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| The American Stamp Club of Great Britain |
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The American Stamp Club of Great Britain was founded in 1954. There are over 400 members from all over the world. |
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| The Butterfield Overland mail |
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| by John Edwards |
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Some 75,000 angry Californians despatched a giant petition to Congress in April 1856 demanding the construction of a wagon road and a daily overland mail service between East and West. A year later an Act of Congress authorised the Postmaster General to contract for a semi-weekly service from some place on the Mississippi River to San Francisco in:
"good four-horse coaches or spring wagons, suitable for the conveyance of passengers as well as the safety and security of the mails ... the said service shall be performed within twenty-five days for each trip".
There was great competition among the cities along the Mississippi Valley to become the Eastern end of the overland mail route. The route finally approved by Postmaster General Aaron V Brown had two Eastern starting points, one at Memphis and the other at St Louis. The routes were to meet at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then sweep south-westerly across Indian Territory, through northern Texas from Red River near Preston to Franklin (now known as El Paso), across three hundred miles of arid New Mexico Territory, through Apache Pass to Tucson, Maricopa Wells and Yuma where the Colorado River was crossed by ferry. From this southerly point in California the route was to turn north to Los Angeles and up the central valley to San Francisco.
John Butterfield signed the contract on 16 September 1857 to provide the service. The contract gave him a year to start the service. He was a man of great energy, although in his late fifties, and took personal charge of the preparations. The route was surveyed and the distance from St Louis to San Francisco was found to be 2,795 miles.
Orders for the manufacture of 250 stagecoaches were placed. Way stations were built, wells were dug in the desert to provide water for passengers and horses. 1,800 horses and mules were purchased, and hundreds of drivers, blacksmiths and local managers were hired.
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| Overland Mail Co Celerity Wagon (From a drawing by Richard Blake) |
The Butterfield Overland Mail conveyed letters twice a week in both directions over this route. The precise route varied slightly depending upon the season and the degree of hostility shown by the Indians. Mail was carried at 10c per half ounce. The coaches also carried passengers, and had room for five or six at an average one-way fare for the full trip of $200, with shorter distances charged at ten cents per mile.
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Letter carried via Butterfield's overland route
From San Francisco to New York. 6 December 1858.
(From the author's collection.) |
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Letter carried in 1859 from Utica, NY
to Sacramento, California, endorsed 'Overland Mail'.
(From the author's collection.) |
Butterfield drew up special instructions for his conductors, drivers and other employees which stressed the importance of having all passengers' names entered on the waybill at the point of departure, insisting that their fares be paid in advance, and that names were checked against the waybill at each point of re-boarding the stage. Each passenger was allowed to carry baggage not exceeding 40 pounds.
Almost as an afterthought he included a note about Indians
"A good look-out should be kept for Indians. No intercourse should be had with them, but let them alone; by no means annoy or wrong them. At all times an efficient guard should be kept, and such guard should always be ready for any emergency."
Passengers carried firearms, and were expected to protect the mail if the coach was attacked. It was an exhausting journey, but passengers who could not endure the full trip and left the stage risked forfeiting their seats. They sometimes had to wait four to six weeks before another stage came by with a vacant seat.
The Butterfield route was short lived. It started on 16 September 1858 and lasted until 1 March 1861. It carried news of the outbreak of the Civil War to California in February 1861. It ceased operation shortly afterwards because of the lack of drivers and horses - unavailable for staging operations because they were recruited to the war effort. The Union government also feared the route was vulnerable to interference by the Confederacy.
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| Reprinted with permission from The Mayflower, journal of the American Stamp Club of Great Britain |
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