Pony
Express Mail Stolen!
William Henry Jackson
painting of a Pony Express rider being chased by Indians
In late May and early June, 1860 the Pony Express service was disrupted
due to Indian depredations in Nevada which resulted in several of the weekly
trips being cancelled. When the express was re-started, the service was
increased to twice weekly. The cover shown below is, in my opinion, one of the
most interesting Pony Express covers extant. One usually reads about how no
mails were lost and of situations where the fearless Pony riders evaded their
Indian predators. However, such was not always the case as this cover evidences.
It was carried on the Pony Express trip which left
San Francisco
on
July 21, 1860
. The mail pouch did not arrive in
St. Joseph
until almost two years later! The notation reads recovered from a mail
stolen by the Indians in 1860 and bears a
New York
backstamp of
May 3, 1862
, the date when it was finally delivered in
New York
.
July 21, 1860
San Francisco
by Pony Express mail stolen by the
Indians
mail pouch found and delivered
in
New York
in 1862
(Dale-Lichtenstein
collection, courtesy H.R. Harmer, Inc.)
reverse of cover showing senders cachet and
New York
May 2 (1862) arrival postmark
The only mention in print that I have been able to find about a Pony Express
mail being stolen is in The Overland Stage to California by Root and
Connelley which mentions:
"At times there would
be a lively chase by Indians, but only once has there been mention made that he
was overtaken. On this occasion the rider was scalped, but the pony escaped with
the letter pouch, which was subsequently recovered out on the plains and the
letters promptly forwarded to their destination."
The above cover is almost certainly a postal artifact of this incident. An
interesting report of Howard Ransom Egan, a Pony Express rider serving the area
in July, 1861, mentions in reference to his escape from Indians the week before
the above cover was mailed, Later I
got it from some friendly Indians that there had been a trap set to catch an
Express rider for the purpose of seeing what he carried to make him travel so
fast. This may explain why the letters were not destroyed.
Another example of a cover carried on this fateful trip, probably in the
same mochila, is also known. The second example has
a manuscript endorsement for the Pony Express applied at a way office
after departure from San Francisco and is dated July 22 (1860). An additional
note put on in 1862 says Recovered from a mail stolen in 1860 and is
docketed by addressee as having been received on
May 1, 1862
.
Richard
Frajola (November, 2001)
