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Wikimedia
Wikimedia
Robert Haslam, aka Pony Bob, made the longest uninterrupted 380-mile ride in the history of the Pony Express.
William Frederick Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, worked as a mounted messenger and herder for the Pony Express in his early years.
84 SPEEDHORSE July 2023
Lincoln’s Inaugural Address in the fastest Pony Express relay on record.
Aside from “Pony Bob,” there was no shortage of memorable riders. For all the morality that Alexander Majors tried to instill in them, they were a badly behaved bunch. An observer considered most of the riders to be “dreadful, rough and unconventional.” This was exemplified when – after the Pony Express shut down – one rider joined a gang of horse thieves that plagued Missouri. When a posse arrived to hunt the gang down, he fatally shot a man and fled. The rider was later captured and sentenced to death; however, he survived a lynching attempt and escaped. Fifteen months later, he was arrested for a robbery and hung.
It wasn’t the only time a Pony Express employee ran afoul of the law. While the service was still operating, another rider got drunk and killed a man. He was also hung.
On a more positive note, a few riders parlayed their experience in the Pony Express into successive lives and careers. The most notable of these individuals was William Frederick Cody – better known as Buffalo Bill.
Like many other Wild West figures,
the stories from Buffalo Bill’s life are so outlandish that it’s difficult to tell which ones are actually true. In 1846, he was
born on a farm in Iowa. When Cody was eight years old, his family moved to the Kansas Territory – which had become the epicenter of the clash between abolitionists and advocates for slavery. Cody’s father, Isaac, fiercely opposed it. On one occasion, he was invited to make a speech at a store frequented by many pro-slavery men. Isaac Cody made the crowd so furious that
they began threatening to kill him unless
he stopped. When he didn’t, one person attacked him with a Bowie knife. The store owner broke up the fight and made sure Isaac got the treatment he needed, but the wounds plagued him for the rest of his life.
After his father died from a respiratory illness (exacerbated by the injuries he received during the speech), Cody was forced to become the breadwinner for his family at 11 years
old. Ironically, his first job was as a mounted messenger and herder for Russell, Majors, and Waddell (three years before they founded the Pony Express). In the interim, Cody worked
as a beaver trapper, tried his hand at gold prospecting, and somehow managed to fit in a few months of formal schooling.
the Paiute War, a young man named Robert Haslam – an English native who’d immigrated to America as a teenager – was compelled to make the “longest uninterrupted ride” in Pony Express history. After leaving western Nevada with the eastbound mail, Haslam arrived at one depot and realized that all the horses were gone. The settlers had commandeered them to use in their campaign against the Paiute. Undeterred, Haslam continued on to the station where he was supposed to hand his satchel off to the next person in the relay. Unfortunately, the relief rider was so afraid of being attacked that he refused to go. Haslam rested for ten minutes, swung onto a fresh horse, and took off again. After 190 miles in the saddle, he passed the mail on to another rider named J. G. Kelley. Haslam wasn’t finished yet. Once he’d gotten some sleep, he turned around and rode back the way he had come with the westbound mail. When he reached one station, the rider discovered that the station master had been killed and the horses had been spooked off. Haslam plunged ahead – unknowingly passing a mounted band of Paiute in the dark – and reached his final station. He had covered a total of 380 miles. Because of his feat, Robert Haslam became a minor celebrity for the rest of his life – and earned the nickname “Pony Bob.” He also helped to deliver Abraham
According to his autobiography, Cody joined the Pony Express at the age of 14. His claim is often questioned. For one, Cody was notorious for sensationalizing his life and experiences. Additionally, historians haven’t been able to verify if he rode for the Pony Express because the company didn’t keep complete records of its employees. In this case, it can be inferred that Cody was telling the truth. As former Buffalo Bill Museum curator Paul Fees noted, “The crucial role he and his Wild West show later played in commemorating the Pony Express, and his close friendship with men central to
the Pony Express, both cloud the issue and in some ways make the debate irrelevant. In the absence of other records, the most it may be possible to say is that as a skilled horseman, an adventurous youth, and an erstwhile employee of the company, Bill was in the right place at the right time.”
Cody’s childhood undisputedly set him on
a unique path. During the Civil War, he earned his nickname by supplying the Union Army with buffalo meat. Afterwards, he won a Medal of Honor for his services as a scout during
the Plains Wars; founded the town of Cody, Wyoming; and created Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show – which included a tribute to the Pony Express. Today, Cody is credited with shaping