The Butterfield Overland Mail: by Waterman L. Ormsby, Only Through Passenger on the First Westbound Stage

By Waterman L. Ormsby

This is the classic firsthand account by Waterman L. Ormsby, a reporter who in 1858 crossed the western states as the sole through passenger of the Butterfield Overland Mail stage on its first trip from St. Louis to San Francisco. Ormsby’s reports, which soon appeared in the New York Herald, are lively and exciting. He describes the journey in close detail, giving full accounts of the accommodations, the other passengers, the country through which they passed, the dangers to which they were exposed, and the constant necessity for speed.

“A most interesting account of the first westbound trip of an overland mail stage.”—Southern California Historical Society Quarterly

“The best narrative of the trip and one of the best accounts of western travel by stage.”—Pacific Historical Review

“If other travelers had been as careful and observant as Ormsby we should know vastly more about our country and the ways of our fathers than we do...The book is fascinating. It will prove interesting to all who care for travelogues, the history of the West, and particularly to those interested in our economic history.”—Journal of Economic History

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Release date: Dec 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789125580

Waterman L. Ormsby

WATERMAN LILY ORMSBY (1834-1908) was an American newspaper reporter. Born on December 8, 1834 in New York City, he was the son of Waterman Lily Ormsby, Sr. (died 1883), an American engraver and inventor who founded the Continental Bank Note Company. Ormsby Jr. was a reporter for several New York newspapers, including the Herald, World, Times and the York Sun. In 1858, he was assigned by the New York Herald to ride the entire trip on the first westbound Butterfield Overland Mail Company stagecoach, an overland trip that spanned 24 days; he recounted his experiences in a series of articles for the paper, which were later also published posthumously in a book in 1942. Ormsby joined the continental Bank Note Company around 1870, where he remained for 14 years. In 1885 he began a new career as a stenographer for the city magistrates court, and worked there for 23 years. He and his wife Eliza Croly Ormsby had four children, two of whom also became court stenographers. Ormsby died in New York City on April 28, 1908, aged 73. LYLE HENRY WRIGHT (1903-1979) was a librarian at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. He is best-known for creating a bibliography of American fiction from the years 1851-1875, published as American Fiction 1851-1875: A Contribution Toward a Bibliography in 1957, which is widely considered to be the most comprehensive bibliography of American adult fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries.

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Text originally published in 1942 under the same title.

© Papamoa Press 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE BUTTERFIELD OVERLAND MAIL

BY

WATERMAN L. ORMSBY

Edited by

LYLE H. WRIGHT and JOSEPHINE M. BYNUM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

MAP 4

FOREWORD 13

INTRODUCTION 14

ORMSBY’S ARTICLES 19

New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1858—OVERLAND TO SAN FRANCISCO 19

[Tipton, Missouri] September 16 19

New York Herald, Saturday, October 2, 1858—OVERLAND TO SAN FRANCISCO 23

Near Red River, Indian Territory, September 20 23

New York Herald, Sunday, October 24, 1858—THE OVERLAND MAIL 30

Near Fort Belknap, Texas, September 22 30

Near El Paso, Texas, September 28 38

New York Herald, Sunday, October 31, 1858—THE OVERLAND ROUTE TO THE PACIFIC 40

Tuscon, Arizona, October 2 40

New York Herald, Thursday, November 11, 1858—OVERLAND TO CALIFORNIA 50

San Francisco, October 10 50

New York Herald, Friday, November 19, 1858—THE GREAT OVERLAND MAIL 66

San Francisco, October 13 66

New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1858—OVERLAND TO SAN FRANCISCO 88

St. Louis, September 16 88

APPENDIX: FORT SMITH TO MEMPHIS 107

Foreword 107

San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Tuesday, January 4, 1859—NOTES OF TRAVEL BY THE OVERLAND MAIL 109

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 112

MAP

FOREWORD

JOHN BUTTERFIELD, A GOOD FRIEND of President James Buchanan and an accomplished stagecoach manager, was the initial guiding force of the Overland Mail Company. He was also vice president of the American Express Company, founded in 1850 with Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, who, in 1852, formed Wells, Fargo & Co. to bring banking and express services to California.

Wells Fargo and American Express controlled the Overland Mail Company and, between them, had seven of the Company’s eleven directors. In 1857, Wells Fargo had funded the surveying of the overland route to El Paso. In February 1858, the board of directors asked Louis McLane, Wells Fargo’s general agent, to act for them in California.

In March 1860, uneasy at the mounting indebtedness incurred by John Butterfield, Wells Fargo gained a fifth director and substituted a more cost-conscious president.

At first, the Overland Mail Company operated along a southern route that swung from Missouri through Texas and across the southwest into Southern California with an eventual terminus in San Francisco.

The route shifted northward to a more central east-west during the Civil War and Wells Fargo’s interests solidified. On November 1, 1866, the Overland Mail Company line through Salt Lake City became part of Wells Fargo’s grand consolidation of overland stagecoaching west of the Missouri River.

