics added].” Centuries later, the network established by the Roman emperor Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE) was similarly reserved for officials, who often traveled in carts along with the mail on the post roads that also helped to spread imperial hegemony and civilization. Indeed, Rome’s post was called the cursus publicus, or “public road.”
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p 12
Old Isis Bargee
“At Saint Joseph (Mo.), better known by the somewhat irreverent abbreviation of St. Jo, I was introduced to Mr. Alexander Majors, formerly one of the contractors for supplying the army in Utah a veteran mountaineer, familiar with life on the prairies. His meritorious efforts to reform the morals of the land have not yet put forth even the bud of promise. He forbade his drivers and employees to drink, gamble, curse, and travel on Sundays; he desired them to peruse Bibles distributed to them gratis; and though he refrained from a lengthy proclamation commanding his lieges to be good boys and girls, he did not the less expect it of them. Results : I scarcely ever saw a sober driver; as for profanity the Western equivalent for hard swearing they would make the blush of shame crimson the cheek of the old Isis bargee; and, rare exceptions to the rule of the United States, they are not to be deterred from evil talking even by the dread presence of a ‘lady.'”
[“Old Isis bargee” = Thames river pilot, Isis being an alternate name for the Thames]
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 5
Mile 1835: Dry Creek Monuments Pony Express plaque
There are two monuments near the site of Dry Creek Station:
In addition, various authors state that there are station ruins and a gravestone nearby. I wasn’t able to find them on my scouting trip, but maybe it just takes a little more effort:
“The building ruins are overgrown by sagebrush. The grave of Applegate and Roiser is on the crest of the hill nearby.”
Hill, The Pony Express Trail: Yesterday and Today, p. 224.
Central Overland Trail marker
A few rock foundations, overgrown with sagebrush, mark the mound above the creek where the station was situated. A rock monument built by the Damele’s in 1960 bearing a brass commemorative plate, distributed as part of the Pony Express Centennial in 1960, sits near the station site. . . . Remains of the Overland Stage Station, a stone structure, sit just off the main gravel road before it turns to go up to the ranch.
“While all is green and fresh on the summits of the mountains, in the surrounding deserts all is salt, alkali, sterility, and desolation. In the early days, when thousands on thousands of persons were annually crossing the Plains to California and Oregon, hundreds perished because they did not understand the country through which they were passing. In looking for water they always went to the lowest places they could find, as they were in the habit of doing at home in the Eastern and Western States, whereas they should have left the desert valleys and climbed to the tops of the highest of the surrounding hills.
“On all of the mountain ranges springs of excellent water are found, and in places, small brooks; but the water sinks in the beds of the ravines and is lost long before it reaches the level of the deserts. The Indians always travel along the tops of the mountain ranges in summer. On their trails are put up signs that tell where springs can be found. These are small monuments of rock, capped with a stone, the longest part of which points in the direction of the nearest spring.
“Toward this spring are turned the long points of all the cap-stones on the monuments, until it is reached. Passing by the spring, the index-stones all point back to it until there is a nearer spring ahead, when the pointers are all turned in that direction.
“On finding the first monument, after striking the Indian trail, one may thus know which end of it to take to the nearest water. In traveling along a dry canon, where all was parched and dusty, I have sometimes seen upon one of its steep banks a monument, and, climbing up to it, have found the index pointing directly up the hill, where all seemed as dry as in the ravine below. But taking the direction indicated, it would not be long before a bunch of willows would be seen, and among these a spring was sure to be found. Not knowing the meaning of these little stone monuments, the early prospectors made a business of kicking them over wherever they found them, and so destroyed what would have been a useful thing to them had they understood it.”
Dan DeQuille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 278-79
Mile 177: Rock Creek
“A weary drive over a rough and dusty road, through chill night air and clouds of musquetoes, which we were warned would accompany us to the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains, placed us about 10 P.M. at Rock, also called Turkey Creek surely a misnomer ; no turkey ever haunted so villainous a spot ! Several passengers began to suffer from fever and nausea; in such travel the second night is usually the crisis, after which a man can endure for an indefinite time.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 30
Orphans Preferred
One measure of what the job was like is an advertisement for riders allegedly posted as the service geared up: Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. It’s a famous ad, included in countless tellings of the Pony, often done up in old-style typography with appropriate illustrations and anxious exclamation marks. Unfortunately, like many mementos of the Pony, it appears to be bogus, concocted years after the last Pony rider had shaken the dust from his jeans and gone off into the sunset. But it does capture the spirit of the riders, who while they may not have faced death at least twice or four times a week, were nonetheless expected to be hardy, adventurous souls, willing to push themselves and their mounts to the limit.
Jim DeFelice, West Like Lightning, p. 35-36
Safety of Travel Through Utah Under Brigham Young
“Most emigrants seemed blissfully unaware of Brigham Young’s pacifying influence with area Indians, another notable Mormon contribution to overland travel. Perhaps overlanders did not acknowledge Young’s important role because his overarching commitment to Mormon interests embroiled him in a great deal of controversy with Gentile Indian agents, or because a number of emigrants suspected that the Mormons occasionally directed Indian depredations against Gentile passersby. Yet Young’s maxim that ‘It is cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight them’ is well known and reflected his policies as ex officio superintendent of India affairs and governor of Utah Territory. And there is no gainsaying the fact that emigrants trailed through the Mormon domain with greater safety from Indian attack than elsewhere along the overland trail.”
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 315
Green River Desert
“In ’49, when the laboring, panting, exhausted line of animals and duct-caked humans arrived within ten miles of green River, they found broken country and no definite road. They must push and tug at the heavy wagons in the in the full heat of blazing noonday. Many collapsed and were loaded in the wagons by companions almost in like case. The poor beasts fell, were hastily cut loose, died, and added their bit to the discomfort of next week’s caravans. The only solution possible was to double-team and abandon some of the wagons, and this section of the cutoff was one of the two or three places of the whole overland trail where no one had time or reason to burn them.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 255
Virginia Slade's Horse
And Slade gave her the horse he had promised—a thorough-bred that had been stolen by the Blackfeet during a raid on an emigrant train. is name was Billy Bay.
Dabney Otis Collins, The Hanging of Bad Jack Slade, 42-43
Kansas Boundary
“Though Kansas theoretically extends to the mountains, Big Blue is considered the boundary line of the territory, and the great ocean of Indian country; indeed we were not unlike a vessel outward bound, nor our journey unlike a voyage. We struck out hence into a region, considered by our pace of travelling, as boundless, if not as trackless, as an ocean.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 51
Reason for the Pony Express
The reason that the Pony Express was organized is of far more importance than the question of who conceived the idea for it. In attempting to explain that reason, the history of mail to the Pacific Coast must be briefly reviewed. The necessity of communication with that far-off portion of the continent was introduced to the American public when Jason Lee and his fellow Methodist missionaries settled in Oregon in 1833. In 1836, Marcus Whitman arrived with a party of Presbyterians. Before long the American population of that region increased until there were sufficient people to organize the Oregon Territory in 1848. This, plus the Gold Rush of 1849, made it imperative that an overland mail line be authorized. Bills providing for that service were introduced in Congress in 1855, but failed of passage.
Settle and Settle, "Orgin of the Pony Express," Missouri Historical Society Bulletin Vol. 26, No.3, April 1960, p. 208
Grattan Massacre
“On August 18 [1854] a lame cow wandered away from Mormon emigrants hurrying westward. When the stray cow reached the Sioux encampment it was quickly butchered. From this trivial occurrence ensued a tragic series of errors for which fort [Laramie] commander Hugh B. Fleming and Lieutenant John L. Grattan bore almost complete responsibility.
Although the Sioux chief offered generous payment—a horse—for the emigrant animal, somehow the circumstances were utilized to force a major confrontation the next day. Grattan, a firm believer in severely punishing Indians for all their mistakes, demanded the arrest of the offending Miniconjou Sioux brave—who was a guest at the Brulé village. Grattan ineptly attempted a show of force with his contingent of twenty-eight men, refusing a mule as compensation for the now-important cow. A few shots were fired and an Indian was wounded, but the chiefs cautioned their wariors not to return the fire, hoping the whites had now had their vengeance.
But Grattan was not to be denied, and he ordered another volley in which the Sioux chief was killed. Reprisal came swiftly. All twenty-one soldiers and their interpreter were killed; their bodies, especially Grattan’s were badly mutilated. The enraged Sioux raided trading posts around the fort and that fall made a series of attacks on mail carriers, killing at least three.”
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 214-215
The Prairie Night Clock
“The stars of the Great Bear—the prairie night-clock—first began to pale without any seeming cause, till presently a faint streak of pale light dum i gurg, or the wolf’s tail, as it is called by the Persian began to shimmer upon the eastern verge of heaven. It grew and grew through the dark blue air . . .”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 131
Overland Mail and the Confederacy
“‘Paul Jones,’ a correspondent writing from St. Joseph, October 17, lo the Missouri. Democrat (October 22, 1861), berated [CCO & PP President] Hughes as a rascal secessionist, and charged that the destruction of the Platte river bridge had ‘jarred the festering treason from his soul, or the fear of losing his salary of $5,000 per annum, causes him to be a thorough Union man. . . . While located in this city, that company were very careful that not a dollar of Uncle Sam’s money went into a loyal man’s pocket . . . . Why is Mr. Slade kept in their employ? . . a division agent . . . having charge of the entire route from the crossing of the South Platte to the Pacific Springs. He is a vile-mouthed, rabid secessionist. . . .'”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 81, n. 481
Mile 438: Cottonwood Springs Station
“Usually known as Cottonwood Springs, which by 1863 had a very favorable reputation as a ‘home station,’ and was also a very good camping place for freighters, because of the abundance of cedar.-Ibid., p. 208. This ‘Cottonwood Station is not to be confused with the “Cottonwood Station” in Washington county, Kansas. (See Footnote 803.)”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part III, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 8 (1944) p. 522, note 307
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.
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 423, n. 4
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 much business to competitors that a reluctant Congress, fearing the political consequences of either cutting mail service or paying to support it, was forced to act, despite southern politicians’ suspicion of costly federal schemes that called for tax increases and strengthened Washington’s hand. As it is wont to do in such situations, Congress created a special commission to assess the crisis and make recommendations for fixing it. This group of experts took the high road, concluding that the post had not been created to generate revenue but for “elevating our people in the scale of civilization and bringing them together in patriotic affection,” as well as to “render the citizen worthy, by proper knowledge and enlightenment, of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of his government.” Accordingly, starting with the Post Office Act of 1845 and continuing through 1851, Congress passed a series of reforms that would stimulate the full flowering of what the historian Wayne Fuller called “the people’s post office.”
The government finally abandoned the hoary principle that the post must support itself, even as it was extending all the way to the Pacific. The institution was explicitly defined as a public service that, like the military, deserved financial support, and after the Post Office Act of 1851 deficits would be accepted as a matter of course. Congress shored up the post’s finances in other important ways, especially by passing legislation that reinforced its poorly defended monopoly. Known as the Private Express Statutes, these laws made it a crime for other carriers to transport mail in places served by the post, which soon put the independent competitors out of business.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 86
Mile 1045: Rocky Ridge Rocky Ridge, WY
“Rocky Ridge. Yes, the trail goes up this ridge. Climbing over 700 feet in less than 2 miles, this ridge caused a lot of problems for pioneer hand carts and wagons alike.
In 1856, the rescue of the Mormon Willie and Martin Handcart companies crossed this ridge. From the base of Rocky Ridge to Rock Creek took the parties over 27 hours to travel the roughly 15 miles, partially due to a winter blizzard and a lack of adequate clothing. The hand carts companies had to be rescued before this point as 21 individuals perished in the valley below.
This section of the trail is known as the “Trail of Blood.” While I would say it’s possible to traverse the entire South Pass section, from Sweetwater station to Farson, in a single day, it’s not a trek to be taken lightly. Be sure to have a water filter and/or treatment with you and keep an eye to the sky. The weather can change quickly as you’re around 7,000 feet of elevation and at the foot of the Wind River mountain range, which is the edge of the Teton mountains. Oh, and pack plenty of food. You may find yourself out there a little longer than you plan initially.”
[N.B. There are two markers: Rocky Ridge Lower Marker and Rocky Ridge Upper Marker. These are not on the Pony Express Bikepacking Trail. To see these, take a turnoff at about Mile 1045 1/32. The detour rejoins the Bikepacking trail just past Mile 1049.]
“Originally named Deep Creek for a creek of the same name in the area, the name was later changed to Ibapah, an anglicized form of the Goshute word Ai-bim-pa or Ai’bĭm-pa which means “White Clay Water.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibapah,_Utah
======================
“Fourteen miles from Round Station via the original trail.
“Deep Creek was the home of Howard Egan, the division superintendent for service between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Roberts Creek (near Eureka, Nevada). This well-equipped and service functioning facility was the most westerly station located within the present boundaries of Utah. The western boundary of the Utah Territory at this time was the California state line and Genoa the most westerly Utah Territory station.
“Harrison Sevier was the station master. Several photographs exist. Buildings included an adobe station, house, and barn. The telegraph established a repeater station at this location in 1861 with George Ferguson being the telegrapher. The station site is presently on the ranch of Sidney (DeVerl) Nichols, Jr. Incidentally, Joan and Hilda Erikson paid for the last telegraph message to be sent from this station in 1869.”
From 1849 to 1858 the California press depended on the Panama Mail steamers for its eastern and European news. A great improvement came with the beginning of the overland mail service over the Butterfield route between St. Louis and San Francisco on September 15, 1858. To the California papers it meant receiving news dispatches and eastern papers twice a week instead of semimonthly as before; and what was also important, the news was now only three weeks old and less, whereas before it was from twenty-five to thirty days out-of-date. With the beginning of the overland mail service, St. Louis became in a very short time the clearinghouse for nearly all the eastern and European news coming to California. News from all over the East and that arriving by ship from Europe was telegraphed to St. Louis where a correspondent sifted it, collated it, and forwarded it on each stage to California in the form of a newsletter. . . .
Note 53: At first the overland mail took sometimes as long as twenty-six days to make the transcontinental trip, but the average time during this period was about twenty-one days, about a week better than the average time the mail came through by steamer.
John Denton Carter, "Before the Telegraph: The News Service of the San Francisco Bulletin, 1855-1861," Pacific Historical Review 11, No. 3 (Sep., 1942): 312
Oxen and the Prairie Schooner
“In behalf of these hardy, versatile men who risked fortune and endured hardship along the Santa Fe trail [starting in 1821], it should be noted that they were the ones who developed the technique of prairie travel. They learned how to organize wagon trains and handle them to the best advantage upon the road. These men also adopted oxen in place of mules and horses, after oxen had been introduced by Major Bennett Riley in 1829, and they developed the prairie schooner.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 3
Russell's Character
A contemporary of the Settles’, Ray Allen Billington, a prominent historian of the American West at Northwestern University, had a different view of William H. Russell. Writing at the same time, Billington noted: “Profits from freighting encouraged the exuberant William H. Russell, the irrepressible plunger of the combination, to involve his partners in two fantastic ventures that vastly benefitted the West but led inevitably to the company’s downfall.” An exuberant and irrepressible plunger sounds like a sporting man, a man who might make a little wager. Billington’s assessment of the end of the Pony Express also considers an aspect of Russell’s character that many of his admirers and other historians of the venture avoid or neglect. It spoils the story. Russell was dishonest.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 250-251
Mile 312: Summit Station
“The trail lay to our left, easily accessible at all times; and on it, near the summit of the ride, the old stages found the last stop before the long waterless drive over to the Platte River. Here stood Summit Station. Perhaps ‘stood’ is not the best word, for the building was only three feet above ground and extended four feet below.”
[N.B. The Pony Express marker is just north of the Pony Express Bikepacking Route, on 44 Road (just before Mile 312). Also at this spot is the Susan O’Hale Grave Historical Marker.]
Mile 312: Summit Station
Mile 1835: Dry Creek
“Twenty miles farther led to the west end of the Sheawit Valley, where we found the station on a grassy bench at the foot of low rolling hills. It was a mere shell, with a substantial stone corral behind, and the inmates were speculating upon the possibility of roofing themselves in before the winter. Water is found in tolerable quantities below the station, but the place deserved its name, ‘Dry Creek.’ . . .
“Dry-Creek Station is on the eastern frontier of the western agency; as at Roberts’ Creek, supplies and literature from Great Salt City east and Carson City west are usually exhausted before they reach these final points. After a frugal feed, we inspected a grave for two, which bore the names of Loscier and Applegate, and the date 21st of May. These men, employes of the station, were attacked by Indians Panaks or Shoshonees, or possibly both: the former was killed by the first fire; the latter, when shot in the groin, and unable to proceed, borrowed, under pretext of defense, a revolver, bade good-by to his companions, and put a bullet through his own head: the remainder then escaped. Both these poor fellows remain unavenged. The Anglo-American, who is admirably protected by the officials of his government in Europe, Asia, and Africa, is systematically neglected—teste [witness, for example] Mexico—in America. The double grave, piled up with stones, showed gaps where the wolves had attempted to tunnel, and blue-bottle flies were buzzing over it in expectation. Colonel Totten, at our instance, promised that it should be looked to. . . .
“Shortly after 8 A.M. we were afield, hastening to finish the long divide that separates Roberts’ Creek Valley from its western neighbor, which, as yet unchristened, is known to the b’hoys as Smoky Valley. The road wound in the shape of the letter U round the impassable part of the ridge [i.e., via the Cape Horn route south of Simpson Mountains rather than over Eagle Butte, which is the Pony Express rote]. Crossing the north end of Smoky Valley, we came upon rolling ground, with water-willows and cedars ‘blazed’—barked with a gash—for sign-posts.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 483-484
Young Native American Fun
“It now appeared that the condition of the country as to Indian troubles was that the Indians as tribes would not participate in the war, and that the whole Indian strength was not in the war ; but that a large amount of trouble was made by individual young bucks who were bent on mischief, and on having what they considered fun; which was, the scalping of white men and women, and the getting of horses and plunder.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 292
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 he built a 20-room house with a garden, Negro quarters, and stables at the back for the good horses he always owned. Waddell also built a commodious home a block away at the corner of 18th and South streets.
“We entered the city again by way of the old residential section. It is lovely in a staid, dignified way, with large dark houses that could only belong to sterling citizens and leafy streets like unceiled tunnels; but we did not linger, for we had promised ourselves to pay our respects to the spring whose existence was the main reason for the selection of the site of Independence.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 11
An Indian for Breakfast
“‘An Indian for breakfast and a pony to ride’ was their [105 men who volunteered under Major Ormsby after the killings at William’s Station] slogan as the command started across the wastes toward Pyramid Lake.”
Dorothy Mason, The Pony Express in Nevada,, p. 72
Rancho
“Rancho” in Mexico means primarily a rude thatched hut where herdsmen pass the night; the “rancharia” is a sheep-walk or cattle-run, distinguished from a “hacienda,” which must contain cultivation. In California it is a large farm with grounds often measured by leagues, and it applies to any dirty hovel in the Mississippian Valley.
Sir Richard Burton, City of the Saints, 5 (note)
Mile 1732: Jacob's Well Station
“Today nothing remains but a few old stones from which the old well has long since caved in with rock and dirt. It was not only was a change station for the Pony Express until its demise as well as the Overland Stage Line until 1869, but it later served the Hill Beachy Road to Hamilton and the White Pine Mines.”
One Sunday afternoon General William Larimer, professional promoter and town organizer, called upon Russell to seek advice on plains travel. He was organizing a party of prospectors and meant to lay out a town on Cherry Creek. Among other things they discussed was the possibility of operating a stage line to the new diggings. Before the interview was over it was understood that Russell should have one share in the town company. This gave him about thirty acres in the heart of what was later known as Denver, Colorado.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 24
Mile 804-841: Horseshoe Creek to La Bonte
“From Horseshoe Creek to La Bonte (sometimes called Big Timber Creek) was fifteen and a half miles by the Mormon’s roadameter. The casual estimate was two to three miles longer, and the road varied from year to year . . .
The rocks of this section were particularly vicious and abrasive. They wore the animal’s hoofs to the quick, cut and otherwise lamed them. So far the road had been full of large ragged chunks, but the last five or six miles before reaching La Bonte were packed hard and smooth, ‘equal to McAdam roads’ or, as some said, like pounded glass. Arrival at La Bonte were equivalent to a victory. The worst pulls of the Black Hills were now behind. But, in the heavy years of travel, the grass supply as not adequate and many drove on to greener pastures or camped sketchily only to move on at daylight.
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 183
Mile 48: Kennekuk
“Frank A. Root writes in The Overland Stage (pp. 190, 191): ‘Kennekuk was the first ‘home’ station out from Atchison, and here drivers were changed. It was a little town of perhaps a dozen houses, having a store, blacksmith shop, etc. The Kickapoo Indian agency was one of the most prominent buildings. . . The old stone mission . . . visible for many miles . . . was less than a mile northwest of the stage station, adjoining the now thriving city of Horton. . .
The St. Joseph road here intersected the military road from Fort Leavenworth.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part III, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 8 (1944) p. 514, note 294
Stagecoach Conditions to Denver, 1860
“With the ‘gentlemanly’ express messenger, J. S. Stephens, and the driver, a total of 11 people rode this coach, including two children. A traveler who arrived at Denver in August, 1860, complained about the crowding of nine or ten passengers into the coach, with carpet sacks and express matter in the bottom ‘until your chin and knees came close enough together to make the one serve as a pillow for the other.’ In addition there were at times two ‘substantial ladies weighing about two hundred pounds avoirdupois, with all the crinoline fixings. . .’ However, the rate of travel was most pleasing. Those not caring for a seven-day-a-week diet of pork and beans, varied by beans and pork–the standard dish at all station houses, should take ‘a few cans of fruit, a few bottles of pickles, and many bottles of Bourbon or Otard [cognac].”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 71, n. 443
Montana Vigilantes
Now the Vigilantes—and Slade was one of them—struck. They struck by night, fastening a piece of paper bearing the cryptic 3-7-77 to the cabin doors of those given last warning to leave Montana, dragging from theor beds those to die.
Dabney Otis Collins, The Hanging of Bad Jack Slade, 44-45
California Tale
“California instils a respect for meum and tuum [mine and thine] ; he had made a ‘pile’ at the diggings—you never meet a man who has been there and has not—and had lost it gambling—I never met but one who had not lost his pile gambling—and then supported himself with his violin—I never met a fiddler whose instrument was not a violin—and here was the violin, like the bricks that proved Jack Cade’s lineage, to testify to the whole story.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 30
Brown's Defense of the Butterfield Route
Brown now undertook to justify his action, which seemed unlawful, and which had earned for him the hostility of the Northern press, of the contractors, and of the residents of upper California. He prepared a defensive article in which he attacked the South Pass route on the ground that snows precluded carrying mails over it during a fourth of the year.
Curtis Nettles, "The Overland Mail Issue During the 1850s," The Missouri Historical Review, XVIII, no. 4 (1924), 525
Mile 1707: Mountain Springs Station
“This station is very well signed, very easy to find and see.” Note that this is a short distance off the Pony Express route. Jan reports a cattle trough at the site of Mountain Springs.
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 white men in it ex-cept at Forts Leavenworth, Scott and Riley, and at Indian missions. Neither was there a town of any size within its borders. There were few roads, no schoolhouses or churches, and no stores or other business concerns necessary to develop communities, and no newspapers. In fact, Kansas territory in the spring of 1854, so far as civilized political, economic, commercial, and social institu-tions were concerned, was almost a total vacuum.
When Russell, Majors & Waddell signed a copartnership agreement on December 28, 1854, effective January 1, 1855, creating the great freighting firm of Waddell, Russell & Co., Majors & Russell, Majors, Russell & Company, or Russell, Majors & Waddell, as it was variously known, they evidently meant to assemble their trains at Westport and drive them to Fort Leavenworth for loading. In the meantime, however, they looked the situation in Kansas over and decided that entirely apart from the freighting business the new territory offered fabulous opportunities to capitalists able to grasp them. Consequently they established field headquarters in the infant town of Leavenworth. They opened a store under the name of Majors, Russell & Company, built a warehouse, an office, a blacksmith and wagon shop, a packing plant to provide meat for their trains, a sawmill on nearby Shawnee creek, a lumber yard, and corrals for their oxen.
A freight train consisting of eight wagons loaded with hardware for Denver, was attacked Sunday morning, August 7, 1864, by a party of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians. Five men were killed instantly, a sixth was mortally wounded, and the wagons were burned. (Brown, 2007) The bodies and smoking wagons were found by two young couples out for a Sunday morning ride from Thirty-Two Mile Creek station and on Monday morning Overland Stage Line employees from the station arrived. The wounded teamster was able to give a few details of the attack before he died. The men were buried beside the trails 140 yards south of the OCTA marker. This is the only known burial site of white men who met death in Adams County due to hostile Indian activity. The Nova-Color OCTA marker was installed in 1996 on the south side of the road at the edge of a broad and deep ditch. Franzwa’s Maps of the Oregon Trail shows ruts southeast of the markers, but with the installation of a center pivot irrigation system several years ago, they are no longer visible. The next image shows the flat marker indicating the burial site.
A great name has been found. Rogers was to make it Ourigan in his second proposal, 1772, and in 1778 Carver was to use the spelling that endured, Oregon. No one knows its provenance. And no one can mistake its reference: this was no actual river, it was that product of pure thought, the Great River of the West. In Rogers’s mind, presumably, it was associated with the Strait of Anian, the entrance of De Fonte, or something else he had got from Dobbs. When after seven years of turmoil, calumny, and disgrace Rogers again proposed his exploration, he had refined his ideas in the light of Carver’s. He now intended to go to the source of the Minnesota River, whose latitude he missed by less than one degree, and thence “to cross a twenty-mile Portage into a branch of the Missouri, and to stem that north-westerly to the Source: To cross thence a Portage of about thirty Miles into the great River Ourigan; to follow this great River through a vast and most populous Tract of Indian Country to the Straits of Anian …. ” This later proposal would be of only speculative interest, since Tute and Carver acted on the first and vaguer one, except for the positive statement that only a thirty-mile portage separates the Missouri waterway from the Oregon. As a generalized concept this idea was almost immortal, dating back to Verrazano, and it had had concrete embodiment since J olliet, but this is the form that was to be a fixture till 1805. Presumably it is due here to Dobbs, who probably got it from Coxe. Coxe made the “land carriage” even shorter, half a day “between the River Mechsebe [the Mississippi, not the Missouri] and the South Sea Stretching from America to Japan and China.”
Bernard De Voto, The Course of Empire, p. 246
Cholera in 1835
At Bellevue there was an inexplicable delay in getting the train ready. Then there was a further delay and when the impatient watchers on the Green finally met their companions they learned that there had come close to being no caravan at all this year. For while Fontenelle’s men lingered at Bellevue they began to fall sick with Asiatic cholera.
This was the cholera’s third year in the United States. And this, the first outbreak of cholera in North America, was part of the pandemic which began, so far as modern scholarship knows, in India in 1816. It was mankind’s worst epidemic since the Parable of the Samaritan (7835) 219 Black Death; it may have been worse than the Black Death. It burned slowly in native India for seven years but reached the Ganges delta in 1826. In three more years it came to the Caspian Sea and by 1830 it was flaming across Russia and the Near East. The next year it was at Mecca, whence the pilgrims, dying by the thousand, carried it into the southern Mohammedan lands. ‘The years 1831 and 1832 were terrible years throughout Europe. From the Caspian Sea the pestilence crossed by boat and caravan to the Black Sea and ascended the Danube into southern and central Europe . . . traveled along roads to the headwaters of the streams of the Baltic drainage area … it accompanied all human travel.’ 1 England first felt it in the summer of 1831 and the next year it was all over the British Isles.
Wretched Irishmen packed in the holds of emigrant ships brought it to Canada early in 1832. They and their hosts died like flies. It traveled up the St. Lawrence and came to the United States down Lake Champlain and by canal boat to Albany. From Albany it traveled down the Hudson to New York, reaching the city in a dead heat with other cases that came directly across the Atlantic. Meanwhile it traveled westward by the Ohio River and the Erie Canal. (We noted that in the fall of 1832 Maximilian stopped at New Harmony in fear of cholera and perhaps acquired a light case.) It traveled down the Great Lakef and all but wiped out the unfortunate detachment of soldiers whom Winfield Scott was taking to subdue Black Hawk. That was the year when John Wyeth, coming back broke from his uncomfortable trip to the mountains, reached the panic-stricken city of New Orleans, hired out as a gravedigger at two dollars a day, helped fill excavations with the dead, and finally caught the disease himself but survived. New Orleans suffered dreadfully in 1832 but had another ghastly outbreak in 1833, and in that latter year Missouri, Kentucky, and in fact all the interior valley experienced the same horrors that the seaboard had seen the year before. (Hope of avoiding the cholera determined Captain Stewart’s route to St. Louis.) That year saw the end of the American epidemic as such but the disease smouldered in many places, to break out viciously in some of them every year and eventually in 1849 to sweep much of the country again and to find an excellent forcing bed in the gold rush.
In 1833 the disease went up the Missouri as far as Fort Union, though it lost some of its virulence on the way. Thereafter there were pockets of it along the Mississippi. One of these was St. Louis, where a few cases begot the usual terror every year. Baring an occassional steamboat case on the way to Independence, however, it goes no farther west. But now, on Just 10, 1835, at bellvue the first victim in Fontanelle’s party showed the familiar symptoms. The disease strikes like a thinderclap and sometimes runs its course in a few hours. Diarrhoea and vomiting are severe from the beginning and soon become violent. Prostration is complete. The severe fluid loss, which may produce blood loss as well, shrinks and wrinkles the patient’s skin. His face grows hollow, his nose sharpens, he begins to turn blue. He is at an extreme of agony. In a few hours, or, at most, a few days, he dies or rounds the turn and begins to mend.
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 219-220
Mile 1280: Echo City, UT
“Exhibit A is Pulpit Rock, where, so the townspeople told us, Brigham Young stood to preach yo his followers in 1847 on the way to their new home in the Salt Lake Valley.”
[N.B. The historical marker is in the town, less than a mile from the Pony Express marker just before town. Also note, the Pony Express Bikepacking Route left the original Pony Express route around Mile 1232 (just past the Bear River station), and rejoins it in Echo.]
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 294
Leavenworth, KS
“Leavenworth, Kansas, at that time a squatter town on the Delaware Indian Reservation two miles south of the Fort, was chosen [in 1855] as headquarters for the firm [Russell, Majors & Waddell]. . . .
When the last employee was hired the company register bore the names of 1,700 employees. . . . Among the messengers employed to ride back and forth between [freight] trains on the road was ten-year-old William F. Cody, later known to world-wide fame as ‘Buffalo Bill.'”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 14
Mile 1020: Icy Slough
“The road continually crossed and recrossed the conspicuous ruts left by the caravans which at this point had saved weary miles by cutting off a bend in the river. Men and women both, and especially children, here had looked forward with a the keenest anticipation to the hour they would spend at Icy Slough.
We have many descriptions of the place, for inevitably it proved a diversion. Delano wrote that they here encountered a ‘morass, perhaps a mile in length by half a mile in breadth. Some of the boys, thinking that water could easily be obtained, took a spade, and going out on the wild grass, commenced digging. About a foot from the surface, instead of water, they struck a beautiful layer of ice, five or six inches in thickness.’ . . .
Companies planned to noon there for the sake of genuine enjoyment afforded. The travelers could use a little diversion; and, as a morale booster, Icy Slough, the last of the trail landmarks that everyone must pass, had few equals.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 221
Type of Mail Carried
“It is assumed by many that the mail carried by the Pony Express was comprised of letters from ordinary people to their friends and loved ones. That is not accurate. That’s not to say that it never happened, it is just that it was generally too expensive for most people. When it began, rates were $10.00 per ounce or $5.00 for a half ounce or less. For that reason, even business communications were generally short. Later, rates were lowered to $2.00 per ounce and $1.00 for a half ounce or less, but they were still expensive for ordinary people . . . The charge for letters sent by sea or by stage cost much less, only ten cents per half ounce, the cost of the stamp.”
William E. Hill, The Pony Express: Yesterday and Today, p. 19
Lower and Upper California Crossings
“Between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie there were only two divergences that are noteworthy; both pertain to the late period of the trail. Until 1859 all travel on the south bank of the Platte crossed the south fork of the river west of its junction with the north fork. The trail then moved northwest up the ‘peninsula’ between the south and north forks of the river and through Ash Hollow before reaching the valley of the North Platte. It then continued up the south bank to Fort Laramie. The discovery of gold in Colorado let to the Pike’s Peak trail southwestward up the South Platte and another connecting trail northward to the North Platte via Courthouse Rock, for which Julesburg, Colorado, became the new junction point.”
[N.B. The first crossing became known as the Lower California Crossing, and the later crossing near Julesburg was the North California Crossing. The Pony Express used the North California Crossing. Julesburg was the most problematic station at the opening of the Pony Express.]
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 6
Longest Infantry March in History
“Ira J. Willis was one of the volunteers who made up the Mormon Battalion. With him went his brother, Sidney Willis. The two traveled to California with the battalion, thus making what is conceded to be the longest infantry march in recorded history.”
Irene D. Paden, "The lra J. Willis Guide to the Gold Mines," p. 194
After Buffalo Chips
“And what, we may well ask, did the later travelers use for fuel in the years after the buffalo had been driven from the Platte Valley, especially throughout the treeless two-hundred-mile stretch now ending [after the road entered the Black Hills west of Fort Laramie]? The question has been answered by the veteran stage man and freighter, Alexander Majors, of the famous firm, Majors, Russell & Waddell. he writes: ‘Strange to say the economy of nature was such, in this particular, that the large number of work-animals left at every camping-place fuel sufficient, after being dried by the sun, to supply the necessities of the next caravan or party that traveled along. In this way the fuel supply was inexhaustible while animals traveled and fed upon the grasses. This, however, did not apply to travel east of the Missouri, as the offal from the animals there soon became decomposed and was entirely worthless for fuel purposes.'”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 168
Pony Express Using Chorpenning's Stations
“Russell, Majors and Waddell’s pony express company became the immediate beneficiary of Chorpenning’s demise. On the same day that Chorpenning’ s service was terminated, William Russell signed a contract with the post office on behalf of Russell & Jones Company, a subsidiary of Russell, Majors and Waddell. Russell agreed to provide the same semi-monthly service at $30,000 per year-$47,000 less than Chorpenning. The new contractor immediately seized the stations, stock, and equipment along Chorpenning’s mail line. From May of 1860 until the termination of the Pony Express in October of 1861, both Russell & Jones and the U.S. mail utilized the stations and route established by the Chorpenning mail between Placerville and Salt Lake City. Subsequently, the Union Telegraph and the Overland Stage Company also adopted the trail blazed by the Chorpenning mail carriers.
“Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express: The Great Gamble (Berkeley, California: Howell-North, 1959), 28, suggests when the Pony Express established its route in February and March of 1860, it ‘borrowed or appropriated’ many of Chorpenning’s stations. In a letter of April 16, 1861 to the Salt Lake City Deseret News, W. H. Shearman of Ruby Valley clearly stated that the Pony Express simply helped itself to Chorpenning’s assets. Shearman’s persuasive and pungent letter is quoted in Journal History, April 16, 1861, LDS Library-Archives.”
John M. Townley, "Stalking Horse for the Pony Express: The Chorpenning Mail Contracts between California and Utah, 1851-1860", Arizona and the West, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1982), p. 251 and n.55
Semi-Arid and Sub-Humid Climate
“There has been a tendency on the part of writers to mix a good deal of sentiment with their history of the West. Because of the peculiar difficulties to be overcome there, the West has been a land of adventure, of hardship, ar.d of novel experience. There is a glamour about it that is hard to dispel, that eludes analysis and simple statement. It does not make a writer popular to speak of the shortcomings and deficiencies of a country, and to do so is to bring down upon one a local storm of adverse criticism. Even the scientist has to apologize for designating certain regions as arid or semi-arid, and some of them have used the term u sub-humid” in order to shield themselves from the local critics.
Major J. W. Powell says he adopted the term “sub-humid” to keep from offending those who object to the terms “semi-arid” and “arid.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 321 and n. 1
Green River Basin to the Mormons
Two days into the land of promise, they saw little that was promising. Pilot Butte and then Church Butte, well-known landmarks were on their left, to the southeast. Far to the northwest the three Tetons lifted their pure needles, and the “Utah” or “Bear River” mountains—the Uintas—were a snowy crest along the south. But the country they traveled through was “hard-faced,” its soil “as hard as cast iron” and barren of anything but sage. For lack of a campsite with grass and water they had to drive 23 3/4 miles, the longest day’s travel yet, before they corralled by moonlight on the bank of the Big Sandy.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 156-157
Mormon's Motivations for Unruly Activities
“If Gentiles in the 1850s found abundant reasons for antagonism toward the Church, the Mormons also had strong motivation for unruly activities. In their early history they had been treated with a cruel intolerance, the memories of which they carried with them to Utah. After struggling against famine in their new home, and at times reduced to eating the animal skins used as shelter, they had at last built the basis for economic survival. Then had come new trouble wit their opponents, indicting that their patient suffering had not after all taken them beyond persecution. Federal officials had meddled in their affairs, apparently with the intention of overthrowing their carefully devised political system. The uncertainty of their title to the land, the cancellation of their mail contract—these and other important events seemed to them proof of the Government’s intention to oppress them even in the remoteness of the Salt Lake Basin. . . .
The leaders of the Church never let the people forget their past misfortunes. . . .
The tendency toward emotionalism on the part of the Mormons, so unsettling in relations between Utah and the nation, was heightened by a religious revival during 1856. . . .Violence of language had been characteristic of the Saints in the past. During the reformation, when the leaders of the Church shared the excitement of their congregations, speech from the pulpit became even more frenetic. . . .
It was inevitable that the reformation, as its emotional frenzy increased, should not affect not only the lives of the people but their relations with the United States, for it made the Saints more intolerant of Gentiles in Utah and more unresponsive to the Government’s authority during 1856 and 1857. Some writers have blamed the Mountain Meadows Massacre upon the hysteria let loose by the revival. . . .
At any rate there can be no doubt that the revival, by increasing the hostility of the Saints toward the Gentiles and their Government, helped precipitate the Mormon War of 1857.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 91-94
Chiles in 1849
“Those who came later were unfortunate in encountering early snows. Among these was that veteran of veterans, Joseph Chiles. He left Independence on May 1, and went by Salt Lake City. He took the Carson Route, which he had helped to open in ’41 and ’48. Unfortunately, as his custom seems to have been, he had taken his time. Caught by a snowstorm on the pass, he was forced to abandon several loaded wagons, and lost about a hundred cattle. Finally, as he had done so often before, he won through. He arrived with 115 head of fine cattle, including a thoroughbred Durham Bull.”
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 310-311
Mile 969: Independence Rock
“Like the emigrants, we approached the rock from the east side—a lusty monolith, a mile in circumference, and seemingly one solid piece of gray granite. No wonder that this tremulous outpost of the hard-rock country struck sparks from the sandstone-weary migration. For that matter there is nothing frivolous about the Sweetwater Range, or, as the emigrants called it, the Rattlesnake or Granite Mountains—a substantial little item rising in full view to the right and flaunting its nakedness in the teeth of the Rockies. It is a bars ridge of solid rock, and on the occasion of this, our first visit the knuckle ends of its protruding bones were slowly mellowed by reflected light from the vast copper bowl of the gathering sunset to a pale polished coffee color. . . .
Most people know that Independence Rock is called the Great Register of the Desert. Even so, a few facts about it and the thousands of names that at one time appeared upon it, may not come amiss. From earliest days it was noted as a landmark and a camping place for the fur trader’s expeditions. Not a man among them but knew every foot of its surrounding country. Many of the early travelers thought that its name might have been evolved because of its sturdy isolation; but Asahel Munger, a missionary Oregon-bound in 1839, was told by Harris, well known mountain man, that the name Independence was bestowed upon it in 1830 by trappers of the American Fur Company who happened to spend the Fourth of July camped in its shadow.
Until after 1849, the Sweetwater ford was immediately at the rock . . .”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 208-209
Mail as Instrument of Empire
As soon as the idea of the overland stage was suggested, the postal feature of it became subsidiary to other interests. The Senate Committee in 1849 recognized then that here was a scheme for stimulating the movement of population into the West. The overland stage would promote emigration by establishing a safe line of travel; it would lead to the development of the resources of the West; it would bind California to the Union, socially and politically, by affording quick communication between coast and coast; its stations would become the nuclei of settlements; and, above all, it would prepare the way for the much-talked-of Pacific railroad.
Curtis Nettles, "The Overland Mail Issue During the 1850s," The Missouri Historical Review, XVIII, no. 4 (1924), 522
Impetus for Mormon Handcart Emigration
Some converts, especially those able to pay their own ship fare, had made a practise of settling temporarily in the eastern or midwestern states, wherever they could find jobs that would help them assemble an outfit to bring their families in some comfort to the valley. Plenty of the poor would have· jumped at the same chance, if the Church would have brought them across the Atlantic. But all Church experience indicated that among those who stopped short of Zion there was a high apostasy rate. In his letters of instruction, Brigham warned against those who would use the P.E. Fund’s help simply as a means of getting to America and escaping their economic trap. It was desirable that all emigrants sent under P.E. Fund auspices be sent all the way at once. That meant a greater expenditure per person; and the effort to reduce that expenditure meant, inevitably, the proposal to bring them across the plains with their small belongings in handcarts.
“Let all things be done in order,” said the Thirteenth General Epistle of October 29, 1855, “and let all the Saints who can, gather up for Zion and come while the way is open before them; let the poor also come, whether they receive aid or not from the Fund, let them come on foot, with handcarts or wheelbarrows; let them gird up their loins and walk through, and nothing shall hinder or stay them.”
Coming from one who had three times traveled the Mormon Trail, who had seen hundreds of the trailworn emerge from the mouth of Emigration Canyon, who was in constant touch with the missionaries and captains bringing in converts, and who had himself served in the British mission and knew the physical specimens that the missionary nets dredged up there, the Epistle was recklessly optimistic. It was the statement of a man who wanted something to be possible, not of one who knew it to be. It was more hortatory than sound. It minimized difficulties, especially those related to illness and infirmity; it failed to sound adequate warnings; it persisted in the statistical view of an earlier letter Brigham had sent to Franklin Richards: “Fifteen miles a day will bring them through in 70 days, and after they get accustomed to it they will travel 20, 25, and even 30 with all ease … the little ones and sick, if there are any, can be carried on the carts, but there will be none sick in a little time after they get started.”
Those have been described by anti-Mormon writers as the words of a man willing to break eggs to make an omelet. It is perhaps fairer to say that in this instance Brigham was letting his impatience for growth and strength cloud his usually sound judgment, or was perhaps depending too incautiously on the caution of his agents. But he was surely not averse, either, to the principle of trying and testing his people, nor were they unwilling to be tested. Because he was the Prophet of the Lord, what he said was totally accepted, and used by both missionaries and converts to justify an adventure which common sense undazzled by prophecy might have annulled, or at least limited. Brother Brigham urged it, his missionaries and agents urged it, Piercy’s Route from Liverpool showed them idealized scenes of a road along which he and a company of people like themselves had passed without incident, their friends and relatives in Zion wrote urgent letters, saying “Come.”
