Seventy Years on the Frontier Part 11

They bought their mules and coaches on credit, giving their notes, payable in ninety days; sent men out to establish a station every ten to fifteen miles from Leavenworth due west, going up the Smoky Hill fork of the Kansas River, through the Territory of Kansas, and direct to Denver.

The line was organized, stations built and put in running shape in remarkably quick time.

They made their daily trips in six days, traveling about one hundred miles every twenty-four hours. The first stage ran into Denver on May 17, 1859. It was looked upon as a great success, so far as putting the enterprise in good shape was concerned, but when the ninety days expired and the notes fell due they were unable to meet them. And in spite of my protests in the commencement of the organization as against having anything to do with it, it became necessary for Russell, Majors & Waddell to meet the obligation that Jones & Russell had entered into in organizing and putting the stock on the line. To save our partner we had to pay the debts of the concern and take the mules and coaches, or, in other words, all the paraphernalia of the line, to secure us for the money we had advanced.

The inst.i.tution then having become the property of Russell, Majors & Waddell, we continued to run it daily. A few months after that, we bought out the semi-monthly line of Hockaday & Liggett, that was running from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake City, thinking that by blending the two lines we might bring the business up to where it would pay expenses, if nothing more.

This we failed in, for the lines, even after being blended, did not nearly meet expenses. Messrs. Hockaday & Liggett had a few stages, light, cheap vehicles, and but a few mules, and 110 stations along the route. They traveled the same team for several hundreds of miles before changing, stopping every few hours and turning them loose to graze, and then hitching them up again and going along.

I made a trip in the fall of 1858 from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake City in their coaches. It was twenty-one days from the time I left St.

Joseph until I reached Salt Lake, traveling at short intervals day and night. As soon as we bought them out we built good stations and stables every ten to fifteen miles all the way from Missouri to Salt Lake, and supplied them with hay and grain for the horses and provisions for the men, so they would only have to drive a team from one station to the next, changing at every station.

Instead of our schedule time being twenty-two days, as it was with Hockaday & Liggett, and running two per month, we ran a stage each way every day and made the schedule time ten days, a distance of 1,200 miles. We continued running this line from the summer of 1859 until March, 1862, when it fell into the hands of Ben Holliday. From the summer of 1859 to 1862 the line was run from Atchison to Fort Kearney and from Fort Kearney to Fort Laramie, up the Sweet Water route and South Pa.s.s, and on to Salt Lake City.

This is the route also run by the Pony Express, each pony starting from St. Joseph instead of Atchison, Kan., from which the stages started. We had on this line about one thousand Kentucky mules and 300 smaller-sized mules to run on through the mountain portion of the line, and a large number of Concord coaches. It was as fine a line, considering the mules, coaches, drivers, and general outfitting, perhaps, as was ever organized in this or any other country, from the beginning.

And it was very fortunate for the Government and the people that such a line was organized and in perfect running condition on the middle route when the late war commenced, as it would have been impossible to carry mails on the route previously patronized by the Government, which ran from San Francisco via Los Angeles, El Paso, Fort Smith, and St. Louis, for the Southern people would have interfered with it, and would not have allowed it to run through that portion of the country during the war.

It turned out that Senator Gwin's original idea with reference to running a pony express from the Missouri River to Sacramento to prove the practicability of that route at all seasons of the year was well taken, and the stage line as well as the pony proved to be of vital importance in carrying the mails and Government dispatches.

It so transpired that the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell had to pay the fiddler, or the entire expense of organizing both the stage line and the pony express, at a loss, as it turned out, of hundreds of thousands of dollars. After the United States mail was given to this line it became a paying inst.i.tution, but it went into the hands of Holliday just before the first quarterly payment of $100,000 was made. The Government paid $800,000 a year for carrying the mails from San Francisco to Missouri, made in quarterly payments.

The part of the line that Russell, Majors & Waddell handled received $400,000, and b.u.t.terfield & Co. received $400,000 for carrying the mails from Salt Lake to California. During the war there was a vast amount of business, both in express and pa.s.senger traveling, and it was the only available practicable line of communication between California and the States east of the Rocky Mountains.

CHAPTER XX.

THE GOLD FEVER.

During the winter of 1858-59 the public generally, throughout the United States, began to give publicity to a great gold discovery reported to have been made in the Pike's Peak region of the Rocky Mountains.

From week to week, as time pa.s.sed, more extended accounts were given, until the reports became fabulous.

The discovery was reported to have been made in Cherry Creek, at or near its junction with the South Platte River, and one of the newspapers at the time, published in Cleveland, Ohio, came out, giving a cut which was claimed to be a map of the country. Pike's Peak was given as the central figure. The South Fork of the Platte River was represented as flowing out from the mountain near its base, and Cherry Creek as coming out of a gorge in the mountain's side, and forming a junction with the Platte in the low lands, at which point Denver was designated.

