The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1920-12-05
Passing OF Famous Riders of the
Western Trails.

A recent despatch from Los AnSe
les reports the death at that city OF
WILLIAM COOLING, one of the pony
express riders who about the period
of the civil war carried mail and valu.
able packages from the western end
of the railway and steamboat lines in
the Missouri Valley over the Rocky
Mountains TO the Pacific coast. Mr.
GooDTNG may have been, as the des-
patch says, ''the last Of these remark
able frontier riders" The same was
said. however, Of WILLIAM Il. Copy
ut the time of his death. Apparently
there is extant no satisfactory rec.
ord of the men who were engaged in
this service. They were all young
frontiersmen, some of them scarcely
more than boys. and they rode the
tran through a new land of which the
inhabitants were mostly hunters, trap
pers, wild Indians and bad whites
and which offered them the adven.
lures they eagerly sought.
These riders performed a valuable
and hazardous work for the nation in
thus furnishing link in the commu.
nication between the Atlantic and the
Pacific. Their lives as we'll as the
lives Of their helpers at the stations
OH the route-more Of these helpers
than riders fell victims to Indians and
outlaws-were in constant peril. The
most famous of the pony express or.
CARNATIONS was that founded by Will
fAM RUSSELL and ALEXANDER MAJORS
of st. Joseph, Missouri. Their service
consisted of a system Of relay stations
about fifteen miles apart. The fleet.
est and hardest horses only were
used and each rider was expected ia
maintain speed of twenty miles an
hour and to traverse at least throe OF
the fifteen mile stages, changing his
mount at each OF them. Riders we're
however, frequently forced to make as
many as SIX Of the stages.
Until the introduction of the pony
express the time required for the
transmission Of letter from the Mis-.
souri, Valley to the Pacific coast was
about six weeks. The news of the
firing on Fort Sumter was carried by
pony express riders from Indepen.
dence, Missouri. to Sacramento, Cali
fornla, distance Of almost 1000
miles, in eight days and fourteen
hours. This record was cut down q
day when the riders under the stimu.
lus Of a big bonus carried over the
same route the news Of the battle OF
Antletam.
Other remarkable records were
made by carriers OF messages, both
civilian and army riders, in those days
west Of the Missouri. The Kansas
City star says that +. Y. AUBREY. a
New Yorker who went to Missouri to
engage In freighting, rode in 1854 from
one end Of the Santa F6 trail to the
other. q distance Of 300 miles, in five
and half days. Later he had him.
self strapped on his mount so that he
could sleep In his saddle, and reduced
his former record TO four and half
days.
Colonel EZRA Il. FULLER. when n
Second Lieutenant in The Seventh
Cavalry, carried despatch from Gen.
eral MILES at Miles City on the Vel.
lowstone to General SHERMAN at Fort
Ellis, a distance Of $50 miles through
the mountains, in four days and nine.
teen hours. JOHN KIRLEY carried an
army despatch at the time of the
Mormon trouble in Utah from Salt
Lake City to Fort Leavenworth, loo
miles, in seventeen days, but he was
compelled TO abandon the last Of his
four mounts and to carry his saddle
to his destination. General PERsHrNG.
when First Lieutenant, made a rec
ord ride with detachment Of twenty
nine men, covering 1870 miles in n
little more than flfty-four hours.
Mr., GooDrvs was the witness of