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 223-25
Assoil
“By the slaughtered body of St. Parley Pratt (whom God assoil!) there was never anything on this earth like it !”
[assoil (archaic): absolve, pardon]
Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 123
Mile 291: Oregon Trail Marker on Juniata Road
This section of the trail falls between branches of Thirty-Two Mile Creek and is very smooth. The inscription on the granite stone reads, “Oregon Trail Marked by the State of Nebraska 1912.” Scout troop 192 helped erect this marker.
Located at https://goo.gl/maps/uLX6HFid7PJHAMkV6. Note: The XP Bikepacking Route goes north of this marker. I you want to see it, sty on Oak Ridge to Junaita, then turn right. It rejoins the XP Trail about one mile up, just past the marker.
“Taylor spent a week at Point Isabel building the earthworks he should have finished a month before, then, on May 7, started back to relieve the fort. His West Pointers begged him not to take the massive train, which could be brought up later in complete safety, but he had no patience with textbook soldiers … Well, what did he have? A sound principle: attack. A less valuable one which was to serve him just as well in this war: never retreat. Total ignorance of the art of war. And an instinct, if not for command, at least for leadership. He had been hardened in years of petty frontier duty, he had no nerves and nothing recognizable as intelligence, he was afraid of nothing, and he was too unimaginative to know when he was being licked, which was fortunate since he did not know how to maneuver troops. Add to this a dislike of military forms and procedures and a taste for old clothes and you have a predestinate candidate for the Presidency. The army and even some of the West Pointers worshiped him.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 193
Russell Purchases Hockaday's Mail Route
While the stage line was being gotten into operation Russell branched out in a new direction to assume another heavy liability. On May 11, 1859, he bought the contract of J. M. Hockaday & Company to carry United States mail from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake City by way of Forts Kearny and Laramie. This transaction, also mostly upon credit, was made for the Stage company in the name of Russell and Jones. The purchase price was $144,000.00. After the initial trip the stage route to Denver was changed to run by way of Fort Kearny, the Upper California Crossing on the Platte River, along that stream, and thus to its destination via St. Vrains Fort. . . .
It required only about six months for the Express Company’s sands to run out. Notes were falling due and Russell had no money with which to pay them. It had cost about $1,000.00 per day to operate, and the concern within that time had succeeded in piling up debts to the amount of $525,532.” It owed Russell, Majors & Waddell $190,269. Its assets, figured on a generous basis, amounted to only $423,690.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 27-28
Magraw and the Survey of Fort Kearny, South Pass, and Honey Lake Wagon Road
“[In] 1857 Congress passed the Pacific Wagon Road Act. The act appropriated three hundred thousand dollars to survey and construct the ‘Fort Kearney, South Pass, and Honey Lake Wagon Road.’ Having bitterly alienated the people of Utah while mismanaging the federal mail contract for the territory, William M.F. Magraw [sometimes spelled ‘McGraw’] used his immaculate political connections [i.e., his friendship with President Buchanan] to win appointment as the project’s superintendent.. . .
A notorious alcoholic, Magraw managed to squander much of the appropriation before leaving the frontier. With Tim Goodale, the expedition’s guide and interpreter, he smuggled more than three tons of liquor to Fort Laramie in government wagons. As a disgusted military officer wrote the survey’s officers concluded Magraw was ‘an ignorant blackguard, totally unfit for the head of such an expedition, while the chief engineer [William Lander] is.”
[N.B. “Goodale and Magraw could not come to terms [regarding the alcohol] at jouney’s end. Although the guide pulled the superintendent’s beard and tromped on his feet to invoke a fight as a means of settling the matter in true mountain style, the dispute had to be adjudicated by the officers at Fort Laramie. Five days were lost as a result of the altercation.” W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West, p. 197]
Will Bagley, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, Location 3341 [Kindle Edition]
Early Overland Mail Proposals
The idea of carrying mails overland by stage was of early origin. In 1849, a petition embodying a plan for a continental mail was recommended to the Senate by the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads. At the close of the same year, a second petitioner, William Bayard, offered to open a road to California and to carry mails over it “once a week in four-horse coaches.” Two years later, Henry O’Reilly proposed to establish a route through “Nebraska, the Desert, California and Oregon,” and to erect stockades upon it, each twenty miles apart, for the quartering of “twenty dragoons,” two of whom should ride daily between posts and carry express and mails. This plan received nation-wide attention, for its author was a successful telegraph builder.
Curtis Nettles, "The Overland Mail Issue During the 1850s," The Missouri Historical Review, XVIII, no. 4 (1924), 521
Stagecoach Drivers
“Shortly after the Captain Reassumed Command of the Post, he and I were invited to the stage station, one day, for dinner. There was a long table with about ten on each side. They were the drivers of the stage line, about as rough and jolly a lot of men as I ever saw. They were talking about the Indian scare, and the probabilities of an Indian outbreak, and how General P. Edward Connor was coming through from Salt Lake to take charge. And the whole dinner was a loud and uproarious occasion. The profanity was pyrotechnic.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864>/em>, p. 397
Wagons Across the North Platte
“There were those [at the North Platte Crossing], as at any ferry, who could not or would not pay the price and who used self-constructed substitutes. To these novices the strong west wind was an additional hazard—a twin current flowing above the river. It caught the rumbled in the capacious bellies of the white-topped wagons, swelling them into sails that flung the rafts downstream. Pulling men were dragged into the current. Ropes snapped. Rafts capsized. . . .One experience was enough to teach everyone present to remove the wagon tops during a ferry trip in a windstorm; but the next playful breeze, sneaking up after a two- or three-day calm, would catch a new group unprepared.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 196
Free to Own Another Man
The Emancipation Proclamation appears to have been the catalyst that launched the unfortunate slave on a journey to his doom. That spring, according to Owens’ letter, the slave’s master, afraid he would lose his slaves as a result of the war, but ignoring the federal prohibition against slavery in the territories, took his valuable human property and joined the Great Migration. The little party departed for the frontier with the belief that way out West a man could still be free to own another man without government interference.
Todd Guenther, “‘Could These Bones Be From a Negro?’” Overland Journal 19, no. 2 (Summer 2001), 48
Mile 238: The Narrows
“The regular correspondent of the St. Louis Missouri Democrat went over the line in June, 1861, and wrote from Denver to his paper (issue of July 9): ‘Taking into consideration the distance and the nature of the country through which this Company has located its route, it is without doubt the most convenient and best equipped of any on the continent. The road itself cannot be surpassed; there is but one bad piece in it from St. Joseph to Denver. I allude to what is called the “Narrows,” which are on the [Little] Blue, about two hundred miles from St. Joseph, and are caused by the near approach of the river to the bluffs. . . . This is no doubt a dangerous pass for an inexperienced driver; but none such are employed by the company. . . .
‘In passing the Narrows, our party experienced no little uneasiness . . . and by dark we had fully made up our minds to receive a bath. . . . The moon went down . . . the night became so black that it was impossible to see a foot from the coach, the wind came bowling wildly over the prairie, and the incessant noshes of lightning, together with the sharp peals of thunder, breaking seemingly just overhead. . . . Charley (the driver] lighted the coach lamps, meantime answering indefinitely questions put in agitated tones. We gathered, however that we must get through the Narrows before the rain reached us. . . .
“‘Presently we knew the coach to be entering a gulch, close to one side the lightning revealed the waters of the Blue, on the other the rough sides of the bluff, and as we slowly passed a crevice the bright eyes of a coyote, crouched a few yards from the window, flashed in menacingly upon us. . . . Suddenly there was cry from the box to ‘!ean to the right.’ No set of frightened school boys ever obeyed more quickly the commands of a severe pedagogue. . . . As we moved the coach took on abrupt turn, the lash was vigorously applied to the mules, and the next moment the cheering cry of “all right” relieved us of all further enxiety. In making this turn the near wheels come within a foot of the bank, the road inclines toward the river, so that if the ground happens to be wet there is no way to prevent the conch sliding off into the water, or too short a tum upsetting the institution and its contents . ‘ (A map of the Narrows is given in Root and Connelley, Overland Stage, p. 364.)”
george Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 72, n. 447
Meaning of the Plains in American Life
“This problem may best be approached through a brief resume. It has been pointed out that the ninety-eighth meridian separates the United States into two equal parts, that the Anglo-Americans who approached the Great Plains from the east came with an experience of more than two centuries of pioneering in the woodland environment, and that when they crossed over into the Plains their technique of pioneering broke down and they were compelled to make a radical readjustment in their way of life. The key to an understanding of the history of the West must be sought, therefore, in a comparative study of what was in the East and what came to be in the West. The salient truth, the essential truth, is that the West cannot be understood as a mere extension of things Eastern. Though “the roots of the present lie deep in the past,” it does not follow that the fruits of the present are the same or that the fruits of the West are identical with those of the East. Such a formula would destroy the variable quality in history and make of it an exact science. In history the differences are more important than the similarities. When one makes a comparative study of the sections, the dominant truth which emerges is expressed in the word contrast.
The contrast begins in geology and topography and is continued in climate, reflected in vegetation, apparent in wild animal life, obvious in anthropology, and not undiscernible in history. To the white man, with his forest culture, the Plains presented themselves as an obstacle, one which served to exercise and often defeat his ingenuity, to upset his calculations, to hinder his settlement, and to alter his weapons, tools, institutions, and social attitudes; in short, to throw his whole way of life out of gear. The history of the white man in the Great Plains is the history of adjustments and modifications, of giving up old things that would no longer function for new thinis that would, of giving up an old way of life for a new way in order that there might be a way. Here one must view the white man and his culture as a dynamic thing, moving from the forest-clad land into the treeless plain.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 507-508
John Colter and Blackfeet Antipathy
Colter reached the equator of the Missouri, the mouth of the Platte and there met a big party coming upriver, bound for the rich beaver country which the return of Lewis and Clark had publicized. It was commanded by the veteran St. Louis trader Manuel Lisa, the shrewdest mind in the business and by far the most successful bourgeois the American trade was to have during its first period. Lisa had hired George Drewyer as his guide and principal dependence in the new country. He had also hired the John Potts and Peter Wiser who had been with Lewis and Clark, and now he got another member of the great company. For again Colter turned back to the wilderness, and this time he marched into American legendry. Where the Big Horn River empties into the Yellowstone, a site that had been duly recommended by William Clark, Lisa built the first post of the Western fur trade. Thence he sent Colter to find the Blackfeet and bring them in to trade. Without companions Colter made a journey so remarkable that it makes one’s breath catch. His route has been much disputed and will never be confidently established, but he went up the Big Horn and found the Stinking-Water River (more gently the Shoshone in these days) and the neighboring bitumen springs and thermal phenomena that were called “Colter’s Hell” thereafter – and were laughed at by greenhorns back home as a damned amusing lie. He crossed the Divide, the first white man to do so after the expedition, and traveled across part of the more spectacular hell that is now Yellowstone National Park. Before he met the Blackfeet he met their implacable enemies the lcrows and traveled with them. So when the enemies met he had to fight with the Crows, killing some Blackfeet.
Some writers have held that this encounter sealed or perhaps created the murderous hostility to American trappers that the Blackfeet maintained for many years. Probably it was more complex than that, and perhaps a great part of it was the natural belligerence of the Blackfeet who never kept the peace with anyone for very long, not even with themselves, but there is no doubt that the anti-American policy existed. And in the next year and a half Colter helped a good many Blackfeet find the sunset trail.
Bernard De Voto, The Course of Empire, p. 491-92
Jim Clyman on Hastings' Cutoff
“The wagon train grew quiet but this one fire was kept blazing – a carmine splash against the blue-velvet night, the desert stars near above it, the white bow of a wagon top behind, and, farther away, the singing of drunken Missourians at the fort and the screaming of drunken Sioux. [Jim] Clyman talked on. He knew Hastings’ plans, he knew what Hastings would tell these innocents near South Pass. And he had just crossed – with Hastings – from the bend of the Humboldt to Fort Bridger by way of the Salt Desert, Great Salt Lake, and the Wasatch Mountains. A Sioux yipped, the barking of coyotes ringed the sleeping caravan, and Jim told his listeners: take the familiar trail, the regular, established trail by way of Soda Springs and Fort Halt. Do not try a cutoff, do not try anything but the known, proved way. “It is barely possible to get through [before the snows] if you follow it-and it may be impossible if you don’t.” Shock and alarm struck the travelers and made them angry, who were still far short of South Pass, whose minds could map that weary angle from Fort Bridger to Fort Hall and back again to the Humboldt. Tense and bellicose, Reed spoke up (Jim records his words), “There is a nigher route, and it is no use to take so much of a roundabout course.” Reference to Lansford Hastings’ book, Jacob Donner’s copy bought at Springfield, back in the States, now scanned by firelight at Fort Bernard, a well-thumbed passage marked with lines. The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, page 137: “The most direct route, for the California emigrants, would be to leave the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east from Fort Hall; thence bearing west southwest to the Salt Lake; and then continuing down to the bay of San Francisco. ” Proved. And someone would spit into the fire.
(When Lansford Hastings wrote that passage he had never seen the Humboldt, or Great Salt Lake, or the Wasatch Mountains, or the Salt Desert; neither he nor anyone else had ever taken the trail here blithely imagined by a real-estate man who wanted to be President or mortgagee of California.)
Yes. But Jim has just traveled that route, and if they would save their skins, they will not take it, they will go by way of Fort Hall. “I . . . told him about the great desert and the roughness of the Sierras, and that a straight route might turn out to be impracticable.” Told him about the glare of the salt plain under sun and without water. Told him about the Diggers lurking outside the camps to kill the stock. Told him about the chaos of the Wasatch canyons which Jim Clyman and Lansford Hastings, who were on horseback and had no wagons and so no need of a road, had barely got through.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 184-185
Signs for Tribes
” . . . and spoke of the loss of the Sioux [at Ash Hollow], making the sign of that nation—rather an unpleasant one, the hand drawn edgewise across the throat. The sign of the Crows is the fore-finger jerked about in the air peculiarly; of the Snakes making an undulating line with the finger pointing to the ground; and so of other nations or tribes.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 75-76
Bond Scandal Fallout
“There is little doubt that this affair, aggravated by the financial difficulties of the time and the accumulated irregularities of the past, virtually destroyed the credit of Russell, Majors & Waddell and made their financial failure a certainty, precisely as Russell had feared. Can there be any wonder that the government declined to give a new contract for the overland mail to a firm which had condoned such practices?”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 87
Performance of the Butterfield Line
“Even though northern interests continued to criticize the selection of a southern route by postmaster general Brown, mail service on the southern route proved satisfactory, averaging twenty-one to twenty-five days. First-class postage for letters was three cents per half ounce, and each stage carried an average of 170 pounds of letter mail and another 140 pounds of newspapers. By 1860, more mail was carried by Butterfield coaches than by any other means of transportation.”
Anthony Godfrey, Historic Research Study Pony Express National Historic Trail, p. 16
Overland Travel by 1860
“By 1860 overlanders did not even need to travel in the traditional manner: they could bounce from Missouri to California as passengers in the stagecoaches specified in the government mail contracts. If, as most continued to do, they chose to travel in the customary covered wagons or by pack train, they did so on trails that had been surveyed, shortened, graded, and improved by government employees. Overlanders even enjoyed the luxury of crossing bridged streams and watering their stock at large reservoirs. For the injured or ill there were army hospitals along the route, and sutlers, blacksmiths, and generous commanding officers standing ready to distribute provisions to destitute travelers. There were even post offices where letters were mailed and received. More important, there were troops to escort overlanders along dangerous portions of the trail, and Indian agents to negotiate with chiefs and buy or bribe native acquiescence to overland travel. the government had transformed the trail into a road.
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 242-243
Majors on the Platte River Road
Alexander Majors of the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell termed the Fort Kearny route the best natural road on the continent and believed it the best in the world.
California’s white population climbed from about 2,00 in 1848 to 100,000 by 1858. The tiny village of San Francisco, which had 200 residents in 18461 became the official port of entry, and by 1852 it was a boomtown of 36,000.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 120
Development of the Trail by 1860
By the winter of 1856-57, when Little and Hanks were again briefly carrying the mail in the interval between the abrogation of the McGraw contract and the signing of the contract with the Y.X. Express, the route between Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie could count on the use of trader cabins on the Big Sandy, at Pacific Springs, at Devil’s Gate, at Independence Rock, and at the Platte bridge, and the great surge of hauling that accompanied the Utah War made those places into permanent stage stations. In 1860, when Richard Burton made his celebrated trip to Zion to study, among other things, the sex habits of the Mormons, he found Ward’s Station two hours out of Fort Laramie on the Black Hills road; Horseshoe Station, run by Jack Slade, on Horseshoe Creek; a station “in the building” on the La Bonte; Wheeler’s Station on Box Elder Creek; a Sioux agency and station on Deer Creek; a station on Little Muddy Creek; and the station of Louis Guenot, the bridge owner, near the Last Crossing. Beyond Last Crossing his stage stopped at Red Buttes Station, Willow Springs Station, Plante’s station above Devil’s Gate, the ranch of Luis Silva below the Three Crossings of the Sweetwater, the Three Crossings station itself, the Foot of the Ridge Station, a ranch run by two Canadians at Willow Creek, Pacific Springs Station, Big Sandy Station, McCarthy’s station on the Green, Michael Martin’s store farther down the Green, Ham’s Fork Station, Holmes’ station at “Millersville” on the Smith Fork, and finally Fort Bridger. Reported us and omniscient style, it seems a populous road.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 295-96
Platte Valley Plantlife
From the station [Latham, CO] south it was a level, gravelly, sandy plain as far as the eye could see. It was practically the same all along the south fork of the Platte, except at intervals there were clusters of cottonwood and willows. Some of the gulches extending at right angles to the river had an occasional small cedar grove, the trees being badly stunted. Freighters and pilgrims by the Platte route used to cut the cedars and use them for fuel in cooking while camping; so they were soon all gone. Buffalo, or bunch-grass was abundant all along the valley, and this made the finest pasturage. Stock grew fat on it. Cattle would leave the taller grass along the banks of the stream and gradually move back on higher ground to the nutritious buffalo-grass, which appeared the natural feed for them. It was practically the same nearly all the way from Latham up the Cache la Poudre.”
Root and Connelley, The Overland Stage to California, p. Note, p. 319-20
Texas or Cherokee Oxen
“The oxen were not, in general, the massive beasts bred in the northeast but were range cattle from Texas or the Cherokee country. While they should be large and at least four years old for best performance, they actually varied greatly. One man said that they were ‘of every character and description—some of them very small, but having horns of immense size, that we boys used to say that the meat of the steer could be packed in its horns.’ . . . According to a merchant of Nebraska City who had done some freighting, the Texas steer made the best leader; quick on his feet, he could, and at times did, outrun a horse.”
Henry Pickering Walker, The Wagonmasters (1966), p. 107
Eye Witness Account of Slade's Hanging
“J. M. Venable, mining man of Boise, Idaho, is the only living witness [in 1928] of Slade’s hanging. He knew him well and describes him as weighing about 160 pounds, five feet eight inches with dark red hair and dark hazel eyes.”
Florabel Muir, "The Man Who Was Hanged for a Song," Liberty Magazine, June 30, 1928, p. 45
Trail Narratives Celebrate Triumph
“But such exotica as Indians (exotic when not at war) and Mormons were not what Overland Trail stories were really about. What emerges is the danger, hardship, loneliness, and boredom of life in a cross-country caravan. The pioneer-narrators were not merely complaining about what they had to endure – hardly that at all. They were proclaiming, and with a justifiable pride, that they had overcome danger and hardship and had mastered loneliness and privation, and had struggled their way through to the end of the road. End-of-trail stories show this quite clearly. The wreckage of wagons, the litter of household goods, the quickly improvised gravestones by the trail’s side were not merely curiosities of the journey. They were statements that many had failed – either through death or discouragement – but that the writer had gone ahead and succeeded where those others had had to turn back or be buried. The Overland Trail narrative, one of the few genuinely American genres, celebrates a triumph over nature and adversity. In that way as well it is a genre of the American West.
Bruce Rosenberg, The Code of the West, p. 77
Aid from the Ogallala
“For a time the prospect looked very gloomy, from the fact that our provisions were nearly gone, and there was no possible chance apparently for getting more supplies. About two days after going to our new camp, however, a party of Ogallala Sioux Indians came by with their ponies loaded down with fresh buffalo meat, which they were taking to their camp to dry. The Indians were quite friendly, gave us some fresh meat, and also the information that their camp was but a few miles off, over the bluffs by a spring, at the mouth of another canon opening into the valley of the North Platte River. They invited us to come over and stay at their village, telling us also that the French traders, Dripps and Madret were there; and could possibly let us have some provisions.”
Moses H. Sydenham, "Freighting Across the Plains in 1856—A Personal Experience," in Proceedings and Collections of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Vol 1, No. 1, p. 175-176
Great Plains and the Balance Between North and South
“The Great Plains presented a barrier which arrested for a time the whole westward movement, but the barrier was greater for the South than for the North. The Northern system, founded in individual ownership of land and free labor, was modified when it entered the Great Plains region, but its essential character was not changed. The Southern system, founded on slavery and cotton, was barred by an infrangible law – bounded on the west by aridity just as effectually as it was on the north by cold. Thus did the Great Plains break the balance between the North and the South and turn the advantage to the Northern section, making its ideals, rather than those of the South, national.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 155
The Prairie in Spring
They were on the route which Ashley’s men had established and along which the United States was to follow its western star. (Oregon began at the Continental Divide, that is, halfway through Wyoming, and from the western end of the pass that crossed the Divide you could see the tips of Mexican mountains.) They headed westward into Kansas, then turned northwest, crossing innumerable creeks and such rivers as the Kansas and the Big Blue. Beyond that the Little Blue, which brought them to Nebraska, and on to the Coasts of the Nebraska, the valley of the Platte. This was prairie country, lush with grass that would be belly-high on your horse, or higher, by June. In May it was spongy from violent rains, in long stretches little better than a bog. The rains struck suddenly and disastrously, drowning you out of your blankets, interspersed with snow flurries or showers of hailstones as big as a fist, driven by gales that blew your possessions over the prairie and froze your bones. Continuous deafening thunder might last for hours at a time. It stampeded the stock, by day scattering packs for five miles perhaps, by night scattering horses and mules even farther — and every one had to be searched for till it was found. Every creek was a river, every river a sound, and every brook a morass — and across these a hundred and fifty horses and mules, with sheep and the cows, had to be cursed, beaten, and sometimes pulled by ropes. They squealed, snorted, bolted, bit, kicked, and got mired down. The prairies were beautiful with flowers, waving grasses, and the song of birds — all carefully noted in Stewart’s novels — but not during the spring rains.
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 23
Period Rush
“As a channel evolves into ever more extreme loops, eventually two separate bends may approach one another and join. When this occurs, the river takes the shortcut and establishes a new channel, bypassing the cutoff loop. The abandoned channels, which may be miles long on large rivers, record the curve of the channel like a letter C or U. Geologists call such abandoned channels oxbows because their curves are reminiscent of the U-shaped pieces of wood that fasten the yokes onto the necks of oxen (see fig. 2.3). The emigrants-despite handling real oxbows every day-didn’t use that term. They called the abandoned channels sloughs.
When they first form, oxbows contain standing water—a haven for mosquito larvae. Over time, with no moving water to keep them scoured, these stagnant ponds fill in to become low, swampy depressions. Emigrants along the Humboldt saw oxbows at all stages, from fresh ones holding several feet of water to ones that had progressed to the swampy stage. You can see the same thing along the river today. And if you want a “period rush,” as history buffs call it—meaning that you want to transcend time and touch the past in a personal way—then wait for dusk on a summer evening along the banks of the Humboldt River. As the sun slides below the horizon, the keening mosquito hordes emerge from the thickets, proboscises armed and ready. That’s when any spark of romance that you might still feel about the westward journey winks out, and you feel only profound gratitude for living in an age of sealed windows and insect repellant.”
Keith Heyer Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 216
Reasons for Emigrating
“What made people head west in rising numbers, even before the days of gold? One important factor was disease. Midwestern farmers, especially those in the swampy bottomlands along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, regularly endured outbreaks of malaria, smallpox, flu, and cholera during the 1830s and 1840s. Western promoters described Oregon and California as disease-free paradises.
Another push was the financial panic of 1837, whose effects spilled forward into the 1840s. By the 1830s, midwestern farmers were producing huge amounts of food—far more than the economy could absorb once it entered the 1837 depression. Prices for farm goods plummeted. Wheat sold for far less than the cost of raising it; prices of bacon and lard fell so low that river steamboats burned it for fuel. Meanwhile the U.S. population was surging, with farms pushing out to the Missouri River. By the 1840s, the combination of economic pressure and land hunger was pulling more and more people overland to Oregon or California.
And the land was there for the taking–as long as one ignored Indian claims to it. The Preemption Act of 1841 held that anyone who squatted on public land for fourteen months had first right, once the land was surveyed, to buy up to 160 acres at a set minimum price. The Preemption Act presaged the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act of I85’0 and the famous Homestead Act of 18 62. These laws granted free land, up to certain limits, to anyone who demonstrated commitment to living on the land and improving it. Even during the gold rush years, many emigrants headed west for land, not gold. California promoters stoked the emigration fires with hyperbolic descriptions of the mild climates, fertile soils, and the beauty of the Sacramento Valley. Lansford Hastings, for instance, claimed that compared to California, “the deep, rich, alluvial soil of the Nile, in Egypt, does not afford a parallel.”
Beyond these concrete motives for emigration, there was the simple allure of new beginnings in an expansionist age-an age of Manifest Destiny. It is “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence,” journalist John O’Sullivan wrote in 1845, thus coining the famous phrase. Many saw westward expansion as America’s God-given right, and to hell with those who claimed otherwise—like Mexico. ”
Keith Heyer Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 72-73
Mile 946: Willow Springs
“In time [the emigrants] passed. out of the poison-spring region, went over a snappy ridge, and came to Willow Springs at a distance of twenty-six miles from the ferry. In years of little travelit was the perfect oasis, pure water in a tiny willow grove surrounded by untainted grass. During heavy migrations the grass soon disappeared, and the cattle of the poor or improvident man went unfed at the end of a grueling day’s work. The water never failed.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 205-206
Hurt and the Mormons
“More important than Burr’s encounters with the Saints in Utah was the concurrent reappearance of the quarrel over the Church’s policy toward the Indians. Previous agents, especially Jacob Holeman, had collided with Young on this matter and had helped broadcast the conviction that the people of Utah were seeking to subvert the Indians. Garland Hurt, the new agent, brought this situation to a head. . . .His opposition to their Indian policy was more determined than that of any other man in this period, and he further antagonized the Church by winning a wide influence among the tribes under his jurisdiction. In addition, unlike many federal officers, he did not react in panic to the anathemas of the Saints’ leaders; instead he continued his work after his Gentile colleagues had fled the Territory in 1857 and left only when the emotions of the excited populace seemed to threatend his life. . . .
Until June 1857 Hurt experienced no great difficulty in the territory and remained after the departure of Drummond, Burr, and the other officials . . . But when [the Mormons] learned that President Buchanan had ordered an expedition to Utah, the Mormons resolved that Gentiles in their settlements should not be allowed to remain in a position to weaken them at a time when they faced invasion.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 47-48
Russell's Retail Experience
At 19 years of age Russell appears to have been manager of the store [Aull’s in Lexington, MO]. The extent of the firm’s business is seen in the fact that it had an interest in three Missouri river steamboats, operated a ropewalk in Liberty, owned a saw and grist mill, and engaged in the Santa Fe and fur trade. It also contracted to furnish supplies to Fort Leavenworth, Indian missions, emigrating tribes, and United States troops.”
Although only fragmentary studies of this giant pioneer firm have been made, it is clear that during the early 1830’s it was the largest and most influential business enterprise on the western Missouri frontier. As such it not only constituted excellent training ground for Russell, but to a very great degree provided a blue print for his career in days to come. In breadth of vision, energy, daring, and remarkable skill in organization, he was destined to operate in a similar though much wider field and by far surpass his old employer and mentor.
“The most underrated and least understood approach to the Platte was that from Old Fort Kearney at Table Creek, which became Nebraska City in 1854. . . .[T]his was a major route for Russell, Majors and Waddell and other freighting outfits which served the military posts, Denver, and Salt Lake.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 164
Mile 2056: Mormon Station/Genoa, NV
“Mormons had established a permanent settlement at Mormon Station, now Genoa, which was a rankling thorn in [the local Native Americans’] flesh. It was, however, a genuine spine-stiffener for the feminine portion of the early-day cavalcades. There were white women there, the first since Salt Lake City, and real houses with vegetable gardens at the foot of the forested mountain.” . . .
Mormon Station was, to all intents and purposes, a trading post. It maintained a store and a boarding house that served appetizing meals with vegetables and bread. There was even a dinner bell at noon and at sunset. One of the buildings was, in later years, treated to a genteel two-store false front as deceptive as a cheap toupee and as useful, and was the oldest house in Nevada when, quite recently [in the 1940s] it was destroyed by fire.
In the late fifties, after the difficulties between the Mormons and the government were settled, harassed travelers found a United States Indian agent in Genoa. Widows and orphans from Indian massacres were placed in his charge to be returned to their homes when opportunity afforded.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 437-438
Blatherskite
“But this was nothing new in my experience on the plains. The greatest blatherskites in sneering at death and religion, were the most grovelling cravens when the last hour seemed imminent.”
Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, A California Tramp and Later Footprints, p. 47
Freighter Burial
“When a little out of sorts or low-spirited, the old professionals would make things worse by telling what became of the teamsters when they died, that is, in this world; for it is pretty easy to tell where most of the ‘bull-whackers’ went, unless orthodox theology is at fault. These Job’s comforters told how the translated unfortunates were buried in scant roadside graves, in boxes made from the sideboards of their wagons.”
Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, A California Tramp and Later Footprints, p. 18-19
Commencement of the Utah War
“[T]he Mormon War began formally on the 18th of July [1857] with the departure of the Tenth Infantry Regiment from Fort Leavenworth. A day later Phelps’ battery of four six-pounders and two twelve-pound howitzers followed from a camp nearby, and shortly thereafter the weary Fifth Infantry started for Utah. . . . In general they followed the trail familiar to overland pioneers: west from Fort Leavenworth to the Big Blue, north on this river, ad then northwest on the Little Blue, its tributary. The troops finally came to the wide, shallow, and lethargic Platte, the vital highway to the Rocky Mountain country.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 101
Wagon Road to California
“[S]ome [rumors] that there was a movement afoot [in California] for outright secession and forming a separate nation.There was no possibility of breaking the transcontinental railway deadlock, but in December, 1855, California’s Senator Weller took advantage of the rumors to secure a temporary alternative. He introduced a bill authorizing construction of two bridged and fortified wagon roads to California; one from Independence, Missouri, to San Francisco by way of South Pass, Salt Lake City, and the Humboldt River; the other from El Paso to Los Angeles over the Gila Trail.”
Ralph Moody, The Old Trails West, p. 95
Blackfeet Indians
The true continuity is not offenses of the Americans but the character of the Blackfeet, who were an extreme specialization of savage life. Of the Plains tribes only the Comanches had a comparable ferocity and only these two tribes practiced prolonged torture. The Blackfeet refused to observe even the mild conventions of formal, temporary truce that most tribes felt bound by. Their allies and their enemies alike called them treacherous. As tough Indians, who knew and told everyone that they were tough, they not only found murder the cheapest form of trade relations but enjoyed it beyond most Indians. They were no more hostile to Americans than they were to the Flatheads, the Snakes, the Crows, and nearly everyone else.
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 421, n. 2
Spare Parts
“Since tongues, spokes, and axles were subject to breakage, spare parts were carried whenever possible, slung under the wagon bed. Grease buckets, water barrels (or india rubber bags), whips or goads, heavy rope, and chains completed the running gear accessories. If grease was not applied liberally to wheel bearings, a ‘hotbox’ developed. When store-bought grease was exhausted, boiled buffalo of wolf grease served.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 43
Bible-Backs
“[Alexander] Majors issued to each man a Bible or Testament, which led to their being nicknamed ‘Bible-backs.'”
Henry Pickering Walker, The Wagonmasters (1966), p. 70
Move to Nebraska City
Since the volume of goods to be delivered in Utah in 1858 was too great for Leavenworth facilities, Nebraska City was chosen as another loading and starting point. Alexander Majors moved his family and retinue of slaves there from Westport, and Russell closed his home in Lexington to build a bigger one in Leavenworth.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 23
Bullwhacker's Wardrobe
“The ‘bull whacker’ had his own style of dress. He wore a broad brimmed hat which usually had some strange device attached to the crown. The flannel shirts were bright red and blue in color; the pants ran down the inside of heavy, high-legged boots, and sticking into the top of one of these would be a sheath or bowie-knife. The knife might be stuck under the belt , per choice. A well-fitted belt of cartridges encircled the waist from which hung one or two large ‘c o l t type’ revolvers always in trim. Aside from the heavy pistol at the hip a shotgun or rifle made up the balance of the ‘bull whacker’s’ ordnance.”
Floyd Bresee, Overland Freighting in the Platte Valley 1850–1870, p. 37
Mile 1075: South Pass
“The Sweetwater Valley took the emigrants smoothly uphill 1oo miles to the Continental Divide at South Pass. This fortuitous gap in the Rockies exists because of geologic happenstance. A Wind River-sized mountain range—the Sweetwater Range—once filled the east-west gap where the Sweetwater Valley is now. Several million years ago, it foundered to form the valley, thus opening the way west to South Pass. The Sweetwater Hills represent the exposed ridgeline of this buried range. These granite hills include two of the most famous landmarks on the Oregon-California Trail: Independence Rock and Devils Gate.”
Keith Heyer Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 96
Polk's Objectives
“[T]he revision of the protective tariff of 1842, the re-establishment of the independent treasury, the settlement of the Oregon question, and the acquisition of California.”
Bernard DE Voto, The Year of decision, 1846, p. 10
The Need for Freight Wagons
“Moreover, no goods were manufactured west of the Mississippi; everything used there had to be shipped from the East. The manufacturing states east of the Mississippi routinely moved goods along navigable rivers, barge canals, and, increasingly, railroads; yet none of these conveniences existed west of the Mississippi. In that whole western expanse, only the Missouri River could be used by steamboats for any great distance, and the Missouri was hazardous as well as indirect. From St. Louis its path meandered 3,175 miles far to the northwest, so that even steamboats capable of braving its unpredictable shallows to its distant headwaters at Fort benton still found themselves at least 1,000 miles north of California or New Mexico or Salt Lake. In effect only one means existed for moving bulk supplies and heave machinery across the Great American desert: the freight wagon.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p.63
Jerking Buffalo Meat
“To ‘jerk’ buffalo meat, the camp constructed a large rectangle of boughs or wooden strips, like a huge picture frame, and laid poles thickly across it. Then they elevated the sketchy affair on four legs and built a smudge beneath it. Small sections of meat pulled from the carcass were hung over the poles to cure in the smoke. The white man soon improved on the original Indian procedure to the extent of cutting his meat into thin slices, sometimes small, sometimes the size of shingles, but the name ‘jerky’ was always used. A day or two cured it sufficiently to keep indefinitely. The resulting tidbits varied somewhat as to edible qualities, but were always tough and had an unappetizing tendency to retain sections of hairy hide.
Jerky could also be dried by hanging on ropes outside the wagon covers for several days. When it had become hard it was packed, alkali dirt and all, in bags. This, to their sad surprise, many of the women were glad to eat before they reached the Sierras. Large chunks of buffalo meat also kept a surprising length of time—some said weeks—protected by a hard crust formed by the dry air.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 93
Motivations to Emigrate
“Since American scholarship has virtually enshrined the continent-wide westward movement, it is only natural that must of the speculation concerning the overlanders’ motivations has revolved around the so-called ‘pioneer instinct’ of restless frontiersman. . . . Those overlanders who chose to record the stimuli they believed to be impelling them westward, however, usually mentioned such prosaic factors as financial difficulties, the hope of economic improvement in the Far West, the search for better health, or political or patriotic considerations, before admitting to a general restlessness or a desire for adventure. Occasionally noted was also was the desire to get away from the increasingly virulent passions surrounding the Negro and slavery, the wish to flee the artificialities and restraints of society, the possibility of of evading capture for indiscretions ranging from theft to murder, the willingness to undertake missionary work among the Indians, the attempt to forget a romance gone sour. Some even claimed to be moving because of the better fishing reported in Oregon.”
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 91
Higher Than Haman
“And if ever another man gives a whistle to a child of mine and I get my hands on him, I will hang him higher than Haman!”
[Haman (also known as Haman the Agagite or Haman the evil) is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who according to the Hebrew Bible was a vizier in the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus, commonly identified as Xerxes I. . . .
As described in the Book of Esther, Haman was the son of Hammedatha the Agagite. After Haman was appointed the principal minister of the king Ahasuerus, all of the king’s servants were required to bow down to Haman, but Mordechairefused to. Angered by this, and knowing of Mordechai’s Jewish nationality, Haman convinced Ahasuerus to allow him to have all of the Jews in the Persian empire killed.
The plot was foiled by Queen Esther, the king’s recent wife, who was herself a Jew. Esther invited Haman and the king to two banquets. In the second banquet, she informed the king that Haman was plotting to kill her (and the other Jews). This enraged the king, who was further angered when (after leaving the room briefly and returning) he discovered Haman had fallen on Esther’s couch, intending to beg mercy from Esther, but which the king interpreted as a sexual advance.
On the king’s orders, Haman was hanged from the 50-cubit-high gallows that had originally been built by Haman himself, on the advice of his wife Zeresh, in order to hang Mordechai. The bodies of Haman’s ten sons were also hanged, after they died in battle against the Jews. “All the enemies of the Jews” were additionally killed by the Jews, 75,000 of them.[8]
The apparent purpose of this unusually high gallows can be understood from the geography of Shushan: Haman’s house (where the pole was located) was likely in the city of Shushan (a flat area), while the royal citadel and palace were located on a mound about 15 meters higher than the city. Such a tall pole would have allowed Haman to observe Mordechai’s corpse while dining in the royal palace, had his plans worked as intended.
After the Revolution, America needed a central nervous system to circulate news throughout the new body politic. Like mail service, knowledge of public affairs had always been limited to an elite, but George Washington, James Madison, and especially Dr. Benjamin Rush (a terrible physician but a wonderful political philosopher) were determined to provide the people of their democratic republic with both. Their novel, uniquely American post didn’t just carry letters for the few. It also subsidized the delivery of newspapers to the entire population, which created an informed electorate, spurred the fledgling market economy, and bound thirteen fractious erstwhile colonies into the United States. For more than two centuries, the founders’ grandly envisaged postal commons has endured as one of the few American institutions, public or private, in which we, the people, are treated as equals.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p 1.
Blacks Barred from Mail Service
Southern politicians increasingly feared that if enslaved people, some of whom were literate, had access to the mail, particularly newspapers, they might learn of the Haitians’ successful rebellion against the French in 1791 and follow their example. Gideon Granger, Habersham’s successor, shared this anxiety, writing in 1802 that because white masters chose the “most active and intelligent” slaves to handle the mail, “they will learn that a man’s rights do not depend on his color. They will, in time, become teachers to their brethren.” Congress, responded by declaring that “no other than a free white person shall be employed in carrying the mail of the United States”—a prohibition that obtained until 1865.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 142
Accumulation by Conquest
“General Mitchell insisted, as he did before, that the earth belonged to the people on it per capita, and no Indian had any more right to increased acreage than the white brother had. And he also pointed out to Mr. Indian that here the Indian had no primary right to the soil, but that it belonged originally to those from whom the Sioux had taken it when the Chippewas, their ancient enemy, had driven them west. And that rights to land, if accumulated by conquest by the Indians, could be accumulated by the whites. Mitchell had his speech well in hand, as he had before, and he argued with the Indian at every point. The council was entirely uneventful. The pipe of peace was passed around, and we all smoked it with a stoic and reverential silence. The Indian being told that he had no right to the Platte valley unless he wanted to use or cultivate it, appeared to see the propriety of letting those have it who could use it. At any rate, he preferred molasses, hard-bread and bacon to the occupation of the river valley. He knew there was no game along the river-bed where the wagons were constantly going, and it was of no value to him whatever; therefore three-point Mackinaw blankets that were nice and red, appealed to him strongly.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 201
Stegner's Stance on Mormonism
Since the stance from which I have written will surely strike some as being just as biased as anything in the library of Mormonism and anti-Mormonism, I may as well define it. I write as a non-Mormon but not a Mormon-hater. Except as it affected the actions of the people I write of, I do not deal with the Mormon faith: I do not believe it, but I do not quarrel with it either. For the Church organization, historically and in modern times, I have a high respect. Of the hierarchy, historically and in modern times, I am somewhat suspicious, in the way I am suspicious of any very large and very powerful commercial and industrial corporation. For the everyday virtues of the Mormons as a people I have a warm admiration, and hundreds of individual Mormons have been my good friends for forty years. If I have a home town, a place where a part of my heart is, it is Salt Lake City, and the part of western history that seems most personal and real to me is Mormon history. Nevertheless, I write as an outsider, and I make no attempt to whitewash the Mormon tribal crimes, which were as grievous as their wrongs.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 311-12
Emigrants and Cattle
“The wagon-train emigrants remained for months cheek by jowl with more cattle than they had ever seen before; rode behind them; walked ahead of them; took their dust; drank milk from their tired cows; ate beef from the lame oxen butchered to get the last ounce of use from their faithful carcasses; slept on stormy nights with them tied restlessly to the wagon wheels while their horns poked bulges in the canvas tops; desperately kept themselves and their children from under stampeding hooves—or sometimes despairingly failed; endured cow hair on their clothes and in their food; drank water sullied by cattle and by buffalo; cooked with their droppings; and everlastingly—day and night—lived with the noise and smell of cattle.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 172
First Stamps
ln 1847, a delighted America got its first stamps: tiny receipts that turn letters and parcels into official mail. (Some “postmaster provisionals” had appeared a few years before, but they could only be used locally.) Just as Great Britain had put Qyeen Victoria on the world’s first postage stamp in 1840, the United States honored Franklin and Washington (based on the Gilbert Stuart portrait) on its five- and ten-cent issues, respectively. At first, the new stamps were mostly available at the larger post offices, but as more were issued, their sales soared along with the volume ofletters and the department’s revenue.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 88
Description of Slade and Maria Virginia
Alternately a man of courteous manner and a merciless killer, he seemingly escaped the notice of Majors’ principled eye when he was taken on by the company as a carry-over from the stumbling Hockaday line. From Fort Kearny to Horseshoe Station, where he lived in unexplained luxury with a sour-countenanced, heavy-haunched wife, Slade ran a tight, fear-struck division, exercising ruthless control with a quickly-riled temper and a ready gun. But his chameleon character was disarming. Mark Twain, quite aware of his awful history, found him “a pleasant person, friendly and gentle-spoken.”
