Pony Express

“ Mr. Russell had been persuaded by Senator Gwin of California to start the Pony Express. He had made an arrangement with the railways between New York and St. Joseph to run a fast train; the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad used a special engine, and the boat which made the crossing of the Missouri was held so that not a minute would be lost in transferring the mail. A piercing whistle notified the horseman that the boat was waiting for him. ”

“ Several times our friends had seen the Pony Express riders as they skimmed across the country with the speed of the wind. A wave of the hand from the flying horseman, without the slightest pull of rein, was the only acknowledgment made to the salutations of the emigrants. The majority of these headlong riders were not seen, for, always hunting the speediest route, they were generally well north or south of the trail of the ox teams. ”

“ A party of Indians had formed an ambush at that point for the Pony Express Rider. In the gloom, they may have supposed he was lying low on his horse’s back, but they fired together and snuffed out the steed supposed to be carrying him.
Deep gratitude stirred Alden Payne. He had believed himself the worst used person in the world, when he was deserted by the pony, and, say what we please, it was a shabby act, but the offender had paid dearly for it. ”

“ Louis Republic and the New York Herald the following notice:
To San Francisco in 8 days by the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company. The first courier of the Pony Express will leave the Missouri River on Tuesday April 3rd at 5 o'clock P. M. and will run regularly weekly hereafter, carrying a letter mail only. ”

“ Speed was one of the prime requisites of the pony express. The men who rode the routes over plains and mountain trails secured the speediest horses or ponies possible. Their life, when in the saddle, was a continual rush, for the mail and express matter must go through as quickly as possible, and where no steam and railroads were available recourse was had to horseflesh. And knowing the value of speed Jack wondered when he heard the approach of a horse at a walking pace. ”

“ Their names and the names of other riders travelled from mouth to mouth—and soon tales were being told of storms and Indians and outlaws and accidents that tried to stop the express but couldn’t. No matter what conspired to stop him, the Pony Express rider always got through. The first relays had carried the mail from the Missouri River to Sacramento, California, 1966 miles, in nine days and twenty-three hours—one hour under schedule! And after that the mail went through, both ways, on schedule time or less. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I'd have turned back then, and gotten some one else to ride the route for me, but I knew there were important letters in the mail, and it had to come through. So I kept on, hoping I would get better. But I grew worse, and I had to slow up. I thought I'd never get here! But I did." And he shut his lips grimly.
Pony express riders have to be made of stern stuff and they have to keep on their routes in rain or shine, calm or storm; and often when it is torture to sit in the saddle on a galloping horse.
"You'd better get your supper, Jack," advised Mrs. Watson. ”

“ I called at the station a little while ago; they are much disturbed over the absence of Lightfoot the Pony Express Rider. One of the four was so certain that he would turn up before supper that after a hot argument, he made a freak bet. He agreed that if Lightfoot had not come by that time, he would carry a lighted lantern on horseback over both streams that have to be crossed between here and the station to the east. One condition was that he was not to speak a word to any one except the missing man. ”

“ He touched the flanks of his pony with his spurs, and the animal bounded away at full speed. Almost immediately he disappeared.
To put it mildly, Alden Payne was surprised. Here was a man who received the news of his brother’s death without a sign of emotion, and yet doubtless he felt it deeply. But it was all a part of the game. The living brother might pass over the Great Divide in a brief while and join the other. Such was the life of the Pony Express Rider. ”

“ The Pony Express; the Overland Stage.%—By that time, too, the first locomotive had reached the frontier of Kansas. But between the Missouri and the Pacific there was still a gap of 2000 miles which the settlers demanded should be spanned at once, and it was. In 1860 the same firm that sent the first stagecoach over the prairie from Leavenworth to Denver, ran a pony express from the Missouri to the Pacific. Their plan was to start at St. Joseph, Mo., and send the mail on horseback across the continent to San Francisco. As the speed must be rapid, there must be frequent relays. ”

“ The first trip of the Pony Express was made in ten days—an average of two hundred miles a day. But we soon began stretching our riders and making better time. ”

“ One of these lines extended to Virginia City in what had been Brother Van’s district, and from there to Helena, a distance altogether of nineteen hundred miles, usually covered in twenty-two days.
In order to secure rapid transportation for the mails, the Pony Express was established in 1861 and maintained for three years. A band of swift riders, eighty in number, would cover the vast distances of the prairie in an incredibly short space of time. One rider, for instance, would leave Sacramento, while another rider started from St. Joseph, Missouri, at the eastern end of the route. ”

“ THE next look we take of the train under the guidance of Shagbark, the veteran of the plains, is several weeks after the incidents just described. The route which they in common with thousands of emigrants, including the Pony Express riders, followed, led due west up the Kearny valley to Julesburg, a distance of two hundred miles. ”

“ After the California Pony Express was abandoned, Bob rode for Wells Fargo & Co., between Friday's Station and Virginia City, Nevada, a distance of one hundred miles. He seems to have enjoyed horseback riding, for he made this roundtrip journey in twenty-four hours. When the Central Pacific R. R. was built, and this pony line abandoned, Haslam rode for six months a twenty-three mile division between Virginia City and Reno, traveling the distance in less than one hour. To accomplish this feat, he used a relay of fifteen horses. ”