Reports went so far as to state that gold was visible in the sands of the creek-bed, and that the banks would pay from gra.s.s roots to bed rock.

People became wild with excitement, and a stampede to Pike's Peak appeared inevitable.

The great question with the excited people was as to the shortest, cheapest, and quickest way to get to the country, with little thought of personal safety or comfort, or as to how they should get back in the event of failure. But the problem was soon believed to have been solved to the satisfaction of all concerned.

A brilliant idea took possession of the fertile brain of an energetic Buckeye citizen, and a plan was conceived and to an extent put in execution. A ca.n.a.l-boat which had been converted into a steam tug was secured, not only for the purpose of transporting the mult.i.tudes from Cleveland to Denver, but to transport the millions of treasures back to civilization, or, as it was then put, "to G.o.d's country." Pa.s.sengers were advertised for at $100 per head; the route given as follows: From Cleveland, Ohio, via the lake to Chicago, thence via Illinois Ca.n.a.l and River to the Mississippi River, then to the mouth of the Missouri River and up the Missouri to the mouth of the Platte River, and, thence up the Platte to Denver, and it was with pride that this boat was advertised as the first to form a line of steamers to regularly navigate the last named stream.

Of course this trip was never made, for in fact, at certain seasons of the year, it would be difficult to float a two-inch plank down the river from Denver to the Missouri, and yet this is but ill.u.s.trative of the hundreds of visionary, crude and novel plans conceived and adopted by the thousands of so-called Pike's Peakers who swarmed the plains between Denver and the border during the early part of 1859.

Having caught the fever, and there being no remedy for the disease equal to the gold hunter's experience, horses and wagon were secured and, with traveling companions, the trip was made by land. Many novel experiences to the partic.i.p.ants occurred during that trip.

At Leavenworth one of my companions concluded to economize, which he did by piloting six yoke of oxen across the plains for me. He drove into Denver in the morning and drove out of it in the evening of the same day, fully convinced (as he himself stated) that all reports of the country were either humbugs or greatly exaggerated, and that he had seen and knew all that was worth seeing and knowing of that land. I suggested the advisability of further investigation before moving on, but not being favorable to delay, and suiting himself to his means, he secured an ox and cart that had been brought in from the Red River of the North, and loading it with all necessary supplies headed for Denver, with a determination so aptly and forcibly expressed in the usual motto, "Pike's Peak or bust." All went well until he reached the Little Blue River in Kansas, when he "busted," or at least the cart did, and the result was the location of a ranch on that stream and an end to his westward career.

Thus Kansas is largely indebted for her early and rapid settlement to the discovery of gold in Colorado, and to the misfortunes of many of the Pike's Peakers who, for some cause, failed to reach the end desired, and who were thus compelled to stop and become settlers of that now great State.

Shortly before the time of which I write, June, 1859, Horace Greeley pa.s.sed through Leavenworth en route for Denver, and thousands of people were to be found in every princ.i.p.al town and city, from St. Louis to Council Bluffs (there was no Omaha at that time), who were awaiting his report, which was daily expected, and for once, at least, the New York _Tribune_ was in demand on the borders. I may say here that Horace Greeley was _dead-headed_ through to California.

In the early part of July came a favorable report in the _Tribune_, and at that time a shipment of gold was made from Denver and put on exhibition in one of the banks at Leavenworth.

Thus new life was given to the immigration movement, and soon the towns along the border were largely relieved of their floating population, and the plains at once became alive with a moving, struggling ma.s.s of humanity, moving westward in the mad rush for the gold-fields of Pike's Peak.

Among my friends an a.s.sociation was formed and the following party organized, viz.: Alfred H. Miles and his wife, their son George T., and two daughters, Fannie D. and Emma C. Miles, with William McLelland and P. A. Simmons.

They outfitted with two wagons, four yoke of oxen, two saddle-mules, one cow, and all supplies presumed to be sufficient for at least one year.

On the first day of August, 1859, they moved out from Leavenworth, happy and full of "great expectations" for the future. Forty-nine days were spent in making the drive, and then they landed in Denver on the eighteenth day of the following month. And here let me say, that I believe this party of seven proved an exception to the rule, in this, that every member of it became a permanent settler, and for the last thirty-three years they have been actively connected with, and identified in, the various departments of life and business, both public and private.

All are yet living and residents of the State, except Mrs. Miles, who recently pa.s.sed to a higher life, respected and loved by all who knew her; and I here venture the opinion that no other party of emigrants in this country, of equal number, can show a better record.