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 86
A Successful Failure
“Today, the Pony Express is often referred to as ‘a successful failure.’ The founders realized that the Pony Express, commonly referred to as ‘the Pony,’ would not be financially successful, but they hoped it would prove the success of the central route, and thus, result in additional government contrasts for them. The reality was that the Pony Express lost money and did not bring the failing Russell, Majors [sic] and Waddell successful contracts. It actually drove them further into debt and brought about the financial collapse of what was once considered the biggest and mightiest freighting empire in the West.”
William E. Hill, The Pony Express: Yesterday and Today, p. xv
Kansas City
“The two French settlements [Chouteau’s headquarters and a few houses] were located, without fuss about mosquitoes or controversy over pure water, by simply arriving at the most convenient spot for trading purposes and remaining there. They, with their later neighbor Westport Landing, formed the nuclei of Kansas City. . . . David Cosad arrived at Kansasmouth on April 11, 1849. he called it Kansas and described it as a steamboat landing a short distance below the mouth of the Kansas River, and said it ‘bid fair to be a smart place for business.'”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 20-21
Mile 151: Hanover
“Early in the morning, near the town of Hanover, we had our first glimpse of the Little Blue—a small and gentle river, always to be remembered fondly by the westbound families who, except during Indian uprisings, looked forward with happy anticipation to the days in its rolling valley. Wood, water, and grass were plentiful and, best of all, the headwaters lay to the west so that for almost a week’s journey the caravans camped cozily side by side on its shady bank. Here, if anywhere, the ‘Oh Susannah’ quality of the journey across the plains flourished at its inspiring best. . . .
After a regular stage line with relay stations had been established from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast, the Little Blue Valley was considered by crew and passengers to be the cream of the whole trip. . .
The home stations along the Little Blue were especially blessed with farm products—eggs, cream, buter, cheese, and vegetables.Nowhere else along the emigrant road, except at Salt Lake City, were these commodities found. The charm of the home-grown viands was somewhat marred for the curious soul who, in wandering about behind the house, saw the chickens roosting for the night on the butchered pig destined to be his morning pork-chops. But hunger was a potent sauce. No doubt he ate the chops and washed them down with coffee, abundant and hot—the unchallenged beverage of the plains.”
[N.B. The Hollenberg Station site is near Hanover, the base of the Little Blue Valley. The Trail follows the Little Blue until near Ayr, NE (Mile 284)]
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 65-68
Mile 1900: Smith Creek Station
“One story about Smith’s Creek was reported in the August 1860 Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. ‘One day last week H. Trumbo, station keeper at Smith’s Creek, got into a difficulty with Montgomery Maze, one of the Pony Express Riders, during which Trumbo snapped a pistol at Maze several times. The next day the fracas was renewed when Maze shot Trumbo with a rifle, the ball entering a little above the hip and inflicting a dangerous wound. Maze has since arrived at this place (Carson City) bringing with him a certificate signed by various parties, exonerating him from blame in the affair and setting forth that Trumbo had provoked the attack.’
In another incident, two riders, William Carr and Bernard Chessy, got into an argument. Carr later shot and killed Chessy. Carr was arrested, found guilty, and had the dubious distinction of being the first man legally hanged in the Nevada Territory in Carson City.
William E. Hill, The Pony Express Trail: Yesterday and Today, p. 227
The Runaways
“[T]he decade of the 1850s began harmoniously enough. . . . The cordial atmosphere continued briefly after the arrival Fillmore’s appointees in 1851. . . .
Almost from the first day the Saints had trouble with the new [territorial] officers. The Government had given [Almon] Babbitt $20,000 to deliver to governor [Brigham] Young for the construction of a statehouse, but this wayward Mormon doled out the sum in exasperatingly small amounts. Secretary [Broughton] Harris was equally unmanageable, his possession of another $24,000 in gold making him the more uncooperative. . . .
If the sniping of Babbitt and Harris was irritating to a man of Young’s nature, the actions of the bumbling [Associate Justice Perry E.] Brocchus enraged him and his people. On July 24, 1851, the Mormons had celebrated Pioneers’ Day, commemorative of their arrival in the Valley in 1847, and as usual on such occasions their thoughts had turned to their sufferings in Missouri and Illinois. Daniel H. Wells, which had fought the Gentiles in Nauvoo, spoke bitterly of these wrongs. He also introduced the martyr-mongering myth, later to be frequently heard in Utah, that the requisition of the Mormon Battalion in 1846 had been intended as a blow at the weakened and homeless Saints. Brigham Young, perhaps remembering Zachary Taylor’s opposition to the Mormons’ request for statehood, asserted that Taylor was undoubtedly suffering the torments of Hell for his wickedness. . . .
[Brocchus] accordingly felt a patriotic sermon, delivered with suitable rhetorical flourishes and a nice wit, was necessary to remind the people of their duty as citizens. . . . [His] inference that the Mormons’ patriotism was questionable caused restlessness among the members of the audience, but Brocchus, engrossed in his subject, was unaware of it. Now near the end of his speech, he turned from patriotism to morality. In a transparent reference to polygamy and with possibly an attempt at facetiousness he lectured the women at some length on the importance of virtue. . . .
Instead of receiving exuberant applause for his efforts, Brocchus found himself in imminent peril of an unpleasant death at the hands of an incensed throng of Mormons. . . . Afterward Young said that could have loosed the congregation upon Brocchus with a gesture of his little finger, but he satisfied himself with a tongue-lashing. The ashen-faced Brocchus, with [Chief Justice Lemuel] Bradebury and Indian Agent henry R. Day, who shared the platform on that unhappy occasion, was thankful to escape with his life. . . .
The excitement attendant upon the speech convinced Brocchus, Harris, and Brandebury they could no longer fulfill their duties in Utah, and within a week they were making preparations for departure.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 20-26
Seeing the Elephant
“To read the diaries of the Gold Rush, one might suppose that elephants flourished [on the Plains] in 1849, but the emigrants weren’t talking about wooly mammoths or genuine circus-type elephants. The were talking about one particular elephant, the Elephant, an imaginary beast of fearsome dimensions which, according to Niles Searls, was ‘but another name for going to California.’ But it was more than that. It was the popular symbol of the Great Adventure, all the wonder and the glory and the shivering thrill of the plunge into the ocean of the prairie and plains, and the brave assault upon mountains and deserts that were gigantic barriers to California gold. It was the poetic imagry of all the deadly perils that threatened a westering emigrant.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 61
Windmills
In the eastern p0rtion of the United States the old-fashioned dug well was common to every home that did not have access to a living spring. It was from eight to thirty feet deep and was curbed with stone or brick or perhaps was without curbing. Water might be drawn from it “hand over hand” but usually it was drawn by means of a pulley suspended over the well by a heavy crossbeam attached to upright timbers. . . .
West of the ninety-eighth meridian comparatively tew such wells are found. The water lies too deep and the soil is too hard. The wells are sunk by drill, a hole six inches in diameter and anywhere from thirty to three hundred feet deep, and walled by sheet-iron casing. The bucket, also of metal, is nearly four feet long and three inches in diameter and is fitted with a float valve in the bottom to admit the water. If anyone ever looked on the water in such a well, he did it by use of a reflecting mirror. Ordinarily the bucket furnishes the only proof of its existence, and in actual practice that proof sometimes fails. Such were the typical wells of the East and the West. In the East they were handmade with pick and shovel; in the West they were bored by itinerant well-drillers, who moved their machines about from place to place as they plied their trade. . . .
It followed from the nature of the wells in the West, particularly their depth, that men had to devise new ways of raising the water to the surface. In the beginning great hope was nourished for the prospect of artesian wells, which were found in certain favored localities in Kansas, Texas, and elsewhere. The excitement over artesian wells ran high for a time, and bonuses were offered for every such well found. Extensive boring revealed that the possibilities of water from such a source were very limited, and men then turned to ground water. Here they were confronted with great depth on the one hand and a slow delivery on the other. It was a task to raise water from fifty to two hundred feet by hand, an almost impossible task where cattle were to be watered. Furthermore, because of the small capacity of the well it was desirable to raise the water as fast as it was available and at all hours. . . .
The windmill was adopted, adapted, and developed until it met all these requirements most admirably. It could be made at a cost ranging from $1.50 up, depending on whether it were home-made or shop-made; it would deliver a small amount of water day and night as long as the wind was blowing. Within a short time after its introduction the windmill became the unmistakable and universal sign of human habitation throughout the Great Plains area. As before stated, it was the windmill that made it possible for the land to be fenced in small areas and for the stockmen to cut their ranges up into pastures.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 334-336
Postmaster Brown and Southern Politicians
With the passage of this act, the matter went to Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown. Brown was a Tennesseean sympathetic with Buchanan’s policies, a leader in the councils of the Democrats, and a not unlikely aspirant for party leadership in the campaign of I860. He called Senators Rusk and Gwin into conference, consulted with the leaders of the Administration; and by April, 1857, rumors reported that he was set upon having a southern route.
Curtis Nettles, "The Overland Mail Issue During the 1850s," The Missouri Historical Review, XVIII, no. 4 (1924), 525
The White-Topped Wain
“That day’s chief study was of wagons, those ships of the great American Sahara which, gathering in fleets at certain seasons, conduct the traffic between the eastern and the western shores of a waste which is every where like a sea, and which presently will become salt. The white-topped wain—banished by railways from Pennsylvania, where, drawn by the ‘Conestoga horse,’ it once formed a marked feature in the landscape—has found a home in the Far West. They are not unpicturesque from afar, these long-winding trains, in early morning like lines of white cranes trooping slowly over the prairie, or in more mysterious evening resembling dim sails crossing a rolling sea. The vehicles are more simple than our Cape wagons—huge beds like punts mounted on solid wheels, with logs for brakes, and contrasting strongly with the emerald plain, white tilts of twilled cotton or osnaburg, supported by substantial oaken or hickory bows. The wain is literally a ‘prairie ship:’ its body is often used as a ferry, and when hides are unprocurable the covering is thus converted into a ‘bull boat.’ Two stakes driven into the ground, to mark the length, are connected by a longitudinal keel and ribs of willow rods; cross-sticks are tied with thongs to prevent ‘caving in,’ and the canvas is strained over the frame-work.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 22
Yclepted
“On August 22 [1849] the Missouri Republican correspondent ‘Nebraska’ told of a fiasco ‘of our last Indian war, in which the chivalry of Missouri, yclepted the Oregon Battalion [out of Fort Kearny], was arrayed on one side, and the squaws, pappooses, and decrepit warriors of the Pawnee nation, on the other.'”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 170
Troop Punishment
“But the methods of punishment are to my mind far more odious and de-grading than the lash; tying a man to a waggon by his thumbs, loading him with a heavy wooden or iron collar (and even in a town like Leavenworth, K.T., making him stand guard in public with it on), chaining a heavy ball to his ancle, &c. ; who can wonder that desertions are numerous, followed now and then by recapture, flogging, branding, and imprisonment? And this, too, when men are but enlisted for five years at a time.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 77-78
Mile 1948: Sand Springs Station Sand Springs Station, NV
“While some Pony Express stations were located in pre-existing buildings (on ranches, in stage stations, etc.), others had to be built from the ground up. What was it like to build a Pony Express Station in the 1860s?
For workers hired to build stations in Western Nevada, easy would not be a word to describe it! They built corduroy roads of willows in Carson Sink, fought hordes of mosquitoes, and erected station houses with adobe bricks. In preparing the bricks, they tramped the mud with their bare feet (to ensure proper consistency). This required at least a week of time and when they were through, the skin had peeled from the soles of their feet! One of these workers, J.G. Kelley, would eventually become assistant station keeper at one of the stations he built, Sand Springs.”
“Billy Campbell commented about another item provided, ‘Each rider at the outset was given a horn to blow as he approached the station. This was to warn the station keeper to have fresh mounts ready. Usually, however, they could hear the hoof-beats of our ponies about as far as they could hear the horn.'”
William E. Hill, The Pony Express: Yesterday and Today, p. 27
Mile 1544: Route Alternate
Just before Mile 1544, Pleasant Valley Road splits off the XP Route (Hwy 2/White Pine County Road 32) to the south. Shortly after, it crosses a jeep trail (marked on the US Topo Scans and ESRI views) that leads past an XP Marker off the XP Route. By following this route, and a later detour off the route, this road leads to the Tippet Ranch, where there is water available. This is roughly a 10-mile variation on the official route.
Mile 1544: Route Alternate
Plains Indians the Greatest Barrier
“The Plains Indians constituted for a much longer time than we realize the most effectual barrier ever set up by a native American population against European invaders in a temperate zone. For two and a half centuries they maintained themselves with great fortitude against the Spanish, English, French, Mexican, Texan, and American invaders, withstanding missionaries, whisky, disease, gunpowder, and lead. It is true, as has been indicated, that their country, like Russia in the time of invasion, fought for them. . . .
Within the Plains area dwelt thirty-one tribes of Indians. Eleven of these are typical Plains, tribes, possessing in common. in the highest degree. the characteristic Plains culture. These eleven tribes are the Assiniboin, Arapaho, Blackfoot. Cheyenne, Comanche. Crow, Gros Ventre. Kiowa, KiowaApache, Sarsi, and Teton-Dakota. They occupied the region from southern Canada to Mexico.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 43, 50
The Custer Paradigm
“The Custer paradigm has nearly twenty segments, or motifs, within it. Yet the likelihood is that the creation of this paradigm was polygenetic; that is, each society, each author or storyteller who put his imaginative talents to retelling this tale, had to fabulate it anew. The Custer cluster includes Saul, Leonidas, Roland, Sir Gawain, and the garrison of the Alamo; we have no evidence that Herodotus (whose version of Thermopylae is the most important) copied or even knew of the Old Testament account of Saul’s death; that Turoldus or whoever was the writer of the Roland knew of Herodotus or made Saul his model; or that the alliterative Morte Arthure is based on any of these; or that the Alamo legends arose in imitation of those other heroic stands.”
Bruce Rosenberg, The Code of the West, p. 160
Butterfield Moves to the Central Route
On March 2nd [after Confederate troops had destroyed Butterfield’s line in Missouri and Texas] , to solve the contracting predicament with the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. and Overland Mail Company, and to protect communication lines with California, both houses of Congress, with President Buchanan’s approval, modified the Overland Mail Company mail service contract by discontinuing the transportation of mail along the southern route and transferring it to a new central overland route. This new service would originate in St. Joseph, (or Atchison, in Kansas) and provide mail service to Placerville, California, six times a week. In addition to this new route, the contract required that the company ‘run a pony express semi-weekly at a schedule time of ten days . . . charging the public for transportation of letters by said express not exceeding $1 per half ounce’ until the completion of the transcontinental telegraph line. Essentially the federal government turned the western half of the central route mail contract (Salt Lake City to Placerville, California) that the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. previously operated over to the Overland Mail Company. In exchange for giving this segment of the passenger/mail route to the Overland Mail Company, the government promised to indirectly support the Pony Express until the completion of the telegraph.
Anthony Godfrey, Historic Research Study Pony Express National Historic Trail, p. 86-87
Traffic on the Platte River Route
“Intermingled with the westering cavalcade of the Great Migration was the shuttle-weave of stagecoaches, freighting trains, mail wagons, fur trade caravans. U.S. Army troops, supply trains, and dispatch riders. There were also occasionally large numbers of cattle and sheep, herded westward to Utah or California markets, and sometimes a horse herd from California to Missouri.
As to emigrant outfits, there were some strange contraptions among the orthodox covered wagons and infrequent packers. Not uncommon on the north side, or Council Bluffs Road, were the Mormon handcart expeditions. . . . In contrast . . . some affluent emigrants [were noted] traveling up the California Road in horse-drawn carriages . . . Perhaps the strangest spectacle in all the procession was the funeral cortege, led by William Keil, that went all the way from Missouri to Oregon with a casket in which were embalmed the mortal remains of his son Willie.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 43-44
Pony Express Operating Deficit
“No expenses had been spared to assure the Pony’s success: it had cost about $100,000 to set up. Yet unlike the Central Overland stage line, the Pony Express had no government mail subsidy; its only revenues came from the $5 fee it charged per letter. This charge brought in only about $500 a day, while the Pony’s expenses were at least twice that amount. Above and beyond its exorbitant startup costs, the Pony Express was losing between $15,000 and $20,000 per month.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 191
Russell's Guilt
“[Godard Bailey, a clerk in the Interior Department, whose wife was related to Secretary of War Floyd] confessed [to Russell] that the bonds he had given Russell belonged to the Indian Trust Fund of the Department of the Interior of which he was merely a custodian . . . In plain, everyday terms, Bailey was an embezzler in the amount of $150,000. . . .
One who has followed Russell’s unique, colorful and sometimes brilliant business career from the beginning regrets to face the remainder of the story concerning the bond transactions. Next day Bailey . . . delivered $387,000 worth of Missouri, South Carolina, and Florida Trust Fund bonds to Russell . . . By this act Russell fully shared Bailey’s guilt. Whether he was morally guilty in the first instance might be debatable, but certainly not in the second. By his own frank, straightforward confession he convicts himself of receiving and using for his own purposes property he knew was stolen.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 98-100
Skull Varnish
“Near Dallas, almost on the Missouri-Kansas state line, stands the settlement known in trail days as Little Santa Fe. The dragging bull trains returning from the summer trade in Mexico reached it a full day before arriving at Independence; and the thirsty packers sought relief without too much regard as to whether they drank real liquor or the pink-elephant mixture of new whisky and molasses known as skull varnish.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 18
Mormons as the Most Successful Pioneers
So there are more than theological reasons for remembering the Mormon pioneers. They were the most systematic, organized, disciplined, and successful pioneers in our history; and their advantage over the random individualists who preceded them and paralleled them and followed them up the valley of the Platte came directly from their “un-American” social and religious organization. Where Oregon emigrants and argonauts bound for the gold fields lost practically all their social cohesion en route, the Mormons moved like the Host of Israel they thought themselves. Far from loosening their social organization, the trail perfected it. As communities on the march they proved extraordinarily adaptable. When driven out of Nauvoo, they converted their fixed property, insofar as they could, into the instruments of mobility, especially livestock, and became for the time herders and shepherds, teamsters and frontiersmen, instead of artisans and townsmen and farmers. When their villages on wheels reached the valley of their destination, the Saints were able to revert at once, because they were town-and-temple builders and because they had their families with them, to the stable agrarian life in which most of them had grown up.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 6
Guard Duty
“Guard duty at night was now [crossing Kansas] a necessity. No one liked it, and very few were efficient, but nevertheless the hours were divided into watches and each able-bodied man took his turn. This was never an idle precaution. Even when the Pawnees were friendliest, they manifested a guileless interest in their white brothers’ horseflesh resulting in an occasional nocturnal raid. At one of these crises the safety of the entire wagon train rested with the guard who was watching the horses, and he—poor man—was only too apt to be a peaceful soul who had never been used to firearms. As uneasy night followed weary day, each unwilling watcher with the grazing horses found himself the only waking soul within speaking distance. Except during the gold-rush years he was practically alone in the limitless prairie night. ‘A few glimmering fires around the camps of distant emigrants, and the almost incessant howl of wolves, were the only things which showed aught living upon the ocean of grass.'”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 43
Virginia Dale Persuades Slade to Move
“Slade next took up a ranch not far from Fort Bridger in western Wyoming, and began freighting. He was in the midst of his enemies—without the protection, of the armed stage company employees. Maria never knew what day her man would be brought home full of bullet holes. She persuaded him to seek new territory.
Early in June, 1863, the big gold strike at Alder Gulch on Grasshopper Creek in Idaho Territory was attracting men from far and near. Slade decided to join the rush.”
Florabel Muir, "The Man Who Was Hanged for a Song," Liberty Magazine, June 30, 1928, p. 47
Choice of St. Joseph Terminal
“The next issue of the St. Joseph Weekly West announced the location of the eastern terminal at that place, rather than Leavenworth, a decision which appears to have been forced upon Russell because of the fact that St. Joseph enjoyed a direct railroad connection with the East, even though he personally favored Leavenworth.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 50
Military Roads
“First roads on the frontier were often known locally as military roads. More important for western development, these routes became migratory wagon roads for settlers, and when a community was occupied they were quickly used for commercial purposes. Many roads built by the War Department in the western territories, politically justified on the basis of national defense, were of much greater significance in facilitating access to the public lands.
W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West, p. 1
Mile 1742: Diamond Springs
“We hastened to ascend Chokop’s Pass by a bad, steep dugway: it lies south of ” Railroad Kanyon,” which is said to be nearly flat-soled. A descent led into ‘Moonshine,’ called by the Yutas Pahannap Valley, and we saw with pleasure the bench rising at the foot of the pass. The station is named Diamond Springs, from an eye of warm, but sweet and beautifully clear water bubbling up from the earth. A little below it drains off in a deep rushy ditch, with a gravel bottom, containing equal parts of comminuted shells: we found it an agreeable and opportune bath.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 480
Mile 1678: Egan's Station
“In the early part of October [1860] a war party of eighty Pah Utes descended upon Egan’s station while Mike Holt station keeper, and a rider by the name of Wilson were at breakfast. Leaping to their feet they grabbed their guns and began firing upon them. The Indians had no guns, but filled with confidence of victory due to overwhelming numbers, they swooped in for the kill. Holton and Wiison fought heroically and kept them at bay until their ammunition was exhausted. Then, as the Indians broke through the door they heard the chief utter the one word ‘bread.’
“Hoping to satisfy them, and thus escape death, the white men piled all the bread in the station on the table. To their dismay the chief remained unsatisfied. Pointing to the sacks of flour piled in one corner he ordered them to build a fire and bake more. Throughout the day Holton and Wilson continued to supply bread to their ravenous, unwelcome guests. As they worked they talked about William Dennis, rider from the west who was due to arrive late in the afternoon. When he did not come they concluded the Indians had killed him.
“About sundown, the stock of flour having been exhausted, the chief ordered Holton and Wilson taken outside and tied to a wagon tongue which had been driven into the ground. Having done this they proceeded to pile sage brush at their feet with the expectation of roasting them alive. Then, they set it afire and began to dance and yell like demons.
“But the Indians had not gotten Dennis. As he approached the station he saw the savages from the distance, whirled his horse around, and raced back the way he had come. They were so busy celebrating the torture of Holton and Wilson they did not see him. About five miles back he had passed Lieutenant Weed and sixty United States dragoons on their way east to Salt Lake City. Upon being informed of what was going on at the station they swept ahead full tilt, roared down upon the scene, and caught the merrymaking savages by surprise in time to prevent injury to the captives. When it was over the Indians had lost eighteen warriors and sixty horses.”
[Note: Other sources give the date of this event as July 15 or 16, 1860. See, e.g., Historic Resource Study, p. 183-84; Burton (p. 169) gives the date as August]
Settle and Settle, Saddles and Spurs, p. 159-160
Mile 290: Thirty-Two Mile Creek Stage and Pony Express Station
This location is almost exactly in the center of Adams County and the Thirty-Two Mile Creek Station name indicates the distance to Ft. Kearny. Russell, Majors, and Waddell formed the Leavenworth and Pikes Peak Express company in 1859 and most likely constructed the Thirty-Two Mile Station that year. Samuel Word kept a diary of his 1863 trip across the plains and the following words are from May 28: “We are now 32 miles from Fort Kearny. Am most anxious to reach Kearny for I expect to hear from home. Have just returned from a ranch close by, where immigrants and settlers to the number of 100 are congregated engaged in a genuine old-fashioned back woods dance. . . . The ranche was about 12 by 14 feet square covered with sod. . . . The house had what it would hold, the rest stood outside. . .many of the men were drunk from rifle whisky sold them by the proprietor of the ranche. His grocery was in one corner of the room. I left them dancing.” (Word in Renschler, 1997)
Ted Stutheit (1987) of Nebraska Game and Parks offers the following description: “. . . consisted of one long, low sod building. In 1860 became a Pony Express Station (Nebraska Pony Express Station No. 10). In 1861 it was a ‘Home’ station for the Overland Stage where hot meals were served to travelers.”
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“Thirty-Two Mile Station” is the site of another of the series of way-stations established during 1858 and 1859 along the Oregon Trail to serve the growing numbers of stagecoaches and freighter wagons which were joining the emigrant trains along the great roadway west. Named for its distance from Fort Kearny, Thirty-Two Mile Station never consisted of more than one long, low log-building In 1860 it became a Pony Express Station (Nebraska Pony Express Station No. 10). In 1861 it was a “Home” station for the Overland Stage, where hot meals were served to travelers. The station operated by George A. Comstock was abandoned in August of 1864, its proprietors and visitors fleeing to Fort Kearny for safety, and the Indians subsequently burned the station to the ground. 32 Mile Station, site of Pony Express Station (Nebraska No. 10 — Sec. 6, T.6N, R.10W — Adams County) is now in the middle of a plowed field, just off a county road A small marker at the side of the field commemorates the site. This site is on the National Register of Historic Places as an archeological site.
—The Oregon Trail, Rock Creek Station, Nebraska to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, p. 5
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The location is marked on the XP Bikepacking Route map just before Mile 290.
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 Southern Route, or Butterfield Overland Mail Company Route, the Oxbow, which dipped from Missouri to California via El Paso, Texas, and the Southwest. It took twenty-one days-and that was good time-to move mail along this line. A central route-much shorter-would cross the West in a straighter path, linking the Missouri River with Salt Lake City and continuing to California.
Russell, Majors & Waddell was already operating a stage line between the Missouri River and Salt Lake City. Gwin wanted Russell to start an experimental fast-mail service, via horseback, over the same line, and from Salt Lake City on to Sacramento. Majors noted that Gwin and other proponents of this venture were curious about the practicability of crossing the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains in winter. The specifics of the Gwin-Russell discussion are not known, but what is recorded by Alexander Majors is that Russell came back from Washington in early 1860 and told his partners that he had given his word to Gwin that the freight-hauling firm would undertake this experiment. Majors recalled that both he and Waddell did not think such a venture would ever pay expenses.
“Russell … had committed himself to Senator Gwin before leaving Washington, assuring him he could get his partners to join him, and that he might rely on the project being carried through, and saying it would be very humiliating to his pride to return to Washington and be compelled to say the scheme had fallen through from lack of his partners’ confidence.”
Russell told Majors and Waddell that if the firm could demonstrate that the Central Route was practical and could be kept operating in the winter, Senator Gwin had vowed to use his influence to get a subsidy to pay the expenses of such a line. Russell had given his word, and in those days a man’s word was still his bond (and the bond of his firm, too).
And so, on Russell’s word (and Gwin’s promise), Majors and Waddell agreed to become involved in the venture that would become their legacy and their ruin. “After listening to all Mr. Russell had to say upon the subject, we concluded to sustain him in the undertaking and immediately went to work to organize what has since been known as ‘The Pony Express.’ “
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 24-25
Delivery Schedule
“Normal delivery time was set at ten days for letters and eight for telegrams. However, during the winter months the time was extended to twelve to sixteen days. The fastest delivery was seven days, seventeen hours when the Pony carried Lincoln’s first inaugural address.”
Delivery Schedule
San Buenaventura River
Escalante could have reached [Great Salt Lake] in less than two days’ travel and that he did not make the journey is inexplicable. It is all the more so because, as Miera’s report makes certain, the Indians said, or were understood to say, that a very large and navigable river flowed west from it, and surely their first duty was to explore any such river as a possible route to Monterey. Miera thought it must be the Tizon, which he believed Ofiate had discovered and named; but Tizon was Melchior Diaz’s name for the Colorado. When he drew his map he showed it flowing west from the larger lake—and so created a cartographer’s myth, for later maps would show just such a river flowing out of Great Salt Lake to the Pacific and would give it the name that Escalante had given Green River, the San Buenaventura.
Bernard De Voto, The Course of Empire, p. 294
Chorpenning Moves Back to the Central Route
“In June of [1859] Captain Simpson, of the United States Topographical Engineers, surveyed a new route from Camp Floyd to Genoa, which it was claimed would shorten the distance about 300 miles. The distance from Camp Floyd, by the old Humboldt route to Genoa, was reported to be 854 miles, by the Chorpening route through Ruby Valley about 709 miles, and by the Simpson survey 565 miles.
In September the company cut hay and made the necessary preparations to move down on to the Central or Simpson route, which they did the winter following.”
Thompson and West, History of Nevada (1881), pg. 105
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 Continental Congress voted to transform the short-lived but crucial Constitutional Post into the Post Office Department of the United States-a nation rooted in a communications network that promoted the free exchange of ideas.
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Political minefields notwithstanding, Congress finally rose to the president’s challenge. After much heated argument, the legislators passed the comprehensive Post Office Act of 1792, which laid down important policies that would affect the country’s political, social, and physical development for generations to come and help expand the founders’ provincial East Coast into the transcontinental United States. Just as the republic truly came into its own with the signing of the Constitution, the post assumed its permanent status and open-ended, truly American character with this landmark legislation. . . .
Modern Americans take for granted the “universal-service mandate,” which says that all citizens everywhere are entitled to mail access for the same price, but this principle was rarely discussed in such absolute terms until the twentieth century. The act didn’t make it a basic right, like freedom of speech or religion, but it fostered the idea that if a group of citizens could establish their need for postal service, they could reasonably hope that the government would provide it.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 26, 34-35
Second Rescue
In 1992, several members of the Riverton, Wyo., stake of the LDS Church reminded the church leaders in Utah that many essential church rituals had never been performed for the people who had perished in the Willie and Martin companies. In Mormon doctrine, these ceremonies, including baptism and so-called sealings of departed souls to those of a spouse, or to ancestors or descendants, can be performed at any time. They must be performed in a Mormon temple, however, and the nearest temple to Riverton at the time was in Ogden, Utah, a six-hour drive away.
Volunteers traveled from Riverton to the Ogden temple for the ceremonies. The new interest came to be called the Second Rescue, and stories about it began appearing in the Deseret News and other church publications.
Like every other frontier reeenactment in the Wild West show, the Pony Express was a chapter in the life of its hero and his country. Before audiences of thousands, the horseman—not Cody himself, but another “Former Pony Post” rider—raced “down the the grans stand at a gallop,” writes one ecstatic reviewer, “checked his pony within a length, and almost before it was at a standstill the rider was on the ground, the bag on another pony, and the man galloping off at full speed, in less time than it would take an ordinary man to dismount.” It was a showstopper.
Louis S. Warren, Buffalo Bill's America, p. 3
Chicken Pie
“I saw a light in the sutler’s store, went there to get the cigar, and found a party of officers, all of whom I knew, engaged in a poker game. I was most enthusiastically received, and was asked to sit in the game, or, to use the language of the period, to ‘take some of the chicken pie.”’
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864>/em>, p. 548
Pony Express Map
“W. R. Hoonell of Kansas City constructed probably the best ‘Map of the Pony Express Route,’ and also wrote a short account which is published in The Kansas Historical Quarterly, v. V, pp. 68-71.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 54, n. 360
Noisome Lunch Spot
“Going five miles more [along the Lassen Trail in 1849] the company nooned at a place where others had done the same. One may wonder why, in a country thus lacking in water and shade, people should customarily pass the noon hour at the same spot. Possibly it is merely another illustration of the gregariousness of man. This particular place was noisome. Around and about it lay the carcasses of sixty-six oxen and a mule. The oxen, Bruff noted, often lay in groups close to an abandoned wagon, as if still in hope that men would care for them.”
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 280
Mormon Emigrants From Eurpoe
Between 1847 and 1868, the last year of overland emigration by trail, nearly 50,000 British, Scandinavian, and German converts were pumped along that pipeline into Salt Lake City. During the peak year of 1855 it was said that a third of all the emigrants from the British Isles to the United States were Mormons.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 9-10
Ox Driving
“Modern representations notwithstanding, oxen were not driven by means of reins held by people sitting on the wagon seat. Instead, there were no reins attached to yoked oxen, and the driver walked alongside, controlling his team by shouting (and often by cursing), by cracking his long-handled and long-lashed whip, and sometimes by applying it. Oxen recognized the commands, “Giddap!” [go], “Gee!” [turn to the right], “Haw!” [turn to the left], and “Whoa!” [stop]. . . .
The number of animals to the wagon varied with the size and weight of the wagon and its load, and according to the temperament and wealth of the owner. Four oxen, that is, ‘two yoke’ was the minimum. Three yoke was common, and was recommended. Thus equipped, if you were unfortunate enough to suffer the loss of two oxen, you could still move the wagon.”
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 114-115
Folsom Becomes the Western Terminus
“In July [1860], the railroad was completed to Folsom, California. It then became the western terminus for the mail & Pony Express. Mail could be taken by train [to or from Sacramento and San Francisco].”
William E. Hill, The Pony Express: Yesterday and Today, p. 67
California Petition for a Wagon Road
The agitation worked itself in the formidable wagon road movement which, in 1856, culminated in a monster petition signed by 75,000 Californians who wanted a wagon road constructed over, and an overland mail placed upon, the South Pass route.
Curtis Nettles, "The Overland Mail Issue During the 1850s," The Missouri Historical Review, XVIII, no. 4 (1924), 522-23
Colt's Revolvers
“From 1836 to 1842 Colt had manufactured about five or six thousand of his patent revolvers, the first successful repeating firearms. Bad financial management – outside Colt’s control – had forced the closing of the factory and he had gone on to experiment with electrically controlled submarine mines and had laid the first successful submarine electric cable. But his revolvers had been tested in the Seminole War and had worked into the possession of the Texas Navy and the Texas Rangers – and of Santa Fe traders, such mountain men as Kit Carson, and other practical men who had to deal professionally with the Plains Indians. They had promptly worked a revolution in warfare comparable to and more immediately important than that heralded by the American light artillery at Palo Alto. They had proved themselves the first effective firearm for mounted men, and had given the Texans and other frontier runners the first weapon which enabled white men to fight with Plains Indians on equal or superior terms. Nearly all of the primordial five or six thousand had, by 1846, gravitated to the place where they were needed, the Western frontier. Most of the journals quoted in this book speak admiringly of their use and value in the West; nearly every writer who discusses outfits for emigrants recommends them.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 219
Mormon Cholera in 1849
Egan, traveling the south side in the midst of the fuirst great surge of the California gold rush, met company after company hurrying as if trying to outrace the taint of horror and death they carried in their wagons, and a lieutenant at Fort Kearney told him that between Independence and gGrand Island there had already been sixty cholera deaths. But among the Mormon companies who traveled the north bank, only four cholera deaths were reported, and the big company under Smith and Benson had no deaths whatever, from any cause.
The cholera even eased their way, for the Indians had fled from the deadly vicinity of the trail; and confirmed their self-righteousness, for they saw many Gentile graves rifled by the wolves, but not a single Mormon grave that had been touched.
Among the graves of those whose bones lie around bleaching in the sun, their flesh consumed by the ravenous wolves, we recognize the names of several noted mobocrats from the states of Missouri and Illinois … Among others we noticed at the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, the grave of E. Dodd, of Gallatin, Missouri … The wolves had completely disinterred him. The clothes in which he had been buried lay strewed around. His under jaw bone lay in the grave with the teeth complete, the only remains that were discernible of him. It is believed he was the same Dodd who was a prominent mobocrat and who took an active part in the murder of the Saints at Haun’s Mill, Missouri. If so, it is a righteous retribution. Our God will surely inflict punishment upon the heads of our oppressors in His own due time and way.
Thus the post hoc ergo propter hoc of their tribal sense of wrong. These signs shall follow them that believe.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 206
Jimson/Jamestown/Stinkweed
” . . .and though ‘Jimsen weed’ overruns the land, he [Native Americans] neglected its valuable intoxicating properties. . . .
“Properly Jamestown weed, the Datura stramonium, the English thorn-apple, unprettily called in the Northern States of America ‘stinkweed’ It found its way into the higher latitudes from Jamestown (Virginia), where it was first observed springing on heaps of ballast and other rubbish discharged from vessels. According to Beverly (‘History of Virginia,’ book ii., quoted by Mr. Bartlett), it is ‘one of the greatest coolers in the world;’ and in some young soldiers who ate plentifully of it as a salad, to pacify the troubles of bacon, the effect was ‘a very pleasant remedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days.'”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 111 and note
Russell's Reason for Starting the Pony Express
The motive which prompted Russell to organize and operate the Pony Express has often been misstated. Briefly, it was an advertising proposition to fix public and Congressional attention upon the Central Route, with the result that the lucrative contract for carrying the mail overland to California would be given to the C.O.C. & P.P. H This cold, business-like purpose detracts in no manner whatever from the romance of the undertaking. He hoped the Pony Express would make money, but he was not fully convinced it would. In fact, his contract with the St. Joseph citizens permitted him to discontinue it after six months if it did not pay. Neither Majors nor Waddell thought it would, but they went along with him anyway.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 34
Provisional State of Deseret
“When the Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Basin, their plans for their New Zion envisaged the creation of a vast empire in the West, with a number of far-flung settlements radiating from the central hub of Salt Lake City. Thus their ProvisionalState of Deseret encompassed in its boundaries all of present-day Utah and most of New Mexico, Nevada, and California, with some of Wyoming and the Pacific Northwest included. Although Congress severely reduced this domain when it delineated the Territory of Utah, the Church established colonies at San Bernardino, Carson Valley, and Limhi, on the Salmon River. These missions were placed at strategic locations on the western and northern approaches to the Valley, but the eastern route of travel, through what is now southern Wyoming, still lay open.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 35
Emergency Test of the Pony Express
In mid-march, 1860, Jules Beni shot Jack Slade, superintendent of the division, in Julesburg and left him for dead.
“Now, less than three weeks before the scheduled opening of the Pony Express, the new relay system would be put to the test under emergency conditions. Rider J.K Ellis was saddled up and dispatched to Fort Laramie, 175 miles to the northwest, in the hope that a relay horse would await him at each of the stations planted at ten-mile intervals. Fort Laramie represented the nearest legal authority; more important at this moment, it housed a military surgeon who held the only chance to save Slade’s life. . . .
J.K. Ellis made the 175-mile ride to Fort Laramie to fetch a surgeon in eighteen hours. ‘I believe,’ he later remarkes, ‘it breaks the record for a straightaway ride by a single individual.'”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 184
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, oxen, and equipment with drafts due in 60, 90 or 120 days, expecting to pay them out of earnings. Week after week passed without being notified of goods ready to go. For some reason the quartermaster’s department was exceedingly slow in making consignments to the military posts of the southwest.
Meanwhile idle bullwhackers, stock tenders and other employees had to be paid. Drafts which should have been taken up went to protest. The bulk of supplies were ordered out in August and September, almost six months after some of the obligations were incurred.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 35
Mormons Expelled from Nauvoo
The wolfpacks converged on Nauvoo with artillery and anywhere from 1,500 to 1,500 men. Their leaders, who were militiamen and preachers and thus usurped the airs of both legality and righteousness, were quarreling among themselves over authority, but they were united in their lust for violence. The state stood by helplessly; the federal government, then and later, did nothing. The thousand or so men, women, and children inside the city, of whom perhaps 100 to 150 were capable of war and of whom many were Gentiles threw up barricades and planted crude mines in the roads, and made cannonballs out of an old steamboat shaft. Their resistance was heroic, hopeless, and absurd. After several days of wild shooting, sneaking, and scrambling that resulted in three Mormon deaths and an unknown number of casualties among the attackers, peacemakers met under a white flag and the Mormons agreed to clear out at once. By the evening of September 17 [1846], jeered, harassed, beaten, possessing only what they could hastily tie into bundles, the last of the Saints crossed the Mississippi. The next day the mob expressed its mind by throwing out the Gentile residents too, and settled down to drink and fight and burn and deface and defile with the singleminded enthusiasm of Moslem troops shooting the faces off statues in a captured temple of the infidel.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 91
First Pony Arrives in Sacramento
For all the celebration, there were only eight letters for Sacramento, two for the Daily Union, one for Governor John G. Downey. But that hardly mattered to the crowds in front of the telegraph office that spring afternoon. . . .
The San Francisco Herald described the citizens as “electrified” by the arrival of the Pony Express, which had brought twenty-five letters across the continent to recipients in the bay city.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 58-59
Arkansas Tooth-Pick
“The prairie traveler is not particular about toilet: the easiest dress is a dark flannel shirt, worn over the normal article ; no braces—I say it, despite Mr. Galton—but broad leather belt for ‘six-shooter’ and for ‘Arkansas tooth-pick,’ a long clasp-knife, or for the rapier of the Western world, called after the hero who perished in the ‘red butchery of the Alamo.'”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 10
Emigrant Impressions of Salt Lake City
“To the Argonauts of ’49, the Mormons were a fascinating enigma. They had declared themselves an independent state and were functioning in that status; but actually the group was a more or less benevolent dictatorship with Brigham Young at the head, and he, partly from the exigencies of the situation and partly from temperament, would not tolerate adverse comments.
To the men of the migration who kept journals (rather a superior group on the whole) this gag rule was the most offensive item encountered. For the kindly and helpful people as a whole they had very little but praise. The Mormons were quite destitute of comforts, but industrious and thrifty. Furthermore they were destined to succeed. What little they had, they shared with those in need of help, and many an invalid remained in Salt Lake City to be nurtured back to health. The chief elders were masters of budget balancing. They carefully trained their people to turn the needs of the migration to good account, and blacksmith shops and vegetable gardens brought marvelous returns. At first they refused coin, which had no value to them, and would only accept articles that were ‘hard to come by.’ Coffee and sugar are most often mentioned, but by 1852 they had sent to France for the sugar beet and had it under cultivation.
To the women of the migration this large settlement of adobe houses was a welcome sight, and the reassuring glimpses of ordinary women like themselves at home in neat kitchens gave them confidence. Of course they had a perfectly human and rather excited curiosity about a community where the men might have all the wives they could support, and where spinsterhood was unknown. Some women of the wagon trains, both young and old, went fo farther west. . . .
Irrefutably, the Mormon doctrines attracted undesirables as naturally and unavoidably as adventurers followed the lure of gold to California, and often it was these low-minded marqueraders who brought contumely upon the whole colony. But, in the main, the people themselves were kindly and well ordered.
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 299, 301
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 needed to keep things going, he, with Waddell who knew better but was unable to resist Russell’s enthusiasm, formed a partnership with A. B. Miller of Leavenworth, known as Miller, Russell & Company. They sent a train load of goods to Utah where stores were opened at Salt Lake City, Millersburg, and Camp Floyd. By the fall of 1858 the concern owed Russell, Majors & Waddell $200,000.00.47
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 23
The Name Nebraska
“Ne-bras-ka was the original name of the river, given it by the Otoe Indians, who lived near where it empties into the Missouri. Ever since the first French trappers came into the valley it has been known simply as the Platte. The two names, however, are synonymous. Mrs. E. G. Platt, of Oberlin, Ohio, was long with the Pawnees, as teacher in the missionary schools. She wrote me, August 22, 1899: ‘I lived with the Pawnees when the territory (Nebraska) was named, and spoke their language, so am free to say Nebraska is not a Pawnee word; but a gentleman who had lived some years among the Otoes and spoke their language fluently informed me it is an Otoe word, which literally translated is weeping water, the stream upon which lies the town of Weeping Water being (by the Otoes) named ‘Nebrathka’ because of the sad tones of its waters as they rushed over their rocky bed.’”