“ The worst part of the journey lay between Salt Lake City and Sacramento, where for several hundred miles the route ran through a desert, much of it a bed of alkali dust where no living creature could long survive. It was not merely these dangers of dire exposure and privation that threatened, for wherever the country permitted of human life, Indians abounded. From the Platte River valley westward, the old route sped over by the Pony Express is today substantially that of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. ”

“ The Pony Express riders received from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. But few men can appreciate the danger and excitement to which those daring and plucky men were subjected; it can never be told in all its constant variety. They were men remarkable for their lightness of weight and energy. Their duty demanded the most consummate vigilance and agility. Many among their number were skilful guides, scouts, and couriers, and had passed eventful lives on the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ An average speed of ten miles an hour including stops had to be maintained on the summer schedule. In the winter the run was sustained at eight miles an hour; deep snows made the latter performance the more difficult of the two.
The best record made by the Pony Express was in getting President Lincoln's inaugural speech across the continent in March, 1861. This address, outlining as it did the attitude of the new Chief Executive toward the pending conflict, was anticipated with the deepest anxiety by the people on the Pacific Coast. ”

“ That urgent appeal settled the question, and work was commenced to start the Pony Express.
On the Overland Stage Line operated by the firm, stations had been located every ten or twelve miles, which were at once utilized for the operation of the express; but beyond Salt Lake City new stations must be constructed, as there were no possible stopping-places on the proposed new route. In less then two months after the promise of the firm had been pledged to Senator Gwinn, the first express was ready to leave San Francisco, and St. Joseph, Missouri, simultaneously. ”

“ PONY EXPRESS NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL- The Secretary of the Interior shall undertake a study of the approximately 20-mile southern alternative route of the Pony Express Trail from Wathena, Kansas, to Troy, Kansas, and such other routes of the Pony Express Trail that the Secretary considers appropriate, to determine the feasibility and suitability of designation of 1 or more of the routes as components of the Pony Express National Historic Trail. ”

“ Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The race is to the swift.
A whole volume might be gathered of the stirring incidents and adventures of the hardy employees of the Pony Express in its two years of existence. The majority of the actors in that memorable enterprise have passed beyond the confines of time.
J. G. Kelley, one of the veteran riders, now living in Denver, tells his story of those eventful days, when he rode over the lonely trail carrying despatches for Russell, Majors, & Waddell. ”

“ If they were under the eyes of any prowling Indians, the two were at their mercy, for hiding places from which their enemies could fire without the slightest risk to themselves were beyond counting.
Since the afternoon was drawing to a close and the train was several miles to the rear, Alden was on the point of suggesting that they make their way back to their friends, when both were startled by the noise of a horse’s hoofs behind them. They looked round at the same instant.
“A Pony Express Rider,” said Alden, “and he’s coming our way.” ”

“ Two sets of mail bags were approaching each other from points two thousand miles apart, and there were times when this approach was at the astounding speed of forty and even fifty miles an hour! The average daily rate was two hundred and fifty miles a day, but where everything was favorable, or when an express rider was fleeing from the vengeful red men, his pony struck a gait of twenty-five miles and maintained it, when an untrained horse would have dropped in his tracks. ”

“ I pushed on with the usual rapidity, entering every relay station on time, and accomplished the round trip of three hundred and twenty-two miles back to Red Buttes without a single mishap and on time. This stands on the records as being the longest Pony Express journey ever made. ”

“ Excitement was plentiful during my two years' service as a Pony Express rider. ”

“ The excitement caused by the hold-up of the pony express soon died away. In western communities there is so much going on that interest is soon shifted to newer events.
The posse that went out to seek the robbers had no luck in finding them. All traces seemed to disappear after the bags were found in the old mine-hole. A man was kept in hiding at that place for nearly a week, ready to give the alarm if the hold-up men returned to get the pouches which they had hidden. But they did not come back.
Meanwhile Jack soon became himself again. ”

“ Shortly after this adventure of the rescue of the stage coach, the Indians became so bad along the line that the Pony Express and stages had to be stopped for awhile on account of the large number of horses run off.
This caused a number of the employees of the Overland to be idle, and they at once formed a company to go in search of the missing stock, and also to punish the red-skins. ”

“ This onslaught, coming so soon after the enterprise had begun, and when there was already so little encouragement that the line would ever pay out financially, must have disheartened less courageous men than Russell, Majors and Waddell and their associates. It is to their everlasting credit that this group of men possessed the perseverance and patriotic determination to continue the enterprise, even at a certain loss, and in spite of Federal neglect, until the telegraph made it possible to dispense with the fleet pony rider. ”

“ The watchers identified his character at once, and needed not the sight of the broad flat flaps fastened across the saddle, one in front and the other behind him. He glanced toward the train, and observing all eyes upon him, raised a hand in salutation, but did not speak or make any further acknowledgment of the cheers. In a twinkling the emigrants were gazing upon his back, the ends of the fluttering handkerchief, fringes of clothing, streaming tail and flying hoofs of the pony, which flung chunks of earth into the air as he skimmed away on the wings of the wind. ”