Show the be last of chepo TT 1 ay eap exp ress 77 X ahe pony express rider byM ahroni youn q cly pot K v will aarn H u ss ell frounder ahe pony cepress MORAL afir E 1 an letter of t he pon tj exar es A 4 j b A ahe the telegraph charles cliff and groody at the pony express monument tJ oseph 1919 al 91 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON ji HE other day press dispatches carried the 1 e news that one of the last of the op old 1 d ta time ime pony express riders had ladled ln in the west at the e age se of eighty five the only trouble with that news A item was this if ills age at the time of ills his death was ilven given correctly then lie must have been braving the perils which constantly threatened members of that famous corps of 0 daredevil riders at the tender age of eleven years I 1 knowing what we do of the history of the pony express what was required of its riders and the conditions under which they operated it seem likely that an all eleven year old boy was one of them and yet this particular news item is not unique for the last two decades such items have been appealing regularly in our newspapers and almost invariably a checkup check chock up on the dates in them would reveal the file fact that this supposed tony pony express rider hall had been engaged in his dangerous while still a mere child indeed one of them who was characterized as a pony express rider would have been only six years old at the time aimel I 1 the explanation of abl this inconsistency lies in the fact that there Is much confusion as to exactly what Is meant by the term pony express rider strictly speaking that title can be applied only to men who were were engaged by the central overland california and pikes peak express company for its pony express service founded by william 11 II russell tl of the famous firm of russell majors and waddell Vad delI in started in april of that year and discontinued in october that was the original pony express whose brief career of 18 months forms one of the most romantic chapters in the history of the old oil frontier in later years throughout the west the malls were carried over long iong stretches of territory by horsemen until their v work ork was taken over by stage coach lines which in pre ere succeeded by the railroads during these bears ears it became somewhat the fashion to refer to these horsemen ns as pony express riders a characterization which persisted after the passing of the frontier without any special inquiry into the appropriateness of the title so in these modern dais when nhen an old timer dies and it becomes known that he be had once carried the malls mails on horseback out west lie he Is immediately sot set do down n as a pony express rider which accounts for some of lie he news items spoken of at the leg beginning inning of this article mounted mall mail carr carriers ierg they may have been but they wore were not real pony express riders at least not all of them who then were the real pony express riders it la Is doubtful it a complete roster of their names can ever be compiled when operation of the pony express service began there were 80 of them but tills this number varied during the next 18 months and it Is probable that at least different men at ort ore time or another were riders in the service in connection with the celebration held in 1023 1923 the union pacific magazine issued a special pony express number in which miss mary pack writing on the romance of the pony express listed the following as known riders for the original organization baughn melville mel nelly jay G beatley james jim ning king thomas owen becker charles lettle yank boston macaulay Maca ulas drink brink james W martin hob bob bucklin jimmy mccall J G burnett john mcdonald james campbell william mcnaughton jim carlisle alex C MeE mceneany nenny curr carr william moore james jim gates cates kill perkins josh dark clark jimmy Prid liam william lamO cliff CHIT charles banahan pa nahan tom cody william F r rand theodore donovan donova a joe richardson ichardson Il johnson egan howard ransom riles idles bart egan richard erastus rising don C hills J K X rolf roff harry alsher Fl sher john San glovanni 0 G fisher william bill seebeck john frey johnnie spurr george gentry jim streeper Str ceper W 11 II 0 gilson jim strickland robert C hamilton sam thacher Thach cr george aslam Ila II siam robert towne george hogan martin wallace henry huntington let westcott dan irish tom whelan michael M james william bill whipsaw jenkins will D zo galtz jose keetley Kc otley jack m nn ip 11 1 those marked with an are living at the present time during the same year howard R driggs president of the oregon trail memorial association and a well known historian of pioneer days in the lie west said in an 1111 article in the new york tribune wag magazine azine they can be counted on the fingers of one hand the few that remain of the hundred or more daring boys who helped put americas first mail across from old saint joe to sacramento during those stirring s days of the early COs right now only a bare handful of the original riders are left to take part and they can participate only as onlookers for every one of them Is over eighty years of age these survivors according to last reports are john seebeck of alameda calif charles cliff of st joseph mo and elijah matheld of loa utah two or three others have been named with ith some uncertainty several station keepers and substitute riders have also leen been reported alive more may be discovered through the celebration in progress but the three pony express men just named seem to be the only regular riders that linger to give firsthand first hand experience of that lur in Americas story it will be noticed that mr driggs list of suri ivors checks with miss packs list only in regard to charles clift cliff and john seebeck he does not mention tour four in her list Cli charles arles decker Will william fain tom hanahan and W H streeper and she does not mention one of his three elijah maxwell and neither of them mentions another survivor henry avis who was a resident of kansas city until ills his death in 3 in root and Connell Connel leys cys overland stage to california appears a partial list so far as Is known of the men who rode the pony express and contributed to the lasting fame of the enterprise it contains 47 names 24 fewer than miss packs list tut but it names three which she does not have they are