Root and Connelley, The Overland Stage to California, p. 243 (and note)
Scott's Bluff
Miller’s paintings of Scott’s Bluff and Chimney Rock are reproduced in our plates. The convention of Western books requires me to remind the reader that the former were named for a Smith, Jackson & Sublette man who fell ill at Laramie Creek, more than fifty miles to the west, was abandoned by the trappers left to care for him, and in his delirium wandered and crawled this far toward home before dying. His bones were found at the foot of the bluffs the next year by the same party on its way back to the mountains. The story was first told by Irving. Some distance west of Ash Hollow, where the trail usually reached the North Platte, was Brady’s Island, supposed to have taken its name from a similar incident. Two trappers of a party who were taking furs down the Platte by boat quarreled and one of them, Brady, was killed by the other while the two were alone in camp. The murderer reported that Brady’s own gun had been accidentally discharged and killed him. Farther along the trail he accidentally shot himself and confessed his crime before dying. Rufus Sage says that the deaths took place ‘some eight years ago,’ which would make the date 1833, Stewart’s first year in the West. In 1838, Myra Eells, spelling the name ‘Brada,’ makes the date 1827.
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 417-18, n. 11
Traps
“We at once started for his corral, two miles distant, where we found the gentleman. He asked where our traps were. We told him, and also assured him that we would report for duty the following morning.
[“Traps”–personal belongings; baggage]
Charles E. Young, Dangers of the Trail, p.23
Starting the Pony Express
Only sixty-seven days after William Russell sent his famous telegram to his son announcing his intentions of putting a Pony Express on the road, the first riders left from St. Joe and Sacramento. To put this risky venture in motion, Russell, Majors & Waddell divided the route into five sections and placed seasoned frontiersmen in charge of each division. The firm then began buying the best horses available, paying upwards of $200 a horse (nearly $4,000 by today’s reckoning)—big money. The operation was highly secretive. Russell, Majors & Waddell was already in debt (although that was not widely known), and it would be even further in arrears after this operation was in working order. (Alexander Majors’s son, Greene, who lived until the 1930s and was a municipal judge in California, wrote later that his father’s business spent $100,000 in gold coin to outfit the line-the equivalent of $2 million today.)
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 83
The Great Plains' Effect on American Institutions
“The purpose of this book is to show how this area, with its three dominant characteristics [plane, or level surface; treeless; sub-humid], affected the various peoples, nations as well as individuals, who came to take and occupy it, and was affected by them; for this land, with the unity given it by its three dominant characteristics, has from the beginning worked its inexorable effect upon nature’s children. The historical truth that becomes apparent in the end is that the Great Plains have bent and molded Anglo-American life, have destroyed traditions, and have influenced institutions in a most singular manner. . . .
As one contrasts the civilization of the Great Plains with that of the eastern timberland, one sees what may be called an institutional fault (comparable to a geological fault) running from middle Texas to Illinois or Dakota, roughly following the ninety-eighth meridian. At this fault the ways of life and of living changed. Practically every institution that was carried across it was either broken and remade or else greatly altered. The ways of travel, the weapons, the method of tilling the soil, the plows and other agricultural implements, and even the laws themselves were modified. When people first crossed this line they did not immediately realize the imperceptible change that had taken place in their environment, nor, more is the tragedy, did they foresee the full consequences which that change was to bring in their own characters and in their modes of life. In the new region – level, timberless, and semi-arid – they were thrown by Mother Necessity into the clutch of new circumstances. Their plight has been stated in this way : east of the Mississippi civilization stood on three legs – land, water, and timber; west of the Mississippi not one but two of these legs were withdrawn, – water and timber, – and civilization was left on one leg – land. It is small wonder that it toppled over in temporary failure.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 8-9
Advantages of Mules
“The advantages of mules have been known since ancient times. Fully grown mules tend to have the height and musculature of their mother, while inheriting the leaner physique and more nimble legs of their jack father. This produces a hybrid with the strength, but nowhere near the weight, of the mother. The two most common draft-mule crosses today are mammoth jacks bred to black or gray Percheron mares, and the sorrel and dun mules produced by mating with Belgian mares. When mature, the hybrid offspring weigh as much as seven hundred pounds less than their mother, giving the finished mule an extraordinary strength-to-weight ratio and agility far beyond its roots in the horse. In the equine world, the most common adjective applied to mules is ‘athletic.’
The hybridization of closely related but not exactly matched species, like horses and donkeys, produces sterile offspring, and mules cannot reproduce themselves. (Donkeys have sixty-two chromosomes; horses have sixty-four. This creates a mule with sixty-three chromosomes, preventing a full “chain” of matches that can produce an embryo.) But the contributions from the more feral side of the donkey sire more than make up for the mule’s inability to reproduce itself. Mules endure heat much better than horses and can travel long distances without water. They require about half the feed of horses and don’t gorge on grain. The legs and hooves of a mule are stronger and tend not to ‘founder,’ or go lame, on rocky ground or with hard use. Mules live and continue to work until they are thirty years old, while most horses have finished their working lives at twenty. Another critical advantage is contributed by the donkey’s large eyes. Because mules’ eyes are set farther back on the head and are more D-shaped than a horse’s, their peripheral vision includes their hind feet, making them exceptionally sure-footed and confident in rough terrain.”
Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail, p. 35-36
Mile 1285: Henefer, UT
“For anyone riding through Utah, be forewarned that the c-store in Henefer is currently dead. There is an ice cream shop attached to it where they’ll refill your bottles.”
[N.B. the note refers to Grump’s Grocery Store, noted on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route.]
Now, suppose you have three teams of horned steers, all yoked up and pulling your wagon along the Oregon Trail. Ford will point out that you still don’t necessarily have oxen. A true ox, he explains, is a steer (or cow or bull) “with an education.” The “ox degree” is conferred when the animal reaches full maturity at age four and is trained well enough to be called “handy.” “Now, handy means they’ll go anywhere you want,” Ford continues. “They’ll back up, they’ll go right, they’ll go left, they’ll spin back to the right, which is ‘back gee,’ and they’ll spin back to the left, which is ‘back haw.’”
Dixon Ford and Lee Kreutzer, "Oxen: Engines of the Emigration," Overland Journal, V. 33. No. 1 (2015), p. 10
Simpson's Route to California
“In midwinter [1858-59] Simpson requested the Secretary of War, through the Bureau in Washington, to authorize a program of exploration for the spring which included a wagon-road survey from Camp Floyd to California by way of Carson Lake, to be followed by a an eastern trip to seek a shorter, better route from Camp Floyd to Fort Leavenworth . . . Secretary Floyd approved the project, and through General Johnson gave Simpson a carte blanche to organize the expedition. . . .
At Camp Floyd [after the exploration], Captain Simpson dispatched Lieutenant Kirby Smith with a small detachment to return over the last 100 miles of the route to straighten sections and mark them with stakes and guide posts. Wooden troughs were to be built at the springs in the desert to collect and save the water. . . .
Several days after Simpson’s return, California emigrants started west over the new route. One party with seven wagons and another with thirty were supplied with an itinerary. The same information was given to Russell, Majors & Waddell who planned to drive a thousand head of cattle over the road to California. . . .
The Pony Express, which began running between San Francisco and Salt Lake City in April 1860, used [Simpson’s] northern [outbound] route over the 300-mile course between Genoa and Hastings’ Pass, and after continuing along the 175 miles of Chorpenning’s extension of Simpson’s route as far as Short Cut Pass, it traveled along [Simpson’s] road to Camp Floyd on the way to the Mormon capital. . . .
According to General Johnson, emigrants passed daily over the new route to California, many driving large herds of stock, so that in a single season the road was well marked.
W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West, p. 150-156
Mile 890: Billboard on the Emigrant Trail
“[In 1847] at Deer Creek, you saw a billboard! Of course, it was a poor thing compared those magnificent ones now lining our highways over the mountains and across the deserts, giving our city-dwelling drivers a feeling of comfort and security. Still, great oaks can only grow from little acorns, and this beginning at Deer Creek stood thus:
Notice
The the ferry 28 ms the ferry
good and safe, maned by experienced
men, black smithing, horse and ox
shoing done al so a wheel right
This was the Mormon ferry, near the site of present Casper, Wyoming, established by order of Brigham Young on June 18, thus to turn an honest penny for the benefit of the Saints.
[N.B. Deer Creek Station later became a home station for the Pony Express. It is located in present-day Glenrock, WO, at about Mile 890 on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route]
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 187-88
Marcy Expedition Crossing the Rockies
“Marcy offered the [Ute] chief the value of three horses if he would guide the party to Cochetopa Pass, the only feasible route in miles over the continental divide. But the Indian was adamant, indicating that the white men would die if they tried to cross.
“On the 11th of December the ascent of the western slope of the Rockies was commenced. Soon snow began to impede progress and presently became deeper with a crust on the surface which cut the legs of the mules. Deeper and deeper it grew and the order of march was changed. Instead of having the animals break the trail the men were ordered in front and proceeding in single file, tramped down a path. But despite this solicitude for the animals the poor beasts began to weaken. The bitter pine leaves from the evergreens formed their only sustenance and on this unwholesome forage the famished brutes grew thin, weak, and began to die. Burdens must be lightened if the crossing was to be made, and accordingly, all surplus baggage was cached.
“But still the mules continued to perish. One day five were lost, and on the following morning eight others lay stark and rigid on the mountain side. Not only was the pace being greatly reduced but the food supply of the men was becoming alarmingly small. All the beef cattle had been consumed and the bread supply was very limited. To husband the strength of men and animals Marcy now ordered all baggage discarded except arms and ammunition and one blanket for each man.
“The snow, now four feet deep, was so dry and light that the men when walking upright sank to their waists in the fluffy whiteness. Jim Baker decided to try snow-shoes, but found the snow too loose and powdery to sustain them. In breaking trail through the deepest part the men in front now found it necessary to crawl on their hands and knees to pack the snow so that it would bear up the other men and the animals. The leading man was usually able to go about fifty yards before he became exhausted and dropped out into a rear position.
“Rations had been reduced and finally were exhausted before the summit of the divide was reached. The only food now available to the hungry men was the meat of the famished animals.”
LeRoy R. Hafen, "A Winter Rescue March Across the Rockies," p. 9-10
Clean Out of Cash & Poor Pay
” Russell, Majors & Waddell had been surviving on loans made against its government contracts for handling most of the Utah Expedition’s freighting operations since 1858. The government failed to pay its enormous debts to the company, so the operation was essentially bankrupt when it launched the Pony Express. (This helps explain why many riders said C.O.C.&P.P. stood for ‘Clean Out of Cash & Poor Pay.’)”
Will Bagley, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, Location 4004 [Kindle Edition]
Handcart Migration Disaster
“It is impossible to accurately estimate the handcart system’s total casualties, since Mormon authorities ‘tried to keep the full horror of the disaster from becoming public, especially in England. But it would be safe to estimate the total at well over two hundred, or at least one in five of the last two companies, with many others maimed for life . . . One thing is certain—the handcart disaster of 1856 was the greatest single tragedy in the history of the nation’s move west in the nineteenth century.'”
Will Bagley, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, Location 3207-3212 [Kindle Edition]
Lightening the Wagons
“As the emigrants moved up the grade approaching the Rockies, it became obvious that the overloaded wagons had to be lightened, and gradually they discarded materials not essential for survival. Domestic goods, of course, were most easily excluded from the essential category, much to the dismay of the women. “We came across a heavy old fashioned cook stove which some emigrant had hauled all those weary miles mountain and desert, only to discard it at last,” wrote Lavinia Porter. “No doubt some poor forlorn woman was now compelled to do her cooking by the primitive camp fire, perhaps much against her will.” True recalled that by the time hisparty reached the Great Basin all his mother’s camping conveniences had been discarded, greatly adding to her labors and filling her days with anxiety. This anxiety was not only the effect of added work. Books, furniture, knickknacks, chine, daguerreotypes, guitars—the very articles that most helped establish a domestic feel about the camps were the first things be discarded. Lightening the wagons, however necessary, was interpreted by women as a process operating against their interests. In one party a woman “exclaimed over an escritoire of rare workmanship” she had found along the trail “and pitied the poor woman who had to part with it.
“The loss of a sense of home—the inability to ‘keep house’ on the trail—was perhaps the hardest loss to bear, the thing that drove women closest to desperation.”
John Mack Faragher, Women & Men on the Overland Trail, p. 169-70
Russell, Majors & Waddell Partnership
They signed a co-partnership contract, dated December 28, 1854, and effective January 1, 1885. It provided that they should engage in the buying and selling of merchandise, trade in wagons, stock, and equipment for trains across the plains and in freighting for the government or others. The business was to be conducted in Lexington under the name of Waddell, Russell & Company, and in Jackson County as Majors & Russell. The capital stock was fixed at $60,000.00, one third of which was to be paid by each. The new firm took over Waddell & Russell in Lexington and had branch houses at Dover, Berlin, Wellington, and Sibley.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 14
Spread of Army Posts
“By the annexation of New Mexico and the regions to the west as far as the Pacific Ocean [in 1848], the United States shouldered the heavy responsibility of keeping in subjection the fierce tribes who inhabited these areas. This task involved the establishment of permanent military posts with year-round garrisons. By 1849 there were seven of these with troops totaling 987. Ten years later the number of posts had risen to sixteen. Every one, situated as they were in barren regions incapable of supporting them, had to be supplied with goods hauled in wagons from the Missouri River.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 4
Mile 600: Pole Creek Station
Pole Creek Station, NE
“Life at most of the Pony Express Stations was not exactly luxurious. Sir Richard Burton wrote the following about Pole Creek Station based on his 1862 visit:
‘The hovel fronting the creek was built like an Irish shanty, or a Beloch hut, against a hill side, to save one wall, and it presented a fresh phase of squalor and wretchedness. The mud walls were partly papered with “Harper’s Magazine,” “Frank Leslie,” and the “New York Illustrated News;” the ceiling was a fine festoon-work of soot, and the floor was much like the ground outside, only not nearly so clean.'”
[N.B. The marker is not on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route, but about 4 miles south, on Highway 30 just east of Sidney. The marker location is here.]
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 29
Papers Stealing News Stories
One of the greatest problems of the Bulletin and associated newspapers at this time was how to prevent the less prosperous and less enterprising papers from stealing their costly news dispatches. The pony express was forced to charge a high price for its service. The Bulletin stated that its pony dispatches telegraphed in from Carson City on May 7 and 8, 1860, cost “not less than $250, a comparatively high price for a frontier newspaper of only 6,000 to 7 ,ooo daily circulation to pay for its wire news alone. The great bulk of its news, of course, was gathered locally or came by overland mail. The smaller San Francisco papers were unable to maintain the same news facilities as the Bulletin and the Alta California and quite often lifted dispatches from those papers without even bothering to give credit.
John Denton Carter, "Before the Telegraph: The News Service of the San Francisco Bulletin, 1855-1861," Pacific Historical Review 11, No. 3 (Sep., 1942): 316
Sioux Move to the Laramie Plain
This was momentous: the Sioux were moving into Laramie Plain. It is said, on evidence not quite conclusive, that they were moved to do so by an invitation of Sublette & Campbell’s to migrate here, the preceding summer. The idea was to entice as many Company customers as possible from the established, very profitable Sioux post on the Missouri, Fort Pierre, and attach them to the Opposition’s Fort Laramie. But Fort Laramie had passed to the Company a month or so before Parker and Whitman got there, so if the Opposition really were responsible for the Oglala migration they had merely redistributed some of the trust’s trade. But there were Sioux on the Platte now and they would never abandon it. And this destroyed the structure of international relationships, producing a turbulence which was to last till the tribes were no longer capable of making war. Their inveterate enemies, the Pawnees, were now straight east of them, their inveterate enemies, the Crows, straight north. The reaches where Fontenelle met them were traditionally Cheyenne and Arapaho country. But the country just to the west – Laramie Plain, with its vast buffalo herds and its crossroads, the Laramie Mountains, the Medicine Bow mountains – had always been a kind oJ Kentucky or Rhineland. No tribe quite claimed it, no tribe dominated it, many tribes came there to hunt. Snakes and Bannocks from the west, Utes from the southwest, Cheyennes and Arapahos, Crows, Pawnees hunted buffalo here, raided one an• other, and made prairie truces so that they could trade. Now the Sioux, a populous, arrogant, and bellicose people, were going to try to establish a protectorate over it. In the service of orderly government and a peaceful condominium they warred here with nearly everyone for a generation. The Reverend Mr. Parker found
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 224
Jornada
“[By 1842, the California emigrants] had gained some valuable geographic knowledge—for instance, the desert country was passable, even with wagons, because there was never a stretch of more than thirty-five or forty miles without water and grass. Such dry drives—called ‘jornadas,’ as people were beginning to call them, using the Spanish term—though hard on teams, were not impossible.”
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 32
Easterners' View of Mormons
“If some causes of the Mormon War are only dimly visible today, the part played by eastern public opinion is not. throughout the 1850s, hostility toward the Latter-day Saints had increased until it approached unreasoning frenzy by mid-1857. . . .
there is no doubt that the Saints’ practice of polygamy was another potent force inflaming Gentiles against Mormonism. . . the Church’s explanation of ‘the Principle,’ as plural marriage came to be called, was an intricate one. . . .
To eastern minds the Mormons were guilty of more than immoral conduct; they also formed a society of conspirators against the national government. . . There was even greater concern among anti-Mormon Gentiles that Young might seek the more treasonable goal of complete separation from the Union. . . .
Agents Holeman and Hurt, supported by other federal officials, accused the Mormons of tempering with the tribes of their region, seeking to entice them from their dutiful allegiance to the country. . . .
The conceptions of the eastern Gentiles, then, pictured the Saints as libidinous villains, eager to terminate their relation with the country and prepared to transgress every standard of moral behavior by forming alliances with the hated Indian. On the other side of the anti-Mormon stereotype the leaders of the Church were held guilty of innumerable murders, indeed had a powerful secret society of assassins to commit their infamous deeds.
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 77-87
Character of Plains Settlers
In a letter to Manypenny, September 12, 1856, [Fort Laramie area Indian Agent] Twiss pointed out that the Indians were “not being improved, but rather deteriorating, and becoming worse from year to year.” This condition was due, in part, to the fact that all too often “those whites who reside among the Indians of the prairies are neither the pioneers of civilization nor settlements, but emphatically fugitives from both…. It is impossible for them to reside in the States or organized Territories, because the relat.ions of peace and amity between them and the courts of justice are inter- rupted…. [They] teach the Indians lessons in their own school of depravity.” Good missionaries and teachers, and honest traders – desirable at all times – were far from plentiful.
Twiss thus appears to have been firm in upholding his own rights and the rights of his department; ready to do the best by the Indians a.s he saw the best; keenly alert to Indian problems; but ever pessimistic or questioning the ultimate fate of the Red Man.
Alban W. Hoopes, “Thomas S. Twiss, Indian Agent on the Upper Platte, 1855-1861,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Dec., 1933), pp. 364
Purchasing Provisions at Fort Kearny
“The most important items to be obtained from the commissary were grain (when available), bacon, pickled pork, and flour, the price of which fluctuated wildly . . .
After the quartermaster, the most important suppliers of goods and services were the post blacksmith and the post sutler. As the result of inferior materials or accident much of the gear, especially the wheels, reached the fort in a weakened condition, and animals needed to be re-shod. . . .
The post sutler, being a businessman and not a philanthropist, was frequently the cause of complaints about ‘prices extragavantly high.’ . . .Capt. Stansbury noted that ‘the sutler’s store will supply travellers with groceries, cloths, and many useful articles.'”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 204-205
Balsam Gum
“Then they had stores of balsam gum from the fir grove traversed on the divide. It was not only good to chew but healthful.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 269
Cold on the 1859 Pike's Peak Express Line
The following message of W. B. Majors, who arrived on the Utah mail coach at the same time as Thompson, indicates that the employees on the overland route also endured much privation during the winter of 1859-1860.
The snow in the Rocky Mountains is very deep. . . . Nearly all the mail carriers from Fort Bridger west, had been more or less frost bitten, and one, Mr. R. P. West, had his feet frozen so badly that one foot will have to be amputated. As yet the mail has not failed, and if there is no delay between here and Fort Laramie the mail will go through without fail. . .
Mr. Majors informs us that the snow between the South Pass & Strawberry Creek would average about ten feet, & he experienced much difficulty from his mules getting into the deep snow. . . .
An express driver was reported to ham frozen to death near Fort Kearny. (Leavenworth Daily Times, December 31, 1859.)
Root and Hickman, "Pike's Peak express Companies–Part III," Kansas Historical Quarterly 13, no. 8, 1945, 505 and note 279.
Cholera Symptoms and Treatment
“Although some who contracted the disease lingered for many days, it usually struck suddenly, and often the victim was dead within hours, usually after ‘great agony.’ Diarrhea was such a common forerunner of cholera that many emigrants speak of death by cholera of diarrhea as if they were synonymous. Sore throat, vomiting, and bowel discharge seemed to be the most common symptoms. . . . An illuminating account of cholera symptoms and treatment is given by Dr. Lord of New York:
The cholera is a rapidly fatal disease, when suffered to run its course unrestrained, & more easily controlled then most diseases when met in time. . . . It commences with diarrhoea in every case. A single dose of laudunum, with pepper, camphor, musk, ammonia, peppermint or other stimulants usually effect a cure in a few minutes. If pain in the bowels was present, another dose was required. If cramp in the calves of the legs had supervened, a larger dose was given. If skin had become cold, and covered with sweat (which did not happen unless the disease had run several hours or days) the doses were frequently repeated until warmth was restored. The medicines were aided by friction, mustard plasters, and other external applications. If to all these symptoms vomiting was added, there was no more to be done. Vomiting was the worst symptom, and every case proved fatal where vomiting, purging, cramp and cold sweating skin were present . . . ‘”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 86
Buffalo Chips
” . . . our fires henceforth during several weeks were entirely of buffalo-chips, which are thickly strewn over any pasture on which you care to camp, and in a quarter of an hour with an old coffee-sack one could gather up enough for a cooking; when dry they make admirable fuel, indeed, for baking, preferable to wood, as they keep up a more even heat. At first the idea and the smell were a little unpleasant, but very soon one was only too glad to put a slice of buffalo-steak to broil on the coals, and it tasted none the worse for a sprinkling of the ashes—rather hard though upon the buffalo, that he should supply the very fuel for himself to be cooked upon.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 65
Delicacies on the Trail
“Though supplementary to breadstuff and bacon, some other articles of food were considered essential: salt, sugar, coffee, and dried fruit. In addition, each family was likely to carry along something in the way of special delicacies—tea, maple sugar, vinegar, pickles, smoked beef. . . .
Though these backwoods people had no knowledge of scientific dietetics, they had folkways which served them well. Aside from actual near-starvation, there seems to have been no dietary trouble in these early years. There is no mention of scurvy. Toward the end of the journey, after the delicacies had been exhausted, the diet was monotonous, and perhaps this is the reason, some emigrants arrived in California with a longing for pickles.”
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 120-121
Women's Need for Privacy on the Trail
In some measure, women were distressed at losing the daily exchanges, the comfonable conversation. and the sharing of chores with female kin and frtends. But the need of women for other women on the Overland ‘frail was also more critical. So simple a matter as bodily functions on a terrain that provided no shelter could make daily life an agony of embarrassment when there was no other woman to make of her extended skirt a curtain. Excretion and evacuation could become unspeakable problems without another woman or women to make a curtain of modesty. Resistance to the appearance of bloomers on the frontier becomes more understandable when one conslders that the reduced skins had implications beyond fashion. Long and full skirts on the lrail were soon begrimed and muddy, but they were worn because of their properties as curtains. Two women together, long skirts extended, lent privacy to a third; and even one woman could provide a measure of propriety to a sister on the ‘frail. But a woman alone, where could she hide from the eyes of the men? There was periodic menstruation-and the lack of water. There was periodic dysentery–and the lack of water. There was occasional childbirth-and the lack of water. And all of these functions were comphcated by the absence of shelter and by a lack of privacy. Only In contemplating the utter emptiness of some of the terrain the emigrants crossed can one comprehend the panic felt by women at the prospect of being alone among men. There were days when the horizon was not broken by a tree or hill. There were just miles of flat land. Somehow it seemed as if every vicissitude of the road might be borne as long as a woman could preserve the pale of modesty and privacy. When these were stripped away, those aspects of life that came under the heaviest taboos of society-the bodily functions of excretion and childbirth-were exposed to the eyes of men. The need women felt to travel beside at least one other woman was hardly neurotic; it was a reflection of the very real and and essential services. The daily services women performed for each other.
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 98-99
Mile 1086: Parting of the Ways Parting of the Ways, WY
“About 18 miles after travelers on the Oregon Trail crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass, they reached a junction known now as the Parting of the Ways. The right fork went west toward Fort Hall in present southern Idaho, while the left continued southwest toward Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City. The Fort Hall route was a cutoff, opened in 1844. It saved about 46 miles and two and a half days’ travel, but only by crossing a waterless, sagebrush desert.”
“Stagecoaches, pulled by six horses (for speed) or by mules (for endurance), traveled much faster than wagons pulled by an equal number of oxen. A coach could cover about 110 miles in a twenty-two-hour day, compared to only about 15 miles for a loaded freight wagon.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 93
Pawnee Reputation
“On the other side of the camp—a curious contrast—guns and ammunition were being distributed, as there were reports of the Pawnees being collected some twelve miles in advance. The Pawnees have the name of being about the meanest and most rascally set of Indians in the whole country; more ready to bully than to fight, and most to pick off stragglers; as a tribe, they are at peace with the United States.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 57
Mile 1677: Egan Canyon
“Special recognition is given to this canyon simply because it is given so much notice by the literature. Egan Canyon was named for Howard Egan who pioneered Chorpenning’s mail service through there in the l850’s.
When Simpson passed through the canyon on May 15, 1859 he was impressed by its ruggedness.
Egan Canyon we found quite narrow, and somewhat remarkable on account of the rocks which wall it in on either side. These rocks are tremendously massive, and rise sheer to a height in one place of about 1,000 feet.
Egan Canyon was the site of many ambushes by the Indians since it was an ideal location. . . .
“Today a good county road criss crosses the creek as it runs up the canyon. Despite the absence of threatening Indians, if you travel the canyon at dusk, the rock cliffs and high walls arouse the same awesome, closed-in feeling today as they did when Simpson, Burton and all the Pony` Express riders passed through them.”
Dorothy Mason, The Pony Express in Nevada,, p. 62
Whose Idea Was the Pony Express
It is the purpose of this article to discuss one of these questions, with the hope of shedding a little light upon it and of giving credit where credit is due.
That question is with whom the idea originated. The first attempt to answer it appears to have been made by William Lightfoot Visscher in 1908, when he wrote The Pony Express, the first book on that institution. In the fall of 1854, he said, Senator William M. Gwin, United States Senator from California, was riding horseback from San Francisco to the Missouri River, on his way to take up his legislative duties in Washington. On that journey, for a long distance and many days, he had for a traveling companion Benjamin F. Ficklin, general superintendent of the freighting firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell. Between them they evolved the idea of a Pony Express. . . . That story cannot be true for several reasons, the first and most conclusive of which is that Russell, Majors & Waddell did not exist in the fall of 1854. . . .
Another story of recent vintage, told by Herbert Hamlin, editor of the Pony Express, credits Colonel Frederick A. Bee, president and builder of the Placerville & St. Joseph Overland Telegraph Line, with being the “Father of the Pony Express.” The sole basis for the author’s sweeping assumptions seems to be the mere fact that Colonel Bee and William H. Russell were probably in Washington at the same time during the winter of 1859-60. . . .
Still another story is related by Charles R. Morehead, nephew of Russell’s wife, who was appointed assistant to James Rupe, general agent for Russell, Majors & Waddell, to supervise the wagon trains which were transporting supplies for Johnston’s Army to Utah in 1857. . . “With Mr. Floyd,” said Morehead, “the question of the feasibility of a pony express across the continent was presented by Mr. Russell, and fully discussed. Captain Rupe’s views were called for, and he expressed the opinion that it was entirely practicable at all seasons on this route, all the way to California.” . . . Morehead’s Narrative, written at the request of William E. Connelley, secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, is included in the Appendix to his Doniphan’s Expedition, which was published in 1913. . . .
In 1879, Joseph S. Roberson, who was a member of the Pony Express staff at St. Joseph, wrote a story of its founding and operation. According to his report, “the fertile brains of Wm. H. Russell and B. F. Ficklin conceived the idea of a Pony Express, to be run under the patronage of the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company.” . . .
John Scudder, an employee of Russell, Majors & Waddell, stationed at Salt Lake City in the fall and winter of 1859, told how he and others discussed the possibility of a fast letter-mail from St. Joseph to San Francisco in twelve days. Among the group was A. B. Miller, partner of Russell and Waddell in the firm of Miller, Russell & Company, which operated stores in Salt Lake City and Camp Scott at Bridger’s Fort. . . . Quite a number of communications passed between Mr. Russell and his agent (A. B. Miller) at Salt Lake City, and the upshot of it was that the former [Scudder probably meant Miller] agreed to test the matter by stringing out a lot of horses and riders between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. . . .
It appears the scheme originated with
The Alta California of San Francisco, on March 23, 1860, in a dispatch from its Washington correspondent, tells another story. . . “Mr. Butterfield himself in this city about three months ago. At that time Charles M. Stebbins and his Great Overland Mail chief were in consultation on the subject of a regular Horse Express to California, running from the terminus of the telegraph line on this end to the commencement of the Street line on the other, in ten days, carrying important dispatches and paages at the rate of about $50 per pound, and news dispatches at a high figure. . . .
Alexander Majors said in his book (1893) that Gwin asked him and his partners “to test the practicability of crossing the Sierra Nevadas, as well as the Rocky Mountains with a daily line of comminications.” Whether he meant a daily coach service, which he probably did, or a pony express, is not known. If Gwin suggested or sought a government subsidy to carry out this experiment there is no record of it. . . .
Regardless of who conceived the idea for a Pony Express, William H. Russell was the man with sufficient vision, ability, courage, and capital to organize it. That fact cannot be questioned. Others had dreamed about it, but he alone made it a reality. The “Father of the Pony Express,” therefore, was no other than William H. Russell himself.
Settle and Settle, "Orgin of the Pony Express," Missouri Historical Society Bulletin Vol. 26, No.3, April 1960, p. 200-207
Overland Mail Road Improvements
“The year following the establishment of the Pony Express, the Southern Daily Overland Mail, which had been established in 1859 through northern Texas to California was transferred to the Central or Simpson route, its regular trips commencing on the first of July, 1861. . . .
From the date of the removal of the Southern Overland Mail to the Central route, and the establishment of the Daily Stage line, the mail facilities and means of transportation into and through the Territory began to improve rapidly. New roads were constructed and the old ones were improved, so that heavy loads of merchandise could be transported and faster time made over them. Two toll-roads were built across the Sierra; one called the Placerville, and the other the Dutch Flat, or Donner Lake route. These were wide enough so that teams could pass in the narrowest places. The overland stage ran with great regularity, and its business was conducted with promptness and dispatch.”
Thompson and West, History of Nevada (1881), pg. 105-106
Pony Express Rider Character
Despite occasional refuge in hyperbole, it is easily discerned that even routine life in the saddle was poorly calculated to attract applicants from the skittish or faint-hearted, or from the pampered sons of gentle birth. Wherever restless men pushed the frontier beyond the borders of established society, the vanguard was liberally comprised of uneducated, roughhewn individualists, misfit escapees from the monotony of civilization and malcontents turned adventurers. Bankers, lawyers, financiers, conservative men of mark and substance, were in small minority among the explorers of the wilderness. The demand from the unknown, uncharted West was for muscled stamina in men who had little to risk, and to whom chance and fate were synonyms of excitement and opportunity.
Which is not to gainsay the clever prowess and dauntless bravery of the Pony Express rider. The American hero, for good or bad, is made of wonderful physical stuff, and with this commodity the valiant mail courier was richly endowed. So, if we find him departing the straight and narrow, neglecting the tenets of his employer, or, as Burton put it, “enjoying the mental refreshment of abundant bad language,” he is not discarding the badge of heroism, only demonstrating the capacity of character.
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 101-102
Central Overland's Mail Monopoly
“The effect of the Pony Express on Washington was immediate and profound. Five weeks after the Pony was launched, a special Congressional committee recommended building a railroad along the Platte River route to Salt Lake City. On May 11, also just five weeks after the Pony Express got under way, Postmaster General Holt abruptly annulled George Chorpenning’s semi-monthly mail contract between California and Salt Lake and awarded the annual $83,241 fee to the Central Overland instead. For the first time, William Russell’s company help a monopoly on U.S. mail service over the entire central route, enabling it to compete head-to-head with Butterfield’s southern route for the primary transcontinental federal mail contract.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 195
Shawnee Mission
“Two miles beyond the ‘frontier of the state of Missouri’ the westbound travelers came to a mission. the was undoubtedly the Shawnee Mission—still in existence [in the 1940s] and well worth a visit. . . . It was a notable landmark and the missionaries were making a real attempt to mitigate the evils caused by the juxtaposition of negroes, unscrupulous whites, and border Indians who were ‘thick as toads on a mill pond’ and all too often drunk.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 21
'Tis Better Thus
“Perhaps, as the lady journalists of the fifties would have phrased it, ‘Tis better thus.’ If the hundreds of persons who kept trail diaries could have an inkling of the erudite institutions that would some day cherish them in fireproof vaults, nine-tenths of them would have forestalled the attention by personally burning the diaries in the last campfire.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 197
Telling Time by Moons
“The time of these conventions was generally set by a formula; the Indians could not go by the days of the month, so the date was fixed for a certain number of moons ahead, and the time set was ‘when the moon is straight up at sunset. ‘ When the moon was overhead at sunset it gave time for the pow-wow, and then the Indians had a full moon in which they could ride night and day going home.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 204
Pony Express as a Government Service
In view of the oft-repeated statement that the Pony Express never had official government recognition or sanction, it is significant that the bill not only expressly stipulated that the Express should be operated, but also fixed the fee to be charged. After July 1, 1861, and as long as it operated, it was a government authorized service running on a schedule included in the law.
Raymond W. Settle, "The Pony Express, Heroic Effort—Tragic End," Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. 27 n.2, p. 116
First Mormon Mail Contract
The first government mail service between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City was supplied by Samuel Woodson, who 1850 took the contract for four years. But well before that there had been a private Mormon service whose carriers were Porter Rockwell, Almon Babbitt, and others, and when Woodson after a little more than a year had to have help, Feramorz Little took over the route from Salt Lake City to Fort Laramie for the last two years and eleven months of Woodson’s contract. From August 1, 1851 to April, 1853, Little and his helpers Eph Hanks and C. F. Decker rode that lonely and dangerous five hundred miles of mountains with no station and no change of animals except at Fort Bridger and, toward the end of their contract, at Devil’s Gate.
The plan was to meet the carrier from Independence at Fort Laramie, as near as possible to the fifteenth of each month, to exchange mail sacks, and to ride back at once. It was a route, like any mail route, but it meant a thousand-mile round-trip every thirty days. Often they picked up travelers who for safety’s sake wanted to ride with them, sometimes they were held up as much as three weeks by snow, once or twice they barely got through alive, several times they had encounters with the Crows, who were accustomed to “pick” small parties anywhere between Fort Laramie and Devil’s Gate.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 293-94
Senator Gwin on California and the South
Senator Gwin had said, in a speech delivered December 12, 1859, in the senate chamber, “I believe that the slave-holding states of this confederacy can establish a separate and independent government that will be impregnable to the assaults of all foreign enemies,” and had gone on to show why they should, and how they could, exist as a separate government. He had also said that if the southern states went out of the union “California would be found with the south;” but he was careful to expunge this and other similar remarks from the official report of his speech. It was intended for the senate and not for the ear of California; but it was wafted on the wings of newspaper gossip, and was known before either of the conventions met to choose a course for the future.
H. H. Bancroft, History of California, Vol. VII, 258-259
1923 Pony Express Celebration Plans
On the first day the sixty riders for the new Pony Express will start on their journey to California, following as nearly as possible the original route; on successive days in the order of their handicaps will go a railroad train, tractors, automobiles and airships, all timed to arrive in San Francisco on Admission Day, September 9th.
Louise Platt Hauck, "The Pony Express Celebration," the Missouri Historical Review, Vol. 27, no. 4 July 1923, p. 435
Woodward Delivers the California–Salt Lake City Mail
“Also in July [1858], Woodward [co-partner with George Chorpenning in Woodward and Co., which held the mail contract between Sacramento and Salt Lake City starting in 1851] made his first passage over the trail packing mail to Utah. On July 18 he was attacked in Thousand Spring Valley by two well-armed and mounted Indians. . . . Following his narrow escape, Woodward arrived safely with the mail at Salt Lake City before the end of July.
The return to Sacramento in August was even more hazardous. Woodward and a nine-man escort apparently left Salt Lake City on August 1, and followed the Salt Lake Cutoff, via Granite Goose Creek, to the Humboldt. On August 10, two of the escort were fired on by six or eight mounted Indians between wells and Elko, Nevada. Two days later, near Carlin, Nevada, the party was awakened at dawn by rifle fire from the willows along the river as Indians attempted to stampede the stock. One man and three animals were wounded when the carriers hitched up fought a slow retreat up Emigrant Pass. In the broken summit of the pass, a second band of Indians ambushed the mail party but failed to prevent its escape southwest toward Gravelly Ford.
On August 15, Woodward met a courier named Henderson with the August 1 mail from Sacramento. Henderson had been the target of several long-range attacks on the previous day. Doubting that Henderson could fight through to Salt Lake City, Woodward ordered him to accompany the westbound mail to Carson Valley. Enroute, the combined mail parties were joined by six survivors of a fourteen-man emigrant train that had also been attacked by Indians. Woodward left Henderson at Carson Valley and brought the Utah mail into Sacramento on August 31. . . .
Despite the Indian menace, Woodward & Company’s initial trips to and from Utah indicated possible profit in express and coach service. Within a week of Woodward’s return to Sacramento at the end of August, he and Chorpenning bought seventy-five pack animals and expanded their business to include freight and passengers.”
John M. Townley, "Stalking Horse for the Pony Express: The Chorpenning Mail Contracts between California and Utah, 1851-1860", Arizona and the West, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1982), p. 231-232
Changing Attitude Toward Cholera Victims
“While families might grieve, the attitude of emigrants generally toward their fallen associates underwent gradual change as they moved westward. If death occurred during the first few weeks out, as along the Blue River, there might be full-dress funeral services . . . but as the migration moved out along the Platte, and emigrants began to die in wholesale lots, the ‘spirit of gloom’ gave way to a sense of panic with the realization that ‘Sierra snows were waiting,’ and burials and funeral services were performed perfunctorily, sometimes with indecent haste.
Sometimes a company would encamp waiting for a stricken member to die; more often he would be carried along in a wagon, suffering with every jolt, ‘gradually yielding to the embrace of the monster.’ When death seemed imminent, some trains left ‘watchers’ to wait for the end and provide burial; others simply abandoned hopeless cases along the roadside. Carlisle Abbott and Lucy Cooke cite cases of men digging raves within sight of a dying companion, while Elisha Brooks makes the horrible accusation that ‘come were buried before life was extinct.’ Helen Carpenter, herself a highly sensitive person, suggests that there was a numbing process of dehumanization in which emigrants along the Platte were ‘robbed of all sentiment.'”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 87
Move from St. Joseph to Atchison
“Beginning in September, 1861, the Post Office Department ordered the dispatch of the overland mail from Atchison rather than St. Joseph, since the Kansas town was 14 miles farther west on an extension of the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad. The terminal of the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company was accordingly moved to the new location, partly because it would be more free from involvement in the Civil War then raging in Missouri.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 80
Abbrigoins
“They [the Pawnee guides] were not used to hats, and only those having some rank or authority seemed to desire to hold onto them. In addition to this, most of them from time to time took off their blouses and tied them to their saddles, and above their trousers they had on nothing but their naked, sunburned skin. The slang expression for an Indian out there in those days was ‘abbrigoin.’ General Mitchell would watch them skirmishing around and would say, ‘What in [blankety-blank] do you think those abbri-goins are good for anyhow?’ Before we got to Julesburg every Indian had cut the seat out of his cavalry pants, and they were in two sections, held up by an outside belt to the waist. Ever and anon squads of them would take off their two separate trouser-legs and tie them to the saddle, and then the Indian would ride along with nothing on but a breech-clout and moccasins, and he as a soldier was a sight to behold.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 257
St. Joseph Contract
In consideration of these things the C.O.C. & P.P. got a block of twelve lots in Pattee Addition, eighteen in the town of Elwood, Kansas, the use of a building for an office, free passage over the Roseport & Palmetto Railroad for express packages, officers and employees of the Company for twelve months and free ferriage across the Missouri River for express coaches, wagons, etc., for two years.
The most significant and important concession the Express Company got was the exclusive privilege of carrying express matter over the Roseport & Palmetto Railroad and extensions thereof for 20 years. It was also agreed that the railroad would withold all connections from any other road running west to Denver which did not grant the same privileges.
By this contract Russell paved the way for the C.O.C. & P.P. to engage in the railway express business. He, as well as everyone else, knew that the day when steel rails would span the prairies and mountains to reach the Pacific Ocean was not far distant. Both he and the people of St. Joseph fully expected that the infant Roseport & Palmetto Railroad would be extended to Denver and eventually to the Pacific Coast.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 33
Mile 1304: East Canyon/Dixie Hollow/Dixie Creek/Bauchmanns/ Snyder's Mill Station
“Ten and one-half miles from Weber via Bachelors Canyon [blocked by private land] or about 13 and one-half miles from Weber via Henefer.
“East Canyon Station, currently inundated by the East Canyon Reservoir, is located in Section 10. Often referred to as Snyder’s Mill this error may be derived from information gleaned from Captain Albert Tracy’s Journal. It was at Snyder’s house, in Section 19, along the road from Parley’s Canyon that Tracy stayed the night. Further confusion occurs since Snyder’s Settlement (Snyderville) and Snyder’s Sawmill are shown as located in Section 31, about 3 miles south of Snyder’s House. Samuel Snyder had settled at this location in 1853.
“Following its use as a mail station, travelers and sheepherders utilized the area and the neglected buildings. A sheep corral and grave mark the site. . . .
