Robert Haslam & the Pony Express

Robert Haslam rode for the Pony Express during most of the time the brief service was in operation.  He was destined to become the most famous rider and would be known affectionately throughout the West as “Pony Bob.”  He was born in London, England in 1840 and arrived in America as a teenager.  He joined the Pony Express and was assigned the run from Lake Tahoe to Buckland’s Station, seventy-five miles to the east.  The ride that made him famous was a grueling 120 miles run that took him eight hours and twenty minutes, while wounded.  It was the fastest trip ever made by the Pony Express.  What was the message he carried?  It was Lincoln’s Inaugural Address.

    The famous midnight ride of Paul Revere and the Pony Express have something in common.  Over the years both have been embellished with a great deal of exaggeration.  One historian summed up the Pony Express’s history this way, “It’s a tale of truth, half-truth and no truth at all.”  Famed showman Buffalo Bill Cody, who had served as a rider, made a Pony Express enactment a part of his Wild West show, which greatly helped in making the mail service a bigger-than-life legend.

    But it is true that being a rider wasn’t easy work; it was lonely, arduous, and above all dangerous.  The Pony Express’s famous advertisement pretty much summed it up; it read,

               “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen.  Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily.  Orphans preferred.”

    During the 1800s thousands of people left their homes behind in the East and headed out West.  Pioneers hungry for new lands left their roots and crossed the continent, thousands of future sourdoughs in search of riches raced to various mining sites throughout the new frontier and opportunists ready to provide services to all these people migrated along with them. 

    The only way these displaced people could communicate with those left back East was a very slow mail delivery by boat, which went from New York to Panama across Panama by canoe and mule, and then by boat again to San Francisco.  Or the somewhat faster method, but still slow overland mail service, which took three to four weeks.  In 1860 three men, William H. Russell, Alexander Majors and William B. Waddell, who were well-established freighters delivering supplies to military outposts came up with a fast mail service over land.  They claimed they would deliver the same mail in just ten days or less.  In the beginning the business was given the impossible name: Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company.  Very quickly it was shortened to simply the Pony Express.

    The route went through a whole lot of Indian land from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, a total of nearly 2000 miles and those Indians were already warring against the occupation of their land, so there was always the possibility that a rider would be attacked.  Being an expert rider and having a fast horse therefore were essential.

    Robert Haslam raised his right hand and took the following oath as did all the other riders:

         “I, ___, DO HEREBY SWEAR, BEFORE THE GREAT AND LIVING GOD, THAT DURING MY ENGAGEMENT, AND WHILE I AM AN EMPLOYEE OF RUSSELL, MAJORS AND WADDELL, I WILL, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, USE PROFANE LANGUAGE, THAT I WILL DRINK NO INTOXICATING LIQUORS, THAT I WILL NOT QUARREL OR FIGHT WITH ANY OTHER EMPLOYEE OF THE FIRM, AND THAT IN EVERY RESPECT I WILL CONDUCT MYSELF HONESTLY, BE FAITHFUL TO MY DUTIES, AND SO DIRECT ALL MY ACTS AS TO WIN THE CONFIDENCE OF MY EMPLOYERS. SO HELP ME GOD."

That’s a pretty remarkable, all encompassing oath if you ask me.  It seemed like a lot to expect from young adventure seeking youth.  But apparently it worked and they chose the right people, because in the eighteen months the service was in operation 34,753 pieces of mail were sent and delivered with only one mail delivery lost.  The service employed 183 riders and paid them as much as $150 a month, which is equivalent to about $2700 in today’s money.  And those riders survived pretty well considering all the hazards; Indians killed only one rider.  The completion of transcontinental telegraph service was the reason the Pony Express had to come to an end.  Obviously it wouldn’t be able to compete.  But it would have had to end as a business any way, because during the eighteen months it never ever showed a profit.

    And what became of Pony Bob?  He continued to work as a rider for Wells Fargo and later scouted for the U.S. Army.  He was with his good friend Buffalo Bill Cody, when Cody was sent to negotiate the surrender of Sitting Bull.  He died poor in Chicago in 1912.