The Pony Express 1860-1861

After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, the population there increased rapidly. Within a year there were 100,000 new residents, and in two years there were 300,000. Most of them had come across the plains, the others by sailing ships, either around the Horn or by the Isthmus of Panama. There began to be a demand for mail delivery between California and “the States. In 1851 Congress arranged for mail to go by ship from the east coast and across the isthmus twice a month. The service took about thirty days from New York to San Francisco. A slight improvement resulted after the Panama Railroad was built in 1855. After arriving in San Francisco, the mail was distributed to the gold-mining camps by private express operators.

In 1857 Congress contracted with the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, an organization created by the four great express Companies-Adams, American, National, and Wells Fargo-for a semimonthly service by stage coach between St. Louis and San Francisco. The annual government subsidy was $600,000. This route extended from St. Louis to Fort Smith, Arkansas; El Paso, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; Los Angeles and San Francisco. The run was very roundabout and required twenty-three days. It was, however, believed necessary to go so far south to avoid the winter conditions further north.

By 1858 travel on the Oregon and California Trails had slowed down. But the discovery of gold in the Colorado region started up the traffic again, and increased the demand for better mail communication.

The leading firm engaged in sending freight across the plains was Russell, Majors & Waddell. They had joined their separate operations in 1854 and had been awarded a monopoly on the transportation of U.S. Army supplies to troops in the West. Headquarters were in Leavenworth and their operations were on a gigantic scale. In 1858 they employed 4000 men and used 40,000 oxen with 3500 wagons. The operating head of the business was Alexander Majors, who spent much of his time on the trail. William H. Russell was most of the time in New York, Washington, and Philadelphia dealing with bankers, senators, congressmen, and government department heads. William B. Waddell's responsibility was to see that local financial affairs ran smoothly. He commuted by steamboat between his home office in Lexington, Missouri, and Leavenworth.

The very successful freighting operations were marred by a severe loss approaching $500,000 sustained in late 1857 when Mormons burned the wagon trains carrying supplies to the U.S. Army. Russell was unable to secure compensation from the government for this loss, but he continued to hope that other demonstrations of valuable service would ultimately lead to payment.

In 1858 Russell decided to embark upon a stage coach operation from Leavenworth to Denver. Majors and Waddell did not believe it possible to make a profit, so they did not go into it. However, the line became indebted to the partnership, so, eventually, they were drawn in. To operate the stages, a corporation was formed in November 1859: The Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company.

U.S. Senator William M. Gwin of California was a member of the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. His relations with W. H. Russell were close, and in the summer of 1859, after the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad had been completed, the thought emerged from their conversations that a horseback express mail service by the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company from St. Joseph to California was practical. Gwin held out the probability of a government subsidy, and Russell was enthusiastic. Majors and Waddell were convinced that the operation would not be profitable, but agreed to make the effort in expectation of securing the necessary government subsidy.

Early in 1860 Majors and his aides began the necessary arrangements. A chain of stations along the Oregon-California Trail was expanded. The distance from St. Joseph to Sacramento was about 2000 miles. ‘Home Stations’ were mostly in existence already for the stage traffic. These consisted of Army posts, ranches, and farms about forty miles apart. In between, at intervals often to fifteen miles, small relay stations were built. These were simple huts and horse corrals. In all, the line had Igo stations. About 400 station attendants and helpers were hired to man the posts. Over 400 horses were bought costing $150 to $200 each, at a time when ordinary horses could be had for $50. Then eighty young men were employed as the riders.

In March 1860 this advertisement appeared in San Francisco newspapers:

'WANTED

“Young skinny wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week. Apply, Central Overland Express, Alta Bldg., Montgomery St.”