“Facing down East Canyon, the Mormons built a fortification about four and one half miles south of East Canyon Station. The structure was built for a holding action against Johnston’s Army. A site just to the north of here has been called Bauchmanns, but evidently this site is also in error. The pioneers traveled south of Bauchmanns about two and one half miles and turned northwest up Camp Creek or what is now called Little Emigration Canyon. By the time of the Express, a shorter road had been constructed up Monument Creek, or as it is now called, Dutch Hollow. Traces of this road are still visible on the ground.”
[Note: The road up Monument Creek is now Highway 65. The XP Bikepacking Trail follows the Emigrant Trail to Mormon Flat, then up Little Emigrant Canyon. The turnoff is just after the station.]
Red Buttes Crossing/Bessemer Bend (south of Casper) is one of the places where travelers forded the North Platte River— then 300 yards wide—for the last time and started the push toward the Sweetwater River. This crossing was used mostly in the early years of the emigration. After 1847, ferries were available between Casper and Glenrock (Deer Creek). The Red Buttes Pony Express station and an Overland Stage station also were located in this vicinity. Wayside exhibits at this BLM site tell the story. While visiting the crossing, look toward the east to see the Red Buttes, the noted emigrant-era landmark that gave the crossing its name.
[NB. This station os near Bessemer Bend, off hwy 220. The XP Bikepacking Route sticks to Emigrnt Trail/Poison Spider road a few miles to the west.]
“During the twelve ensuing days the men continued to live on the meat of starved or exhausted horses and mules. As the salt supply ran out they discovered that gunpowder sprinkled on the mule steaks took the place of both salt and pepper.”
LeRoy R. Hafen, "A Winter Rescue March Across the Rockies," p. 11
St. Joseph and Aunt Jemimah
The World’s Columbian Exposition introduced the midway and the Ferris wheel to the American lexicon, and it featured, too, everything from Scott Joplin’s ragtime to the compositions of Antonin Dvorak and the marches of John Philip Sousa. The dancer Little Egypt was on hand. Aunt Jemima, the pancake mix, made its debut there (like the Pony Express, born in St. Joseph). The largest demonstration of electricity in the nineteenth century took place.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 167
The Gratification of Slaying an Enemy
“In his correspondence with Einstein, Freud argued that each of us derives a very basic and profound gratification from slaying an enemy, however imaginary the act, and from viewing him prostrate at our feet. In movies, in Western literary fiction, we are the gunfighter and we ritually slay our adversaries again and again. We are our projected selves who destroy, with an imagined bullet, our frustrations, our obstacles, our guilt, and we slay them with anger, hostility, and relief. The scenario is a simple one, one against one. We can confront the enemy, can meet him face-to-face, and can destroy him in front of us. No long-range shots are necessary. The enemy is slain in front of our eyes, we see the bullet entering his body (or imagine we do) we see the body suddenly and violently hurled backward with the impact of the bullet’s blow, and then we see it crumple to the ground before us. When our frustrations are thus eliminated, we are relieved, our anxieties alleviated, however temporarily.
One of the most appealing parts of this murder is that it is painlessly and simply done. It is a victimless killing. There is no blood and no pain, and yet we derive that great satisfaction of experiencing the obliteration of feelings in ourselves that call for destruction. The experience is cathartic, renewing.”
Bruce Rosenberg, The Code of the West, p. 162
Meeting Between Slade and Virginia
“The exact place and date of the meeting between Virginia Slade, nee Virginia Dale, and Jack Slade is not known, but from tracing actual dates of events in Slade’s tempestuous career, we do know that it was sometime in the early part of 1860 that she became known as ‘Mrs. Slade.’ At that time she rescued Jack from a band of his enemies who were holding him captive in a log hut, awaiting the arrival of the gang’s chieftains to decide on the manner of Jack’s death. Jack asked to see his wife, to tell her farewell.
Virginia, who was an expert markswoman, equally handy with revolvers and rifles, arrived on a fast horse. She was wearing a worried look and a voluminous skirt. Jack asked plaintively to ‘see his wife alone.’ The guards granted this request, and she flew to his arms. As he enfolded her caressingly, he felt the comforting bulge of two five-shooters in the pockets of her flowing gown. Jack still had his own two guns. Why the guards had been so careless is a matter of guesswork—maybe they liked the little guy! But anyway, he had them. He and Virginia rushed to the cabin door, each armed with two guns, surprised the guards, whom they kept at gun-point, jumped on Virginia’s fine, fast-moving horse, and dashed away.
Also in 1860, the Slades befriended Widow Bartholomew, whose husband, Dr. Bartholomew, had been murdered by a couple of ruthlesss ruffians.”
Virginia Rowe Towle, Vigilante Woman," p. 125-126
Winter Resupply for the Utah Expedition
The “Mormon War” broke in 1857. . . . ‘l’he aspen leaves were already flashing a brilliant yellow and the chill of autumn was abroad when the little army reached the Green River valley in present western Wyoming. . . . Lot Smith, clever and elusive, captured several of the trains of supplies which were in the rear of the troops. . . .
“The army found itself in a rather hazardous position. With supplies greatly reduced, winter snows already falling, and with one hundred miles of bleak mountains separating them from the Mormon metropolis beside the Great Salt Lake, it was decided to forstall plans of conquest for the present season and establish winter quarters. New supplies in quantity must be had and the nearest source was at Fort Union, New Mexico. To that depot a detachment must be sent for succor. Albert S. Johnston (later killed as a Confederate general in the Civil War) was in command of the United States troops at Fort Bridger. He ordered Captain R. B. Marcy to lead the expedition to New Mexico.”
LeRoy R. Hafen, "A Winter Rescue March Across the Rockies," p. 7
End of the Handcart Era
So the conclusion must be—and Mormon practise indicates that it was the conclusion of the hierarchy too—that handcarts were a perfectly feasible means of bringing the harvest to the valleys of Ephraim, if: if they started on time, if their carts were well-made, if they did not try to hurry, if they had relief supplies somewhere west of Fort Laramie, if they had enough wagons to carry food and to relieve the sick or feeble, and if the priesthood didn’t get overzealous about testing their charges. But just about the time when these conditions began to be acknowledged and met, the pattern of the emigration was abruptly changed. After 1860 there were no more handcarts, and very few of the old-fashioned kind of wagontrains.
Everything on the trail was changing. The tenth handcart company, during its eighty days in transit, several times met or was passed by the overland stage carrying mail and passengers behind four good and frequently changed horses, and periodically the Pony Express riders scoured by their carts at a furious gallop. Both Pony Express and Overland Stage looked lovely and fast and comfortable from down in the roadside dust, but as the swift changes of the 186o’s developed, neither was to last much longer than the handcarts. The Pony Express, that most brilliant and romantic of mail services, came and went like the clatter of advancing and then receding hoofs: it was dead the moment Edward Creighton carried his Overland Telegraph through to the West Coast from Omaha. The Overland Stage would die of an overdose of railroad in 1 869. But until then, it would share the trail with the final form of Mormon transport, the so-called Church Trains.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 289
The Loose Herd
“In addition to wagons, teams, and necessary harness, the journey demanded much else . . . Extra cattle were usually driven along in a ‘loose herd,’ for spares and for a supply of fresh meat. Herders then had to be assigned, one man to thirty cattle. Herding was trying and disliked work. The cattle frequently strayed and occasionally stampeded, and always they had to be guarded against the Indians. Some people judged a loose herd to be more nuisance than it was worth.”
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 117
Russell's Stagecoach Company's Debt
No amount of positive publicity, however, resolved the unpaid debts the L & PPE continued to incur. Although the line ran a regular schedule, operating costs exceeded passenger fare receipts and the mail contract rate. By October 28, 1859, the line owed creditors $525,532. Russell, Majors and Waddell, a creditor of approximately $100,000, bought the L & PPE rescuing its own investment. The L & PPE’s largest indebtedness was for buying and more fully equipping the Hockaday mail line. William Russell organized a new company, the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company (COC & PP) on November 23, 1859, and reclaimed the stage line from Russell, Majors and Waddell. The same principals involved themselves along with several more individuals as incorporators of the new entity. In August 1860, the Post Office Department awarded the mail contract to the Western Stage Company with delivery service from Omaha, Nebraska to Denver, only complicating the COC & PP’s fragile business. The COC & PP lost most of its mail and express business to and from Denver to its new competitor.
Heather King Peterson, Colorado Stagecoach Stations, p. 26-27
Brigham Young's Plans for the Desert
“Brigham Young’s plans for the desert mecca were ambitious, extending even to the acquisition of a seaport on the Pacific Coast. Initial explorations into the surrounding area were quickly followed by colonizing missions. Passing emigrants thus found not only an impressive city by the lake but also clusters of small communities presumably located to defend the ‘inner core of settlements’ and to sustain the all-weather route to San Diego along the ‘Mormon Corridor.’
Within ten years of their arrival at Salt Lake, Mormon pioneer-missionaries under Young’s close supervision had established ninety-six separate settlements. Outposts fanned out from the Salt Lake City axis in all directions: southwest along the corridor to San Bernardino, California, southeast to Moab, Utah, northeast to Forts Bridger and Supply, north to the Fort Lemhi mission on Idaho’s Salmon River, and westward to Mormon Station in the Carson Valley. An impressive testament to both Young’s aspirations and abilities, this extensive domain initially spanned some 1,000 miles from its northernmost to southernmost point and 800 miles from east to west. It incorporated one-sixth of the territory of the United States.”
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 303
Euphuistic Paraphrasis
“He described himself, for instance, as having lately been ‘slightly inebriated;’ but the euphuistic periphrasis concluded with an asseveration that he would be ‘Gord domned’ if he did it again.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 166
Unvitiated
“On the Morning of July 23, 1864, we left our camp at the mouth of Lodgepole Creek and started up the valley. It was one of the most beautiful mornings that ever was seen in what was then an empty and inhospitable country. The air was so pure and unvitiated that it was a delight to breathe it. It was a blessing to be alive, and be able to start with the cavalcade up Pole Creek valley.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 260-61
Onward The Pony Rushed
Onward, onward, he rushed, dutifully bringing the tidings, glad or sad. Fearlessly, his rider explored the unknown desert, crossed the raging streams and swept through the pathless forest. He shined on mountain tops and raced with the wind through narrow valleys. Day and night, in rain or sleet, under blue skies or in blinding snow, his footsteps never paused, save in the pitiless agony of savage death. He bridged a vast gulf and made a continent, and he thrilled a waiting people with news of faraway places. He kept the vigil of needed trust. And in each generation the imperishable legend is born anew, as muffied hoofbeats once more echo the romantic story of the Old West.
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 139
Mormons and Native Americans
“The way Latter-day Saints interacted with Native Americans was influenced by their religious beliefs. The Book of Mormon, the main religious text for the Church, prominently features two groups: the Nephites and the Lamanites. At the end of the Book of Mormon the Lamanites rebel against the teachings of Jesus Christ and are considered ‘fallen’ from the light of truth. The Lamanites are believed by Mormons to be ancient ancestors of Native Americans.”
Raelyn M. Embleton, Racial Conflict in Early Utah: Mormon, Native American and Federal Relations, p. 4
Old Julesburg Crossing
“Near This Place, which I will call Old Julesburg, the river-crossing started in a little east of the station, not very far down the river, and went around in a curve, coming out say a quarter or half a mile farther up the river. There was another crossing farther up the river, that crossed over west of the mouth of Lodgepole ; the two trails went up Lodgepole Creek on opposite sides, until they joined several miles farther up. Those present at that time were in the habit of calling the lower one the ‘California crossing’ and the west one the ‘Mormon crossing’ because it appears that the Mormon trains crossed there and went quite a distance up the west side of Lodgepole.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 249-50
Difference Between California and Oregon Emigrants
“Oregonians during the 1850s believed themselves more ‘respectable’ than their Pacific Coast neighbors to the south, expressing the feeling in an arrogant anecdote: ‘At Pacific Springs, one of the crossroads of the western trail, a pile of gold-bearing quartz marked the road to California; the other road had a sign bearing the words “To Oregon.” Those who could read took the Oregon Trail.'”
john D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 93
History of the Mormon Trail
From the Missouri west, despite the assertion of many journals and many histories that the Mormons were breaking a new road, the trail was known and traveled before they came. Both sides of the Platte valley, that almost inescapable level highway into the West, had been an Indian travel route for generations. Traders between Fort Laramie and the Missouri River posts had sometimes traveled the north bank. The missionaries who in 1844 built a mission to the Pawnee on Loup Fork had used it. The Stevens Party of 1844 had gone that way. According to George R. Stewart, there had been wagons up the north bank as early as 1835.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 10
Ficklin and Russell
Shortly after Ficklin departed, Russell penned some derogatory statements about him to Joseph Roberson of the firm’s St. Joseph office. Ficklin chanced to read them and fired a telegram to Russell: “Send a man for my place damned quick.”
Angered and unappreciative of the rudeness, Russell took him at his word and told his partners to put J. H. Clute in the job. The feud now blazed merrily. Russell’s instructions were ignored, so he asked for a board of directors meeting, to take Ficklin’s resignation. Waddell said no, for the company couldn’t get along without him. To this Russell replied that it was either Ficklin or himself, and in the latter event would his partners please arrange to sell his stock?
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 90
Joseph Smith
“But it must not be forgotten that, during the last two years of his life, Joseph’s paranoia had increased. He had always been drunk on glory, now he was drunk on power. His fury fell alike on those who questioned him within the Church, the Missouri Pukes, and the Congress and President of the United States. In musical-comedy uniforms, he was lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion; its rituals were fantastic but its muskets were just as usable as any the Pukes had. He had announced himself as a candidate for President against Polk and Henry Clay – his platform was mostly apocalypse but included a plank for the seizure of the West – and several hundred missionaries were stumping the East to get him votes. He had dropped some of the secrecy that had hidden the doctrine of polygamy; he and many of his hierarchy were practising, it with a widening range that could not be altogether covered by denials.
“All these were blunders; the last was the worst blunder. There had always been dissent in Israel, backsliders, apostates, a sizable if futile bulk of opposition. Suddenly opposition to polygamy crystalized in a revolt led by men of courage and genuine intelligence. They struck hard, establishing in Nauvoo a newspaper which def nounced Joseph. He struck back, and the newspaper printed one l issue only. Joseph’s marshal, assisted by Joseph’s Legion, pied its type and pounded its press to pieces in the street. The rebels fled. The Illini, especially the politicians who had been sold out, needed f just this to produce their own uprising. Illinois had had enough of the Mormons, the mob rose, and Joseph was killed.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 87
COC&PPE Services
This letter, mailed in Denver on June 19, 1960, was canceled at St. Joseph, Missouri, seven days and approximately seven hundred miles later. At the time it was carried, the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company operated a daily stage from the Missouri River to Denver, K. T. (then Kansas Territory), a semiweekly stage to Salt Lake City, and a semimonthly stage to California, in addition to running a semiweekly Pony Express from the Missouri River to California.
Raymond W. Settle, "The Pony Express, Heroic Effort—Tragic End," Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. 27 n.2, p. 106
Caches Disguised as Graves
“In 1849 Capt. Stansbury found one marked grave which, ‘instead of containing the mortal remains of a human being, had been a safe receptacle for divers casks of brandy.’ J.G. Bruff understood also that ‘the emigrants had many semblances of graves, which were actually caches of goods.’ He describes one such ‘quondam grave’ which ‘some cute chaps had opened up and emptied.'”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 89
Alexander Doniphan
“One of [Boggs’s] militia commanders in 1838 was Alexander Doniphan. He was a famous jury lawyer, probably the best in all Missouri, and it followed naturally that he commanded six militia regiments. He was a mighty man – and a righteous one. So when General Lucas captured Joseph and other leaders of the Church and, in obedience to Boggs’s Extermination Order, tried them by courtmartial and ordered them to be shot for treason in the public square at Far West, Doniphan took a stand. Called upon to execute the condemned, he refused. “It is cold-blooded murder,” he wrote his general. “I will not obey your order. My brigade shall march for Liberty tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock, and if you execute these men I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal, so help me God.” His troops marched, the order was not executed, and the chastened general, after holding the condemned prisoners over the winter, finally arranged for them to escape.
“Even before that, Doniphan had tried to deal justly with the Mormons. When they got into trouble at their earliest Missouri settlements, in Jackson County, Doniphan, as a member of the Legislature, had put through the bill which set off two new counties, Davies and Caldwell, in the unoccupied part of the state and arranged for the Mormons to take one of them. He had also represented Joseph in various suits brought against him; during one of them it had been the prophet’s whim to study law under him …. He was very much of Benton’s type, a crammed, insatiable mind, a conspicuous integrity. This is the image of the leader in frontier democracy, the kind of man who was called an empire-builder before the phrase lost its meaning. He also was to go west in ’46.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 86
Mark Twain Meets Jack Slade
“The exact time of their [Mark Twain and Jack Slade] meeting has been pinpointed to the morning of August 2, 1861, at Rocky Ridge–two stations east of South Pass.”
John B. McClernan, Slade's Wells Fargo Colt, p. 24, note 17
Mile 1421: Aunt Libby’s Dog Cemetery
“Burial plot. Enclosing graves (west side) of two men and a child emigrants of the early eighteen sixties.
“Original wall erected in 1888, By Mrs. Horace (Aunt Libby) Rockwell to shelter graves of her beloved dogs. 1. Jenny Lind, 2. Josephine Bonaparte, 3. Bishop, 4. Toby Tyler, Companions in her lonely, childless vigils here about 1866 to 1890.
“Sometime between 1860 and 1870, Horace Rockwell and his wife Elizabeth “Libby” Rockwell moved to Skull Valley, a 40-mile long valley in what is now Tooele County, Utah. They operated the Pony Express station known as Point Lookout then continued living on the property in a log cabin built by stage workers after the station had closed. They became horse and cattle ranchers and garnered a reputation as ‘rough frontiers folk’ and “two strange characters.’ Over time, the pair came to be known affectionately as Uncle Horace and Aunt Libby.”
By the mid-nineteenth century, the post, long primarily a vehicle for newspapers, now also enabled average Americans to enjoy easy, back-and-forth personal correspondence for pennies, and they did so in rapidly accelerating numbers. Statistics on volume are dodgy, but around 1820, most Americans still received fewer than one letter per year; that figure rose to nearly three by 1850, to seven by 1854, and kept on rising. In what historian David Henkin calls “the postal age,” their correspondence no longer had to be reserved for matters of life and death but could carry on casual written conversations between friends.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 91
Native Description of Whites
“Their scanty beard was removed; they compare the bushy-faced European to a dog running away with a squirrel in its mouth.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 56
Sweetwater River
“The Canadian voyageurs have translated the name Sweetwater from the Indian Pina Pa; but the term is here more applicable in a metaphorical than in a literal point of view. . . . There is a something in the Sweetwater which appeals to the feelings of rugged men: even the drivers and the station-keepers speak of ” her” with a bearish affection.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 150-151
Branding Steer
“Then, after applying a solution of salt and water, he was left to recover as best he could. The brand would remain in evidence more than a year unless the steer was captured by cattle thieves, who possessed a secret for growing the hair again in six months. When the branding was completed, each man was given twelve steers to break to yoke, and it was three long weeks before we were in shape to proceed on our long Western tramp.”
Charles E. Young, Dangers of the Trail, p.27
Cost of Emigration
Foodstuffs were assembled at the start of the journey. The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California, in 1845, recommended that each emigrant supply himself with 200 pounds of flour, 150 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of coffee, 20 pounds of sugar, and 10 pounds of salt. Additional supplies included chipped beef, rice, tea, dried beans, dried fruit, saleratus (baking soda), vinegar, pickles, mustard, and tallow. The basic kitchenware was a kettle, fry pan, coffee pot, tin plates, cups, knives, and forks.
Provisions for the journey could cost from three to six hundred dollars, depending on how much the family brought from home. In addition, each family needed a supply of powder, lead, and shot. It needed rifles, too, for an additional sixty or seventy dollars. Thus the basic outfitting cost was between five hundred and one thousand dollars, and emigrants starting east of the Missouri River incurred additional expenses in getting to the jumping-off places from homes in Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Then there was always the need for cash to have on hand through the course of the journey itself: to replace stores that were used up; to pay for the charges of the ferrymen at river crossings; to buy replacements for wagons that had broken or oxen that had gone lame; to buy food through the first winter in the new lands.
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 23
Majors' Vow
“I was a ‘captain,’ even if it was over a scurvy crew of four. It did to accompany the other fiction that our employers would hire no one who swore or drank. To be sure, the men were clear of drinking — when they could get none. It pleased me to hear how particular our bosses were, and I so wrote; but I never told my parents that my comrades, with few exceptions, swore like pirates and stole what little there was to steal. At first they stole the best oxen from the weaker drivers, when they found their merits and before each one well knew his cattle; then they would steal pipes and tobacco, tinware and bow-keys, as well as the wood, got with so much labor in readiness for cooking breakfast. They were a nice set, take them all around; but there were three or four, I hope the reader will believe, who did not train with the crowd.”
Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, A California Tramp and Later Footprints, p. 29
Southern Teamsters
“We learned that most of the men, or teamsters, and all of the train bosses were southern men and most of them were hired in the south to come to Kansas to drive the free state people from the polls and carry the election in the interest of slavery. Most of the teamsters in our train had their expenses paid and were armed, and some paid as high as one hundred and sixty dollars in cash for this purpose. This was shortly after the Jim Lane trouble in Kansas, so there was not the best of feeling between themselves and the ‘Yanks’ as they called us.”
William Clark, "A Trip Across the Plains in 1857," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 20 (1922), p. 164
Perqs of Being a Postmaster
Franklin’s service in the Crown’s colonial post exemplifies his flair for doing well while doing good. Many colonial printers, particularly those who also published newspapers, were eager to serve as postmasters, less for the position’s modest financial rewards than for its perquisites. The job put them on the inside track for lucrative official printing jobs and also gave them privileged access to both the news and its circulation. Their valuable franking privilege enabled them to send their newspapers to one another through the mail for free, and articles recycled from these “exchange papers” helped to pad their broadsheets’ profitable ads and notices for little trouble or expense. Moreover, once the costly, top-priority letters and government documents had been locked in the portmanteau, as the secure official mailbag was called, postmasters selected which newspapers could also travel with the post, though informally, in saddlebags, and pending the courier’s approval as to bulk. This was an easy decision for postmaster-printers who were eager to increase the circulation of their own publications, and at no cost.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 20
The Oregon Dragoons
And here at Fort Davy Crockett Wislizenus and the two expilgrims cut the trail of the other group of innocents who had started to settle Oregon this year and were helping the first group fix the type. The Oregon Dragoons.
In fact, the new type had expressed itself even more completely with the Oregon Dragoons, achieving full luxuriance on first appearance. On May 21, 1839, seventeen citizens of Peoria, Illinois, arrived at Independence. Two others of like mind joined them there. The historian of these greenhorn-pilgrims is Thomas Jefferson Farnham, under whose leadership they had traveled from Peoria. Their authors, however, were the Reverend Jason Lee and the Chinook boy whom he had named William Brooks. The Chinook, ‘a true Flathead,’ had spent the winter at Peoria and had spent it talking about his country, Oregon, as the earthly Paradise. So seventeen Peorians, ranging in age from the early twenties to an astonishing fifty-six, had formed an Oregon emigrating society – and the mad dream of Hall J. Kelley was not so crazy after all.
It was Farnham who christened them the Oregon Dragoons and they carried a guidon inscribed ‘Oregon or the Grave.’ None of them made the grave, whereas at least nine and perhaps ten made Oregon. The new type, the saltation, was equipped with nervous system and instincts on first appearance. Instinct, fidelity to the thousands who were to come, made these first specimens organize themselves as both a society and a joint-stock company. The society held a town meeting and reaffirmed Farnham as captain. At Independence they bought a little wagon and a gorgeous big tent and wasted their money on greenhorn stuff. But May 21 made it late for the Platte route (Harris had jumped off more than a month earlier) and Andrew Sublette, who had already reached Independence on the return trip from his holdings, advised them to travel by the Santa Fe Trail – to make better time perhaps and to detour so small a party round the Sioux and the Cheyennes, who were on the prod this year. They attached themselves to a Santa Fe freight caravan and started out.
They had already been quarreling and they kept it up. They were further establishing the type – denying the authority of their elected officers, questioning decisions, disputing routes, rejecting all trail-discipline, bellyaching about alleged fraud and alleged tyranny and alleged or real stupidity, asserting with fists and endless oratory the freeborn American’s right to cleave unto his own property in all circumstances and to commit any damned idiocy his whim might suggest. Type-character: already at the Osage River three had had enough and turned back to the now greatly magnified comforts of Peoria. Another: at the crossing of the Arkansas three others would travel no farther with such fools and grumblers as their companions, would not even travel toward Oregon, but slanted off toward New Mexico. (In return, however, the vision was vouchsafed to a member of the Santa Fe wagon train and he joined up for Oregon.) Another: at Bent’s Fort they deposed Farnham from his captaincy for incompetence and fraud and wastefulness and strong drink and all the other grievances with which captains were to be charged from now on, then excommunicated him and four of his supporters and broke up. The larger party,
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 380
The American Antelope
“The American antelope, or pronghorn, is the purest type of Plains animal, and seems to have developed only in the Great Plains of North America. It is not a member of the antelope family of Europe and Asia. Its true common name is pronghorn, and its scientific name is Antilocapra americana. It seems to occupy an intermediate position between the goat and the deer. Its horns are hollow, like those of cattle or goats ; yet it sheds them like the deer. It has the caution and timidity of the deer and the curiosity of the goat. The habitat of the pronghorn extends from Saskatchewan to Mexico and from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains, and in the north to the Cascade Range of Oregon and Washington. It bas its abode solely in the Plains country, and has a special antipathy for the woods and canons.
The antelope is peculiarly well fitted for its chosen environment. First, its sense of sight is such that it can” detect danger at an immense distance.” Secondly, it is the swiftest runner among the wild animals on this continent and can be pulled down only by the greyhound. But with the antelope, curiosity and caution are strangely mingled. It wants to observe any unusual object, and this makes it a mark for hunters. In the primitive state of nature this characteristic led to no fatal results, but with the advent of man and the high-powered rifles it became disastrous.2 Thirdly, the antelope is equipped with a signal system which enables it to communicate danger at great distances. This is the white patch on the rump, lighter in color than the body. When frightened or interested in anything unusual the antelope contracts its muscles and the patch becomes a flare of white. . . .
Fourthly, the antelope, like all Plains animals, possesses a great vitality. Dodge says that “antelope will carry off more lead in proportion to their size than any other animal.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 35, 36
Oregon Trail in 1839
“Each spring [after 1836] an increasing number of small emigrant wagon trains plodded westward from Independence, over the route which had become known as the Oregon Trail. As each train passed, the roughest stretches along the trail were improved; chutes cut into gulch banks, boulders rolled aside, wider openings slashed slashed through woods and thickets, and the roadway along steep hillsides leveled enough so that wagons would not tip over. By 1839, a very passable wagon route exrended from Independence to the present site of Portland.”
Ralph Moody, The Old Trails West, p. 260
Black Camel
This side of Eternity, it is all one now. The last rider has departed for that bourne whence the Black Camel is the only steed.
John L. Considine, “Eleven Days to St.Joe!,” Sunset Magazine 51, no. 4 (1923): 81
Mile 915: Casper, WY
“Casper is definitely on my list for an off day or two for anyone looking for suggestions. Good food, lots of bike shops, campground with cabins right in the middle of town, as well as plenty of hotels. There’s even a handfull of outdoor stores that stock things one would need to head off on a few days ride without real resupply options, which is a definite added bonus. It’s like Salt Lake City on the route in that regard, only smaller! Bonus points for renting a car and driving up to Devil’s Tower for the day one day. Definitely worth the drive (or as an addition to the whole route…hrmm).”
Comments by Angela Paterna: “I highly recommend a visit to the National Trails Museum in Casper, Wyoming. I addition to a display on the Pony Express, it also has displays on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and The Mormon Pioneer Trail. They have a pretty good bookstore and free literature that details the auto route. I have stopped twice on different driving trips I have made between Colorado and Montana. And the view over Casper isn’t too shabby either.”
[N.B. These statements are all in the Comments section of the post]
“The Platte is a wonderful river. For several hundred miles before it empties into the Missouri it is a very shallow stream, and in many places it has the appearance of being a very sluggish stream. It has a sandy bottom, and the channel frequently shifts from one locality to another. Within sight of Fort Kearney, where the stream ran through the military reservation, there were scores of islands in the early ’60’s. Some called that vicinity ‘The Thousand Islands.’’ In some places the stream is from one to two miles wide, and one can easily wade it except when it is on its annual ‘rise.’
“Along its banks, at intervals of a few miles, in the early days, there were occasional belts of young timber, the cottonwood predominating. There were frequent groves of willows on the islands for hundreds of miles and Willow Island was the name of one of the stage stations about fifty miles west of Fort Kearney. The few resident trappers, pioneers, traders, and ranchmen, followed by the steady march of civilization westward, soon thinned out most of the timber. Farther up the stream, along the north and south forks, was a vigorous growth of sagebrush and cacti, in the early ’60’s, but freighters and pilgrims grubbed out much of the sage-brush for fuel.”
Root and Connelley, The Overland Stage to California, p. 233
Buffalo Chips
“Having been the mainstay of the Indian for generations, the buffalo, at the last of their career, made one outstanding contribution to the white race. Practically speaking, they made emigration possible. It is hard to see how the overland journey could have been successful in the early years without them. In the Platte Valley, just where herds were thickest, there was a stretch of two hundred miles without one stick of timber—no dry grass, no sage, no anything that would serve as fuel except buffalo chips. Often nearly white with years of exposure, dry to handle, and light as feathers, this age-old deposit of the herds burned like charcoal with little blaze and less smoke. It boiled the night guard’s coffee, warmed the baby’s milk, heartened them all with hot meals night and morning. It was of such importance to the domestic economy of the emigrants that the canny mules learned to pull up and stop hopefully at any spot where the droppings were thick, and even the most finicky of the women vied with one another to collect the driest. . . .
[Emigrants], young and old, carried bags and, no matter what else the did on the long day’s walk, they industriously gathered fuel. Never was manna in the wilderness more truly a godsend than this remarkable substitute for wood, which providentially appeared only where wood was not.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 91-92
Whites and Indians
Though frontier race relations were complex and even free African Americans were unarguably second-class citizens in comparison to whites, many people ultimately recognized only two kinds of people: “whites” and Indians. The white category included Caucasians of European origin, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Indians regarded them all with antipathy, just as blacks and whites often feared and hated various aboriginal peoples with equal vigor regardless of tribal or band affiliation. African American pioneers, whether free or slave, were part of, not distinct from, the Euro American or white cultural front engaged in conquering the landscape and native inhabitants of the American West. Though the Rock Ranch slave’s skin was black, as far as the Sioux and Cheyenne were concerned, he was white, and he was an enemy.
Todd Guenther, “‘Could These Bones Be From a Negro?’” Overland Journal 19, no. 2 (Summer 2001), 50
Shooting of Ferrin
“In April [1860] we moved from Henry’s Fork to the mouth of Ham’s Fork, where we remained for a month . . .
“While camped here a mule train of sixteen wagons loaded with freight for Salt Lake City camped a short distance above us on the stream. In a few minutes we heard a shot fired and as there seemed to be some excitement we walked up to the wagons, and were shocked to see one of the drivers lying on the ground, shot through the heart. The wagon boss had gotten drunk at Green river, about fifteen miles back, was cussing the driver about some trifle, the driver had talked back and the ‘boss’ who was J. A. Slade, drew his revolver and shot the man dead. Later the teamsters dug a grave by the roadside, wrapped the dead man in his blankets and buried him. The train went on to Salt Lake and nothing was done about the murder.”
Granville Stuart, Forty Years on the Frontier, p. 150-151
Mile 318: The Platte River
“And now the emigrants (and we after them) looked forward only a few miles to the first view of the great Platte River. Some say it was first known as the Nebrathka, an Otoe word for weeping water, because of the sad tones of its current rushing swiftly among the sandy islands. Later it was called the Platte by the French trappers on account of its gray flatness.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 80
Mile 996: Split Rock
“Once we stopped on the indefinite summit of a foothill swell to look our last at Split Rock, one of the less known trail landmarks. From this distance, it was merely a small excrescence among other similar bumps on top of Granite Range, different only in the cleft that split it vertically through the middle.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 220
Asked Leave
“A day or two later, [the train] was joined by three men with a small wagon . . . They asked leave to travel with the company until they should reach safer country.”
George R. Stewart, The California Trail, p. 315
Missourians and Mormons on the Trail
Their second day out, June 5, they crawled up over the bluffs west of modern Guernsey, Wyoming, where today’s tourist may see the trail rutted nearly four feet deep in the soft rock, and as they were nooning at the warm spring which Fremont had noted, they were passed by an Oregon company that had left Independence on April 12 and was pushing to stay ahead of everything on the road. Next morning another Oregon train passed them, and there were murmurs and dark looks for in this company were some recognized Missourians. But segregation was impossible, for water and camping sites were scarce, and at Cottonwood Creek (the Hermann Ranch) the Saints found themselves corralling only a little beyond this second Oregon company. For all their mutual suspicion, there was some hobnobbing. Some of the Missourians had heard about the roadometer, and came over to inspect it. Burr Frost, one of the Mormon blacksmiths, got some credit in heaven by setting up his forge and repairing a carriage spring for one of them.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 145
Women's Recording of Gravesites
There is a kind of murderous precision in the women’s recounting of mishap. Surely, the accounts must be viewed as a reflection of the continuing anxieties they felt. But the more one reads these diaries, the more one comes to feel the passionate indictment, the bitter appraisal by the women of the men’s determination to make the journey. However bravely the women started, however they mustered their strength to meet the demands of each day, however they rallied to appreciate the splendors of the scenery, the women were intimately affected by the journey’s dreadful toll. Their responses depended upon whether their own lives were placed within the processes of childbearing and childrearing, or whether they were still in their girlhood years. Buoyant spirits are almost always in the diaries of unmarried girls and young wives. Accounts shade and darken in the pages of women whose energies were spent nursing and caring for infants and small children.
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 115
Mile 238: Map of The Narrows
A map of The Narrows, from Root and Connelley, Overland Stage, p. 864.
Root and Connelley, The Overland Stage to California, p. 864
Secretary Floyd Stealing Guns for the Confederacy
When the Rebellion started, it was found that Floyd,· while in office, had removed 135,430 firearms, together with much ammunition and heavy ordnance, from the big Government arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts, and distributed them at various points in the South and Southwest. Of this number, fifty thousand were sent to California where twenty-five thousand muskets had already been stored. And all this was done underhandedly, without the knowledge of Congress.
Glenn D. Bradley, The Story of the Pony Express, p. 76
Mile 1406: Faust Station Faust Station, UT
“‘We built a log cabin, the roof was dirt, the floor was dirt. A wagon cover made a carpet. The window was glazed with a flour sack. The door was a blanket. The table an endgate of a wagon. The first stage west of Salt Lake brought Mrs. Faust to this stately mansion where she lived nine months without once seeing a woman!’ Henry Faust, station keeper.”
“Faust is a settlement located in central Tooele County, Utah. It was founded by Henry J. Faust (born Heinrich Jacob Faust), a Mormon immigrant from Germany. In 1860 he managed Faust Station on the Pony Express trail. In 1870 Henry Faust and his wife moved to Salt Lake City. Faust has been used by the Union Pacific Railroad to house workers on the site. The area is popular with campers, mountain bikers, off road vehicle enthusiasts, and hikers during the summer months. Henry J. Faust was an ancestor of Mormon apostle James E. Faust.”
The station site and the Pony Express Monument are in separate locations.
The site is at https://goo.gl/maps/6ecT5eFvKsvLdtXM9. In satellite view, it appears there is a cutoff from the XP Trail just before the trail turns south to Thompson Ranch (at the west end of Telegraph canyon).
According to the US Topo map, the monument is located by the Thompson Ranch approximately at the POI water icon. (“There is a brass Pony Express centennial plaque mounted in a stone and concrete monument near the ranch house just one mile south of the actual station site.”)
One author (Hill, p.222) states (without citation) that Diamond Springs served as a gathering place during the Pauite War.
“A yoke of oxen is two animals leashed together by a yoke: a crossbar of carved wood fastened to their necks with oxbows. Two or three yoke (four to six animals) pulled a typical emigrant wagon. Most emigrants brought along several additional animals—the nineteenth-century equivalent of spare tires. Of oxen, mules, and horses (the three animal engines of the westward migration) oxen were by far the most common. Although slow, oxen were relatively inexpensive, immensely strong, less likely than horses or mules to be stolen by Indians, and could subsist reasonably well on available grass.”
Keith Heyer Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 18
Mile 1429: Government Creek/Davis Station/Government Well Station
“There is some doubt as to whether the structures at this location were used by the Pony Express. There is record of the army digging a well here for an outpost, and it was mentioned in an interview with one of the stage drivers in the Salt Lake Tribune. A telegraph station was established here in late 1861 and operated by David E. (Pegleg) Davis. Its location is reflected on the 1875 cadastral plat. The transcontinental telegraph was in operation through this area until 1869 when it was moved north to parallel the new transcontinental railroad.
“Government Creek Station is neither mentioned in the 1861 contract nor in Egan’s book. Until appropriate investigations are complete, questions will remain to plague the researcher. Why is there such a gap between Point Lookout and Simpson Springs when a mountain pass exists and on either side; stations are spaced about eight miles apart? Why build a telegraph station here when a spur line could have been built to O.P. Rockwell’s (Porter Rockwell’s ranch was just a short distance to the south and a similar spur was used at Deep Creek to Egan’s Ranch)? Why was a telegraph station built here when at Point Lookout or Simpson Springs conditions for grounding the single wire were better (more moist the soil the better the ground).
The logic of building a telegraph station at Government Creek bears a closer look. A single wire telegraph would carry as far as 250 miles (with enough batteries) so that booster stations in between were not necessary. Davis Station is about 80 miles from Salt Lake and about 100 miles from Deep Creek. Therefore, technically, placement at this location was not necessary. Also telegraph stations could be spliced in anywhere along the line with the use of a lead wire from the main line to a sounder, two batteries, a key, and a ground wire. Was there any reason for establishing a telegraph station here at all unless the buildings were already present? This suggests, therefore, that the buildings were already there and possibly used by the Express. The foundations of two structures remain evident at the site.”
Happily, as it turns out, for the Pony Express, the Central Overland Trail was also developed as a stagecoach and mail-by-mule route by a hardworking competitor, George W. Chorpenning. Chorpenning held the federal contract for mail and stagecoach service between Salt Lake and San Francisco when Pony Express agents came sniffing around, looking for opportunity. The U.S. Post Office abruptly canceled his contract in May 1860, about a month after the Pony Express started operations, due in part to behind-the-scenes conniving by the Pony and others hoping to grab that contract for themselves. Even while Chorpenning’s “Jackass Mail” was still up and braying — and without a government contract in hand, itself — the Pony took over his route, brazenly moved into his stage and mail stations, seized his livestock and equipment, and hired away some of his key employees. Chorpenning brought a claim before Congress for his losses, but was still uncompensated when he died in 1894. Meanwhile, the Pony Express would share its pirated route and assets with a passenger, freight, and “heavy mail” stage line operated by its parent company, the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Co.
“In this way the cattle kingdom spread from Texas and utilized the Plains area, which would otherwise have lain idle and useless. Abilene offered the market; the market offered inducement to Northern money; Texas furnished the base stock, the original supply, and a method of handling cattle on horseback; the Plains offered free grass. From these conditions and from these elements emerged the range and ranch cattle industry, perhaps the most unique and distinctive institution that America has produced. This spread of the range cattle industry over the Great Plains is the final step in the creation of the cattle kingdom.
The first step was made when the Spaniards and Mexicans established their ranches in the Nueces country of southern Texas, where natural conditions produced a hardy breed of cattle that could grow wild ; the second step occurred when the Texans took over these herds and learned to handle them in the only way they could have been handled – on horse-back; the third step was taken when the cattle were driven northward to market ; the fourth came when a permanent depot was set up at Abilene which enabled trail-driving to become standardized; the fifth took place when the overflow from the trail went west to the free grass of the Great Plains. . . .
The purpose here is to set forth the processes by which civilization came about on the Great Plains. We are well aware that the Texans did not take the first cattle to the northern Plains; the Spaniards, of course, took the first. The Mormons, the Oregon Trailers, the Santa Fe Traders. the Forty-niners, and perhaps others took live stock. But all these took cows, not cattle: domestic stock, not range stock. There were survivals of the old Spanish ranching system in California and in New Mexico. But the process by which the Great Plains were stocked with cattle, by which ranches were set up wherever there was grass, much or little, was essentially as described. All the exceptions may be admitted, are admitted, but the essentials of the story remain the same.
The following, from the Nimmo Report, pp. 95-96, is an account that one commonly finds of how people learned the value of the Northern range. People inferred from the presence of buffalo that the northern range would be suitable for cattle; but the first practical demonstration of the fattening effects of Northern grasses came in the winter of 1864-1865, when E. S. Newman, who was conducting a train of supplies overland to Camp Douglas, was snowed up on the Laramie Plains. He made a winter camp and turned the oxen out to die. Spring found them not only alive, but in much better condition than when turned loose to starve and feed the wolves. This accidental discovery led to the purchase of cattle and the beginning of cattle-raising on the ranges of the Northwest.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 224 and note 1
Pony Goes Semi-Weekly
They arrived safely on June 22nd and the delayed mail was sent on to San Francisco, where it was received June 25th—the first Pony mail in three weeks.
Now, a strange thing happened. In the face of threatened disintegration across Nevada, Russell heaped another wager on the political gambling table. Coincident with the delayed mail’s arrival at Carson City, it was announced that trips thereafter would be dispatched twice as often, or semiweekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, from both ends of the line.
A rumor about semiweekly trips had circulated in California around the middle of May. Later that same month in Washington the Senate was scheduled to take up the ill-fated Overland Mail Bill, authored by Senator Hale. Russell had lobbied long and hard for his interest in the measure. At this critical juncture a doubling of the Pony’s timetable would further dramatize the Central Route and might well influence the outcome. Plainly, the bold maneuver was Russell’s last-ditch effort.
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 75
Logistics of Establishing a Pony Express
“But the logistics of a mail relay stretching 1,966 miles from the Missouri River to Sacramento was so daunting that only an incurable dreamer like Russell would have considered implementing it. . . . The stage line currently maintained stations at 20- to 30-mile intervals where animals could be changed or rested; ponies racing at breakneck speed would need changing every ten miles or less. And west of Salt Lake City, Russell’s stage line had no operations at all.
All told, dozens of new stations would be required between the Missouri River and Sacramento. In the absence of forests, lumber to build the stations and corrals would have to be hauled great distances. Hundreds of high-quality ponies, capable of outrunning the Indians’ swift ponies, would need to be purchased, probably at three or four times the cost of ordinary range-bred horses. And a new breed of employee—young, skinny riders—would need to be hired and trained.
