PONY EXPRESS horse post history
“A black speck appears against the sky. In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling – sweeping toward us nearer and nearer – growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear –another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm!”
This was Mark Twain's description of a rider for the Pony Express – the American postal service established 140 years ago.
The story of this famous American enterprise is one of the most romantic episodes in the history of the postal service. The company's name has its roots in the mid-19th Century.
In the early 1860s, the railways that were later to unite America's west and east coasts had not yet been built. Mustangs and Indian ponies were used to deliver mail between the cities of St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. The fine piebald mustangs of the Pony Express would always attract particular attention, while the light and sturdy Indian pony was common throughout the American continent. These descendants of the once majestic Indian horse had, within the space of a few centuries, transformed into the small, but strong, mobile and robust, Indian pony. Richard Dodge, an army colonel who travelled extensively throughout the prairies and was generally acknowledged as a specialist in horses, and the Indian pony in particular, once wrote: “The amount of work it can perform, and the distances it can cover in a specified time (and believe me, this period can be long), makes it the equal of the finest Arab horses”.
In March 1860, posters appeared in newspapers and on post office and saloon walls throughout the West: ""Wanted – young, skinny, wiry fellows, not over 20. Must be expert riders, and are willing to risk their lives for the job. Orphans preferred. Wages twenty five dollars a week".
In 1861, the firm 'Wells Fargo & Co', became the operator of the Pony Express route, issuing America's first stamps to denote postage paid. The stamps were issued in 2- and 4-dollar denominations, which in 1861 represented rather large sums. But this was a price worth paying for prompt delivery. The Pony Express operated under the slogan “the mail must go through”. And it truly did. The service's riders had to carry the post over distances of over 3 thousand kilometres within 8-10 days, whatever the circumstances. They were at constant risk of attack, and in several cases horses would arrive at the next staging post with their mailbags but without their riders, whose fate was to remain a mystery. Besides special deliveries, Wells Fargo & Ñî also transported gold dust and ingots from California to the East.
Every Pony Express employee was required by the company's owners to swear an oath on the bible: to renounce alcohol and foul language, and to refrain from fights and quarrels with other company employees. But to no avail – the company soon became a collection of hellraisers without equal in the entire country.
But despite all this, in performance of their duties they were faultless.
Within 2 months the company had purchased 150 half-wild mustangs – the fastest horses available, although barely broken in – which were placed at intervals along the 2000-mile route, and hired eight dozen skilled riders, each able to “put a saddle on the devil himself”. Distinctive coach stations grew up along the tract, at which the rider would dismount, transfer his mailbag to a rested and saddled horse, and gallop on. Riders would cover 75 to 100 miles in 24 hours, after which they would hand over their cargo to a colleague and take a rest.
In fact, the greatest bravery was required not of the riders themselves, but rather of the station watchmen. They had to somehow eke out a living in what amounted to desert terrain, across which war-painted Indians would periodically sweep, followed by roaming gangs of braves. And as soon as the dust thrown up by the horses' hooves had dispersed, gun-toting bandits would appear.
It once fell to Bill Tate, one of the riders, aged only 14, to deliver the mail at the height of a war with the local Indian tribes. He was often pursued, but was able to escape every time thanks to his mustangs, which, fed on oats, were able to outrun their Indian counterparts, fed only on grass. However, one day the Indians arranged an ambush, surrounding him. Tate fought to the death, and finally falling from his horse, his last act was to grab the mailbag and shield it with his body. As a mark of respect for the young man's courage, the Indians reattached his mailbag to the saddle, marked it with a sign of inviolability, and let the mustang go. Several hours later, the horse arrived at the nearest settlement alone, bringing the post but not its rider.
Like their riders, the Pony Express's mustangs also understood the importance of their work. It is said that the stallion Black Billy once brought his unconscious rider to his destination, with the mail, despite himself being wounded from two of the Indians' arrows. And a mustang named American Boy once bolted before his rider had had time to attach the saddle, and set off alone, delivering the mailbag to the next station on time.
History can throw up some interesting parallels with modern life. One Pony Express courier by the name of Johnny Fry was forever unable to satisfy his appetite, and would make deals with housewives living close to the Pony Express route. The ladies would bake special rolls for him, with a hole in the middle – something similar to a ring doughnut. In terms of function, these rolls were particularly similar to the Russian 'kalach' bun, which was first baked in Moscow especially for carriage drivers.
On hearing a cry from the approaching Fry, the housewife would stand on her doorstep and hold out a roll, which Johnny would catch on his outstretched finger. After eating the outside of the ring-shaped bun he would throw away the centre, which he had touched with his dirty finger, unless, of course, he was particularly hungry. And these ring-shaped rolls are still baked today in towns along the Pony Express route.
Even today, Americans take great pride in the story of the Pony Express. For a while, a Pony Express courier was used as the emblem of the US Postal Service, and in 1939 a special commemorative vignette was dedicated to this legendary enterprise. The US Postal Service has several times marked Pony Express anniversaries with special commemorative stamps, an unprecedented honour. This first happened in 1940, for the service's 80th anniversary, and then again in 1960 for its 100th.
PONY EXPRESS in Russia
OJSC ‘FREIGHT LINK’ (PONY EXPRESS trademark) arrived on the Russian market in 1992, and has withstood the blows dealt by the succession of crises that hit the country in the 1990s to become the leading national operator on the express-delivery market, offering the full range of services in relation to delivery of documents, packages and freight based on the 'door-to-door' principle. After starting out serving just three cities, OJSC Freight Link now serves over 9,000 cities and settlements throughout Russia and the CIS.
Our regional network includes 40 branches and more than 130 representative offices. There are PONY EXPRESS daughter companies in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. We also dispatch mail to 218 countries worldwide, and employ a consolidated total of over 2000 persons. Of course, the methods we use to deliver the mail today have moved on since the days of the Indian pony. Our PONY EXPRESS marked cars are becoming a ubiquitous part of the modern cityscape, and the company's fleet totals over 350. We operate over 11,000 m2 of warehouse and front-office space in Moscow alone. Our regular clients include major Russian and international companies in the fields of automotive, tobacco and computer production, home electronics, information technology, media and other sectors. We take pride in the good reputation of the PONY EXPRESS trademark, as well as the trust placed in our company to deliver freight and correspondence throughout Russia, the CIS and the world.