W. H. Russell did not overlook the possibility of local help and local pride. On March 2, 1860, a contract was signed by the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company and twenty-one leading St. Joseph businessmen whereby the Company agreed to make St. Joseph the eastern terminus of its mail route and in return the St. Joseph men turned over to the Company a considerable amount of real estate in St. Joseph and Elwood. This contract was signed by John J. Abell, William M. Carter, J. A. Chambers, John Colhoun, John Corby, John Curd, Robert W. Donnell, Joseph P. Grubb, George H. Hall, J. B. Howard, J. B. Jennings, Preston T. Moss, James B. O'Toole, John Patee, William Ridenbaugh, Felix Robidoux, Frederick W. Smith, Robert M. Stewart, M. Jeff Thompson, James M. Wilson, and Silas Woodson.

The saddles were probably designed by Israel Landis, and many of them were made at his saddle factory in St. Joseph. They were very lightweight, and had a removable leather cover with four pockets for the mail. The rider sat on the leather cover, called a "mochila, and when changing horses the cover with the mail was just lifted off and placed over the saddle of the new horse. Though horses and riders changed many times, each mochila went all the way between St. Joseph and Sacramento.

The new mail service was advertised: "Ten days to California, and the postage charge was $5 the half ounce. Most of the letters were written on thin paper, and packets of them were wrapped in oil silk to prevent water damage. The top limit of weight of the mail each rider could carry was twenty pounds.

It was a tremendous undertaking for the entire Russell, Majors & Wadell organization to make all the necessary arrangements, but they were on the ground with their freighting and stage facilities, so that they were better equipped than anyone else. At last, all was in readiness.

The St. Joseph Daily West of April 3, 1860, reported:

"THE PONY EXPRESS

THROUGH IN TEN DAYS

‘Today inaugurates the greatest enterprise of modern times. and one that must benefit St. Joseph in a very marked and visible degree. . . that of running an express on the overland route between St. Joseph and San Francisco, in the extraordinary short space often days. This may seem an impossibility; but from the well known energy which has heretofore been displayed by the President and Directors of the company, we are confident they will accomplish the undertaking, however difficult it may seem to parties unacquainted with the route and the facilities which the company possesses of insuring a successful termination.

‘The first messenger on the route will leave the U.S. Express office at precisely five o'clock this afternoon. . . . Letters will be received from all points up to 4:30 and parties sending them may confidently rely upon ten days quicker time than ever before made between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

‘A special train will arrive over the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad this afternoon, with the through messenger from New York and Washington.

‘The second Express will be dispatched from this point on Friday morning next, at nine o'clock precisely.

‘The magnitude of this enterprise can scarcely be conceived. By it we shall have intelligence from San Francisco in ten days, which, telegraphed from here, will make the time the same to New York.Pending the completion of the overland telegraph line, the transmission of messages over this route will be the most speedy known to modern times.

‘Through the courtesy of Mr. Hinckley, who is connected with the route, we are furnished with the time table by which the Express is run, and which we append as the fastest to be made by horseflesh . . .

Marysville 12 hours Camp Floyd 128 hours

Fort Kearney 34 hours Carson City 188 hours

Fort Laramie 80 hours Placerville 226 hours

Fort Bridger 108 hours Sacramento 232 hours

Salt Lake City 124 hours San Francisco 240 hours

Total distance 2,000 miles.’

There was great excitement in St. Joseph on Tuesday, April 3, anticipation of the start of the Pony Express. W. H. Russell ཞྭ་ Alexander Majors were here, and a ceremony had been arranged at the office of Russell, Majors & Waddell at the Patee House. The train bringing the mail from Hannibal was due to arrive in the afternoon at four-thirty, so a crowd gathered at the Patee House and the pony and rider were brought over from the stables for a brief ceremony. Jeff Thompson had just completed his term as mayor and he made a little speech:

‘This is a great day in the history of St. Joseph. . . . ‘Now We are the connecting link between the extremes of the continent. “Hardly will the cloud of dust which envelops the galloping pony subside before the puff of the steam engine will be seen on the horizon. ...Citizens of Saint Joseph! I bid you give three cheers for the Pony Express-three cheers for the first overland passage of the United States mail.’

