THE PONY EXPRESS AND ITS BRAVE RIDERS.
During the winter of 1859, Mr. W. H. Russell, of our firm, while in
Washington, D. C., met and became acquainted with Senator Gwin of
California. The Senator was very anxious to establish a line of
communication between California and the States east of the Rocky
Mountains, which would be more direct than that known as the Butterfield
route, running at that time from San Francisco via Los Angeles, Cal.;
thence across the Colorado River and up the valley of the Gila; thence
via El Paso and through Texas, crossing the Arkansas River at Fort
Gibson, and thence to St. Louis, Mo.
This route, the Senator claimed, was entirely too long; that the
requirements of California demanded a more direct route, which would
make quicker passage than could be made on such a circuitous, route as
the Butterfield line.
Knowing that Russell, Majors & Waddell were running a daily stage
between the Missouri River and Salt Lake City, and that they were also
heavily engaged in the transportation of Government stores on the same
line, he asked Mr. Russell if his company could not be induced to start
a pony express, to run over its stage line to Salt Lake City, and from
thence to Sacramento; his object being to test the practicability of
crossing the Sierra Nevadas, as well as the Rocky Mountains, with a
daily line of communication.
After various consultations between these gentlemen, from time to time,
the Senator urging the great necessity of such an experiment, Mr.
Russell consented to take hold of the enterprise, provided he could get
his partners, Mr. Waddell and myself, to join him.
With this understanding, he left Washington and came west to Fort
Leavenworth, Kan., to consult us. After he explained the object of the
enterprise, and we had well considered it, we both decided that it could
not be made to pay expenses. This decision threw quite a damper upon the
ardor of Mr. Russell, and he strenuously insisted we should stand by
him, as he 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.
He urged us to reconsider, stating the importance attached to such an
undertaking, and relating the facts Senator Gwin had laid before him,
which were that all his attempts to get a direct thoroughfare opened
between the State of California and the Eastern States had proved
abortive, for the reason that when the question of establishing a
permanent central route came up, his colleagues, or fellow senators,
raised the question of the impassability of the mountains on such a
route during the winter months; that the members from the Northern
States were opposed to giving the whole prestige of such a thoroughfare
to the extreme southern route; that this being the case, it had actually
become a necessity to demonstrate, if it were possible to do so, that a
central or middle route could be made practicable during the winter as
well as summer months. That as soon as we demonstrated the feasibility
of such a scheme he (Senator Gwin) would use all his influence with
Congress to get a subsidy to help pay the expenses of such a line on
the thirty-ninth to forty-first parallel of latitude, which would be
central between the extreme north and south; that he could not ask for
the subsidy at the start with any hope of success, as the public mind
had already accepted the idea that such a route open at all seasons of
the year was an impossibility; that as soon as we proved to the
contrary, he would come to our aid with a subsidy.
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."
As above stated, we were already running a daily stage between the
Missouri River and Salt Lake City, and along this line stations were
located every ten or twelve miles, which we utilized for the Pony
Express, but were obliged to build stations between Salt Lake City and
Sacramento, Cal.
Within sixty days or thereabouts from the time we agreed to undertake
the enterprise, we were ready to start ponies, one from St. Joseph, Mo.,
and the other from Sacramento, Cal., on the same day. At that time there
was telegraphic communication between the East and St. Joseph, Mo., and
between San Francisco and Sacramento, Cal.
The quickest time that had ever been made with any message between San
Francisco and New York, over the Butterfield line, which was the
southern route, was twenty-one days. Our Pony Express shortened the time
to ten days, which was our schedule time, without a single failure,
being a difference of eleven days.
To do the work of the Pony Express required between four hundred and
five hundred horses, about one hundred and ninety stations, two hundred
men for station-keepers, and eighty riders; riders made an average ride
of thirty-three and one-third miles. In doing this each man rode three
ponies on his part of the route; some of the riders, however, rode much
greater distances in times of emergency.
The Pony Express carried messages written on tissue paper, weighing
one-half ounce, a charge of $5 being made for each dispatch carried.