INTRODUCTION

CONTEMPORARY accounts of travel on the Overland Mail Company’s stage line during the years 1858 to 1861, when it was operating between St. Louis and Memphis, the two eastern terminals, and San Francisco, are all too few. The best narrative consists of a series of eight articles by Waterman L. Ormsby, published in six numbers of the New York Herald at intervals from September 26 to November 19, 1858. Ormsby, a special correspondent of the Herald, was the only through passenger on the first westbound stage. His articles, here reprinted,{1} supply a graphic picture of the country through which he passed from St. Louis to San Francisco. They furnish a full and accurate account of the controversy that raged over the various proposed transcontinental routes for a mail-and-passenger stage line, which had been authorized by an act of Congress in March, 1857. They also give the Postmaster-General’s reasons for selecting the thirty-second parallel route, with an eastern bifurcation, and awarding the contract to John Butterfield and his associates.

Ormsby says in his first article that, in view of the importance of this enterprise at this time, and the bearing which it has upon the future destinies of this country, I propose to give you a condensed account of the origin and history of the contract and the claims of the competing routes. From the information presented concerning the different routes, it is evident that, before his departure from New York, he had made an exhaustive study of the overland project.{2} The fact that he traveled a considerable distance on the stage with John Butterfield, president of the Overland Mail Company, lends authority to his statements about the company. The articles covering the trip, written for the most part en route, furnish a narrative of stagecoach travel as told by an acute observer, who appreciated the dangers of such a journey without dramatizing them. The series as a whole makes an important contribution to the annals of transportation in the United States.

The mail route adopted by the Postmaster-General had two eastern terminals on the Mississippi River, one at St. Louis and the other at Memphis, the two forks converging at Fort Smith, Arkansas. From Fort Smith, the line ran through Indian Territory to Colbert’s Ferry on the Texas border, thence bore to the west, over the plains of Texas, to Franklin, opposite El Paso, Mexico, crossing the dreaded Llano Estacado en route. Leaving Franklin, the road traversed the arid lands of New Mexico Territory, and entered California near Fort Yuma, on the Colorado River. At this point it dipped southward into Mexico for a short distance and re-entered California in the neighborhood of the New River, crossed the mountains (by way of Warner’s ranch) to Los Angeles, and proceeded north through the San Joaquin Valley and Pacheco Pass to San Francisco, the western terminal. The route was over 2,700 miles long, and the first run of the Butterfield stages, carrying the mail and Ormsby, was made in 23 days, 23 hours.

Waterman Lily Ormsby, Jr., the Herald correspondent, was born in New York City, December 8, 1834. His father was a prominent engraver, the author of several pamphlets on the engraving of banknotes, and one of the founders of the Continental Bank Note Company.{3} Little is known of the son’s early schooling, or when he began newspaper work. During his career as a reporter he was associated with four New York newspapers, the Herald, Times, World, and Sun.

When Ormsby made the overland trip, he was twenty-three years old, a married man, and the father of a nine-months-old boy,{4} who is referred to in the articles. Ormsby did not regard his assignment entirely in the nature of a youthful adventure, but appreciated the fact that he was participating in a historical event. Upon his arrival in San Francisco, his enthusiasm for the overland mail route, and its potential place in the development of the rich and interesting country through which he had passed, was undiminished. And, even though the journey had been fatiguing, he said he was willing to repeat it. However, Mr. Harlow has stated that Ormsby returned to New York by steamer.{5}

Little or nothing has been found concerning Ormsby’s activities during the next twelve years. About 1870 he became affiliated with the Continental Bank Note Company, holding a responsible position with that firm for fourteen years. In 1885 he was appointed official stenographer of the magistrates’ court of New York City—a position in which he continued until his death on April 29, 1908.{6} He was survived by his wife, one daughter, and two of three sons, both of whom were stenographers in the New York Supreme Court. Ormsby always took pride in having been for many years the de facto president of the New York Liberal Club while Horace Greeley was nominally its presiding officer.

In the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin Supplement dated December 16, 1858, under the heading Letter from Washington, Nov. 19, 1858, there occurs the charge that Ormsby was employed by the Butterfield Overland Mail Company. The item reads as follows:

The N. Y. "Herald’s" Puffing Reporter of

the Butterfield Overland Route

The comments of the Bulletin upon the invidious attempt of parties in San Francisco to make a little capital for the New York Herald, by puffing its marvelous enterprise in dispatching a special correspondent to San Francisco via the Butterfield Overland Mail{7} met a cordial response here, where it is known that said correspondent was specially employed at the expense of the company, to go over the route and write it up! The mail company doubtless deserves credit for its enterprise in that respect, and it certainly had a perfect right to resort to any and every honorable measure to advertise its route and bring it into public notice; but it was an unworthy trick to try to make capital out of these facts for the Herald. Desperately as it needs such adventitious boosting nowadays, it could hardly expect the effort to pass unchallenged.

Butterfield may have furnished the Herald with a pass for its reporter, and may also have extended the same offer to other large newspapers; but Ormsby’s account does not seem to indicate that he was employed by the overland company.