Many novel events occurred on this trip also, but to mention all the new and novel experiences incident to an expedition of that kind would require more than the allotted s.p.a.ce for a chapter. I will, therefore, confine the account to one incident alone which will make manifest the radical changes that are sometimes wrought in the individual lives of people, in a sometimes radically short s.p.a.ce of time. Two of the ladies of the party before mentioned arrived in Leavenworth about one month previous to their departure on this trip. They were just graduated from a three years' course of study in a female seminary, and in thirty days from that time they were transported from their boarding-school surroundings to the wilds of the Great American Desert, and after pa.s.sing into the timberless portion of the great desert, the great query with them was as to how and where they were to secure fuel necessary for culinary purposes; and when informed that it would be necessary to gather and use buffalo chips for that purpose, their incredulity became manifest, and their curiosity was rather increased than satisfied. When called upon to go, gunny-sack in hand, out from the line of travel to gather the necessary fuel, it was difficult to persuade them they were not being made the victims of a joke; but when finally led into the field of "chips," and the discovery made of their character, the expression upon the face of each would have been a delight to an artist and amusing to the beholder; and to say that the distance between the chip-field and the camp was covered by them in the time rarely, if ever, covered by the native antelope, is to speak without exaggeration.

As before stated, all of the seven members of this party, on their arrival in Denver, became residents and actively identified in the various departments of life and business, and to each and every one there is no spot on the face of this globe that is quite so good, so grand, and so dear as the Centennial State, of which Denver is the center of their love.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE OVERLAND MAIL.

Over thirty-two years ago, when a bachelor occupied the President's mansion at Washington, and there was no Pacific Railroad and no transcontinental telegraph line in operation over the Great American Desert of the old schoolbooks, and the wild Indian was lord of the manor--a true native American sovereign--St. Joseph, Mo., was the western terminus of railway transportation. Beyond that point the traveler bound for the regions of the Occident had his choice of a stage-coach, an ox-team, a pack-mule, or some equally stirring method of reaching San Francisco.

Just at that interesting period in our history--when the gold and silver excitement, and other local advantages of the Pacific Coast, had concentrated an enterprising population and business at San Francisco and the adjacent districts--the difficulty of communication with the East was greatly deplored, and the rapid overland mail service became an object of general solicitude. In the year 1859 several magnates in Wall Street formed a formidable lobby at Washington in the interests of an overland mail route to California, and asked Congress for a subsidy for carrying the mails overland for one year between New York and San Francisco.

The distance was 1,950 miles. Mr. Russell proposed to cover this distance with a mail line between St. Joseph, Mo., and San Francisco, that would deliver letters at either end of the route within ten days.

Five hundred of the fleetest horses to be procured were immediately purchased, and the services of over two hundred competent men were secured. Eighty of these men were selected for express riders.

Light-weights were deemed the most eligible for the purpose; the lighter the man the better for the horse, as some portions of the route had to be traversed at a speed of twenty miles an hour. Relays were established at stations, the distance between which was, in each instance, determined by the character of the country.

These stations dotted a wild, uninhabited expanse of country 2,000 miles wide, infested with road-agents and warlike Indians, who roamed in formidable hunting parties, ready to sacrifice human life with as little unconcern as they would slaughter a buffalo. The Pony Express, therefore, was not only an important, but a daring and romantic enterprise. At each station a sufficient number of horses were kept, and at every third station the thin, wiry, and hardy pony-riders held themselves in readiness to press forward with the mails. These 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.

The schedule time for the trip was fixed at ten days. In this manner they supplied the place of the electric telegraph and the lightning express train of the gigantic railway enterprise that subsequently superseded it.

The men were faithful, daring fellows, and their service was full of novelty and adventure. The facility and energy with which they journeyed was a marvel. The news of Abraham Lincoln's election was carried through from St. Joseph to Denver, Colo., 665 miles, in two days and twenty-one hours, the last ten miles having been covered in thirty-one minutes. The last route on the occasion was traversed by Robert H. Haslam, better known as "Pony Bob," who carried the news 120 miles in eight hours and ten minutes, riding from Smith's Creek to Fort Churchill, on the Carson River, Nevada, the first telegraph station on the Pacific Coast.

On another occasion, it is recorded, one of these riders journeyed a single stretch of 300 miles--the other men who should have relieved him being either disabled or indisposed--and reached the terminal station on schedule time.

The distance between relay riders' stations varied from sixty-five to one hundred miles, and often more. The weight to be carried by each was fixed at ten pounds or under, and the charge for transportation was $5 in gold for each half of an ounce. The entire distance between New York City and San Francisco occupied but fourteen days. The riders received from $120 to $125 per month for their arduous services. The pony express enterprise continued for about two years, at the end of which time telegraph service between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was established. Few men remember those days of excitement and interest. The danger surrounding the riders can not be told. Not only were they remarkable for lightness of weight and energy, but their service required continual vigilance, bravery, and agility. Among their number were skillful guides, scouts, and couriers, accustomed to adventures and hardships on the plains--men of strong wills and wonderful powers of endurance. The horses were mostly half-breed California mustangs, as alert and energetic as their riders, and their part in the service--sure-footed and fleet--was invaluable. Only two minutes were allowed at stations for changing mails and horses. Everybody was on the _qui vive_. The adventures with which the service was rife are numerous and exciting.