As anticipated, the amount of business transacted over this line was not
sufficient to pay one-tenth of the expenses, to say nothing about the
amount of capital invested. In this, however, we were not disappointed,
for we knew, as stated in the outset, that it could not be made a paying
institution, and was undertaken solely to prove that the route over
which it ran could be made a permanent thoroughfare for travel at all
seasons of the year, proving, as far as the paramount object was
concerned, a complete success.
Two important events transpired during the term of the Pony's existence;
one was the carrying of President Buchanan's last message to Congress,
in December, 1860, from the Missouri River to Sacramento, a distance of
two thousand miles, in eight days and some hours. The other was the
carrying of President Lincoln's inaugural address of March 4, 1861, over
the same route in seven days and, I think, seventeen hours, being the
quickest time, taking the distance into consideration, on record in this
or any other country, as far as I know.
One of the most remarkable feats ever accomplished was made by F. X.
Aubery, who traveled the distance of 800 miles, between Santa Fé, N. M.,
and Independence, Mo., in five days and thirteen hours. This ride, in my
opinion, in one respect was the most remarkable one ever made by any
man. The entire distance was ridden without stopping to rest, and having
a change of horses only once in every one hundred or two hundred miles.
He kept a lead horse by his side most of the time, so that when the one
he was riding gave out entirely, he changed the saddle to the extra
horse, left the horse he had been riding and went on again at full
speed.
At the time he made this ride, in much of the territory he passed
through he was liable to meet hostile Indians, so that his adventure was
daring in more ways than one. In the first place, the man who attempted
to ride 800 miles in the time he did took his life in his hands. There
is perhaps not one man in a million who could have lived to finish such
a journey.
Mr. Aubery was a Canadian Frenchman, of low stature, short limbs, built,
to use a homely simile, like a jack-screw, and was in the very zenith of
his manhood, full of pluck and daring.
It was said he made this ride upon a bet of $1,000 that he could cover
the distance in eight days.
One year previous to this, in 1852, he made a bet he could do the same
distance in ten days. The result was he traveled it in a little over
eight days, hence his bet he could make the ride in 1853 in eight days,
the result of that trip showing he consumed little more than half that
time.
I was well acquainted with and did considerable business with Aubery
during his years of freighting. I met him when he was making his famous
ride, at a point on the Santa Fé Road called Rabbit Ear. He passed my
train at a full gallop without asking a single question as to the danger
of Indians ahead of him.
After his business between St. Louis and Santa Fé ceased, his love for
adventure and his daring enterprise prompted him to make a trip from New
Mexico to California with sheep, which he disposed of at good prices,
and returned to New Mexico.
Immediately upon his return he met a friend, a Major Weightman of the
United States Army, who was a great admirer of his pluck and daring.
Weightman was at that time editor of a small paper called the Santa Fé
_Herald_. At their meeting, as was the custom of the time, they called
for drinks. Their glasses were filled and they were ready to drink, when
Aubery asked Weightman why he had published a damned lie about his trip
to California. Instead of taking his drink, Weightman tossed the
contents of his glass in Aubery's face. Aubery made a motion to draw his
pistol and shoot, when Weightman, knowing the danger, drew his knife and
stabbed Aubery through the heart, from which blow he dropped dead upon
the floor.
The whole affair was enacted in one or two seconds. From the time they
started to take a friendly drink till Aubery was lying dead on the floor
less time elapsed than it takes to tell the story.
This tragedy was the result of rash words hastily spoken, and proves
that friends, as well as enemies, should be careful and considerate in
the language they use toward others.
In the spring of 1860 Bolivar Roberts, superintendent of the Western
Division of the Pony Express, came to Carson City, Nev., which was then
in St. Mary's County, Utah, to engage riders and station men for a pony
express route about to be established across the great plains by
Russell, Majors & Waddell. In a few days fifty or sixty men were
engaged, and started out across the Great American Desert to establish
stations, etc. Among that number the writer can recall to memory the
following: Bob Haslam ("Pony Bob"), Jay G. Kelley, Sam Gilson, Jim
Gilson, Jim McNaughton, Bill McNaughton, Jose Zowgaltz, Mike Kelley,
Jimmy Buckton, and "Irish Tom." At present "Pony Bob" is living on "the
fat of the land" in Chicago. Sam and Jim Gilson are mining in Utah, and
all the old "Pony" boys will rejoice to know they are now millionaires.
