900 Miles on the Butterfield Trail

Part II. The Long & Dangerous Days—The First Overland Mail Trip & Stations Along the Route

PART Two The Long and Dangerous Days - The First Overland ~ail Trip & Stations Along the CJ\Qute THE first Butterfield Overland Mail trip westward started on time from St. Louis at 8 A.M., September 16, 1858. It didn't start by stagecoach, it began by steam train, going from the St. Louis station via Pacific Railroad to the end of the rail line at the new town of Tipton, Missouri, which the Pacific Railroad had created . John Butterfield and Waterman L. Ormsby accompanied the two small pouches of mail from St. Louis. Ormsby tells us that the mail pouches were prepared for their transcontinental adventure by means of a simple branded stick: San Francisco, California Per Overland Mail St. Louis, Sept. 16, 1858 Return Label by Express' It was an historic moment. Ormsby sensed the importance of the Butterfield experiment and was perplexed, even annoyed, that so few others attached the same significance to the event, as he wrote for the readers: Although some of the St. Louis papers noticed that this important enterprise was to be commenced today, but little attention appeared to be paid it, except by the personal friends of the contractors and a few others. Indeed, I have been somewhat surprised to find that in the West-which, above all other sections of the country, is to be benefitted-so little attention is paid to the great overland mail! "I looked forward in my imagination," he wrote that first morning , "to the time when ... instead of having to wait over forty days 35 for an answer from San Francisco, a delay of as many minutes will be looked upon as a gross imposition, and of as many seconds as 'doing from fair to middling....3 Turning south from Tipton, the stage reached Springfield, Missouri . Once during this portion of the ride, Butterfield actually shared the reins with his son, "Young" John, the regular driver. The mail road crossed northwestern Arkansas and reached Fort Smith, where the westbound mail from Memphis was taken aboard and the elder Butterfield apparently disembarked. Although the line would pass through higher mountains before reaching San Francisco, the "steep and rugged hills which surround the Ozark range in this section of Arkansas"4 remained fearful to cross, according to later travelers. From Fort Smith the path led directly into Indian Territory-fording the Poteau River-and through the Choctaw Nation, then a semi-independent province. Most of the stations within the Choctaw Nation were owned and operated by members of the Choctaw tribe, as land ownership in the area, under Choctaw law, was forbidden to anyone not a tribal member.' The first Butterfield station southwest of Fort Smith was Walker's, kept by tribal Governor George Tandy Walker. Then came Trahern's station (the Conklings spell it ''Trayhern''), called the Council House, operated byJudge James N. Trahern, of the Choctaw courts. Continuing the road toward the Red River, William Holloway's station was at the entrance to a gentle pass called "The Narrows" where Holloway, with a charter from the Choctaw Nation, operated a toll gate. John Riddle's station, in present-day Lamar County, was next. It had a coal mine that provided blacksmith coal to several other stations . The stage then encountered a small relay station called Mountain Station before reaching Silas Pusley's station, which has the historical misfortune of being spelled three or four dozen different ways in various historical accounts (Pursley, Pulsey, Pusey, etc.). Casper Blackburn's station, a little further to the southwest. was located in the fairly sizable community of Brush Settlement, while the station at Waddell was first called "Old Beale" and later named J. Colbert's after the Butterfield stopped running.6 A. W. Geary's station (later Well's and Roger's), had a tollbridge over the North Boggy River, and Old Boggy Depot, the next station, was at a well-traveled crossroads of the old Texas Road and the military road west to Fort Washita and Fort Arbuckle. Boggy was the busiest and most important Butterfield station between Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Sherman, Texas.7 At J. H. Nail's station on the Blue River, also called Nail's Crossing , Waterman Ormsby was amazed and delighted to discover that Nail was a subscriber to Ormsby's own newspaper, the New York Herald. The next station, Fisher's, was called Carriage Point, both before and after it was a...