The enterprise would likely cost Russell, Majors & Waddell more than half a million dollars—for a mail service that was likely to be superseded by the telegraph and the railroads within a few years.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 159
Mile 1215: Needle Rocks and Echo Canyon
“After fording Bear River [At Evanston, Wy?] this part of the land was quite a grave-yard we passed over rough ground, and, descending into a bush, were shown on a ridge to the right a huge Stonehenge, a crown of broken and somewhat lanceolate perpendicular conglomerates or cemented pudding-stones called not inappropriately Needle Rocks. At Egan’s Creek, a tributary of the Yellow Creek, the wild geraniums and the willows flourished despite the six feet of snow which sometimes lies in these bottoms. We then crossed Yellow Creek, a water trending northeastward, and feeding, like those hitherto forded, Bear River: the bottom, a fine broad meadow, was a favorite camping-ground, as the many fire-places proved. Beyond the stream we ascended Yellow-Creek Hill, a steep chain which divides the versant of the Bear River eastward from that of Weber River to the west. The ascent might be avoided, but the view from the summit is a fine panorama. The horizon behind us is girt by a mob of hills, Bridger’s Range, silver-veined upon a dark blue ground ; nearer, mountains and rocks, cones and hog-backs, are scattered about in admirable confusion, divided by shaggy rollers and dark ravines, each with its own little water-course. In front the eye runs down the long bright red line of Echo Kanyon, and rests with astonishment upon its novel and curious features, the sublimity of its broken and jagged peaks, divided by dark abysses, and based upon huge piles of disjointed and scattered rock. On the right, about half a mile north of the road, and near the head of the kanyon, is a place that adds human interest to the scene. Cache Cave is a dark, deep, natural tunnel in the rock, which has sheltered many a hunter and trader from wild weather and wilder men: the wall is probably of marl and earthy limestone, whose whiteness is set off by the ochrish brick-red of the ravine below.”
[Note: Needle Rock Station is off the Pony Express Bikepacking Trail. It is southwest of Evanston, WY, and would require turning off the Route at about Mile 1215, or, if you want to catch an addition two stations, Mile 1237]
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 183-184
Rolling Prairie
“Our way led over a succession of grassy swells spaced at intervals with breezeless hollows. What a country to have traveled before the day of the graded road and the planted tree! Driving an ox team over these endless, rolling hillocks was a task from which the very imagination recoiled. However–this was July and the emigrants went through, each year, in May.
They started in good weather, of course. The sun shone upon a “grand and beautiful prairie which can be compared to nothing but the mighty ocean.” A succession of rich, shining green swells was star-dusted with small frail blossoms and splashed with the harder varieties like great spillings of calcimine powders. Here. Patch of mountain pink, here spiderwort–while, ahead, a spreading of purple over a sunny slope proved, on closer acquaintance, to be larkspur. Bobolinks sang where currant bushes lined the meandering watercourses, and the line of white wagon tops stretched like a shining ribbon across the curving velvet breast of the prairie.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 24
Feeding Oxen Without Grass
“The oxen were unyoked, fed and watered out of supplies carried in the wagons. Grass here [before the Bear River on Sublette’s Cutoff] was nonexistent, and the normal amount at the Big Sandy had been stripped so bare that it took a man all day to gather a sackful. The resourceful emigrants got around this emergency by feeding their animals flour and water or even baked bread—a grain product which they were able to digest.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 254
Mile 278: Spring Ranch
“We then resumed our journey over a desert, waterless save after rain, for twenty-three miles; it is the divide between the Little Blue and the Platte rivers, a broken table-land rising gradually toward the west, with, at this season, a barren soil of sand and clay. As the evening approached, a smile from above lit up into absolute beauty the homely features of the world below. The sweet commune with nature in her fairest hours denied to the sons of cities—who must contemplate her charms through a vista of brick wall, or over a foreground of chimney-pots—consoled us amply for all the little hardships of travel. Strata upon strata of cloud-banks, burnished to golden red in the vicinity of the setting sun, and polished to dazzling silvery white above, lay piled half way from the horizon to the zenith, with a distinct strike toward a vanishing point in the west, and dipping into a gateway through which the orb of day slowly retired. Overhead floated in a sea of amber and yellow, pink and green, heavy purple nimbi, apparently turned upside down their convex bulges below, and their horizontal lines high in the air while in the east black and blue were so curiously blended that the eye could not distinguish whether it rested upon darkening air or upon a lowering thunder-cloud. We enjoyed these beauties in silence; not a soul said, ‘Look there!’ or ‘How pretty !’
At 9 P.M., reaching ‘Thirty-two-mile Creek,’ we were pleasantly surprised to find an utter absence of the Irishry.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 38
Burton on Bloomers and Virginia Slade
“The Bloomer was an uncouth being ; her hair, cut level with her eyes, depended with the graceful curl of a drake’s tail around a flat Turanian countenance, whose only expression was sullen insolence. The body-dress, glazed brown calico, fitted her somewhat like a soldier’s tunic, developing haunches which would be admired only in venison; and curious inconsequence of woman’s nature! all this sacrifice of appearance upon the shrine of comfort did not prevent her wearing that kind of crinoline depicted by Mr. Punch upon ‘our Mary Hanne.’ The pantalettes of glazed brown calico, like the vest, tunic, blouse, shirt, or whatever they may call it, were in peg-top style, admirably setting off a pair of thin-soled Frenchified patent-leather bottines, with elastic sides, which contained feet large, broad, and flat as a negro’s in Unyamwezi. The dear creature had a husband : it was hardly safe to look at her, and as for sketching her, I avoided it, as men are bidden by the poet to avoid the way of Slick of Tennessee.
The other ‘lady, [Virginia Slade] though more decently attired, was like women in this wild part of the world generally cold and disagreeable in manner, full of ‘proper pride,’ with a touch-me-not air, which reminded me of a certain ‘Miss Baxter, Who refused a man before he axed her.'”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 92
Gilman Ranch
The Gilman brothers had left the family homestead in Bartlett, New Hampshire, in 1854 and drifted west, stopping first in Iowa and then moving on to Nebraska. In the early summer of 1859, at the height of the Pike’s Peak gold rush, they were hauling merchandise to sell to the miners in the Rocky Mountains: drugs, goods, clothing, whiskey, ammunition, iron pipes, wheelbarrows, tools, and one luxury item—”a fine red, iron pump … A sign of affluence on the frontier where a windlass and bucket were the usual means of getting water from the well.”
About eighty miles west of Fort Kearny, nearly to the Colorado border, the Gilman brothers had the good fortune to break a wagon axle. They were about seventeen miles east of Cottonwood Springs, a well-established stop for travelers along the Oregon Trail (it would become the site of Fort McPherson). Unable to go forward to Colorado or retreat back to Nebraska City, John and Jeremiah Gilman settled where the wagon gave out. Within days they were trading their goods with nearby Sioux and Cheyenne Indians for buffalo robes. Emigrants headed west in wagon trains soon stopped, too. The Gilman brothers decided to grow where fate had planted them. The first sign of their permanence was that they dug a well, lined it with cedar posts, and installed the red iron pump, a landmark for travelers into the West that would become beloved in Nebraska folklore.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 107
Mormon Stations Along the Trail
But Brigham did not, as he had intended, send Jones back to manage the Y.X. Express station now established at Devil’s Gate. He said he guessed Dan had had about enough of Devil’s Gate for any one man. And anyway, by that time it was midsummer, and by midsummer all of the stations ambitiously projected to give the Saints substantial control of the trail from the Missouri to the mountains would have seemed precarious. A few, particularly those at Fort Bridger, at Deer Creek, and at Genoa, a Mormon colony deliberately planted on the Loup Fork as a permanent way station on the model of Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah, were already well established, along with others of a more tentative kind.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 273
Crossing the South Platte
“From the moment they had passed the junction of the rivers the emigrants were fired with only one thought: to get across the South Platte. The Colorado gold-seekers of ’59, Pikes Peakers as they were called, might remain comfortably on the south bank, but travelers to Oregon and California, and, later, to Montana and Idaho must ford this large watercourse which unaccommodatingly swung too far to the left for their purpose.
Many crossed immediately above the forks, following Frémont’s example. There were also several little-used fords, but the great bulk of the migration crossed four miles above Brule, Nebraska at a spot called the Lower California Crossing, although in the late fifties and the sixties the Upper California Crossing at Julesburg, Colorado, became a rival. . . .
Everything considered, the crossing near Brule was the greatest ford of the Overland trek . . . [T]here were hundreds of wagons each day during the season, which must get through the quicksand of the South Platte ford or give up the journey. it was one of the few dangers of which they had definite advance notice. They could, and did, worry about it from the time they left home . . .
From the days of the first fir trappers, on through the Oregon migration and the California gold rush, it was in everybody’s way.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 106-109
Freighter Wagons
“The wagons used were of special design and construction, and built for ‘the plains transportation business.’ The tires were wide and heavy; the boxes, high and tight, were made of the beat seasoned wood. Over these curved the huge bows. The most common makes of wagons were the Murphy and Espenshied, built in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Studebaker, built at South Bend, Indiana. The Studebaker was considered the easiest running, but more Murphy wagons were used than either of the other makes.
“These great, cumbersome wagons weighing at least fifteen hundred pounds each, were of the thimble skein type. The axles were wooden, but had iron thimbles on the ends which fit into the iron thimbles of the wheel hubs. The wheels were held in place by big linchpins fastened into the ends of the axles. Tar was used for lubricant.
“The amount of freight which one of these wagons carried would vary, of course, according to the type of merchandise. But they were made to haul six thousand pounds or more, and they night be loaded with ten thousand pounds.”
Floyd Bresee, Overland Freighting in the Platte Valley 1850–1870, p. 28
Mile 997: Split Rock Split Rock, WY
“Split Rock, in the distance, was one of the geographic markers that the Pony Express riders and the pioneers used to help navigate the trail. All along the way you can still find historic buildings still standing.”
Washington, Jefferson, and other forward-thinking politicians had wanted to create a system of decent highways to promote settlement as well as postal service and weave the frontier into the fabric of the mother country. Their commonsensical desire was almost always thwarted by the states’ concerns over sovereignty. In 1806, President Jefferson and an obliging Congress authorized a rare exception to the rule: the construction of the tellingly named National Road. This trans-Appalachian highway, also known as the Cumberland Road and later as Route 40, eventually extended from Maryland through Pennsylvania to the Ohio River and nearly to St. Louis; it doubled as Main Street in many of the towns and villages it bisected. (The popularity of the celebrated “pike”—short for “turnpike,” a toll road-peaked twice: first with increased westward settlement in the mid-182os, then again in the 1840s, when Americans in covered wagons and stagecoaches began the great cross-country migration.) In 1817 John Calhoun, the prominent southern senator and later vice president, proposed that Congress could “counteract every tendency to disunion” by funding more such highways if it would simply reinterpret the postal “routes” as “roads,” but President James Madison, also a southerner, vetoed the bill.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 60-61
Bloodthirsty Slade Story
“The bullwhackers in camp, when there were no wheels to fix, tires to tighten, boxes to wedge, oxen to shoe, or clothes to wash or mend, could sleep, play cards, write letters or tell stories. The stories of one old bullwhacker who had seen much of frontier life were quite interesting. He would tell about the noted stage company boss, Jack Slade, who caught one of his stage tenders listening at a door and who whipped out his bowie knife and cut the listener’s ear off, telling him if he ever caught him doing it again, he would cut his heart out—and hundreds of other such bloodthirsty stories.”
John Bratt, Tales of Yesterday, p. 55
Forces at Work in 1846
“This text has several times taken an image from astronomy and pken of energies which were drawing the “United States out of shape, as theory tells us the earth swelled out in a lump when the moon was born. They are all in now. From astral space a dispassionate Martian might have seen the First Republic in process of transformation to the Empire by forces which moved within a parallelogram. He would have noted the armies working south, the fissures raveling across Congress, the American System building the factories of Elias Howe and Samuel Colt and Cyrus McCormick, and a long line of now-faded white-tops moving west.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 221
Oversized Pony Express Bibles
It is not known how many, if any, were given to riders in this 1860-1861-time period from the company. Many twentieth century writers claimed that all riders were given a Bible and that they would carry the Bible with them on their rides. The size alone would make it impractical to carry on their rides.
“Horace Greeley wrote while on his way to Denver in 1859:
‘Russell, Majors and Waddell’s transportation establishment is the great feature of Leavenworth. Such acres of wagons! such pyramids of extra axletrees! such herds of oxen! such regiments of drivers and other employees!No one who does not see can realize how vast a business this is, nor how immense are its outlays as well as its income. I presume this great firm has at this hour two millions of dollars invested in stock, mainly oxen, mules and wagons. (They last year employed six thousand teamsters, and worked 45,000 oxen).'”
LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849–1869, p. 147
Era of Military Freighting
“The era of military freighting upon the Great Plains dawned in 1846 with the outbreak of war with Mexico, when General S.W. Kearney’s diminutive Army of the West straggled off across the prairie to capture Santa Fe. . . .
In 1846 and 1847 the Army organized its own trains and hired civilian drivers or bullwhackers. Owing to ignorance of Army officers concerning the highly specialized business of freighting across the Great Plains, inefficiency of bullwhackers, and efficiency of raiding Indians, this plan proved a total failure in 1847. Was Department officials in Washington wisely acknowledged the inability of the Army to transport its own supplies and instructed the quartermaster at Fort Leavenworth to make contracts with civilian freighters.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 3
Mile 1455: Dugway/Dugout Station
“Water for Dugway Station had to be hauled from Simpson’s Springs. Although three wells were dug over several years, one reaching a depth of 120 feet, no water was found. Noted as a “substation” by Horace Greeley, nothing very permanent was ever constructed at the site. In 1860 a shelter was placed over a dugout and an adobe chimney installed. In the 1890’s, the location was utilized as a halfway stop by the Walters and Mulliner Stage Co. on the route between Fairfield and Ibapah. A monument is located at the site today (See Photo 28). Physical evidence at the station site is limited to a disturbed area containing poorly preserved metal objects (possibly from a corral or blacksmithing area north of the wash) and some concentrated stone.”
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 and a decline in old-fashioned agrarian values were customarily blamed. . . . Determined to change that status quo, McLean increased the post’s surveillance capabilities and cleared the way for the establishment in 1830 of the Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations, the department’s investigative branch.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 65
Riding Half-Asleep
“Tired out and cramped with cold, we were torpid with what the Bedouin calls El Bakl—la Ragle du Désert, when part of the brain sleeps while the rest is wide awake.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 488-491
An Idea Whose Time Had Come
“By the fall of 1859, though, the ‘Pony Express’ increasingly looked like an idea whose time had come. The opening of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad that February brought the rails across the state of Missouri as far as the Missouri River. The telegraph, invented just fifteen years earlier by Samuel F.B. Morse, now also reached St. Joseph. But west of St’ Joseph there were neither railroads nor telegraph lines. It was understood that both would be extended eventually; but in the meantime the need to speed communication to California was urgent.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 158
Post Office as Government Representative
As America’s frontier continually expanded, mail service played a major role in organizing the physical and social landscape, just as it had since colonial days back East. Washington, D.C., was a vague concept for pioneers, farmers, and settlers of small towns and villages, but the local post office, like the church, school, and general store, was a vital part of life. As Postmaster General John Wanamaker said, whether great or small, a post office was “the visible form of the Federal Government to every community and to every citizen. Its hand is the only one that touches the local life, the social interests, and business concerns of every neighborhood.”
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 105
1861 Mail Appropriation
Despite all the sound and fury, however, the Post Route Bill enjoyed surprisingly good progress and early in February reached the upper house. In it was a provision for daily mail between California and the Missouri River for which the government would pay not over $800,000 per year. Russell’s optimism flew high. His inquisition by the Select Committee was ended, the inquiry having been closed February 8th, and he had already cleared the indictment hurdle. In a letter to Waddell he expressed “great faith in getting the mail contract, all right.”
Hardly had the Senate begun deliberations when sobering advice reached the capital: Confederate forces had cut the Butterfield line near Fort Chadbourne, its stages had been stopped and the movement of mail halted. As it eventually turned out, the accused Texas Rangers actually hadn’t stopped stages but merely had appropriated a large amount of the company’s grain and several horses. The mail delay had taken place coincidentally, when Indians swooped down on the line in the treacherous Apache Pass.
But the first word, coming at the climax of national tension, gave Washington the jitters. The danger was all too apparent. Prominent voices in California had been loudly sympathetic with the southern cause. The Golden State’s strategic location and Midas-like mineral wealth were rich prizes for both secessionists and loyalists-prizes the Union could ill afford to lose on default, for lack of an unbroken line of communication.
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 123
Tissue Paper for Mail
“For the Pony special thin paper was used, especially for the newspapers in order to keep the weight down. [Alexander] Majors noted the cantinas ‘were filled with important business letters and press dispatches from eastern cities and San Francisco, printed upon tissue paper, and thus especially adapted by their weight for this mode of transportation.'”
William E. Hill, The Pony Express: Yesterday and Today, p. 19
Tobacco and Soap
“Great disappointment was felt at our not staying there [Fort Kearney] at least a few hours to buy some of the articles we most needed; tobacco and soap were very scarce in camp, and on the plains are of equal necessity. Our cattle evidently sympathised with us, as the main of them turned back that night, and were found near the fort. We, however, lay camped by the broad channel of the Platte, in which at this season a few shallow streams of water hardly make their way through sand and shingle.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 62-63
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 money trust, had gone into effect in August of 1836. Requiring hard-money payments for government lands, it had brought down the whole fantastic structure of speculation and with it the whole system of wildcat banking – that is to say, most of the American banking system and all the Western banks. Foreign investors had dumped their American securities, trade had all but halted, unemployment had spread across the country. It had been a bad winter for the United States, with bread riots in most cities and the unvarying gutlessness of financiers producing a mass despair not unlike the panic of the Mandans when the smallpox struck. It was a worse spring as Mr. Van Buren took office, specie disappeared, and doomsday seemed at hand.
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 310-311
Pro-Union Forces in California
Turning now to the forces, moral, military, and political, that were working to save California—first there was a loyal newspaper press, which saw and followed its duty with unflinching devotion. It firmly held before the people the loyal responsibility of the state and declared that the ties of union were too sacred to be broken. It was the moral duty of the people to remain loyal. It truthfully asserted that California’s influence in the Federal Union should be an example for other states to follow. If the idea of a Pacific Republic were repudiated by their own citizens, such action would discourage secession elsewhere and be a great moral handicap to that movement. And the press further pointed out with convincing clearness, that should the Union be dissolved, the project for a Pacific Railroad with which the future of the Commonwealth was inevitably committed, would likely fail. (All parties in California were unanimous in their desire for a transcontinental railroad. No political faction there could receive any support unless it strongly endorsed this project.)
Aroused by the moral importance of its position, the state legislature, early in the winter of 186o-1861, had passed a resolution of fidelity to the Union, in which it declared “That California is ready to maintain the rights and honor of the National Government at home and abroad, and at all times to respond to any requisitions that may be made upon her to def end the Republic against foreign or domestic foes.” Succeeding events proved the genuineness of this resolve.
Glenn D. Bradley, The Story of the Pony Express, p. 83-85
Literalness of Mormon Belief
No responsible historian can afford to underestimate the literalness of Mormon belief. These emigrants were convinced that they went not merely to a new country and a new life, but to a new Dispensation, to the literal Kingdom of God on earth. In the years between Joseph’s vision and its fulfillment, persecution and hardship discouraged many, and others fell away into apostasy, but what might be called the hard core of Mormonism took persecution and suffering in stride, as God’s way of trying their faith. Signs and wonders accompanied them, their way was cleared by divine inter: entions. Rivers opportunely froze over to permit passage of their wagons, quail fell among their exhausted and starving camps as miraculously as manna ever fell upon the camps of the Israelites fleeing Pharaoh, the sick (even sick horses) upon whom the elders laid their hands rose up rejoicing in health, the wolves that dug up Oregonian and Californian graves and scattered Gentile bones across the prairies did not touch the graves of the Lord’s people. If they were blessed with an easy passage, they praised God for His favor if their way was a via dolorosa milestoned with the cairns of the dead, they told themselves they were being tested, and hearkened to counsel, and endured.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 3-4
Russell's Second Mistake
“The launching of [the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Express in 1858] was the second disastrous mistake Russell made. Had he resisted the temptation to join Jones in it and worked solely to repair Russell, Majors & Waddell’s damaged credit [after losses incurred during the Mormon War] the firm might have succeeded. His action further undermined its financial standing, earned for himself the reputation of being a reckless gambler and involving him and his partners in a series of catastrophic events which in the end brought total ruin.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 37
Mormon Handcart Casualties
Something more than two hundred of the Willie and Martin companies lay dead between Florence and the valley, sixty-two from the Willie company, and between 135 and 150 from Martin’s, besides an unestimated number from the Hodgett and Hunt wagontrains, which understandably suffered far less. A good many of the survivors had endured surgery like that of Eph Hanks, and had lost fingers, toes, feet, a few of them both legs to the knee.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 256
Oxen in a Freight Train
“We aimed to get two good Missouri oxen for wheelers and leaders, size being required for the former and intelligence for the latter. The next grade were the ‘pointers,’ which were hooked next the tongue. Between these and the leaders were the ‘swing,’ composed of the ‘scallawags’ —the weak, lazy and unbroken. To show how few stood the twelve hundred miles journey, I will state that but two of my twelve got through, the rest having died or given out from time to time. They were replaced by others from returning trains, or by the best in what we called our ” calf yard,” or loose cattle. This was a corruption of the Spanish word caballada, although the ‘Pikers’ did not know it, and, in fact, did not bother themselves about its origin, as ” calf yard ” seemed the natural term for a troop of oxen.”
Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, A California Tramp and Later Footprints, p. 34-35
Butterfield's Pony Express
“So successful did the Pony Express appear during the first few weeks of operation, that it was rumored as early as April 14, 1860, that the Butterfield Overland Mail Company or Overland Mail Company planned on starting their own horse express to compete with Russell, Majors, and Waddell. Reportedly, the Butterfield express proposed covering the 1,500 miles between Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Los Angeles in five or six days, and transmitting telegraph messages between these two points. Not to be outdone, C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. agents confidently promised they would compete by establishing a similar enterprise reaching California in four and a half days, whether or not the telegraph was extended further westward from St. Joseph, Missouri.”
Anthony Godfrey, Historic Research Study Pony Express National Historic Trail, p. 68-69
Pony Express as Icon
“Though William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody demonstrated the Pony Express in his Wild West shows in the 1880s, recognition of the significance of the Pony Express came at the turn of the century after the publication of Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” in 1893. Thereafter, fearing the consequences of the frontier closing on our American character, we as a nation, drew strength from our frontier heritage and rise of the American West. In this quest for a usable past, the Pony Express became a usable American Western icon, symbolizing America’s strength, work ethic, entrepreneurship, and individual heroism. . . .
“Since the turn of the century, Pony Express celebration events have allowed Americans to become familiar with the activities of the Pony Express. The historical significance of the Pony Express was first highly publicized in 1912, when the Daughters of the American Republic erected a monument in St. Joseph, Missouri, to commemorate the starting point of the Pony Express. In honor of the event, Colonel W.F. Cody and Charles Cliff, former Pony Express riders, attended the dedication.”
Anthony Godfrey, Historic Resource Study Pony Express National Historic Trail, p. 226-227
Mile 2148: Placerville
“And Hangtown—what of it? Built flimsily at a carefree slant on the two sides of a shallow pine-filled canyon, the log-framed, canvas-roofed buildings of ’49 gradually gave way to better arrangements. Men found there was sure money to be made in limber, and small mills hacked out heavy timbers for warmer houses. A crude but effective line of stores centered the rambling elongated town and soon became a recognized goal for gold seekers. It was the third largest city in the state. And, only second to Sacramento, Hangtown symbolized for the overland Argonaut, their arrival in the west. . . .
The settlement started its diversified career under the title Dry Diggings, but was rechristened in honor of its early citizens’ well meant exertions in the cause of justice. Two Frenchmen and a Chileno were hanged on an oak in the center of town in January, 1850.Several other executions followed rapidly—possibly too rapidly. The place was irrevocably dubber Hangtown. When California became a state, later in the same year, the more aesthetic citizenry had its name legally changed to Placerville.. In the spring of ’53, still struggling for less violence, they narrowly prevented another lynching and had the oak cut down. The top was made into souvenirs, but the stump is beneath a building within a few feet of the memorial plaque.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 453-454
The Pacific Republic
One way, however, in which secession sentiment found expression at the opening of the war was in the advocacy of a Pacific Republic. The “copperheads” (Northern men with Southern principles) especially favored the formation of a new government on the Pacific Coast. Governor Weber was not opposed to the idea. In fact, he said: “If the wild spirit of fanaticism which now pervades the land should destroy the magnificent confederacy-which God forbid-she (California) will not go with the south or north, but here upon the shores of the Pacific, found a mighty republic, which may in the end prove the greatest of all.”
Imogene Spaulding, "The Attitude of California to the Civil War," Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California , 1912-1913, Vol. 9, No. 1/2 (1912-1913), pp. 108
Winter Delays for the Pony
“Facing its first real test of operating in the winter, the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. backed away from its normal operating schedule. The company informed the public that after the 1st of December and during the winter, New York news would be fifteen days in transit to San Francisco and eleven days between telegraph stations. Actually, Russell had hoped to convince Postmaster General Holt that the Pony Express could carry the mail through to California on a daily or a tri-weekly basis that winter. He even offered to bond the service, and if it were delayed or his company failed, he would forfeit these bonds. Holt remained unconvinced. Consequently, out of financial considerations, Russell, Majors, and Waddell reduced their Pony Express schedule during the winter of 1860- 1861.
It was fortunate that Holt had not accepted Russell’s offer. The first full winter for the Pony Express tested the system to the extreme. Significant delays occurred. During December, heavy snows hit the Sierra Nevada region. Fortunately, the roads through the passes of the Sierra Nevadas were made passable by the constant passage of teams to and from the Washoe mines. This constant traffic aided in keeping the route open for the Pony Express. Unfortunately, when these same storms extended to the mountainous portions of the route in the Great Basin, and the trackless desolate regions between Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie, they became unbreachable obstacles. Inevitably, as the snows piled up, they delayed the Pony Express. A single horseman could barely break passage through the unbroken winter snowfields. By mid-January, heavy snows covered nearly the entire route from California to Missouri, delaying the passage of the Pony Express by two days. By the end of January, additional bad storms in the mountains caused a four-day delay for the entire operation.
The winter storms proved that the Pony Express could not endure a harsh winter and still maintain a regular schedule. Without a line of stagecoaches daily breaking trail, the snows proved an insurmountable obstacle for the lone horseman.”
Anthony Godfrey, Historic Research Study Pony Express National Historic Trail, p. 78-79
Pony Takes Railroad into Sacramento
In June, 1860, the General Agent of the Pacific made another, more permanent change in mode of travel, this time east of Sacramento. Until then, the Pony Express, coming into the city, had followed the White Rock road from Placerville. What happened now may come as a shock to horse lovers and dedicated followers of Pony lore. Finney decided that the mail would ride the iron horse of the Sacramento Valley Railroad between Sacramento and Folsom, a distance of 22 miles. . . .
East of Folsom the route was laid along the Mormon Island-Green Valley section of the Overland Road to Placerville. ·The intervening distance required but one remount station, which was arranged for at the Pleasant Grove House. . . .
The unique arrangement didn’t eliminate any riders, but did release the horses at three remount stations along the White Rock road. These were then sorely needed in the Utah Territory where raiding Pah-Utes were busy running off stock from Pony stations all across the desert.
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 60-61
Winter 1858
“Hockaday could hardly have chosen a worse year to launch his enterprise than 1858. The storms that fall ‘in the neighborhood of the South Pass and the Sweetwater are pronounced by old mountaineers the most terrible ever experienced in that vicinity,’ Kirk Anderson reported from Salt Lake. It began storming ‘almost incessantly’ on November 20, and the old veterans swore the blizzard that roared through South Pass during the first three days of December was ‘the severest known in these parts for the last ten years.’”
Will Bagley, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, Location 3908 [Kindle Edition]
Sharing Blankets
“Mat, the other Irishman, I consider in special my comrade; we slept for three months in the same waggon and under the same blankets. I made his acquaintance here by curing him of ague with a dose of quinine, a good deed never forgotten.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 20-21
Mile 333: Dobeytown
“Two miles to the west [of Fort Kearney] we arrived at the spot where once flourished the hamlet called Dobeytown, a squalid settlement of ‘dobe huts whose very mention was next door to an indelicacy. It was the ordinary type of hell-hole that clung to the fringes of any military reservation and, owing to the fact that Fort Kearney was far toward the western edge of its reserve, the group of mud buildings was within a mile or two of barracks.
We found Leo Nickels’ Ranch on the spot where many a foolish traveler lost his last cent–if not his life. The causal tourist may recognize it by a row of evergreens along the fence line instead of the more common cottonwoods whose silky fluff everywhere fills the air.
In staging days a large reserve stable for work stock was erected at Dobeytown, and the name Kearney City was arbitrarily selected in a vain attempt to throw a veil of respectability over the community. The name never ‘took’ with those who knew the place . . .
The permanent population was about two dozen inhabitants, mainly gamblers, saloonkeepers, and loafers who made a good living by running off emigrants’ stock at night, laying it to the Pawnee, and hiring out to find it the next day. Only the most cast-iron type of hard liquor was available at Dobeytown (as beer and wines were considered an unpardonable waste of hauling space), and the thirsty drivers and crews of the bull-drawn freight wagons were frequently drugged and robbed.
‘There was no law in Dobeytown, or at least none that could be enforced.’ The place was a grisly combination of delerium tremens, stale humanity, and dirt.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 88
Annual Mail to Oregon in the 1830s
“This terrible inaccessibility is perhaps bet illustrated by the communications that passed back and forth between Narcissa [Whitman] and her family during the years just following the birth of her daughter and the little girl’s death by drowning at the age of twenty-seven months. By the first travelers’ caravan Narcissa sent word of her birth; months later, by another caravan, she sent for several pairs of little shoes. Then tragedy struck, and the baby girl was buried. The next westbound traders’ party brought congratulations, and the following year the shoes arrived. The grief-stricken mother was forced to wait until a third season for her letters of condolence.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 232
Violence of the Iroquois
This hard fact is what recent essays in the economic interpretation of the Iroquois Confederacy fail to account for. Professor Hunt, for instance treats the Iroquois as if they were Economic Man implementing a business policy with the detachment of Standard Oil organizing a new territory, and he ridicules Parkman’s idea that they had a natural liking for war. But they did. The murderous raiding that we perhaps inaccurately call war, though that is what the Indians called it, was metabolic and interstitial in the Indian way of life. Killing was sport, it obtained religious grace, and it was a way to social and political distinction. It is idle to represent murder and the collection of scalps as a trade device for cornering a market or increasing the markup on goods. Economic Man would not torture and kill the customer nor would economic diplomacy sanction the murder of an ally. The Iroquois did not torture or kill the customer to get his trade but because religious belief and magical antisepsis required it, and because they enjoyed torture and killing. What led the Iroquois to repeatedly make war on the tribes they were trying to bring into a peaceful alliance was not the shortcomings of their political institu576 • Chapter V: Notes tions nor their mistakes in economic theory but the fact that there are stronger motives than the economic one. In a neolithic society which exalts killing the elders may understand the desirability of curbing them temporarily in the interest of prosperity but there are always the young men.
Bernard De Voto, The Course of Empire, p. 575, n. 6
Oxen Abuse
“To make the exhausted oxen pull, some of these drivers would not stop short of breaking a tail, staving in a rib, or even gouging out an eye. I grew sick at their heartless doings, but was powerless to avert them. The thousands of carcasses of oxen which lined our trail showed how hard was their usage.”
Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, A California Tramp and Later Footprints, p. 38
Russell's Status at 45
In March, 1857, Russell and Limrick, as trustees, sold the re-mainder of the tracts, 3,881 acres, to Waddell. After holding the lands for a short time Waddell sold them to Russell for $25,000.° This transaction undoubtedly made Russell one of the largest land owners in Lafayette county. Now at the age of 45 he possessed the credentials—land, a big house, money, and slaves—to admit him into the inner fellowship of very important people in the busi-ness and social circles of the town.
“According to our maps, “the Narrows” was the next place of interest. It is mainly notable because, at this point on the Little Blue, the emigrants seemed to forget all their hard-learned rules of Indian strategy and crowded their wagons into a bottleneck between the river and encroaching bluffs.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner,p. 76
Jornada
In some localities 50 or 60 miles, and even greater distances, are frequently traversed without water; these long stretches are called by the Mexicans “journdas,” or day’s journeys. There is one in New Mexico called Journada del Muerto, which is 78 1/2 miles in length, where, in a dry season, there is not a drop of water; yet, with proper care, this drive can be made with ox or mule teams, and without loss or injury to the animals.
Randolph Marcy, The Prairie Traveler, 52
Pony Route in the East Bay
Steamers usually took the mail back and forth; a Pony rider would board the ship, enjoy the ride, then gallop off to deliver the letters. Deliveries went as far as Oakland, on the far side of San Francisco; a rider would come off at Martinez, then ride up through the hills and down to the town. This was roughly a twenty-four-mile trip; riders would do it in under two hours, returning to catch another boat bound upriver to Sacramento.
Jim DeFelice, West Like Lightning, p. 241
Greeley on Chorpenning's Route
“It was over the new stage route that Horace Greeley, in July, 1859, traveled in Mr. Chorpenning’s coaches to California, and had his famous ride over the Sierra Nevadas, driven by Hank Monk, one of Chorpenning’s fancy drivers, and which is so humorously described by Artemus Ward in his travels in that country.”
Henry H. Clifford (comp.), Mail Service, Settlement of the Country, and the Indian Depredations, p. 8
Mile 1411: Rush Valley/Bush Valley/Faust/Doc. Faust's/Meadow Creek Station
“Although identified in the 1861 mail contract as Bush Valley, it is apparently a typographical error or was copied as a result of a misinterpreted hand-written contract. This station was established originally by George Chorpenning in late 1858. Within Utah (present boundaries), Chorpenning had built two relay stations, the one at Rush Valley called Meadow Creek Mail Station and the other at Smith Springs (Fish Springs). There is a question whether the stone building still standing at Rush Valley is the station house. The 1871 survey plat names this building Faust’s House, while the survey notes call it Faust’s Station. This building also has been called the old Fletcher house. We are told the remains of a depression marked the structure known as the station house. It was apparently evident for many years to the east and north of the present structure.
“‘One of ‘Doc’ Faust’s most pleasant remembrances while living at the station was the visit of Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, who was on a trip across the continent. Knowing that Mr. Greeley would very likely bury himself in books and not wish to carry on conversation, Mr. Faust took great care to see that all the tallow candles were hidden, leaving the house in darkness. Mr. Greeley, unable to read, then made a delightful companion for the remainder of the evening with interesting accounts of his travels.’
“In 1870, Doc Faust moved to Salt Lake City and became engaged in the livery stable business. He later traded his ranch to O.P. Rockwell for 80 head of cattle.
“The field notes (survey records) of A. D. Ferron of October 1869 stated that there were two telegraph lines (from Salt Lake City) meeting at this location, one via Tooele and one via Camp Floyd to California.
“The property, which includes the stone building and a cemetery, is under private ownership and is closed to the public. The monument north of the area, is misplaced and the log structure across the highway to the east is often referred to as ‘the original station.'”
‘Of gougers fierce, the eyes that pierce, the fiercest gouger he.’
His was a noted name for ‘deadly strife;’ he had the reputation of having killed his three men; and a few days afterward the grave that concealed one of his murders was pointed out to me.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 92
Shanghai
“He could only remember my army name, which was ‘Link,’ abbreviated from Lincoln, which I was formerly called, not by way of compliment, but because I was tall and lean. The customary nickname for one who was tall and lean in those days was ‘Shanghai,’ which was abbreviated to ‘Shang,’ but as we had one Shang in the company I was called Lincoln, abbreviated to ‘Link.’ So that when Marsh and I met, and hugged each other there at Camp Shuman, he called me ‘Link” and I called him ‘Shadblow;’ then we explained what our real names were, and got back onto a true personal and military basis.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 307
The Enigma Begins
The enigma begins at St. Joseph. In all the huzzas and hurlyburly that accompanied the send-off, no one apparently thought to record for posterity exactly the place in the city where the grand race began, or the identity of the expressman who had the distinguished honor of carrying the initial mochila.
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 42
Dust Killing Oxen
Oxen could tolerate lack of water fairly well because their third stomach, the rumen, stores extra water. It was the dust that killed them. “The worst enemy they had was dust,” Ford says emphatically. “Dust killed more oxen than Indians or snakebites or anything else did.” The reason has to do with the physiology of cattle.
Unlike horses and mules, cattle do not sweat. They are air cooled, like Volkswagens. . . .
Dust in their nostrils triggers production of mucus as their bod-ies struggle to clear out the muck. That is not just drool from the oxen’s mouths depicted in those old illustrations of wagons on the trail, but strings of mucus dangling from their nostrils. On a hot day, it is imperative to rest oxen often and keep their air passages clear. Emigrant boys had the job of clear-ing the animals’ nostrils, says Ford, using a rag they carried in their pockets. It was an important job.
The first sign of distress, he notes, comes when an ox sticks out its tongue and begins to pant. Next its head will drop and sway slowly from side to side. That informs the drover that the heat is build-ing in the animal’s deep tissues and organs. “And then he coughs—once—because of the dust, and he drops dead because all that heat now comes in on his heart and lungs,” says Ford. “He’ll just drop dead.” Along the network of trails heading west, thousands upon thousands of oxen did just that.
Dixon Ford and Lee Kreutzer, "Oxen: Engines of the Emigration," Overland Journal, V. 33. No. 1 (2015), p. 26
Adobe
“The very word is Spanish, derived from the Arabic —, meaning ‘the brick.’ it is known throughout the West, and is written adobies, and pronounced dobies.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 197
Mile 767: Lucinda Rawlins Grave
“A knoll wedged itself between us and the river. On the summit was a conspicuous new monument, and we went up to look at it. The cement gravestone was just completed and been built with the evident purpose of attracting attention. Sunk into the glass-fronted recess in the cement was an ordinary and irregular rock. It’s still legible inscription read: ‘Lucinda Rollins—Died June 1849.’
Some family, in those far-gone days stayed in this beautiful spot long enough to lose a loved one, to bury her, and to drive on. Some one in this family could not bear to leave her in an unmarked grave, and so it has norne a headstone—small and insignificant, ut miraculously remaining for all these years. The marked graves are greatly in the minority. In years when the trail was crowded, the trains were so hurried and sickness so prevalent that common decency could hardly be observed. . . .
It was during the small migrations at the beginning and at the end of trail history that deaths occurred singly and burial was a special and tragic ceremony. Because wagons were few and the trail at the mercy of marauding Indians the graves had need—a dreadful, ghastly need—to be completely obliterated.
Picture a trail-side camp in the early morning. In the trail itself a grave has been dug during the night. Wrapped only with blankets and soft buffalo robes the precious contents are gently lowered into it. If the neighborly occupants of near-by wagons have been able to find cactus, a layer of its protecting spiny joints is carefully tamped in next to the beloved dead and a shuddering prayer breathed that it may be enough. Next, the earth is packed above it firm and smooth. The bereaved family must go on. There is no help for it. The wagons are loaded and ready, and wait for the word which must be given. It is given. The slow-moving oxen move forward and onward. The creaking, rambling wagons lurch and roll. The whole inexorable march, from this moment on, flows westward over all that was mortal of their loved one—forever obliterating the last resting place and effacing it from the memory of man.”
[N.B. The gravesite is along the Guernsey Ruts hiking trail, which is marked on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route.]
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 175-176
Mile 1444: Riverbed Station
“The station was built in an old riverbed formed by evaporation of Lake Bonneville. The water contained in the northern portion of the great inland sea had a greater surface than the southern portion. Consequently more evaporation occurred in the northern part. Water seeks its own level and in this case, the water was squeezed into a low channel between two mountain ranges on the east and west. Here the movement of the water from south to north dug the river as the lake receded.
“Because of flash flooding, little evidence today remains of the station’s existence. . . . It is mentioned that it was hard to keep a station keeper at Riverbed because the area was supposedly haunted by ‘desert fairies.’ A monument was established at the site by the Civilian Conservation Corp in 1939 or 1940.”
“And it was pleasant also to reflect that this was not an obscure, back country desert, but a very celebrated one, the metropolis itself, as you may say. All this was very well and very comfortable and satisfactory—but now we were to cross a desert in daylight. This was fine—novel—romantic—dramatically adventurous—this, indeed, was worth living for, worth traveling for! We would write home all about it.
This enthusiasm, this stern thirst for adventure, wilted under the sultry August sun and did not last above one hour. One poor little hour—and then we were ashamed that we had ‘gushed ‘ so. The poetry was all in the anticipation there is none in the reality. Imagine a vast, waveless ocean stricken dead and turned to ashes; imagine this solemn waste tufted with ash-dusted sage-bushes; imagine the lifeless silence and solitude that belong to such a place; imagine a coach creeping like a bug through the midst of this shoreless level, and sending up tumbled volumes of dust as if it were a bug that went by steam; imagine this aching monotony of toiling and plowing kept up hour after hour, and the shore still as far away as ever, apparently; imagine team, driver, coach and passengers so deeply coated with ashes that they are all one colorless color; imagine ash-drifts roosting above moustaches and eyebrows like snow accumulations on boughs and bushes. This is the reality of it.
The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relentless malignity ; the perspiration is welling from every pore in man and beast, but scarcely a sign of it finds its way to the surface—it is absorbed before it gets there; there is not the faintest breath of air stirring; there is not a merciful shred of cloud in all the brilliant firmament; there is not a living creature visible in any direction whither one searches the blank level that stretches its monotonous miles on every hand; there is not a sound—not a sigh—not a whisper—not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or distant pipe of bird—not even a sob from the lost souls that doubtless people that dead air. And so the occasional sneezing of the resting mules, and the champing of the bits, grate harshly on the grim stillness, not dissipating the spell but accenting it and making one feel more lonesome and forsaken than before.
The mules, under violent swearing, coaxing and whipcracking, would make at stated intervals a ‘spurt,’ and drag the coach a hundred or may be ‘two hundred yards, stirring up a billowy cloud of dust that rolled back, enveloping the vehicle to the wheel-tops or higher, and making it seem afloat in a fog. Then a rest followed, with the usual sneezing and bit-champing. Then another ‘spurt’ of a hundred yards and another rest at the end of it. All day long we kept this up, without water for the mules and without ever changing the team. At least we kept it up ten hours, which, I take it, is a day, and a pretty honest one, in an alkali desert. It was from four in the morning till two in the afternoon. And it was so hot! and so close! and our water canteens went dry in the middle of the day and we got so thirsty! It was so stupid and tiresome and dull! and the tedious hours did lag and drag and limp along with such a cruel deliberation! It was so trying to give one’s watch a good long undisturbed spell and then take it out and find that it had been fooling away the time and not trying to get ahead any! The alkali dust cut through our lips, it persecuted our eyes, it ate through the delicate membranes and made our noses bleed and kept them bleeding—and truly and seriously the romance all faded far away and disappeared, and left the desert trip nothing but a harsh reality—a thirsty, sweltering, longing, hateful reality!