The new mineral, gilsonite, was discovered by Sam Gilson. Mike Kelley is
mining in Austin, Nev.; Jimmy Bucklin, "Black Sam," and the McNaughton
boys are dead. William Carr was hanged in Carson City, for the murder of
Bernard Cherry, his unfortunate death being the culmination of a quarrel
begun months before, at Smith Creek Station. His was the first legal
hanging in the Territory, the sentence being passed by Judge
Cradlebaugh.
J. G. Kelley has had a varied experience, and is now fifty-four years of
age, an eminent mining engineer and mineralogist, residing in Denver,
Colo. In recalling many reminiscences of the plains in the early days, I
will let him tell the story in his own language:
"Yes," he said, "I was a pony express rider in 1860, and went out with
Bol Roberts (one of the best men that ever lived), and I tell you it was
no picnic. No amount of money could tempt me to repeat my experience of
those days. To begin with, we had to build willow roads (corduroy
fashion) across many places along the Carson River, carrying bundles of
willows two and three hundred yards in our arms, while the mosquitoes
were so thick it was difficult to discern whether the man was white or
black, so thickly were they piled on his neck, face, and hands.
"Arriving at the Sink of the Carson River, we began the erection of a
fort to protect us from the Indians. As there were no rocks or logs in
that vicinity, the fort was built of adobes, made from the mud on the
shores of the lake. To mix this mud and get it the proper consistency to
mold into adobes (dried brick), we tramped around all day in it in our
bare feet. This we did for a week or more, and the mud being strongly
impregnated with alkali (carbonate of soda), you can imagine the
condition of our feet. They were much swollen, and resembled hams.
Before that time I wore No. 6 boots, but ever since then No. 9s fit me
snugly.
"This may, in a measure, account for Bob Haslam's selection of a
residence in Chicago, as he helped us make the adobes, and the size of
his feet would thereafter be less noticeable there than elsewhere.
"We next built a fort of stone at Sand Springs, twenty-five miles from
Carson Lake, and another at Cold Springs, thirty-seven miles east of
Sand Springs.
"At the latter station I was assigned to duty as assistant
station-keeper, under Jim McNaughton. The war against the Piute Indians
was then at its height, and we were in the middle of the Piute country,
which made it necessary for us to keep a standing guard night and day.
The Indians were often seen skulking around, but none of them ever came
near enough for us to get a shot at them, till one dark night, when I
was on guard, I noticed one of our horses prick up his ears and stare. I
looked in the direction indicated and saw an Indian's head projecting
above the wall.
"My instructions were to shoot if I saw an Indian within shooting
distance, as that would wake the boys quicker than anything else; so I
fired and missed my man.
"Later on we saw the Indian camp-fires on the mountain, and in the
morning saw many tracks. They evidently intended to stampede our horses,
and if necessary kill us. The next day one of our riders, a Mexican,
rode into camp with a bullet hole through him from the left to the right
side, having been shot by Indians while coming down Edwards Creek, in
the Quakenasp bottom. This he told us as we assisted him off his horse.
He was tenderly cared for, but died before surgical aid could reach him.
"As I was the lightest man at the station, I was ordered to take the
Mexican's place on the route. My weight was then 100 pounds, while now
I weigh 230. Two days after taking the route, on my return trip, I had
to ride through the forest of quakenasp trees where the Mexican had been
shot. A trail had been cut through these little trees, just wide enough
to allow horse and rider to pass. As the road was crooked and the
branches came together from either side, just above my head when
mounted, it was impossible to see ahead more than ten or fifteen yards,
and it was two miles through the forest.
"I expected to have trouble, and prepared for it by dropping my bridle
reins on the neck of the horse, put my Sharp's rifle at full cock, kept
both spurs into the flanks, and he went through that forest like a
'streak of greased lightning.'
"At the top of the hill I dismounted to rest my horse, and looking back,
saw the bushes moving in several places. As there were no cattle or game
in that vicinity, I knew the movements must be caused by Indians, and
was more positive of it when, after firing several shots at the spot
where I saw the bushes moving, all agitation ceased. Several days after
that, two United States soldiers, who were on their way to their
command, were shot and killed from the ambush of those bushes, and
stripped of their clothing, by the red devils.