Mrs. Annie Patee, daughter-in-law of John Patee, walked out in front of the Patee House to shake the hand of Johnny Fry and wish him luck. The cannon on top of the hill just north of the Patee House boomed out, just as it had for the arrival of the first Hannibal & Joseph train a year before, and Fry rode off in a sort of parade to the post office.

When the train came in about six-thirty, the mail was taken to the post office on the east side of Second Street, just north of Francis. There a small group of about twenty people were gathered and at seven-fifteen the postmaster, W. A. Davis, brought out the saddle cover with its mail and placed it on the horse. Jeff Thompson again said a few words, slapped the pony, and said, Go! The rider headed for the foot of Francis Street where Captain Blackston's ferry, Ebenezer, was waiting. The river crossed, he was off on the first leg of the trip West.

The saddle bags included a special edition of the St. Joseph Gazette struck off on thin paper:

‘ST. JOSEPH DAILY GAZETTE

PONY EXPRESS EDITION

St. Joseph, Mo. April 3rd 6 o'clock p.m.

‘Through the politeness of the Express Company, we are permitted to forward, by the first Pony Express, the first and only newspaper which goes out, and which will be the first paper ever transmitted from the Missouri to California in eight days. The nature of the conveyance necessarily precludes our making up an edition of any considerable weight. It, however, contains a summary of the latest news received here by telegraph for some days past, from all parts of the Union. We send it greeting to our brethren of the press of California.

‘MUNICIPAL ELECTION IN ST. JOSEPH

‘The result of the City Election here yesterday was the choice of A. Beattie, Mayor. The vote stood:

Beattie 758

Corby 583

‘THE PONY EXPRESS STARTS TO-DAY

‘Mr. W. H. Russell, the President of the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company, and Mr. Majors, a Director of the Company, arrived in this city yesterday morning, to be present this afternoon to witness the starting of the first pony from the office of the Company. The fame of these gentlemen for intelligent enterprise is as wide as the West, and is now about to be associated with a movement which will extend it from one ocean to the other.

‘The first pony will start this afternoon at 5 P.M., precisely. Letters eceived for all points up to 4:30 P.M.

‘The second courier will leave St. Joseph Friday, the 13th at 9 a.m. original copy of this extra of the Gazette is now in the Califòrnia State Library in Sacramento, and is believed to be the only copy in existence.

The Daily West of Wednesday, April 4, reported:

‘DEPARTURE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO EXPRESS!!

The Missouri and Pacific United!

THE GREATEST ENTERPRISE OF MODERN TIMES!!

‘At a quarter past seven o'clock last evening, the mail was placed by M. Jeff Thompson, on the back of the animal, a fine bay mare, who is to run the first stage of the great through Express from St. Joseph to her sister cities of the Pacific shore. Horse and rider started off amid the loud and continuous cheers of the assembled multitude, all anxious to witness every particular of the inauguration of this the greatest enterprise which it has as yet become our pleasant duty, as a public journalist, to chronicle. The rider… was to ride last night the first stage of forty miles, changing horses once, in five hours, and before this paragraph meets the eyes of our readers, the various dispatches contained in the saddlebags, which left here at dark ast evening, will have reached the town of Marysville, on the Big Blue, one hundred and twelve miles distant… an enterprise never before accomplished even in this proverbially fast portion of a fast country.

‘Previous to the starting of the mail, and while the crowds were anxiously waiting, brief and appropriate addresses were delivered by Messrs. Majors, of the Express Company, M. Jeff Thompson and others setting forth the advantages to be derived by the country generally, and our city in particular, from this magnificent undertaking, characteristic of the energy and enterprise of those representative men of the great West, essrs. Majors, Russell, Waddell & Jones. This is but the precursor, as Mr. Majors justly remarked, of another, a more important, and a greater enterprise, which must soon reach its culmination, viz; the construction of the road upon which the tireless iron horse will start on his long overland journey, opening up as he goes the rich meadows of nature, the fertile valleys, and crowning the eminences of the rocky range with evidences of civilization and man's irresistible mania for progression; diversifying the prairies with the lowing cattle herds, and making them yet lovelier by the dwellings of the pioneer, cheered in his western pilgrimage by the loved ones of his household, and aided by the fair hands and bright eyes of woman. Of a truth “the desert shall blossom as the rose.'