Two miles and a quarter an hour for ten hours—that was what we accomplished.”
Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 143-144
Risk from Indians in 1846
“The risks were now that stragglers might be killed for their arms and equipment, that venturesome young bucks might raid the horse herd for glory, or that the antic Indian humor might stampede the oxen. Indians did not covet the ungainly tamed buffalo that drew the white-tops, but it was fun to see them run, especially with some arrows sticking in them.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 157
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. Sibley at Fort Leavenworth to transport all of the military stores to all of the army posts in the West and Southwest. This gave them a monopoly upon that class of freighting business, which enviable position they held until 1860.
Throughout this crisis, news was received twice a week by the Pony Express, and, be it remembered, in less than half the time required by the old stage coach. Of its services then, no better words can be used than those of Hubert Howe Bancroft.
It was the pony to which every one looked for deliverance; men prayed for the safety of the little beast, and trembled lest the service should be discontinued. Telegraphic dispatches from Washington and New York were sent to St. Louis and thence to Fort Kearney, whence the pony brought them to Sacramento where they were telegraphed to San Francisco. Great was the relief of the people when Hole’s bill for a daily mail service was passed and the service changed from the Southern to the Central route, as it was early in thesummer. • • • Yet after all, it was to the flying pony that all eyes and hearts were turned.
The Pony Express was a real factor in the preservation of California to the Union.
Glenn D. Bradley, The Story of the Pony Express, p. 98-99
Freighter Meal
“‘Bacon was the r e l i a b l e meat,’ and flap jacks, beans, crackers, and sour dough fried in a skillet and flooded with molasses was the most regular menu for the cook’s ‘guests.’ . . .
“The breakfast menu varied to the extent of having coffee, and fried bacon sandwiched between thick cornmeal bread covered with syrup.”
Floyd Bresee, Overland Freighting in the Platte Valley 1850–1870, p. 50, 52
Mail Call in San Francisco
“As early as the 1840s President Polk had acknowledged that mail service between the East and California was ‘indispensable for the diffusion of information, for the binding together [of] the different portions of our extended Confederacy.’ This hunger for mail was almost palpable in the early 1850s. When the monthly steamer arrived from Panama bearing mail from the East, a canon was fired on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill., followed by bedlam throughout the city.
The physician William S. McCollumn, writing in 1850, described men waiting in line for days; men paying other men to stand in line for them; miners paying with gold dust to but places in line from other men; men who expected no mail but stood in line anyway, to sell their position to someone else; men sleeping overnight in blanket rolls, all to hold their place in the hope of news from home.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 90
Those Who Could Read
At Pacific Springs, one of the crossroads of the western trail, a pile of gold-bearing quartz marked the road to California; the other road had a sign bearing the words “To Oregon.” Those who could read took the trail to Oregon.
Dorothy O. Johansen, "A Working Hypothesis for the Study of Migrations," Pacific Historical Review , Feb., 1967, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Feb., 1967), p 8
Geological Age of the Earth
“In 1665, Irish archbishop James Ussher published a painstaking accounting of the age of the Earth deduced from biblical generations. Ussher’s conclusion: God had created the Earth on October 23, 4004 B.C. . . . Geologists have parties that begin on October 22; at midnight they toast the anniversary of the Earth’s formation.”
Keith Heyer Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 24
Origin of the Paiute War
Nevada historians agree that the events at Williams Station on May 7 were the trigger for the so-called Pyramid Lake Indian War, which is variously called the Paiute Indian War, the Pyramid Lake Uprising, or the Washoe Indian War. The early Nevada historian Myron T. Angel, writing in 1881, makes no explanation as to why the Indians would descend on Williams Station and slaughter its occupants. The next history of Nevada, published in 1904, makes no attempt, either. But subsequent versions of territorial history fill in the blanks. . . .
The killings and burning of Williams Station were the result of what DeQuille decorously describes as an incident when someone at Williams Station took several Indian women hostage and kept them in a cave for several days. DeQuille, an associate of Mark Twain’s on the Territorial Enterprise, was the source of much of this information about the Paiute Indian War was living in the territory at the time; his knowledge of early Nevada was encyclopedic.
An attempt by one of the Indian women’s husbands to rescue them was unsuccessful. This Indian went for help, and his comrades killed the occupants of Williams Station and burned it down. The presumption here must be that the women were raped and the Paiutes—who had suffered a bad winter, were short on food, and were tiring of the increasing presence of whites in their country—had reached their limit. Later versions claim that the Indian women were mere girls who had been out gathering pinion nuts (a food staple for the Paiutes) when they were abducted and held in a root cellar under a barn at Williams Station. . . .
Major Frederick Dodge, Indian agent for the Paiutes, left no doubt in the matter, reporting to the government that “to intruders on the reserve and their gross outrages on Indian women lie one great cause of the present trouble.”
==============
The questions of guilt, observed Tennessee, had not been conclusively established. But there were theories that the correspondent of the Herald noted. One rumor making the rounds, according to Tennessee, was that “a well-known but disreputable and worthless fellow named ‘Yank,’ with perhaps one or two of his equally worthless companions, went to Williams’ and engaged in gambling-a pastime that seems to be much in vogue at that place. This fellow, it is related, lost all his money, and afterwards his animals, playing with those at the house.”
Tennessee reported the rumor that Yank thought he had been cheated and committed the murders to recover his money, then set
the fire to cover his tracks. Tennessee also introduced the theory that James O. Williams was away on the evening in question consorting with “a certain Spanish woman” and thus escaped the fate of his brothers.
Tennessee’s dispatches in the San Francisco Herald argued forcefully that the events leading up to the Pyramid Lake Indian War had little or nothing to do with Indians. It was really the work of grogshop rascals and the hysteria of mob rule. “How humiliating to look back over the work of the past five days, and see what disaster to business, what disgrace to our national character, what widespread prejudice to our interests and honor, if not danger to our citizens, are sure to ensue when timid, untruthful and inexperienced men get control of, and give direction to public affairs!”
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 66-67, and 79
Mile 395: Cozad, NE
“In 1879 the explorer and geologist John Wesley Powell, later the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, established the 100th meridian as the “moisture line,” often locally called the ‘dry line,’ separating the relatively fertile plains of eastern Nebraska and the arid scrub country to the west. (In Nebraska, an average of twenty-two to twenty-eight inches of rain falls annually east of the 100th meridian; twelve to sixteen inches falls to the west.) Revisions to the Homesteading Act under Theodore Roosevelt—a pro-rancher Republican—allowed settlers west of the 100th meridian to claim a full section of 640 acres instead of the original 160 acres, because the drier land was so much less productive, and this is one reason why eastern Nebraska is cropped, and western Nebraska is mostly cattle country In nearby Cozad there is a historical marker on Route 30 at the 100th meridian, where the Oregon Trail, the Pony Express route, the transcontinental Union Pacific, the Lincoln Highway, and modern interstate Route 80 intersect. The Concord coaches of the Central California & Pikes Peak Express Company, later the Overland Mail Company, ran nearby.”
[Note: Cozad is north of the XP Trail at about Mile 395. The monuments referred to appear to be along a loop of Meridian Avenue that runs just south of Hwy 30, Between Meridian and F Street. There is also a 100th Meridian museum (https://www.cozadhistory.org) and Willow Creek Pony Express Station in Cozad City Park (9th and F Streets).]
Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail, p. 186
First Mail from California
“On the 1st day of May, 1851, Mr. Chorpenning left Sacramento City in charge of the first United States mail that ever crossed the country between the States and the Pacific. On the morning of the 5th the party left Johnston’s Ranch, six miles east of Placerville, which was the last white man’s habitation in California, and found no settlement whatever from there to Salt Lake, a distance of over 700 miles.”
Henry H. Clifford (comp.), Mail Service, Settlement of the Country, and the Indian Depredations, p. 1
Oregon Territorial Government
“In the summer of 1848, amid a popular outcry about Indian attacks, Congress created the Oregon Territory, the first territorial government west of the Rockies, and appropriated the funds to build army forts to protect the pioneers.”
Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail, p. 412
Breaking Mules
“The only mules emigrants could buy seemed to be unbroken ones. McIlhany says it took him a month to ‘get acquainted’ with mules purchased at St. Joe . . .
Those attempting to ride these animals found them incorrigible. ‘Many valiant riders,’ writes R.C. Shaw, ‘found themselves in very undignified positions.’ Vincent Geiger speaks of one man being thrown ‘Hell, west, & Crooked.’ Some of the beasts were never thoroughly subdued until they became food for coyotes.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 38
The Union League
“Shortly Before Our Arrival in Omaha [in 1863] I had met and been introduced to a man who was a national organizer of the Union League. It was called the ‘National Loyal Union League.’ Only such officers were let into it as were of known loyalty. The army was so honeycombed with disloyal men and Rebel sympathizers that it was difficult to know always whom to trust. These were to be weeded out, and the obligation of the Loyal League was administered only to those of whom the organization was dead sure.
It was a strange thing to me to be approached by one whom I did not know, and be talked to upon the subject. He said there were persons in my regiment who were Rebels, and who were disloyal; that he was authorized to give me admission to the order. This was before we reached Omaha. He said it cost nothing, but it must be kept profoundly a secret. He said that it had a civil branch, and a military branch ; that the obligations were different, and the object different; but that any officer or soldier who belonged to the military order could make himself known, and could be admitted, and visit a lodge of civilians.
I expressed a thorough appreciation of the plan, and he took an hour, and put me through a verbal drill, and gave me some signs, and passwords. The day before marching into Omaha, while riding on the road with my company, a farmer with a load of hay alongside of the road gave the hailing-sign. I stopped, and talked with him a few moments, and he told me that near where we were stopping that night was a large Union League organization that had arrested and put in jail a gang of Confederate deserters, and that they would be glad to see me present. When our command went into camp, I rode that night into the village, and I had gone but a short distance before I got the ‘hailing-sign,’ in both instances given in the same way. I found out where there was to be a meeting of the lodge that night, and I went up, and attended it.
The hailing-sign was a remarkable invention. It was ‘two and two.’ In any way that two and two could be designated, the hailing-sign was made. For instance, if the hand should be held up and the four fingers divided in the middle, two on each side. With a bugle it was two short notes, then an interval, and two short notes. It could be made almost any way; two fingers to the chin. The persons who hailed me, as stated, put two of their fingers in their vest pockets, leaving their other two fingers out.
Nobody in the regiment that I know of, was initiated when I was, and I was told where to make reports in case I had something to communicate. I did not know whether there were any persons in the regiment, when I got to Omaha, who belonged to the Loyal League. But the third day while I was there, I was lying down in the tent, late in the afternoon, with my feet near the mess-chest. My Captain came in, and as he was a warm-hearted, true-blue Union officer of great gallantry, and great courage, it occurred to me that he might belong to the Loyal League, so with my foot I tapped on the mess-chest two couplets of raps. Captain O^Brien looked up at me and said, ‘What sort of a sign is that?’ and I said, ‘How do you know it is a sign?’ And he said, ‘When did you join?’ And I said, ‘What do you mean? Join what?’ Then he put out his hand and gave me the grip, to which I responded. The grip was a two-and-two grip. I had been recently promoted into the company. Thereupon he told me who belonged to the Union League in our regiment, and told me who was suspected.”
Eugene Ware, Indian Wars of 1864, p. 14-15
Handcart Lumber
Ideally the lumber should have satisfied a wagonmaker’s specifications: hickory for axles, elm for hubs, white oak for spokes and rims, ash for shafts and box, and all of it well seasoned. In practise, an especially later in the summer as time and supplies both ran sho the carts were made of whatever could be found, most of it oak an hickory and a lot of it green. Here, as in other aspects of the handcart experiment, an original over-optimism was complicated by unforeseen difficulties of organization and supply. Economy or no economy, those carts should never have been designed without iron axles and iron tires, and should never under any circumstances have been built with green lumber. The shrinking aridity beyond the 98th meridian, the sand of the Platte valley, the rocky Black Hills, were all so familiar to the authors of the scheme that they should have known. And no matter what they were made of, it was a fatal miscalculation that the carts were not ready when the first converts arrived. The delay, merely awkward for the Saints from the Enoch Train and the S. Curling, was progressive; it became disastrous for the emigrants from the Thornton and the Horizon.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 230-31
Pony Express Stations
From St. Joseph to Fort Kearny, Fort Bridger to Rush Valley, and from Carson City to Sacramento, most of the stations were located in fairly good country and were reasonably comfortable. All others were situated in deserts where conditions were unbelievably harsh and difficult. Some of these were constructed of adobe bricks in the middle of endless, dreary wastes, and others of loose stones in isolated, treeless canyons and unnamed hills. Still others were mere holes dug in the hillside with crude additions in front.
All of them, except those most favorably located, had dirt floors; window glass was unknown; the beds were pole bunks built against the walls, and the furniture consisted of boxes, benches, or anything else the ingenuity of the occupants could contrive. Most of them had water nearby, such as it was, and the stable for horses was only a few feet distant from the quarters of the men.
The food provided the stations was not of a quality designed to tickle the palate of an epicurean. It consisted of cured meats, mostly bacon, dried fruits, beans, bread baked upon the spot, molasses, pickles, corn meal when it could be had, and coffee. Fresh meat was a rarity, even in regions where wild animals were numerous, because nobody had time to hunt. Sometimes the wagon trains, which appeared about once a month with supplies, brought along a few delicacies, but these were never plentiful. Those trains also hauled hay and grain for the horses, and space, was always at a premium. Nobody thought of stinting them, no matter what the cost might be, or how short rations for the men were.
Settle and /Settle, Saddles and Spurs, 116-117
Pony Express and the Central Route
Keetley’s letter [in Visscher’s book] is so full of confusion and obvious mistakes that it would be easy to dismiss it completely. Colonel Visscher, as was his editorial practice, printed the entire letter without comment. He had come of age when journalists were paid by the column inch, and Keetley had written a nice long letter. Visscher tossed it into what the National Geographic later called “the buck-a-roo stew” that was to be the story of the Pony Express. It would be easy to ignore Keetley’s letter but for this observation:
The Pony Express was never started with a view to making it a paying investment. It was a put-up job to change the then Overland mail route which was running through Arizona on the southern route, changed to run by way of Denver and Salt Lake City, where Ben Holladay had a stage line running tri-weekly to Denver and weekly to Salt Lake. The object of the Pony Express was to show the authorities in Washington that by way of Denver and Salt Lake to Sacramento was the shortest route, and the job worked successfully, and Ben Holladay secured the mail contract from the Missouri River to Salt Lake, and the old southern route people took it from Salt Lake City to Sacramento. As soon as this was accomplished and the contract awarded, the pony was taken off, it having fulfilled its mission. Perhaps the war also had much to do with changing the route at the time.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 185
Wind on the Plains
“Another climatic feature that has had important economic and perhaps, has the wind done more effective work than in the Great Plains environment is the wind. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, has the wind done more effective work that in the Great Plains. As compared with the humid East, the Great Plains country, particularly the High Plains, is a region of high wind velocity. The level surface and the absence of trees give the air currents free play. On the whole, the wind blows harder and more constantly on the Plains than it does in any other portion of the United States, save on the seashore.
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 21
Van Vliet's Mission
“After the first elements of the [Utah] expedition had left Fort Leavenworth in July the Adjutant General’s office ordered [General William] Harney to send ‘a discreet staff officer’ to the Territory on a special mission. By July 28, [Stewart] Van Vliet, an assistant quartermaster in the army, had received his instructions. With a small detail he was to hurry past the column already on the road to Utah and to go ‘with utmost dispatch’ to Salt Lake City, where he was to make arrangements with the Mormons for the arrival and provisioning of the army. . . .
[Van Vliet] left Utah a sober man, greatly concerned for the safety of the army. . . .The Mormons, he wrote [to Harney], would resist the entry of the army into Utah to the death, although they would probably confine their campaign as long as possible to the burning of grass and other bloodless harassments. If confronted with superior forces, they would destroy everything, and using three years’ supplies of food already cached would hide in the mountains, where they could annihilate any force sent against them. In light of this ominous situation, ad because of the lateness of the season and the nature of the terrain, Van Vliet urged Harney to consider the possibility of ordering the troops to winter near Fort Bridger.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 106-107
Frontier Theory for Women
Almost twenty years ago the late historian David Potter pointed out that one of the most influential interpretations of the American experience was based upon a fallacy. He was referring to Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous hypothesis that the frontier was the key influence in the making of the character of the American people. Thmer’s argument was that because the United States evolved in a region of unsettled land, the conquest of that open land made Americans, among other things, individualistic, active, believers in progress, and democratic. Yet, as Potter observed, the Americans who acquired these traits in the course of cutting down forests, plowing up the tough prairie sod, fighting the Indians, and founding new governments constituted only half of the population. Women engaged in none of these activities. The frontier and the West in general, Potter implied, must have been a quite different experience for women than it was for men.
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 3
Raveled Ends of the Cord
The old Overland Trail, taken as a whole, is rightly spoken of as the cord that held the East and West together during the troubled years before the Civil War. It is composed of several strands which are united as a complete, intermingled thread only for the passage of the Rocky Mountains [through South Pass], springing widely apart at either end. On the eastern terminus these strands, in turn, ravel out into a confusion of small roads—feeders from the frontier towns.
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 20
Last Performance of Buffalo Bill's Show
Did you know that right here in Julesburg was where Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show had its last performance before the banks foreclosed on it?
Jerry Ellis, Bareback!, p. 135
Pony Bob's Silver Strike
“Often through pure dumb luck a rich strike is made. Pony Expressman Bob Haslam’s horse unintentionally kicked a chip of silver from the Reese River field while fleeing from Indians. The chip turned out to be nearly pure silver (he stopped to pick it up while on the run?). William Bodey, digging for a wounded rabbit that had run to ground, discovered the Esmeralda outcroppings of what became the Bodie mines. Or there is the story of the first prospectors to Hamilton, Nevada, (in 1868) who threw up a stone shelter for wind protection, then later discovered it contained about $75,000 worth of silver.”
Bruce Rosenberg, The Code of the West, p. 47
Lure of the Trail for Men
“The male camaraderie of country life, in fact, was exaggerated by the dangers and excitements of the trail. “Men drawn together on the plains as in every day walks of life,” William Thompson remembered, “only the bonds were closer and far more enduring. The very dangers through which passed together rendered the ties more lasting.”
This chance for an exaggerated and extended occasion masculine good times lured men to the trail. Truly one of the great attractions of the trip was the notion of spending entire spring and summer “in the rough” with the boys, away routines of farm work. Trail work was hard, to be sure, but farm drudgery held none of this romantic allure. The idea of an overland emigration struck romantic chords deep within the male breast. One midwestern visitor reported that men “spoke of ‘Old Kentuck’ and ‘Old Virginny’ in a tone that sounded like deep emotion,” and Indiana farmers “related with glowing eyes” tales of how their fathers had emigrated from the valleys of Appalachia. William Oliver told of how the men at an inn along the National Road in Manhattan, Indiana, listened almost reverently as a gnarled old frontiersman recounted his adventures, supposedly at the side of Daniel Boone, hunting ‘Injuns.’ On the trail men could live out collective fantasies that some had experienced in the early days of the midwestern frontier but most had only dreamed of on their staid and settled farms. Here on the trail was an opportunity to bring to life that male self-image. The project of Oregon and California settlement itself included a male vision of life in a time and place where men played a man’s role with long rifle and hunting knife as well as plough and cradle.
Hunting has continually recurred as a theme in these pages of the importance it assumed for emigrant men. It was in this context of male fantasy and the measurement of masculine identity against the standard of earlier, heroic generation of men that hunting took on its meaning. At home the rifle had retained its symbolic if not practical place as the key instrument of male activity. As such, the rifle was the object around which men organized their conception of the trip. By insisting that their rifles would again become the means of securing nourishment for their families, men allowed their own projections to set the form and the content of the journey. Matthew Field captured something of this with a description of the emigrants passing through Westport, men to the front, “rifles on their shoulders, … looking as if they were already watching around the corners of the streets for game.” Hunting, of course, supplied very little of the actual nourishment for the overland travelers, and experienced observers, from the beginning, advised against wasting valuable time on the hunt.But the men nonetheless insisted on approaching the trip as at least a hunting expedition.”
John Mack Faragher, Women & Men on the Overland Trail, p. 135-36
Emigrants and Indians
The emigrants’ fear of the Indians was equaled only by their ignorance of the Indians’ ways. They seldom knew, for example. that it was common custom among many tribes to offer strangers a token of hospitality, and Indians often expected such tokens from those who were traveling through their lands. Emigrants almost always wrote of the Indians who came up “begging” to their wagons, and they found the habit “disgusting.”
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 118
Mile 957: Greasewood Creek
“Greasewood Creek was a welcome sight, a rapid ten-foot stream, midway of the twenty-mile stretch, where the oxen sunk their muzzles deep and drank as they crossed. After a slow five miles more the alkali lakes came into view—paper-flat deposits of a pure fiery-white soda that ate the soles from the shoes of the luckless herder who must go among them after cattle. The biggest one was called Saleratus Lake. here the cooks replenished their supply of cooking soda and sometimes encountered wagons from the Mormon colony at Salt Lake shoveling it up for home consumption.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 206
Virginia Slade's Past
“There has been much speculation but little of actual record concerning the life of this striking, high-spirited woman prior to her marriage to Slade. The conjecture of her contemporaries—and it was not pharisaical, but casual, matter of fact, and therefore tenable by us—was that she had been a dance hall girl (‘hurdy-gurdy’ was yet to come from the Barbary Coast). Other writers of western lore claim that Slade met Virginia when she ran a faro game (it was called ‘bucking the tiger’ in those days) in a gambling house, and that when he got in a shooting scrape, she pulled her guns, ordered everyone out of the gambling establishment, and cared for the wounded Slade until he recovered.”
Virginia Rowe Towle, Vigilante Woman," p. 124
Mile 1850: Simpson Park Station
“At Simpson’s Park [on May 20, 1860], James Alcott was killed, the station burned, and the stock driven off during the Pah Ute War. Two Indians were employed here to herd the stock. Another of the employees was Giovanni Brutisch.”
============
“When [William H.] Streeper reached Simpson’s Park he found the station burned, the stock gone, and the keeper, James Alcott dead. Hurrying on he met the east bound mule mail carrier who upon learning what had happened at Simpson’s Park, refused to go any further. Instead, he turned back with Streeper to Smith’s Creek.”
Settle and Settle, Saddles and Spurs, p. 142, 155
The Mochila
“To reduce weight, protect the mail, and speed up relays, Mr. Russell had special Pony Express saddles and mochilas made. The saddle was only a light wooden frame, with horn, cantle, stirrups, and bellyband. The mochila (pronounced ‘mo-chee’-la’), or mantle was an easily removable leather cover that fitted over the saddle, with openings to let the horn and cantle stick through. At each corner of the mochila was a cantina, or pouch, for carrying mail. These were fitted with locks, and the keys would be kept only at Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and St. Joseph.
Each mochila would be carried the full length of the line, being moved from pony to pony as relays were made. Since the rider would be sitting on it, it could not be lost or stolen while he was mounted. If he were to be thrown or killed during his run, the mochila would remain on the saddle and, no doubt, be carried on to the next relay station by the riderless pony.”
Ralph Moody, Riders of the Pony Express, p. 17-18
Mormon Exodus to Far West, MO
At Far West began the first attempt at the City of Enoch, the New Jerusalem, and to Far West the faithful began to gather. From apostasy-riddled Kirtland, on July 6, 1838 started a caravan composed of fifty-eight wagons and 515 people and hundreds of cattle, sheep, swine-the first of the villages on wheels that would rock through Mormon history. Like most of those later caravans it was fleeing trouble and hunting sanctuary. Unfortunately, on July 4, two days before it set out, Joseph’s counselor Sidney Rigdon had made a fire-eating speech at Far West, daring the Gentiles to come on and threatening what would happen to them if they did. The Lord three days later sent a sign, ambiguous and troubling, by blasting the flagpole in the square of Far West with a thunderbolt. Rumors of Rigdon’s words and rumors of the Mormon secret avengers who called themselves the Sons of Dan spread through Gentile Missouri growing more fearsome with each repeating, and all Missouri that was not already in arms to harass the Mormons flew to arms to repel them, When the Kirtland company dragged wearily in on October 4 they found not sanctuary but bloody crisis. Missourians and Danites were raiding each other and burning farms and looting. On October 26 they clashed at the Battle of Crooked River, with casualties on both sides. Three days later two hundred men, either militiamen or mobbers ( the Mormons saw no reason to make a distinction), burst upon a little group of Mormon families gathered for safety at Haun’s Mill. They killed several at the first fire. The women and children ran screaming for the woods, men and boys dove for shelter into the blacksmith shop. The mobbers put their guns to the cracks and shot them as they huddled together or tried to hide behind the forge. When the women crept back later they found seventeen dead and fifteen others shot to bi~s but still living. Stiff with horror, terrified for their own lives if the mob should return, they dragged the bodies of their husbands and sons across the yard and dumped them into the well, and with their wounded escaped to Far West.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 20
Missourians
Harriet Ward and Harriet Clarke were sharply aware of emigrants of lower social standing on the road. Very rowdy emigrants were described as being from Missouri, and the epithet “Missourians” covered everything that was mean and common. Next to Missourians were the travelers bound for the gold fields. Harriet Clarke wrote that “there were a good many desperadoes among them but they were generally bound for California.”
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 105-106
Women's Influence on the Decision to Emigrate
Faragher writes of his sample of women’s diaries: “Not one wife initiated the idea [of migrating]; It was always the husband. Less than a quarter of the women writers recorded agreeing with their restless husbands; most of them accepted it as a husband-made decision to which they could only acquiesce. But nearly a third wrote of their objections and how they moved only reluctantly” (Women and Men on the Overland Trail, p. 163). On the other hand, Julie Roy Jeffrey found not only that women participated effectively in the decision-making process, but that “evidence corroborates female power to affect decision making. . . . Whatever ideology had to say about the necessity of female submission, women felt free to disrupt male emigration project and … had bargaining powers.” (See Frontier Women, pp. 30-31.) The debate on the participation of women in the decision to go West is an important one Insofar as it presents a major testing of the relationship between husband and wife in America at mid-century .
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 74, n. 22
Ole Ephraim
“‘Ole Epliraim’ is the mountain-man’s sobriquet for the grizzly bear.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 192
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 on January 1, 1829. The bride’s father, with customary generosity, started the young couple off with the gift of Negro slaves, horses, sheep, $1,500, and a feather bed. Now it appeared that Waddell was launched upon the successful, though somewhat prosaic career of a Southern gentleman farmer.
“The next year, 1835, when the traders’ great caravan under Fontenelle came west to the rendezvous, they brought two other famous men, Samuel Parker and the young Marcus Whitman, bot missionaries. Men of the cloth were unwelcome among the rough packers, and at first their resentment took the form of petty annoyances; but cholera struck the party, and Whitman, beside being a man of God, was a doctor. He worked tirelessly, saved several lives, including that of Fontenelle himself, and cemented a lifelong friendship with many of the traders and mountain men. A the rendezvous he made an incision in Jim Bridger’s back and removed an Indian arrowhead which had been embedded in the flesh for some years.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 326-327
Cost of Wagons for the Mormon Conflict
Wagons, oxen, and equipment were bought wherever they could be found, but prices were hiked 25% or more. When the job was done they had about 1,100 wagons, 15,000 oxen, and some 1,400 new employees. The investment for this undertaking was somewhere near $750,000.00.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 19
The End of the Pony Express
The Pony Express, its route drastically shortened and its purpose now virtually eliminated by the telegraph, was quietly discontinued, with none of the fanfare that had launched it, following the completion of its run on October 26. In eighteen tumultuous months it had made 308 runs each way, carrying about 34,753 pieces of mail, yet losing only one mochila in the process. It had captured the world’s imagination and helped keep the West in the Union. But as a business operation the Pony Express had brought in only a tiny fraction of the $500,000 or so that was invested in it.”
The End of the Pony Express
Drinking on the Pony Express
Burton observed uncountable instances of drinking along the route; being a traveler who enjoyed a dram himself, he commented frequently when the liquor supply was low. He does not appear to have passed up any opportunities to “liquor up,” as he calls it. His account seems to indicate that Alexander Majors’s famous admonition about sobriety was widely ignored, and modern research appears to confirm that.
Archaeological excavations conducted by Donald L. Hardesty of the University of Nevada-Reno in the late 1970s on Cold Springs and Sand Springs Stations in central Nevada uncovered hundreds of fragments of wine, champagne, gin, ale, brandy, beer, and whiskey bottles at both sites dating from the time of the Pony. Hardesty noted in a report prepared for the federal Bureau of Land Management in 1979 that there was ample evidence that dictums against taking strong drink were ignored. “The firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell was adamantly opposed to the use of alcohol beverages by its employees and required them to sign an oath saying that they would not indulge. But observations of drunken pony express riders falling off their horses [Hardesty cited Buffalo Bill Cody’s memoirs as offering an example] suggests that the oath was not too effective. The archaeological record of Cold Springs and Sand Springs stations supports that conclusion.”
Richard Burton not only noted countless instances of drinking but wryly reported that he had observed no indications of scriptural study, either. “There was no sign of Bible, Shakespeare, or Milton: a Holywell Street romance or two was the only attempt at literature,” he observed.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 101
Packing for the Emigration
“Strange paraphernalia gathered in the Bowen barn and the Bowens were preparing a granary that would have seen the family through a famine year. At least two hundred pounds of flour or meal per person, the Guide said, The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California by Lansford W. Hastings, whose arrival in California Jim Clyman had recorded. All the Bowens thumbed that small volume, arguing, checking, refuting. Twenty pounds of sugar, ten pounds of salt . . . everyone will require at least twice as much as he would need at home, since there will be no vegetables . . . some buffalo can be counted on – and along the icebound Sangamon Bill Bowen sees himself riding down a shaggy beast straight out of fable . . . such goods for the Indian trade as beads, tobacco, handkerchiefs, cheap pantaloons, butcher knives, fish hooks – so young Bill and Nancy and Henry Clay and Joe will truly trade fish hooks for moccasins with a feathered topknot beside streams that are also straight out of fable. That topknot looks just like Tecumseh or Pontiac, and the streams of fable, the Platte, the Snake, the Green, are just such known rivers as the Sangamon, the Connecticut, the Maumee. While the north wind howls over the rooftree, it seems impossible that, come summer, Bill and Nancy Bowen will be unyok- Build Thee More Stately Mansions 45 ing the oxen while the “caral” forms on the banks of the Sweetwater, but they will be, for on page 147 Mr. Hastings says so.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 44-45
Frémont's Report
“Much more widely read [than Hastings’ guide], Fremont’s was a much better book. It knew what it was talking about, and when Bill Bowen read that, there was wood or water in a given place, or good soil, or difficult travel, he could count on it. The myth of the Great American Desert went down before this literary man’s examination – and before his vision (like his father-in-law’s) of cities rising in wasteland and the emptiness filling with fat farms. It was filled with solid facts that solid minds could use: it told about the winds, the water, the timber, the soil, the weather. It was extraordinarily seeing and intuitive, remarkably accurate.nIn the book he wrote, Frémont deserves well of the Republic.
“But the book had a much greater importance than this: it fed desire. The wilderness which was so close to Fremont’s heart that he has dignity only when he is traveling it was the core of the nation’s oldest dream. Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick, Alexis Godey, Basil Lajeunesse, his mountain men, were this generation’s embodiment of a wish that ran back beyond Daniel Boone, beyond Jonathan Carver, beyond Christopher Gist, innumerable men in buckskins, forest runners, long hunters, rivermen, gens du nord, the company of gentlemen and adventurers of the far side of the hill. Something older than Myles Standish or Captain John Smith fluttered a reader’s pulse when the mountain men worked their prodigies before Frémont’s admiring eyes. It responded to his exaltation when, pounding his rifle on the saddle to seat a fresh load, he charged through dust clouds at the snorting buffalo. It quickened when he reached the highest peak of the Wind River divide and there pressed between leaves of his notebook a honey bee that was making westward. He went on – across deserts, through untrodden gulches, up slopes of aspen, over the saddle, along the ridge, down the far side. He smelled sagebrush at dawn, he smelled rivers in the evening– alkali in sun-hardened earth when a shower had passed, pines when the pollen fell, roses and sweet peas and larkspur, carrion, sulphur, the coming storm, greasewood, buffalo dung in the smoke of campfires. He saw the Western country with eager eyes – saw it under sun, bent and swollen by mirage, stark, terrible, beautiful to the heart’s longing, snow on the peaks, infinite green and the night stars.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 47-48
Mormon Battallion and Winter Quarters
“From the Mormon point of view, the decision to move across the Missouri seemed the most desirable. Two events soon closed the matter. On June 27, Capt. James Allen arrived in camp with a message from President James K. Polk asking for five hundred Mormon volunteers to join Gen. Stephen S. Kearny and the Army of the West marching on Mexican territory now that the war had been declared. Such a request, besides providing the Saints with some desperately needed cash, gave Brigham Young a reason to claim that the loss of five hundred able-bodied men would stall the exodus. Young thus agreed to form a Mormon battalion if he received permission to winter on Omaha and Potawatomi lands. Allen agreed, Young next turned to the Indians for permission to remain. Big Elk, the aging chief of the Omaha, his son StandIng Elk, a half-breed interpreter named Logan Fontenelle, and about eighty tribesmen were called to council by the Saints on August28. Young put forth his case, intimating government approval, and asked for ‘the privilege of stopping on your lands this winter or untill [sic] we can get ready to go on again.’ In return for this privilege, the Mormons offered to construct a trading house, plant crops, and establish a school. Big Elk accepted the terms largely because the well-armed Saints offered protection from their enemies, the Sioux. The treaty, of course, was extralegal. The Mormons also negotiated a similar agreement with the Potawatomi and then sent both ‘treaties’ to the Office of Indian Affairs and to the President with the request that they be given official permission to remain.
“Brigham Young did not wait for an answer. By the end of August, ‘Winter Quarters of the High Council of the Camp of Israel’ were officially located on Omaha lands. Large groups of Saints moved across the Missouri at a spot about eighteen miles above Bellevue and began laying out a town on the table land just above the river. Other villages were constructed in the same general vicinity, as well as one on Potawatomi lands on the Iowa side. In all areas log houses went up, cattle were put to graze, and a substantial quantity of timber was cut for the coming cold weather.”
Robert A. Trennert, Jr., "The Conflict Over Winter Quarters, 1846-1848," p. 386-387
Sweet Morpheus
“We started and travelled 10 miles and comped very late; here we found no wood to cook with, so we ate a few crackers, and resigned ourselves to the arms of sweet morpheus. This night was awful dark and cloudy, and the guards had to feel their way around the carrell. I was on guard, this night, and about 2 o’clock a Platte Bottom thunder-storm came up, and quick as thought, it commenced thundering, lightning and pouring down oceans of rain on us.”
John Wood, Journal of John Wood, p. 11 (June 2, 1850)
BLM Land
“It was immediately clear that after nearly a thousand miles of travel across the trail we had found the one asshole in a hundred who lacked the hospitality we had found everywhere else. The protocols for crossing the vast rangeland across the West are quite flexible, and for a good reason. Most ranches spread out from a relatively small parcel of deeded land along a source of water to the much larger leased grazing parcels owned by the BLM. This patchwork of ownership often makes it impossible for outsiders to recognize the boundaries between private and public land, and the BLM discourages private property owners from denying access between its allotments, which would make them landlocked and thus of little use. This is particularly important along the National Historic Trail route we were following, because the BLM and the park service are also charged with guaranteeing access to valuable historic sites.”
Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail, p. 317
The Importance of the Pony Express as a Carrier of News to the People of California
“The importance of the Pony Express as a carrier of news to the people of California was heightened by the presidential campaign of 1860. By October of that year there was intense anxiety in that state concerning the result of the Pennsylvania election, which was held a month early, because of its bearing upon the spirited contest in California. When the news arrived by telegraph and Pony Express it created a sensation, making the Republicans exceedingly jubilant and encouraging them to put forth their greatest efforts to carry the state for Lincoln.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 61
Slade's Last Christmas
“the story of Slade’s last Christmas, in 1863, was one of disappointment and worry for his wife, according to certain chroniclers, and this Yuletide account sounds very plausible. Virginia planned a festive Christmas party for her husband and young Jemmy, to which Jim Kiskadden and several of Slade’s friends were invited. Her best linen was immaculate; the dinnerware shone. She had trimmed a pine tree with strings of popcorn and festooned with chains of colored paper, and she hung balls of cotton, sprinkled with irridescent powder, on the boughs.”
Virginia Rowe Towle, Vigilante Woman," p. 147
Winter Over the Central Route
One of the most damaging arguments put forward against [the Central Route] was that it could not be traveled in the winter time. . . .
The following May {Leavenworth & Pikes Peak] bought the J. M. Hockaday & Company mail contract, stations, and stock on a line extending from Independence, Missouri, to Salt Lake City, Utah. Now Russell was also in the business of carrying United States Mail. In May, 1860, the Post Office Department cancelled Chorpenning’s contract from Salt Lake City to Placerville, California, and awarded it to Russell, which action gave him two mail contracts covering the entire length of the Central Route. He was ready now to demolish, by actual demonstration, the argument that that route was not adapted to travel at all seasons of the year.
Settle and Settle, "Orgin of the Pony Express," Missouri Historical Society Bulletin Vol. 26, No.3, April 1960, p. 209
Prairie Medicine
“Captain Marcy outfits his prairie traveler with a ‘little blue mass, quinine, opium, and some cathartic medicine put up in doses for adults.’ I limited myself to the opium, which is invaluable when one expects five consecutive days and nights in a prairie wagon, quinine, and Warburg’s drops, without which no traveler should ever face fever, and a little citric acid, which, with green tea drawn off the moment the leaf has sunk, is perhaps the best substitute for milk and cream. The ‘holy weed Nicotian’ was not forgotten ; cigars must be bought in extraordinary quantities, as the driver either receives or takes the lion’s share . . .”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 9-10
A Downgrade, a Flying Coach
“And it was comfort in those succeeding days to sit up and contemplate the majestic panorama of mountains and valleys spread out below us and eat ham and hard boiled while our spiritual natures revelled alternately in rainbows, thunderstorms, and peerless sunsets. Nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs. Ham and eggs, and after these a pipe—an old, rank, delicious pipe—ham and eggs and scenery, a ‘down grade,’ a flying coach, a fragrant pipe and a contented heart—these make happiness. It is what all the ages have struggled for.”
Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 140-141
Mormons and the Green River Area
“[T]he uneasy situation in the Green River region worsened. Pursuing the Church’s effort to extend its jurisdiction over the area, at the same time following its established practice of bestowing valuable concessions upon members of the Hierarchy, the Utah legislature granted to the Mormon Daniel Wells a monopoly of ferry transportation on the river. The action so arouse the mountain men and their Snake Indian friends that the commanding officer at Fort Laramie feared ‘bloodshed and disturbance’ as a result.
The focus of excitement in the Green River Basin during the middle part of the decade was old Jim Bridger, trapper, scout, and storyteller now become merchant to the overland pioneers. In the 1840s, with Louis Vasquez, he had opened a post on Black’s Fork. Because of its strategic location and Bridger’s considerable influence with the neighboring Indian tribes, the fort thwarted the Mormons’ plan to control the whole region. As a step preliminary to [Bridger’s] removal in 1853 the Saints established a settlement, Fort Supply, about twelve miles southwest Bridger’s post, under the leadership of Orson Hyde. The Church then moved to eject the mountain man.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 36-37
Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express Legend
In the meantime, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show became the primary keeper of the pony legend. By the 1890s, when William Lightfoot Visscher began gathering material for his history of the Pony Express, the business records of Russell, Majors, and Waddell had long since vanished, and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show had been promoting William Cody’s version of the pony’s history for the better part of two decades. Cody was the world’s most renowned showman and westerner, and had made himself far and away the most famous rider of the legendary pony line. He was also a personal friend of Visscher’s. When the journalist’s Thrilling and Truthful History of the Pony Express appeared in 1908, it was less history than hagiography, a devotional recounting of the heroic lives of saints. The author repeated Cody’s stories without any criticism.
(p. 552, n. 11)
Visscher, Thrilling and Truthful History; Corbett, Orphans Preferred, 173-99. For an example of the passage of Cody’s pony tales from show to history, see Bradley, Story of the Pony Express, 127. Bradley lifted his discussion of Cody’s exploits almost verbatim from Root and Connelley, Overland Stage to California, 129-30. Root and Connelley, in turn, lifted their account almost entirely from Cody himself. Cody, Life of Buffalo Bill 97, 103-7.
Louis S. Warren, Buffalo Bill's America, p. 6, and 552, n. 11
Butterfield Contract
Nine proposals for the contract were received by Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown. Being a southerner from Tennessee, he placed the hand of favor on the bid submitted by John Butterfield for a southern route from St. Louis, via El Paso; in fact, practically dictated to the politically wise contractor this “voluntary” choice of route. Butterfield’s firm, the Overland Mail Company, was the creation of the country’s four leading express companies-Adams, American, National and Wells Fargo. They held hopes of breaking the grip of the steamship lines on the bulk of passenger and mail traffic to the Paci.fie Coast.
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 11
Mile 764: Register Cliffs
“Later investigation proved that the jutting points of the bluffs all had initials, and sometimes full name and address and date, carved upon the soft stone surfaces. They are called Register Cliffs, and lie directly across the river from Guernsey, Wyoming. Until very recently [in the mid-1930s] they have received little publicity but are among the best of the ‘guest-book’ rocks of the overland road. It may be fittingly remarked, just here, that the hurrying, tired travelers who passed this way did not spend their time carving names for the fun of it, nor risk their necks to put their carving in the most conspicuous place possible for the thrill. The imperfect hieroglyphics gave reassurance to the friends and relatives who came, possibly, a few weeks later. Finding the one beloved name meant that its owner had reached this stage of the journey alive, and preumably well. It was one of the surging joys of the anxious journey.”
[N.B. This spot is noted on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route as the site of the Sand Point Stage, and notes that there is a Pony Express marker here as well. Irene Paden notes, “Near one of the great rounded points of the cliff a group of forgotten pioneers sleep in unmarked graves. We passed them on our way to the ranch house for information. Farther along, and out in the open, is a large Pony Express marker. No name is given on the plaque, but it commemorates the old Point of Rocks station.” (Wake of the Prairie Schooner at 174). I believe Ms. Paden is mistaken; there is a Point of Rocks station in western Wyoming.]