william boulton william carrigan Carrl gan and 11 J faust one of miss packs list just missed being marked with an a as a survivor ile he was joseph donovan joe donovan who died in denver july 20 26 1923 just a month before the pony express celebration began besides being a pony polly express rider donovan had bad a stirring career as a government scout and indian lighter according to the alie accounts of ills death in the denver newspapers ile he was said to have held the distinction of being the only denver citizen at the time of ills ilia death who had visited the site of that city prior to 19 even more famous as a scout was another pony express rider who now lies iles buried on lookout mountain near denver ills name appears on the pony express roll as william F cody but the whole world w was is to know him in the future as buffalo bill most accounts of the pony express give prominent mention to cody as one of the youngest of its riders he was only fourteen at the time and the rider who ho made one of 0 the longest and probably the longest continuous performance without a formal rest period in the history of this or any other courier service miles in 21 hours Un unfortunately fortu a tely for codys clodys fame as a pony express rider just as Is the case in some of the other phases of ills his career the record Is not clear enough to be accepted unquestioningly one of ills his most trustworthy biographers richard Klc liard J walsh in ills his book the making of buffalo bill says uis ills pouy pony express record Is accepted by historians but all of the testimony Is hearsay and the accounts of that period are highly confused I 1 alexander majors vouched couched for codys clodys service on the overland trails but majors when he told the story was an old man in sore straits and grateful to buffalo bill for financial assistance and majors book was written for him by none other kotlier than prentiss ingraham the dime novelist elsewhere in his book walsh says at first he the fourteen year old cody was given an easy route forty five miles which lie he had to make in three hours with three changes of mounts this easy route was probably the regular road between leavenworth and st jokeph over which cody rode as the office boy on horseback a terra term by which majors once characterized acte ried him carrying mall mail to be placed in the pony express bags at st joseph connelley william E connelley late secretary of the kansas historical society and one of the most careful investigators and reliable historic historians ins of that part of the west believes that this Is the only pony express riding ever done by cody perhaps the name of tom Ila Ita on the pony express rolls means little to the average person but to anyone who has ever read the r 7 N tom thrilling story of the battle of ne Be echers island fought lii in eastern colorado in september 1868 that name Is familiar tor for tom was one of the party of 60 50 scouts commanded by col george A sandy forsyth of the regular army who wrote their names high in the history of 0 the west by their desperate defense of the little island in the arickaree Arick Aric karee arce river against the hosts of cheyenne warriors led by chief roman nose who was killed there was still living in idaho a few years ago one of the three last survivors of the forsyth scouts and one of the few real surviving pony express riders one of the best short accounts of the pony 1 express dealing with its organization operation and its historic importance is the chapter devoted to it in the book the overland mail 1849 1869 by dr le roy ilaben colorado state historian which was published by the arthur 11 II clark company of cleveland in 1026 1926 in it doctor kafen points out that the pony express was not an end in itself but a means to an end there had been pre ious ilous suggestions forthe establishment of a fast overland express and an attempt was made in congress in 1855 to provide such a service but these first efforts did not succeed with the establishment of the overland stage lines a rivalry had arisen between the butterfield tho the southern and central routes and with the assembling of the thirty sixth congress in december 1809 1859 everything pointed in the direction of a general revision of the overland service partisans ot of the central route were active but they met with considerable opposition it was with the idea of demonstrating the practicability of the central route tor for year round travel and to secure an enlarged mail contract that the pony express scheme was wag conceived during the winter of 1850 CO 00 while william II fl russell was in washington lie discussed the oi ox erland mall mail question with nith senator gwin of california the senator contended that it was necessary to demonstrate the feasibility of the central route before lie he would be able to get from congress the desired contract ile he appealed to russell to launch a swift overland express and agreed to obtain from congress a subsidy to rela reimburse burse the firm for the undertaking the plan appealed to russell and he agreed to put through the enterprise put it through he lid did a and lid on april 3 ISM the historic pony express went into operation with riders starting simultaneously from the eastern and western teri termini nini st joseph mo and san francisco calif it continued until the through telegraph line was in operation then says hafen when the telegraph line was completed on oil october 21 the pony express came to a close the pony was fast but lie he could not compete with the lightning unfortunately for its founders it was far from being a financial success it cost russell and his partners to operate it during its brief existence and their receipts were ere only leaving them with a net loss of nut hut from the standpoint of the nation the pony I express was eminently successful it demonstrated the practicability of the central route ULRA and marked the path for the first transcontinental trans continental railroad cy by shortening the distance between tho the atlantic and pacific coasts it helped unite tho pacific coast and the rocky mountain region to the union during the first omi ominous notis year of 0 the civil war it showed the conquest of 0 the west in one of its most spectacular phases and it Is an act in the great western drama that will always be recalled and re enacted as one of our precious heritages 0 by western newspaper union |