‘The messenger from New York, with the through dispatches, left that city on Saturday morning, but was detained twenty-four hours in Detroit, reaching this city at five o'clock last evening, via the Palmyra Branch and Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, making the distance from the Mississippi to the Missouri in the unprecedented time of four hours and fifty-one minutes, including stoppages. The train consisted of only the engine and one passenger car, running something over forty miles an hour, the distance being stated as two hundred and eight miles. This, we may venture to assert, is better time than has ever before been made upon a Western railroad at all eVents.

‘The extension of the St. Louis-St. Joseph and Salt Lake telegraph line will still further facilitate this undertaking, bringing us even nearer our brethren to the West of the Sierra Nevada, until, at no far distant day, we shall have a continuous electric chain from one ocean to the other, and the transmission of intelligence will be almost instantaneous. A proud era it will be for journalism, when the papers of the Southern and Eastern cities are enabled to publish important events of the Golden State simultaneously with its own journals; and when we here on the banks of the Missouri, intermediate, will be made aware of the fluctuations of the markets, lucky strikes in the mines, and of disastrous fires ere the ruins have ceased to smoke.

‘The Eastward Express, we understand, will leave San Francisco today, and we expect its arrival in twelve days at farthest. We shall regard the arrival of this express as by far the most important event which has occurred since the settlement of our city, and would suggest that a suitable and appropriate demonstration be gotten up to testify our appreciation of the enterprise which has conceived and thus far successfully carried out the undertaking.’

The east-bound mail left San Francisco on April 3, passed the west-bound pouches somewhere east of Salt Lake on April 8, and reached St. Joseph on April 13-ten days from San Francisco.

During the next eighteen months, the Pony Express made St. e of the best-known centers in the United States. In September 1860 William H. Seward stopped in St. Joseph during a Western campaign trip on behalf of Abraham Lincoln. His secretary, George Ellis Baker, wrote on Sunday, September 23:

‘We are most comfortably accommodated at the Patee House. It is very large, well arranged, and admirably conducted. Indeed, I know of no better hotel in the Western country. St. Jo, itself.so recently the outpost, as it were, of American settlement and civilization, is a handsome and busy town of I2,Ooo people. Nearly all the travel for California, Utah, New Mexico, Pike's Peak, etc. passes through this point, and you daily meet, at the Patee House, acquaintances from all points of the Union. Thus, today, I encountered here a friend from Fond du Lac, one from Sheboygan, another from Chicago, and several friends from New York and Kansas.

‘At eight O'clock this morning, the weekly “Pony Express' started thence for San Francisco. The start was worth seeing. Just before the hour appointed for its departure, a horse and rider came galloping up, at full speed, to the office of the company here in the Patee House. The horse was ridden directly into the office; the saddle-bags, containing letters and telegraph dispatches, thrown across him; and the next minute, with a loud hurrah, horse and rider were tearing down the street, intent on making the first stage of fifty miles in four hours. The rider continues to the end of the stage; the horse is changed every fifteen miles; and the entire trip to San Francisco is accomplished in from nine to ten days.

‘The enterprise does not pay, in a pecuniary point of view, but is a great accommodation to the people on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Republic. Ere long, the “Pony Express' must give place to the telegraph, and not many years can elapse before the Pacific Railroad will supersede the overland express to California.’