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 173
Midpoint Between the Missouri River and Fort Laramie
“Fort Kearny was the true beginning of the Great Platte River Road, for it was here that various trail strands joined to become one grand highway for the western migrations. . . . Fort Kearny was recognized as the port of call of the Nebraska Coast, the end of the shakedown cruise across the prairie and the beginning of the voyage across the perilous ocean of the Great Plains, a place to pause and reflect, to recuperate, to reorganize, to get your bearings. For the fainthearted it was a good opportunity to change their minds, make a 180-degree turn, and go back where they came from before they became committed to California and later, somewhere out in the Great American Desert, reached the point of no return. . . .
Fort Kearny and the head of Grand Island were nearly synonymous in terms of general location. They were both reckoned at midpoint between St. Joe (the number one jumping-off point on the Missouri River) and Fort Laramie, at a distance of some 600 miles plus. As to the merits of the fort’s location, many elements were considered other than the equidistance from the Missouri River to Fort Laramie, the relative proximity of the 100th meridian (the theoretical dividing line between prairie and plains), or the quantity of timber on Grand Island.
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 193-194
Nile 754: Black Hills
“The road leading west from Fort Laramie was anathema to the overloaded Argonauts, for it marked the beginning of the Black Hills, whose low, rough summits shouldered the sky just ahead. The travelers . . . were tired and (in cholera years) badly frightened. Their sense of values had changed. things that had been great treasures when they were carefully packed for transportation to the new land, were now only extra weight wearing out the suddenly precious draught animals. . . .
Excess supplies of food were thrown away here too. The wagon masters had repacked at Fort Laramie, but it took the pressure of actual present necessity to key them up to the wholesale abandonment that was now in progress.
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 168-169
Holladay Operates the Stage Lines
“Holladay now managed the firm as the Overland Stage Line, although he continued its operation under the Kansas charter of the ‘C. O. C.’ until February, 1866, when be obtained a new charter from the territory of Colorado, under the name of the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part IV, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1944) p. 91
Freight Train Crossing the Platte
“We hitched on to about one-third of our wagons with fifteen yoke of cattle to each wagon, but started into the river with only three wagons.
Mr. Rennick had ridden across the river to see how the ford was, and found the river was full of holes, some a foot deep and others seven or eight feet deep. Unless we zigzagged from one sand drift to another, it would be impossible to cross, as the whole bed of the river was a shifting bed of sand.
We had driven but a few rods before we stalled, with our wagons in four or five feet of water. We swung our cattle up and down several times and tried to make a start, but it was of no use, as the sand began to settle around our wagon wheels. So we sent out and got six yoke of cattle more for each wagon. By the time we got them hitched on for another pull, the sand had drifted around our wagons till they were hub deep in the sand, and the cattle were knee deep. The men would have been in the same fix had they not kept stepping around.
We swung our cattle and made a pull but we were fast and could not move. We had to get our shovels and shovel around the wheels and oxen. Then we took another pull and this time got the wagons on the move, but only for a short distance, when we stalled again. It was such hard pulling, the cattle could go but a little way at a time. Every stop the sand would gather as before, and it was almost impossible to get another start. Occasionally a chain would break and we would have to get another or repair it with a link made on purpose. It was impossible to get more than eight or ten rods in an hour. Some of our cattle began to get discouraged which made it still worse. The river is about eighty rods wide at this point.
We finally succeeded in getting three wagons across and our cattle back to the balance of the train by nine o’clock that night. . . .
In the morning we drove all our cattle into the corral and yoked three teams of eighteen yoke each, of the oldest and best cattle and started across. As we had zigzagged across the river for several rods up and down in crossing the day before, we had learned the best route. We got across with these wagons without much difficulty. In the course of the day we got the balance of the train across and made a short drive and camped.”
William Clark, "A Trip Across the Plains in 1857," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 20 (1922), p. 182-183
Infinite Wealth of the Land
“The idea that the wealth of the American West was inexhaustible drove prospectors back and forth across the plains, and fostered these legends about the life of the gold-hunters: their luck, their bacchanalias, their mobility. The wealth of the land was infinite! The assumption is with us still: in our attitudes about the cars we drive, the way we heat our homes and our businesses, the way we and our government spend our money. There is always more oil to be found (recently, if only we would give the oil companies more incentive to drill for it), there is always more gold to be discovered. It is an idea and an assumption that has become part of the way we view our world and our destiny in it.”
Bruce Rosenberg, The Code of the West, p. 56
Mile 330: Fort Kearney
“Of the five historic trail ‘forts’—Kearney, Laramie, Hall, Boise, and Bridger—we were now approaching the first in point of geography, last in point of time. It was established in 1848 as a curb to the exuberant habits of the Indians and was the only one of the five actually to be built for the accommodation of soldiers (the other four were originally trading posts and were established much earlier). . . .In accordance with the casual habit of the day, the name was a duplication of an older and already abandoned fort on the Missouri River just below Table Creek.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 83-84
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. Russell had already offered to take a contract for three times a week from St. Joseph to Folsom, California, on a twenty-five day schedule, for $900,000 the first year and thereafter six times a week for the same amount.
Congress failed to pass the bill, and Russell with the aid of Senator Gwinn of California urged President Buchanan to order the service as a public necessity. In a cabinet meeting on June 10 this question was debated, and the decision was to do nothing.
Russell was now doomed. Not even desperate measures, which he unwisely took a bit later, could save him. Three factors combined to make his problem insoluble—expenses incident to putting the C.O.C.& P.P. into operation, failure to secure the big mail contract, and delay in forwarding supplies to the southwest. . . .
He was not to blame for losses incurred on account of the Mormon incident, the failure of the government to reimburse his firm for them, or for the failure of the War Department to order supplies out on the New Mexico Route at the anticipated, proper time.
Settle and Settle, "Napoleon of the West," Annals of Wyoming Vol. 32, No.1, April 1960, p. 36
165 Miles a Day
“For the rugged mountains and deserts west of the Rockies, [Russell] had tough mustangs bought, and set the schedule at 165 miles a day. For the prairies riders he had many fast horses purchased, and set the schedule at 220 miles per day.”
Ralph Moody, Riders of the Pony Express, p. 19
Mail Service Beginnings
“[Emigrants’] persistent demand was for a rapid, reliable, and regular overland mail to supplement the sea mail, the various private enterprises which periodically were attempted, and the army couriers, who transported military and emigrant mail between Laramie, Kearny, and the resulting outfitting towns in 1849 and subsequent years. The ultimate result—a governmentally financed but extremely irregular overland service on the South Pass route—was yet another federal development of the 1850s with significant ramifications for overland emigrants. . . .
The beginnings were modest. Salt Lake City was the hub of the mail system, a government post office having been established there during the winter of 1849.”
John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across, p. 240
Trail Options West of South Pass
“From South Pass, emigrants had several options for reaching California. They could go to Salt Lake City via the trail to Fort Bridger, and then take either the Salt Lake Cutoff or the Hastings Cutoff west from there. Or they could tum north from Fort Bridger onto the Fort Hall Road (part of the original Oregon Trail), which led to Fort Hall on the Snake River. Or they could bypass Fort Bridger entirely by taking the Sublette Cutoff, which connected up with the Fort Hall Road in the Bear River Valley. Whichever way they went, they had to cross the vast, bleak Green River and the rough terrain of the Overthrust Belt.”
Keith Heyer Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 140, n 8.1
Bullboats
“The very early fur traders’ parties and the exploring expeditions had their own method of crossing which was entirely useless to wagon caravans. They made bullboats. The rules were like the old recipe for rabbit stew which began, ‘First you catch your rabbit.’ The main essential was fresh, or ‘green’ buffalo hides, which necessitated first catching a few buffalo bulls—the bigger the better. The green hides were sewed together and put, while still soft, over the bed of a cart (if they had one along) or a framework of green willow poles, conveniently bent by driving both ends in the ground. The hides were then allowed to dry and shrink. This process supplied a large strong boat that would carry several men and their dunnage, and drew only a few inches of water.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 109
Assault on Salt Lake Via Bear Valley
“On October 6 [1857], Alexander called a council of war . . . [T]he men debated the best strategy to pursue. they could retreat to the Wind River Mountains, about ninety miles to the northeast [from Camp Winfield, their camp on Ham’s Fork], an excellent site for winter quarters; they could remain at Camp Winfield; or they could struggle into Utah. The majority opinion favored aggressive policy of the third alternative . . . But this decision raised other questions. From Van Vliet, Alexander had learned that the Mormons had fortified Echo Canyon, the shortest avenue into Salt Lake Valley, with formidable defenses. Furthermore, since all forage on this road had been burned, the lives of the animals might be endangered if the army should proceed along it. . . .
[Instead, the] army would move northwest up Ham’s Fork, jump across to join Bear River, and follow this route until it reached the northers border of Utah, where several gentle and unfortified valleys led directly to the settlements of the Mormons. Thuds, with winter near, Alexander and his advisors decided to turn from the most direct entrance into Utah in favor of.a road one hundred miles longer that had few if any real advantages. . . .
At length Alexander decided to plod back [thirty-five miles] to Camp Winfield, which he had left more than a week before. Once again, however, lethargy settled upon him; he permitted his men to remain at their present camp on the upper banks of Ham’s Fork for another eight days. . . .
Painfully, the soldiers and their 4,000 animals struggled down Ham’s Fork to Camp Winfield]. Badly worn, they arrived there on November 2. having gained nothing by their exertions of the past weeks, they had returned to a camp with pitifully inadequate forage and dangerously low temperatures.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 113-
Crow Indians
The Plains tribes varied widely in culture, customs, intelligence, and personality. Because the Sioux were the biggest and therefore the most powerful tribe and because from early in the Civil War on to the death of Crazy Horse they raised so much hell that they were constantly in the headlines, they are established in our accumulation of readymade ideas as the outstanding Indians of the West. The mountain men did not think so; in their empirical respect the Crows, the Cheyennes, and the Arapahos outranked the Sioux. A modern student knows that he cannot avoid using a white man’s measuring rod but he tends to agree with the mountain men at least in regard to the Crows and the Cheyennes.
The Crows fought the United States Army only once and that was a small skirmish; they made little trouble for the white man and next to the Nez Perces and Flatheads were the best friends of trappers. On the other hand, they fought all Indians. They never had an ally and made only one truce: with the Sioux, for a single year. They thought of the Sioux as their principal enemies and when Sublette & Campbell brought the Oglalas to the Platte in 1834 and so upset the balance of power in the mountains forever, a pressure began which by about 1860 forced the Crows back as far as Powder River. They could not hold against the sheer weight of numbers but even this half conquest of Absaroka cost the Sioux dear, since the Crows were forever raiding them. More spectacular is the fact that they put a limit to the southward expansion of the Blackfeet, probably getting more Blackfoot scalps than any other tribe contrived to. But they would take on anyone and they raided everywhere. Primarily for horses. In envy and humility their neighbors paid them the supreme tribute: they said that the Crows were the best horse-thieves. The number of Comanche horses in their herds supported the judgment;
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 122-123
Unpreparedness for War, Part II
The sole practical preparation for war that had been made was the order for Commodore Sloat to seize the California ports if he should learn that war with Mexico had broken out. There had been some conversations between department heads and the appropriate committees of Congress. They had anticipated a war with Great Britain, however, and little action had come from them. Although Polk and his Cabinet had envisaged the possibility of war with Mexico from March 4, 1845, on to May, 1846, they had done nothing to prepare for it. They suffered the illusions of a nation that had not fought a war since 1814, had only fought foreign wars with the navy, and had never fought a war of conquest. The expected the irresistible sharpshooters of Yorktown and New Orleans to spring to arms; in Robert Dale Owen’s phrase, ‘two companies of Kentucky rifles’ could do the job. In June of ’46 the Americans were springing to arms all right, far more of them than could be used, but no one had any idea what to do with them.”
Bernard De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846, p. 231-232
Russell's Stagecoach to Denver
The rumored and realized riches from the Rocky Mountains not only piqued the interests of gold seekers, but it captivated entrepreneurs foreseeing goods and services necessary for the emigrants’ livelihood. Denver City town promoter General William H. Larimer, Jr. aimed to attract essential enterprises to Denver City drawing business away from its larger, more established rival, Auraria Town Company, located on the opposite side of Cherry Creek. Larimer realized the leverage and influence a stage line generated to an infant communfry. He discussed a proposition of running a stage line from Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, to Denver City with William Hepburn Russell, a veteran freighter. Larimer enhanced the proposition by offering fifty-three Denver City lots to the freighting firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell express company (a freight line of which William Russell was a principal) and six lots to William H. Russell, if Russell agreed.
Additionally, Larimer gave the stage line two city lots strategically located in the heart of Denver City. William H. Russell, known to embark on “new and profitless” enterprises, joined with John S. Jones, a pioneer government contractor of the West, to organize the first passenger service from the states to Denver City. They called their stage line the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company (L & PPE). Russell and Jones invited Alexander Majors and William Bradford Waddell to join them in the new venture. However, both Majors and Waddell agreed that engaging in a stage line was premature and risky in an undeveloped area with an unknown future. Russell, Majors and Waddell provided the L & PPE a ninety-day loan for most of its origination costs, which were nearly $79,000.
Heather King Peterson, Colorado Stagecoach Stations, p. 18-19
Mile 1557: Route Alternate
According to one source (William Hill, p. 214), the road over Rock Springs Pass was a summer shortcut. Winters, the route ran around the south of the Antelope Mountains. According to Richard Burton (quoted in Hill, p. 213), “Beyond Antelope Springs was Shell Creek, distant thirty miles by long road and eighteen by short cut.”
A detour along this route would continue southeast on White Pine County Road 32 to Twelvemile Summit, then turn northwest over Tippett Pass on White Pine County Road 34 to Hwy 893 (White Pine County Road 31) and rejoin the route at the site of Spring Valley Station.
Note: water is marked as available at Rock Springs on the summer route. No water sources are marked on the alternate.
William E. Hill, The Pony Express Trail: Yesterday and Today, p. 214
Preemption
What a farm family wanted most was a government policy that would permit a farmer to “squat” on a piece of land. that is, to build a house and clear the trees, and then after the region had been surveyed, to purchase his land at the minimum auction price without being outbid by the speculator. In 1842 the first “Preemption Bill” was passed. It protected the farmer who had made improvements. It also whetted his appetite for free land. If a farmer improved new land. “homesteaded,” was he not performing a national service and benefiting the national economy by bringing the wilderness under cultivation?
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 20
Minahaska–Long Knife
“As has been said, in 1855, General W. S. Harney, who, whatever may be his faults as a diplomatist, is the most dreaded ‘Minahaska’ in the Indian country, punished the Brulés severely at Ash Hollow . . .
“‘Longknife.’ The whites have enjoyed this title since 1758, when Captain Gibson cut off with his sabre the head of Little Eagle, the great Mingo or Chief, and won the title of Big-Knife Warrior. Savages in America as well as Africa who ignore the sword always look upon that weapon with horror. The Sioux call the Americans Wasichi, or bad men.”
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 88 and note
Yoking Oxen
When Ford demonstrates the historical method for yoking a well-trained team, he places his oxen—in this example, Thor and Zeus—side by side in the driving position. Standing beside the team, he tells the ox on the left, or nigh side, “Move your head, Thor,” and Thor responds by swinging and holding his head far to the left. With the nigh ox’s head out of the way, Ford steps in front and places the beam over the neck of Zeus, who is standing on the right, or of side. He lifts the other end of the yoke up over the nigh ox’s neck and tells him, “Move your head, Thor,” and Thor returns his head to the natural forward position. The beam now rests on the team’s necks. Ford fts the bow under the neck of the of ox, Zeus, and secures it with a pin, then repeats the process with Thor. “This process is done very quickly and is very spectacular for the novice to watch,” he says, “since it shows the degree of exact obedience the properly trained ox team has, and it is done with a surprisingly small amount of effort on the part of the drover.”
Dixon Ford and Lee Kreutzer, "Oxen: Engines of the Emigration," Overland Journal, V. 33. No. 1 (2015), p. 8-9
Whiskey in the Emigrant Train
“It would be inappropriate to omit reference to one more item in the emigrants’ bill of fare—whiskey. This was brought along in casks or barrels, and it was an important item. Furniture, mattresses, stoves, anvils, or even fine linen and silver might be discarded, but never whiskey. Not all trains carried this commodity, of course, but a high percentage of the journalists mentioned its use. . . . The emigrants used it on very special occasions, as on the Fourth of July or to celebrate a birthday or arrival at a milestone like Fort Laramie, but their original intention was that it be purely medicinal, to combat colds of cholera, or to restore flagging energy and spirits after moments of crisis, such as punishing hailstorms or dangerous river crossings.
Addison Crane mentions another use: ‘Most emigrants take five to ten gallons of whiskey to a wagon under the notion that by mixing it with the bad water it becomes in some mysterious way healthy and purified.’ Cagwin says that molasses was used as an extender, and the resultant combination was known as ‘skull varnish.'”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 49-50
Bridger's Fort
Bridger and Vasquez acted on the indications. In the valley of Black’s Fork, Uinta County, the southwestern corner of Wyoming, a day’s ride from the sites of many rendezvous, on the natural route from the Sandy, a route which they foresaw would prove a better one for wagons coming out of South Pass than the routes by which they had taken pack trains westward – in the valley of Black’s Fork they built a new post, Fort Bridger. They established it not as a headquarters for beaver hunters and not as a depot for the trade with Indians, but as a supply station for emigrant trains. It was built (apparently in the summer of 1842) in time to serve the first really big wave, the one which the texts call the Great Migration, the emigration of 1843, and the history of the West through the next fifteen years could be intelligently written along radii that center here. With the establishment of Fort Bridger, General Chittenden is content to say, the era of the mountain man ended.
Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, p. 378
Mile 753: Fort Laramie
“Recorded history of the section immediately west of Scott’s Bluff begins about the year 1818 when Jaques La Ramie, a French Canadian, built a trapper’s cabin near the junction of the North Platte and the Laramie River. He was trapping in the vicinity of Laramie Mountains when the erection of the tiny dwelling established him as the first permanent resident of the section. Four years later the Indians clinched his claim to permanence by leaving his bones to bleach on the headwaters of the river that bears his name. . . .
[In 1834, Robert Campbell and William Sublette stopped to trade at the Laramie River on their way to the rendezvous at Green River.] At Laramie River, the trading was excellent. Sublette left Campbell to hold down the situation and hurried on. Campbell, getting help, built a small trading post consisting of a high stockade of pickets and a. few tiny huts inside. . . .he named the place Fort William, after his partner; but in two years, it evolved into what history knows as Old Fort Laramie. . . .
In 1835 . . .Fort William passed into the hands [of the American Fur Company] and was rechristened Fort John after John B. Sarpy, an officer in the company. . . .In 1836 the American Fur Company deserted the the stockade of Fort John and built a better one a few hundred yards up Laramie River on a small plateau. The name went with it but ‘Fort John on the Laramie’ was soon corrupted to the simple ‘Fort Laramie’ that has remained in use ever since. It was of adobe, copying those forts farther south that had been built with Mexican labor. . . .
By the year 1845 the fur traders dealt mostly in buffalo robes, beaver having passed gradually from its position of importance, and although the other forts did a brisk business, the preeminence and prestige of Fort Laramie was unquestioned. [Francis] Parkman wrote of the American Fur Company at Fort Laramie that they, ‘well-nigh monopolize the Indian trade of this whole region. Here the officials rule with an absolute sway; the arm of the United States has little force; for when we were there, the extreme outposts of her troops were about seven hundred miles to the eastward.’ . . .
The lack of governmental protection mentioned by Parkman was felt so keenly that in the summer of ’49 the United States purchased Fort Laramie and garrisoned it for the avowed purpose of giving advice, protection, and the opportunity of buying supplies to the emigrants. It had a monthly mail service, and the marching thousands moved perceptibly faster the last few miles, hoping for a letter from home. Comparatively few were received, for they were apt to be longer en route that the would-be recipients; but the myriads of letters sent eastward fared better, and, if the addressee stayed long enough in one place, they arrived in the fullness of time.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 151-156
First Western Mail Service
“The Mormons’ [who’d settled the Salt Lake area in summer 1847] need to maintain contact with their missionary organizations in the States and Europe provided the impetus for America’s first Western mail service.”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p.58 (citing Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels
Road Over The Sierras
There is likely no more detailed and graphic description of the devastated and hazardous conditions existing along this main immigrant thoroughfare than that written by J. Ross Browne, who, afoot, negotiated the entire trail to Carson City, over the very route taken by Upson, only a few days after the latter’s epic ride.
“The road from Placerville to Strawberry Flat is for the most part graded, and no doubt is a very good road in summer; but it would be a violation of conscience to recommend it in the month of April,” Brown noted. “In many places it seemed absolutely impracticable for wheeled vehicles . . . for the road was literally lined with broken-down stages, wagons, and carts, presenting every variety of aspect, from the general smash-up to the ordinary capsize. Wheels had taken rectangular cuts to the bottom; broken tongues projected from the mud; loads of dry goods and whiskey-barrels lay wallowing in the general wreck of matter … whole trains of pack mules struggled frantically to make the transit from one dry point to another; burros . . . frequently were buried up to the neck … Now and then an enterprising mule would emerge from the mud, and, by attempting to keep the edge of the road, lose his foothold, and go rolling to the bottom 9f the canyon, pack and all.”
Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 48
Indian Difficulties in the mid-1860s
“Overland staging had met some Indian difficulties previously, but not until the sixties did these become chronic. The isolated depredations of the fifties were but preliminaries of the general uprisings of the middle sixties.”
LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849–1869, p. 242
Little Blue Valley
“For years Marysville, Kansas, marked the end of the truly settled country; but the Little Blue Valley, so, charming and so fertile, sheltered a sort of border zone of ranches lying beyond the pale of civilization. It began to be inhabited in the fifties and became more populous as the staging industry formed a life line to hold it to Missouri, but it paid a dreadful price in ‘64 when the Indians rose against the white settlers in one terrific onslaught, hoping to drive them out forever.”
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner,p. 68
Emigrant Characteristics
Most of the emigrants shared certain characteristics as a group: they were men and women who had already made one or more moves before in a restless search for better lands. They were children of parents who themselves had moved to new lands. If ever a people could be said to have been “prepared” for the adventure of the Overland Trail, it would have to be these men and women. They possessed the assortment of skills needed to make the journey and start again. They had owned land before, had cleared land before, and were prepared to clear and own land again. And they were young. Most of the population that moved across half the continent were between sixteen and thirty-five years of age.
Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 27-28
1960 Anniversary
Americans love anniversaries, and as 1960 approached, the country rediscovered the legacy of the Pony Express. A century made it possible for a whole new level of enthusiasm. By the time the centennial was planned, there was no one alive who had been there, and the celebrants were relying on memories and a very odd collection of books. Previous celebrations to honor the memory of the Pony Express—1935 was the seventy-fifth birthday—had been odd affairs. In 1954, a group of riders at the behest of the National Junior Chamber of Commerce reenacted the days of the Pony Express by racing day and night from Ogden, Utah, to Colorado Springs, nowhere near the actual route.
As the centennial approached, Waddell F. Smith, grandson of William Bradford Waddell, and the greatest professional Pony Express promoter of modern times, made himself known. Smith operated the Russell, Majors & Waddell Pony Express Foundation and Pony Express History and Art Gallery out of his home in San Rafael, California. In 1960, he produced The Story of the Pony Express: Official 1960 Centennial Edition. He called himself the editor, but the book is none other than Glenn Danford Bradley’s little tome reissued- and annotated-with an index by Smith. . . .
The actual observation of the centennial was as comic as the debate in California. One of the reriders staging the cross-country mail run accidentally shot another. The low point occurred when the reriders were unable to bring the mail overland on time and their tired horses had to be put on a truck. When they finally showed up in Old Sac, the mail pouch had been accidentally left behind.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 211, 213
The Buffalo Horse
The Indians had horses for all purposes. The buffalo horse was merely a trained cow pony; he bore a special mark or nick in his ear to distinguish him. He had to be alert, intelligent, willing to follow the game and press close to the side of the running animal, yet able to detect its intention and swerve from it so as not to become entangled, and all with no more guidance than the Indian exerted by pressure of his knees. The war horse and the buffalo horse were renowned for their speed, intelligence, and endurance. They were prize possessions and were valued above all else.
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 61
Emigrants' Daily Menu
“Charles M. Tuttle describes the daily menu of a typical emigrant: ‘for breakfast, coffee, bacon, dry or pilot bread; for dinner, coffee, cold beans, bacon or buffalo meat; for supper, tea, boiled rice., and dried beef or codfish.’ With this Spartan fare, he says, ‘Out appetites are good, our digestive organs strong, our sleep sweet.'”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 48
The Pony Express Was Not an End in Itself
“The Pony Express was not an end in itself, but a means to an end. There had been previous suggestions for the establishment of a fast overland express, and an attempt was made inn Congress in 1855 to provide such a service, but these efforts did not succeed. With the establishment of the overland stage lines a rivalry had arisen between Butterfield and the ‘Central’ routes . . .
During the winter of 1859-60, while Mr. William H. Russell was in Washington, he discussed the overland mail question with Senator Gwin of California. The Senator contended that it was necessary to demonstrate the feasibility of the Central route before he would be able to get from Congress a subsidy to reimburse the firm for the undertaking. The plan appealed to Russell and he agreed to put through the enterprise.”
LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849–1869, p. 164-169
Julesburg
“In its palmiest days, during overland staging and freighting, old Julesburg had, all told, not to exceed a dozen buildings, including station, telegraph office, store, blacksmith shop, warehouse, stable, and a billiard saloon. At the latter place there was dispensed at all hours of the day and night the vilest of liquor at ‘two bits’ a glass. Being a ‘home’ station and the end of a division, also a junction on the stage line, and having a telegraph office in the southeast corner of the station, naturally made it, in the early ’60’s, one of the most important points on the great overland route. It was also the east end of the Denver division, about 200 miles in length. . . .
“Where [Jules] kept this station the crossing of the South Platte was widely known as ‘Julesburg.’ The place was also known by many freighters on the plains as “Upper California Crossing.” Here there were frequent troubles which first began in the spring of 1859. Being a sort of rendezvous for gamblers, for some time it was regarded as the toughest town between the Missouri river and the mountains. After Holladay came into possession of the great stage line, knowing the bad name that had for some time been attached to Julesburg, he subsequently gave the place the somewhat high-sounding name of Overland City.”
Root and Connelley, The Overland Stage to California, p. 213-215
Camels in the West
“On March 3, 1855, Congress appropriated $30,000, which was placed at the disposal of the Secretary of War for the purpose of introducing camels into the United States for the use of the army in transportation. Jefferson Davis took the keenest interest in the experiment, directing it personally. He ordered Major Henry C. Wayne of the army to proceed to the Levant and purchase a shipload of camels. On February 11, 1856, Major Wayne wrote from Smyrna that he had purchased the camels, which were then on board the Supply, in command of Lieutenant D. D. Porter of the navy. The camels were landed at Indianola, Texas, and sent inland by way of Victoria and San Antonio to a camp known as Camp Verde, near the Bandera Pass. On February 10, 1857, another shipload arrived, bringing the number of camels to about seventy-five.
When Jefferson Davis left the War Department in 1857 the experiment passed into the hands of men who were less interested in it than he. The camels were used in short expeditions in western Texas, and they made at least one trip to California, where some of them remained. Though they were praised for their ability to travel over the dry, rough country of the Southwest, to go without water, and to carry heavy burdens, the experiment ended in failure and the final disappearance of the animals. Jefferson Davis justified the experiment at national expense by stating that he had introduced the camels for use in the army anywhere and everywhere; but the fact remains that they were used only in the Great Plains region. Had the experiment succeeded, it would have been of most benefit to the South: it would have tied the Far West to the South until the railroads were completed. The bringing of the camels to the United States appears to later generations as a bit of national humor. But when we bear in mind the opinion then held by practically every informed person regarding the conditions in the Great Plains, the experiment becomes intelligible and reasonable, an effort to solve temporarily the problem of transportation across the Great American Desert.”
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 199-200
Sage Brush Camp Fire
“When a party camps, the first thing to be done is to cut sage-brush; and in a few minutes there is an opulent pile of it ready for use. A hole a foot wide, two feet deep, and two feet long, is dug, and sage-brush chopped up and burned in it till it is full to the brim with glowing coals. Then the cooking begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently no swearing. Such a fire will keep all night, with very little replenishing; and it makes a very sociable camp-fire, and one around which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining.”
Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 34
Sioux Moccasins
The valley of the North Platte had narrowed, with bluffs that several times came to the water’s edge and forced them, double-teaming, over hard climbs before they could get back to level going. Feed was better and the buffalo fatter, but they were troubled to come upon recent Indian kills and to see the tracks of moccasins; Sioux from the fact that they were pointed and shaped to fit right and left foot.
Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 134
First Appropriation for Overland Mail to California
“Bills authorizing an overland mail were introduced in Congress in 1855 and 1856, but they did not pass. On March 3, 1857, the Post Office Appropriations Bill, which bore an amendment authorizing an overland mail to California, became law. It provided $300,000 for a semimonthly service, or $450,000 for a weekly service, or $600,000 for a semi-weekly service.”
Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 68
Waiting at Ham's Fork
“We passed the Rattlesnake Hills [or Granite Mountains] and Sweetwater Mountains and crossed the Rookies at South Pass.
We drove on the west slope of the mountains till we reached Dry Sandy Creek. Here we had poor water and heavy, sandy roads, and our cattle were getting weak from the long journey. It was slow traveling down this stream, and we would have to double our teams to get through the sandy streaks.
We went from here on down Big Sandy Creek, and across to Green River near where Granger now is.
We had quite a hard time in crossing this stream.
Here we found a sort of trading post, and they had farmed a little. Rennick found some potatoes here and bought some. They were the first vegetables we had had since leaving Leavenworth, and it was a treat to us all.
Here we laid over, as we were in no hurry now. Colonel Van Vliet had gone into Salt Lake City, and Brigham Young refused to allow the soldiers and their supply trains to enter the city. The Mormons had an armed force stationed along the road out, nearly to old Fort Bridger, one hundred miles from Salt Lake City, and they were building fortifications to keep the government trains out. There were twenty-five hundred armed Mormons stationed along this road.
Colonel Van Vliet came back, and when he met the first train, ordered them to turn back to Ham’s Fork and stop till further orders. He left part of his escort with them, exchanged part of his mules, and rode back to Fort Laramie as fast as he could, changing mules at each train and ordering each train to stop at Ham’s Fork.
We were twenty-six miles from the Fork when he met us.
We rested here a while, then drove in and camped near the other trains. There were four trains ahead of us.
There was a fine camping place with plenty of good water and fine grass for our cattle.
Other trains kept coming in every day or two.”
William Clark, "A Trip Across the Plains in 1857," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 20 (1922), p. 192
Post Rider Description
One job description for the position ordered that “in the selection of riders you must always take persons of integrity, sound health, firmness, perseverance and high ambition, and pride of character. Among these a preference is due to young men, the less the size the better.” One such was James S. Totten, fourteen, who took the job when General David Sutton, his grandfather and guardian, died and left him penniless. The plucky, jockey-weight boy supported himself on his weekly route’s eight-dollar monthly salary and later become a prominent local politician.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 55
Sod House
Mud Springs was the next home station on the line-a small house made of sod bricks with a wooden roof; the rider could sleep in a lean-to on the side, provided there were no guests from the stagecoach that shared the stop. Sod was an ecologically correct building material before there was such a thing: thick bales of grass and dirt, cut from the prairie, that provided good insulation created from a renewable resource. The grass had to have fairly thick and deep roots, or the dirt would simply fall away; preferred varieties included buffalo grass, little blue stem, wire grass, prairie cord grass, Indian grass, and wheat grass.
Sod bricks, roughly a foot wide, three feet deep, and four inches high were laid grass down and built up like Legos, alternating the courses for strength; a wall would be two or more feet thick, providing natural insulation against the cold and heat. Doors and windows were framed out with timber pegged into the sod bricks. They were rarely higher than one story. Cedar was the wood of choice for the roof poles and logs, which were then covered with a thinner layer of sod.
The interior could be smoothed over with a sandbased plaster; shelves were added on supports driven into the wall. In most cases the sod houses were seen as temporary structures, useful while you were establishing your farm or business. Once you were doing well enough to afford sawn lumber, you relegated the sod structure to some other use and built a larger house.
Jim DeFelice, West Like Lightning, p. 95
Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express
It is highly unlikely that the Pony Express would be so well remembered had not Buffalo Bill so glamorized it; in common opinion Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express are indissolubly linked.
-DON RUSSELL, THE LIVES AND LEGENDS OF BUFFALO BILL, 1960
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 161
Mormons and the Courts
“It was in the judicial rather than the political field, however, that non-Mormons felt most keenly the dictatorial authority of the church. . . .At first the Mormons, believing that Gentile courts did not dispense justice, followed the advice of their leaders to use their own ecclesiastical tribunals in settlement of their mutual difficulties. Then the influx of Gentiles brought the Saints into legal entanglements that could be resolved only in territorial courts, other devices were employed to guard the interests of Church members. The legislature, for instance, by enactment in 1852 permitted anyone, with or without legal training, to serve as an attorney in court; two years later a more extensive act declared that only territorial laws, and those of Congress ‘when applicable,’ could be ‘read, argued, cited or adopted as precedent in any trial,’ Thus the Mormons tried to escape all laws, including English common law, that might serve to prejudice their search for autonomy. . . .
Of all the judicial defenses raised by the Church to protect itself, none caused so much trouble as the probate courts. In February 1852 the legislature gave these tribunals such exceptional powers that they came to have jurisdiction in criminal and civil cases. . . .In reply, many Gentiles insisted that thte extravagant augmentation of the probate courts’ authority was obvious proof of the Mormons’ ultimate intention to establish a community effectively independent of all federal control. W. W. Drummond, a federal judge who more than any other man brought about the Mormon War of 1857-58 . . . used this strange legal situation as one of his arguments for the need of an expedition against the Latter-day Saints.”
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 16-18
Trailside Graves
“A grave placed below on a small circular rising ground at a bend of Echo Canon struck me perhaps more: wistfully one reads these records of the dead; one may people the castles on the cliffs with aerial warriors from faery land, but human sympathies, and something more than idle curiosities, group around these lonely tombs. Here, for instance, is one but a week old, that tells us the emigrant train was just so far ahead of us. The name is Cadoret, a Frenchman, I suppose; my companion reads with interest the name of his countryman, and tells me it is a Breton name; we both wonder why he joined the Mormons, and came hither.
“Side by side is another grave: read that slab; “aged 76 :” were there no graves in Egypt, that the old man came out to perish in the wilderness? Was it zeal for a faith adopted late in life, or the intenser thirst for-the gold of California, that brought him to the mouth of Echo Canon, and to the side of the rapid Weber, and within a day’s walk of the valley in the mountains?
“Look at this one more: Bewick might have chosen it as the subject of a vignette; the slab of wood is neatly carved, and tells us a woman was buried here; her place of birth, her age, and whose wife she was, we can read; but the ground was soft and the grave shallow, and the wolves have torn up the body—perhaps before the first night’s dew settled on the tombstone, or the cheek of the mourner was dry. But we have stayed too long; the waggons are almost out of sight, and the Frenchman, satiated with the beauty of the red cliffs, is eager to drive on the straggling invalids of our herd.”
William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 123-124
Chorpenning's Contribution to California Overland Mail
“In 1850 the Post Office Department issued the first contracts for overland mail service between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The following year, it extended postal delivery west to Sacramento, California. From 1851 to 1860 George W. Chorpenning, Jr., an energetic Pennsylvania entrepreneur, controlled the Utah-California segment of the overland route. For nine years, he surmounted successive disasters, only to fall prey to congressional squabbles, a skinflint postmaster general, the machinations of the Pony Express, and his own cupidity or inadequacy. Benignly ignored by Congress and the post office, Chorpenning nonetheless fulfilled his contracts and demonstrated the efficiency of a direct central overland route to and from California. Despite his ultimate failure, Chorpenning blazed a trail for the Pony Express, the Union Telegraph, and the Overland Stage Company . . .
“Chorpenning’s efforts to establish a central overland mail service have generally been discounted as endeavors “of a ruder type,” when compared with the Pony Express. Although he established the first scheduled mail service over what later became the preferred route for the telegraph, Overland Stage, and railroad, that service rarely met the terms of his contract. Nor was he the perpetually questing frontiersman that he later projected to Congress. Subcontractors conducted the actual operation of the mail line, while Chorpenning spent most of his time as a comfortable habitue of Washington, D.C.
“Whether the loss of his contract in 1860 was the result of the machinations of ruthless competitors, or simply a classic case of undercapitalization, Chorpenning made a genuine contribution to opening transcontinental communication. He instituted, and for nine years maintained, regular mail delivery between California and Salt Lake City; he introduced wheeled transportation to the western section of the overland mail; and he reoriented the Utah-California route to a shorter, safer, and more dependable trace. Like many other entrepreneurs, Chorpenning saw opportunity on the Far Western frontier and was willing to gamble. His ultimate failure appears as yet another example of an ambitious man’s reach exceeding his grasp.”
John M. Townley, "Stalking Horse for the Pony Express: The Chorpenning Mail Contracts between California and Utah, 1851-1860", Arizona and the West, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1982), p. 229-252
Prairillon
“As night had closed in, we found some difficulty in choosing a camping-place: at length we pitched upon a prairillon under the lee of a hill, where we had bunch-grass and fuel, but no water. The wind blew sternly through the livelong night, and those who suffered from cramps in cold feet had little to do with the ‘sweet restorer, balmy sleep.'”
[Note: Prairillon: Small prairie, obsolete]
Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 481
Telegraph Meets at Fort Bridger
Crews were spread out along the entire route of the telegraph, stringing wire simultaneously in several places. The wires were finally joined at Fort Bridger in what was then Utah on October 24, 1861.
Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 120
Importance of the Pony Express
One of the principal patrons of the service was the English government, the official communications of which were, as a rule, forwarded by this route. A report of the operations of the English squadron in China waters required $135 to cover the pony-express charges. The most important service rendered by it was the carrying of communications between Washington and the government officers and Union men on the coast. To it may be attributed the information that enabled them to forestall the plans of the Southern faction to carry California out of the Union. The events then taking place, foreshadowing our Civil War, were of overwhelming interest, and for this reason public attention was directed more to the service than would have been the case under ordinary circumstances.
W.F. Bailey, "The Pony Express," Century Magazine, 41 (Oct. 1898), p. 890
Oxen Pulled Freight Wagons
“[O]xen were strong, inexpensive, and—as one early Santa Fe trader discovered in 1851—served three useful purposes: ‘1st, drawing wagons; the Indians weill not steal them as they would horses and mules; and 3rdly, in case of necessity part of the oxen will answer for provisions.'”
Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 65
Mile 120: Guittard's Station
“Going east passengers seldom passed by the house of this Frenchman [Guittard]. He kept one of the best ranches on the whole line and he was known along the overland from Atchison to California by stage passengers and freighters as well as the ‘Delmonico’ is in New York. His was the favorite stopping place for all passengers on the overland, and thousands of freighters and pilgrims hardly ever passed, going east or west without sitting down to the hospitable table that made this ranch so famous. . . .
[quoting from Root and Connelly, Stagecoaching to California]
“In his City of the Saints, Burton, praises very few of the eating places (in 1860), but says that here ‘the house and kitchen were clean, the fences neat; the ham and eggs, the hot rolls and coffee, were fresh and good, and, although drought had killed the salad, we had abundance of peaches and cream, an offering of French to American taste. . . . pp. 27, 28.”
George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part III, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 8 (1944) p. 497 (and note 252)
Fort Laramie Mail
“A Fort Laramie postmarked letter in existence today is worth a small fortune to collectors. This was the last chance to mail anything this side of California without detouring to Salt Lake City, and the emigrants made the most of it, often swimming the North Platte for the privilege. The post office was not a separate building; it was part of the sutler’s store. . . . Woodson, Magraw, and Hockaday, the regular mail carriers from Salt Lake City to the Missouri, took turns at attempting to run monthly mails, though frequently interrupted by weather and Indians. Sometimes emigrant mail was accepted for delivery by army messengers. . . .
Although the mail normally ran in just two directions, east and west along the Platte, Fort Laramie also served briefly as the mail contact point for two distant gold rush communities, south and north. In 1858-1859, before more direct routes were established, mail from the Denver area was routed to the states through Fort Laramie; and for a few years beginning in 1876 Fort Laramie was a major stage and mail route on the Cheyenne-Deadwood Trail to the Black Hills of South Dakota.”
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 515
Workshop Wagon
“A full-fledged t r a i n for crossing t h e p l a i n s was made up of twenty-five t o twenty-six wagons, or as sometimes stated twenty-five wagons and one mess. At times there was also a reserve mess wagon. There might be one or more provision wagons, an office wagon, and a workshop wagon. The last named unit was stocked with coils of rope, extra tires, jacks, pulleys, wheels, spokes, iron bars, and very often a small forge. A twenty-five wagon train was called a “bull outfit”. A train of less than this number of wagons was simply an ‘outfit.'”
Floyd Bresee, Overland Freighting in the Platte Valley 1850–1870, p. 29
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 speed market information between certain cities for several times the price of normal postage. These express services had indeed cut delivery times—between New York City and New Orleans, say, to half the fourteen days required by stagecoaches—but they were soon replaced in the East by the faster, cheaper railroads.
Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 129
Fort Bridger and the Mormons
“The beautiful and fertile valley of Blacks Fork, with Fort Bridger standing squat and picturesque in its midst, was well known to the Mormons. The first small Mormon advance party passed near it in 1847 when, by reason of bloody clashes with their gentile neighbors in the States, they left the Missouri River for an unknown haven near the Great Salt Lake. They were closely followed by the great Mormon migratory caravan, who took careful note of the trading post just east of the passage leading through the Wasach Range. It must be confessed that they also took note of the histrionic Mr. Bridger and recorded him tersely as a man who did not tell the truth.
There he was, however, firmly ensconced in the best piece of pasture land between Salt Lake City and Horseshoe Station, and so situated that whatever the Mormons required from civilization, whether mail, freight, or converts, must pass within a mile or two of his door. The setup was far from satisfactory to Brigham Young. . . .
Distrust and dissension prevailed between Mormon and gentile, aggravated by lack of definite information and the growing gossip concerning polygamy, then an intrinsic part of the Mormon religious custom. The colonists had once been forced, if they wished to continue its practice, to leave their homes, and they felt that their freedom of action was again threatened. Any gentile settlement near them was unwelcome.
The facts and issues are clouded by the passage of many years, but the two conflicting stories are somewhat as follows: Jim Bridger contended that the Mormon leaders had no particular grievance against him but simply coveted his property; that they sent a group of their ‘avenging angels’ to do him bodily harm; that he barely escaped into the willows and, with the aid of his Indian wife, was able to get away, abandoning everything to the Mormons. The Mormons claimed that Bridger was furnishing guns to the dangerous Utes, with whom they were at war. Both are nice healthy arguments and are not at all incompatible. This happened in 1853. The Mormons took over Fort Bridger . . . [which] became a Mormon outpost.
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 248-249