John Butterfield, president of the company, was born at Berne, New York, November 18, 1801. He had little formal education, and at an early age became a stage driver. His rise was rapid and he was soon in control of several stage lines in the state of New York. He was one of the founders of the American Express Company, which was formed in 1850.{8}

On September 16, 1857, Butterfield and his associates signed a six-year contract, at $600,000 per annum, for a semi-weekly mail service between St. Louis and San Francisco. By the terms of section thirteen of the post-office appropriation bill of March 3, 1857, the company had to commence service within one year of signing. Butterfield’s opponents said he could never establish a line of stations across the country and properly equip them with stock and coaches; or, if he did, the line—the longest in the world—would be too unwieldy and was thus doomed to failure. But years of staging experience, coupled with his planning and organizing ability, enabled Butterfield to make the enterprise an outstanding success. Reliable service over the route was maintained during the company’s two and one-half years of operation—it was abandoned following the outbreak of the Civil War.

Several books and monographs have been published that deal more or less extensively with the Butterfield enterprise, and a short check list of titles relating to the subject has been compiled.{9} The question of the date of departure of the first mail from St. Louis and from San Francisco has caused a number of writers considerable trouble. The majority record September 15, 1858, as the date of simultaneous departure; a few set the date as September 16; and others give only the date of departure from San Francisco. This confusion is unquestionably due, at least in part, to the newspaper announcements in San Francisco and St. Louis, which stated that the first mail would leave their respective cities at the same time. Even Ormsby assumed that the western mail left on the same day as the eastern, and he did not learn differently until his stage met the eastbound one at the entrance of Guadalupe Canyon on September 28.

Actually, the stage carrying the mail for the East left San Francisco September 15, and the westbound mail left St. Louis September 16.{10} These two dates have been noticed by a few writers, and Monas N. Squires deals with the subject rather fully.{11}

Shortly after Ormsby arrived in San Francisco two of that city’s newspapers, the Alta California and the Bulletin, sent special correspondents eastward on the overland route. The Alta’s reporter, J. M. Farwell, covered the same ground as Ormsby, but the unidentified Bulletin reporter traveled from San Francisco to Memphis. The latter’s article, dated Memphis, December 8, 1858, describing the portion of his journey from Fort Smith to Memphis, is reprinted in the Appendix.

The frontispiece to the present volume is a reproduction of the first time schedule issued by the Overland Mail Company. The original was recently found in the miscellaneous papers of the Lieber collection in the Huntington Library.{12} The schedule is very rare, if not unique; no copy is recorded in Camp’s revision of Wagner,{13} nor is any reference made to it in the many publications relating to the company. Ormsby, in his first article in the Herald, writes, although you have already published the time table of the company, I think it will be interesting to your readers to repeat it here; but he supplies only that part of the table under the heading Going West, or, as Ormsby designates it, Going to San Francisco.{14} Both the Bulletin and the Alta California give the timetable, at least in part, and probably it could be found in other newspapers.{15}

The original schedule, a single sheet, measures 8¹/2 by 14¹/8 inches. An east-and-west timetable and a few company rules are printed on the recto, and a double column of special instructions appears on the verso. Number eleven of the instructions states that the through fare, either way, will be $200. However, the initial west-east fare was $100; the amount was increased to $200 in January, and reduced to $150 in May.{16} There is no place of printing or printer’s name recorded. Possibly Heiller & Company, of New York, printed the schedule, as their name occurs on the second one, which was issued about five months later, in January, 1859. The second schedule is more elaborate, judging from two different descriptions of the only known copy.{17}

Footnotes to the text have been added only when clarification seemed necessary, or there was new or little-known information to present. The editors appreciate the fact that some of the footnotes, particularly those relating to California, could have been expanded; however, such additional information is readily available. A number of persons mentioned in the text do not have identifying footnotes, because too slight information about them, or none at all, was found. Capitalization and punctuation have been modernized in the reprint, and obvious compositor’s errors have been corrected, for the most part, without notice, but misspellings of proper names have been retained, with corrections immediately following in square brackets.

The editors wish to thank the following for their generous assistance in assembling biographical information about Ormsby: Mr. Joseph Gavit, Associate Librarian of New York State Library; Mr. Matthew Redding, of the Reference Department of the New York World-Telegram; Mr. D. G. Rogers, Director of Reference of the New York Herald-Tribune; and Mr. Donald A. Roberts, Secretary of the Associate Alumni of the College of the City of New York. Thanks are also due to Miss Alice Lerch, of the Library of Congress, for her kind help.

ORMSBY’S ARTICLES

New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1858—OVERLAND TO SAN FRANCISCO

[Tipton, Missouri] September 16

On the Way to San Francisco Overland

Sept. 16, 1858

Details of the Starting of the First Mail. What the Western People Think of It. The Direction for the Mail Bag. The Route on the Pacific Railroad. Necessity of Military Protection over the Plains. A Suggestion for the Occasion, &c., &c.

I SENT you a letter, this morning, with an account of the great overland mail enterprise; but, owing to the fact that I started along with the first mail bag, I could not give you the details of the start, though I informed you that