How The Mail Went Through - Colonial Times,The Jackass Mail, Pony Express and Butterfield

How the Mail Went Through

In colonial times it didn’t go through, unless the sender found a friend or relative going in the right direction. Sometimes merchants would take letters to deliver, and when all else failed, the sender could hire an Indian to deliver his message.

Mail to and from England had to have a collection place, so 19 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in1620, Richard Fairbanks’s tavern in Boston was designated for the job. In 1730 agents of the royal crown hired Benjamin Franklin as Postmaster in Philadelphia, and later, in 1775, the Continental Congress named him Postmaster General. He surveyed routes for shorter and faster service, and for the first time had post riders travel at night. Unlike many others in the future, he ran the postal service at a profit. The basics of Franklin’s systems are still in use today.

When the United States acquired California in 1846, the U.S. Army sent and received mail by any means they could. There was the three-month route by sea and over the Panama Peninsula, but the mail went faster when carried by a trooper on a horse.

While researching for this article, I was surprised to discover that stage transportation from Salt Lake City to San Pedro, California existed as early as 1850, just four years after the United States acquired California. I presume that mail as well as passengers was carried by the stage. This might be worth a subsequent article

The first attempt by the U.S. government to provide regular mail service for the growing California population of gold seekers was made in 1857. Credit is usually given to the Pony Express, but that wasn’t started until 1860. The first regular mail and passenger service across country was provided by the San Antonio – San Diego Mail Line, derisively called ‘The Jackass Mail’. The company was owned by James E. Birch, who was awarded the first transcontinental mail contract on June 22, 1857. Only 16 days after signing the contract, the first mail pouch left San Antonio on horseback. The first trip took 53 days to reach San Diego. Of course, on that first trip, the way stations and spare horses were not all in place. On the second trip, Conestoga stagecoaches pulled by four horses or mules did the 1,475- mile trip in just 38 days. The best time recorded was 26 days and 12 hours.

 Unfortunately, James Birch was drowned, along with 400 others, as he was returning to Washington D.C. His ship sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras. He died before the first mail delivery was completed. His company continued under the management of his partner, G H Giddings.

On Birch’s 1,475 route, there were 87 stations, most of them just camping places by a spring or a stream crossing. Some had adobe buildings, and brush corrals for the animals. The largest station was at Maricopa Wells in Arizona, the place where mail pouches were exchanged, and the coaches turned around to return to their bases of origin in San Antonio and San Diego.

The journey was not for the frail or timid. Passengers endured over-crowding, heat, dust, hunger, and thirst, and sometimes Indians attacked them. The hardest part of the entire route was the leg from Yuma westward to the Cuyamaca Mountains. There are differing accounts about passengers having to ride mules over this stretch. Some say they rode all the way from Yuma to the mountains, and others say just from Vallecito. Both may have been true at different times of the year, depending on rainfall, and the problems of hauling a heavy-laden stagecoach through the deep sand. An army journal written in 1851 indicates that sometimes a wagon could not get through, and supplies had to go by packhorses.

 On this part of the journey there was still some danger from Indians, but the real enemy was the heat of the desert, and the long stretches between uncertain water holes. After leaving Yuma, the route went 10 miles south to cross the Mexican Border. After that it went northwest from one unreliable water hole to another at increasingly longer distances. The trail re-entered the United States west of where the town of Seeley is now. There was a stop 16 miles farther on at Carrizzo Creek, and 19 more miles at Vallecito Stage Station, managed by James Lassitor and his family. Here the shade, good food and water for both passengers and animals made the place seem like Paradise. At this point the stagecoach remained, but the passengers proceeded on mule back through Mason Valley and up Oriflamme Canyon, a slope so steep it prohibited the use of the stagecoaches. When they reached the top, they rode the mules to Lassitor’s other stage stop seven miles from Green Valley. Here the weary passengers climbed back into a stagecoach to continue on to four more stage stops down the shady and cool mountainside before reaching their final destination at the Plaza in Old San Diego.

When the Birch contract ran out in 1858, the Butterfield Overland Stage was awarded a contract to carry the mail from St. Louis, Missouri to San Francisco. John Butterfield, who was in business with Wells Fargo, was contracted to get the mail from St. Louis to San Francisco in 25 days, and for this he was paid $600,000. The route went through El Paso and Fort Yuma. The fare was $200 and it turned out the Conestoga Stagecoaches made the trip in only 22 days. The southern route was 600 miles longer than the northern trail, but it avoided much snow in the winter. The Butterfield Overland Stage ran for only three years because when the Civil War broke out, the eastern terminus at St. Louis was no longer tenable in southern territory.

The federal government anticipated the coming national conflict, and to hasten the transport of mail while the transcontinental telegraph line was being built, they contracted with the Pony Express to carry the mail from St. Joseph Missouri to Carson City Nevada. There was already a telegraph line from Sacramento to Carson City. Notice went out to enlist riders. The poster said: “Wanted, young, skinny, wiry, fellows. Must be expert riders willing to face death daily. Orphans preferred.” What they got were fellows ranging in age from 11 years old to almost 45, weighing an average of 120 pounds. For $100 a month they rode as far as 100 miles per day, changing horses every 10 to 15 miles at an average speed of 10 mph. There were about 400 horses in use; most of them were Thoroughbreds, mustangs and Morgans. Pintos were said to be the preferred color. There were 165 stations along a 2,000 trail through Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. The schedule required a trip once a week from April until mid-June and twice a week from June to October starting in 1860. The time required was 10 days in good weather, and 12 to 15 days in winter. The fastest time recorded was 7 days 17 hours. There were 183 riders riding night and day, for a total of 18 months until the Western Union line was completed to Carson City in 1861. There are interesting stories that could be told in another article about some of the riders, including one fellow named Bronco Charlie. The first rider was Johnny Fry from the east, and the last was Billy Hamilton from the west. Bob Haslam, who rode 370 miles from Friday’s Station to Smith’s Creek and back, made the longest ride. This happened in Nevada.

The completion of the telegraph line across country ended the Pony Express. When the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, it became the official mail carrier. It also ended transcontinental stage travel. But, stories of the exciting times of carrying mail and passengers by stagecoach, and those intrepid daredevils who rode for the Pony Express live on in our imaginations and old movies.

Mail delivery in America evolved from foot, horseback, boats, railroads, and currently by automobiles and airplanes. Sending mail by missile was tried once, but it failed. Now, when we have eliminated much of the need for physical transportation of letters, and most messages are sent by fax and e-mail, it is hard to imagine the terrible difficulties of transporting mail across more than 1,000 miles of wild and unsettled country, through hostile Indian territory, and unforgiving deserts to the settled areas of east and west coast destinations.