The Pony Express operation never met expenses and the gamble to obtain the lucrative mail contract failed. Russell, Majors & Waddell were in weakened financial condition from 1858 or because of the United States government's failure to compensate them for heavy losses sustained in the Mormon War of 1857. They later estimated that the government owed them $1,349,548. But they kept going, absorbing the losses of the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company's stage and Pony Express in hopes that they might get the money due them. Benjamin Holladay of Weston, Missouri, advanced necessary funds, securing his investment by a mortgage on the Company's property.

Congress was preoccupied with the tensions developing into the Civil War, and W. H. Russell's friend, secretary of war John B. Floyd in the Buchanan administration, departed for the Confederacy. In a desperate effort to keep afloat, Russell secured illegally, from the U.S. Department of the Interior, $870,000 bonds belonging to the Indian trust funds. He pledged these bonds against bank loans. The matter was discovered and Russell was put in jail.

In January 1861 the partners of Russell, Majors & Waddell were bankrupt, and the partnership came to an end. The two contracts for mail delivery, with the Butterfield Overland Mail Company and the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Company ("Pony Express) were still in effect. When Confederate sympathizers cut the Butterfield line and took away much of the stock, the solution of Congress was to move the Butterfield line north to the Central route and divide the responsibilities for carrying the mail-giving the line west of Salt Lake City to Butterfield and the line from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City to the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Company (‘Pony Express’).

Ben Holladay foreclosed his mortgage and sent his cousin, Bela M. Hughes, from St. Joseph to Denver, as the new president of the C.O.C.&P.P. Express Company. Hughes had been cashier of the Western Bank of Missouri in St. Joseph with Milton Tootle the president. When Hughes left for Denver, he was succeeded by James L. O'Neill.

The Pacific Telegraph Company was organized in the spring of 1861, and the building of the line was started from both the west and the east. They met in Salt Lake City in late October, and the Pony Express was declared at an end on October 26.

The Pony Express had run for eighteen months, making three hundred and eight runs each way. The total distance covered equaled twenty-four times around the earth. It was remarkably efficient, with only one pouch of mail ever being lost. Several men lost their lives from hostile Indians, and the dedication of the personnel to their duty was remarkable. The episode was a memorable chapter in the history of communication.

Visitors to St. Joseph (1978) can see the excellent Pony Express Stables Museum at 914 Penn Street. The original frame building called "The Pike's Peak Stables' was erected in 1858 by Ben Holladay to accommodate the horses used by his overland coaches. On May 5, 1860, the property was sold by John Patee to the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company, and the stable used for the horses of the Pony Express. On November 22, 1861, Benjamin Holladay foreclosed his mortgage on this part of the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company (C.O.C. &.P.P., familarly dubbed “Clear out of cash and poor pay'). In 1887 the St. Joseph Transfer Company rebuilt the stables with brick, preserving much of the original material, including original beams still to be ՏCCIl.

ALEXANDER MAJORS, 1814-1900

Newspaper account of December 15, 1905, St. Joseph News-Press:

'MRS. S. D. MAJORS OF ST. JOSEPH HAS HAD AN EVENTFUL LIFE -- HER STORY RELATED SHE WAS IN THIS CITY IN 1858

Husband of Mrs. Majors Launched the Pony Express in 1860 -- Was one of the Most Prominent Men in West -- Married in 1857.

‘Mrs. Susan D. Majors, residing in St. Joseph, is the widow of Alexander Majors, the man who launched the Pony Express in 1860 for the transportation of mail from this city to Sacramento, Cal. The husband of Mrs. Majors died in Chicago six years ago and she has resided in this city the last two years.

‘Mrs. Majors is more than sixty years old but she retains her mental and physical vigor to a marked degree. She was a famous belle in her younger days and in her face today are many traces of her youthful beauty.

‘The maiden name of Mrs. Majors was Wetzel. She was born in Virginia and came to Missouri long before the war. She became the wife of Alexander Majors in March, 1857, while yet in her teens.