"One of my rides was the longest on the route. I refer to the road
between Cold Springs and Sand Springs, thirty-seven miles, and not a
drop of water. It was on this ride that I made a trip which possibly
gave to our company the contract for carrying the mail by stage-coach
across the plains, a contract that was largely subsidized by Congress.
"One day I trotted into Sand Springs covered with dust and perspiration.
Before reaching the station I saw a number of men running toward me, all
carrying rifles, and as I supposed they took me for an Indian, I stopped
and threw up my hands. It seemed they had a spy-glass in camp, and
recognizing me had come to the conclusion I was being run in by Piutes
and were coming to my rescue.
"Bob Haslam was at the station, and in less than one minute relieved me
of my mail-pouch and was flying westward over the plains. Some of the
boys had several fights with Indians, but they did not trouble us as
much as we expected; personally I only met them once face to face. I was
rounding a bend in the mountains, and before I knew it, was in a camp of
Piute Indians. Buffalo Jim, the chief, came toward me alone. He spoke
good English, and when within ten yards of me I told him to stop, which
he did, and told me he wanted 'tobac' (tobacco). I gave him half I had,
but the old fellow wanted it all, and I finally refused to give him any
more; he then made another step toward me, saying that he wanted to look
at my gun. I pulled the gun out of the saddle-hock and again told him to
stop. He evidently saw that I meant business, for, with a wave of his
hand, he said: 'All right, you pooty good boy; you go.' I did not need a
second order, and quickly as possible rode out of their presence,
looking back, however, as long as they were in sight, and keeping my
rifle handy.
"As I look back on those times I often wonder that we were not all
killed. A short time before, Major Ormsby of Carson City, in command of
seventy-five or eighty men, went to Pyramid Lake to give battle to the
Piutes, who had been killing emigrants and prospectors by the wholesale.
Nearly all the command were killed in a running fight of sixteen miles.
In the fight Major Ormsby and the lamented Harry Meredith were killed.
Another regiment of about seven hundred men, under the command of Col.
Daniel E. Hungerford and Jack Hayes, the noted Texas ranger, was raised.
Hungerford was the beau ideal of a soldier, the hero of three wars, and
one of the best tacticians of his time. This command drove the Indians
pell-mell for three miles to Mud Lake, killing and wounding them at
every jump. Colonel Hungerford and Jack Hayes received, and were
entitled to, great praise, for at the close of the war terms were made
which have kept the Indians peaceable ever since. Jack Hayes died
several years since in Alameda, Cal. Colonel Hungerford, at the ripe age
of seventy years, is hale and hearty, enjoying life and resting on his
laurels in Italy, where he resides with his granddaughter, the Princess
Colona.
"As previously stated, it is marvelous that the pony boys were not all
killed. There were only four men at each station, and the Indians, who
were then hostile, roamed all over the country in bands of 30 to 100.
"What I consider my most narrow escape from death was being shot at one
night by a lot of fool emigrants, who, when I took them to task about it
on my return trip, excused themselves by saying, 'We thought you was an
Indian.'
"I want to say one good word for our bosses, Messrs. Russell, Majors &
Waddell. The boys had the greatest veneration for them because of their
general good treatment at their hands. They were different in many
respects from all other freighters on the plains, who, as a class, were
boisterous, blasphemous, and good patrons of the bottle, while Russell,
Majors & Waddell were God-fearing, religious, and temperate themselves,
and were careful to engage none in their employ who did not come up to
their standard of morality.
"Calf-bound Bibles were distributed by them to every employe. The one
given to me was kept till 1881, and was then presented to Ionic Lodge
No. 35, A. F. & A. M., at Leadville, Colo.
"The Pony Express was a great undertaking at the time, and was the
foundation of the mail-coach and railroad that quickly followed."
During the war J. G. Kelley was commissioned by Gov. James W. Nye as
captain of Company C, Nevada Infantry, and served till the end of the
war, after which he resumed his old business of mining, and is still
engaged in it.