‘He was born in Kentucky in 1814 and was brought to Missouri as a boy of four years in 1818. The family settled near Fort Osage in Jackson County early in 1819. Alexander later farmed in Cass County but in 1846 he bought six wagons with oxen to pull them and entered upon the freighting business. He was a grandfather when he married Miss Wetzel.

‘Mrs. Majors is a member of a family noted for the beauty of its women. Her mother was a famous Virginia belle. Her sister, who married Augustus Byram, was a beautiful woman. Byram at one time had large property interests in Atchison, Kan. He made a fortune out of the Silver Horn mine in Idaho and entered the banking business in Chicago. He died a year ago, but Mrs. Byram still lives in Chicago. Mrs. Fannie B. Burnes, widow of the late C. C. Burnes of St. Joseph, is a daughter of Mrs. Byram and a niece of Mrs. Majors. Miss Marjorie Burnes of Chicago, one of the large stockholders in the Burnes Estate of St. Joseph, is a grandniece of Mrs. Majors.

‘Mrs. Majors talks interestingly of the experiences of herself and husband in western Missouri forty years ago. When asked about the ventures of the late Alexander Majors, she said:

‘ “He had been engaged in the freighting business before we were married. I think his first freighting was to Mexico. In 1854, the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell was formed and a contract amounting to millions of dollars was secured from the government. If I remember correctly, that contract was for the transportation of army supplies to Salt Lake City where troops had been sent to settle the Mormon troubles.

‘ “The firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell established trading points at Leavenworth, Kansas City and Nebraska City. I came to St. Joseph a number of times with Mr. Majors in 1858 and 1859. We stopped at the St. James Hotel a few times, but more often at the old Patee House. St. Joseph then was hardly more than a trading post, although a great deal of business was done here.”

‘Majors in his young manhood made the Broad-Horn record on the Santa Fe trail-around trip with oxen in ninety-two days. It is said that the contract of his firm with the government amounted to $4,500,000 in one year. Each of the three members of the firm was rated a millionaire in those days. During the war, these men lost practically all of the vast fortune they had made. In 1860 the firm owned 3,500 large wagons, 1,000 mules, 40,000 oxen and employed 4,000 men.

‘The Pony Express was the most notable enterprise undertaken by Majors. The establishment of the flying mail and express messengers cost him more than $100,000. W. H. Russell conceived the idea and Majors put it into execution.

‘On April 3, 1860, mounted messengers were started simultaneously from St. Joseph and from Sacramento, Cal. The distance was 2,Ooo miles over trackless prairies and towering mountain ranges. The regular schedule time was ten days from one terminus to the other and the riders rarely failed to make the trip in that length of time.

‘Until the Pony Express was started, there had been no delivery of mail west of the Missouri River and the inauguration of this service was a great event in St. Joseph. The start from this city was scheduled for 5:30 o'clock in the afternoon. The start proper was made from the old Pike's Peak stables, which stood just south of Patee Park. A large crowd gathered about the stables and the Patee House to witness the departure of the express rider.

‘The great feat of the Pony Express service was the delivery of President Lincoln's inaugural address in 1861. Keen interest was felt in this all over the land, foreshadowing as it did the policy of the administration regarding the secession and slavery question. In order to establish a record, as well as for an advertisement, the company determined to break all previous records. Every precaution was taken to prevent delay and the result stands without a parallel in history: seven days and seventeen hours -- 185 hours -- for 1,950 miles, an average of 10.7 miles per hour. From St. Joseph to Denver, 665 miles were made in two days and twenty-one hours, the last ten miles being negotiated in 31 minutes.

‘After having been operated seventeen months, the Pony Express closed in 1861, Edward Creighton having finished a telegraph line from Omaha to Sacramento,

‘Messages were carried by the express riders at a charge of five dollars each. The messages usually were written on tissue paper and each weighed about one-half ounce.

‘After the failure of the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell, Alexander Majors went into business for himself. For a time he was associated with Augustus Byram. Majors made and lost several fortunes and at the time of his death was comparatively a poor man.”