It Happened Here -- "Good Indians" 

NYS Capitol, Albany

Phillip Sheridan is arguably New York's most famous Civil War general.  William Tecumseh Sherman's right hand man, he led the slashing cavalry arm of Sherman's march to the sea. His massive bronze statue graces the east lawn of New York's capital. After the war he was tasked with the job of rounding up western Indian tribes and forcing them onto reservations. It was during this period he uttered the infamous quote that sullied his reputation for all time: "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead"(popularly reported as "The only good Indian is a dead Indian")

Bitter European/Native American conflicts have dominated American history from the 16th through the end of the 19th centuries. A number of years ago historian Jill Lepore   analysized of one of the earlier conflicts between Native Americans and European settlers, the King Phillip's War, of 1675. Viewing it from a symbolic interactionist perspective she declared,"War is a contest of words, as much as it is a contest of wounds."(Lepore, 47.) Because Indian peoples' traditions were predominately oral and they had no written languages of their own, they left few of their  perspectives, insights, and recollections of historical events, other than pictograms on rocks, elk skins and buffalo robes, that  have come down to us. This is not to say that there were no literate and eloquent native-Americans,  fully capable of recording their thoughts and observations in English, or their native languages. (In New York's experience think of Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) and Sagoyewatha (Red Jacket.)  Rather, this reflects the fact that instead of expressing themselves through diaries, memoirs or political monographs, etc. they  preferred the oratory of the powwow, the council fire, not only to interpret contemporary events but to inform younger generations who came to listen and learn their histories. Sadly, such communication is by its very nature evanescent and limited to speakers and listeners, subject to distortion and loss over time, tending to leave the field of battle (and the victory) in the war of words to to the writers of the written word.

 One result is that some of the most egregious acts of white settlers became recorded in a positive light, and the people who committed them celebrated as bold frontiersmen and patriots.  Consider the stories about Nick Stoner in his post-revolutionary years recorded by  Jephra Root Simms .  In The Trappers of New York, Simms relates that Stoner became feared by Iroquois hunters and trappers for the ferocity with which he defended his trap lines and his tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.  While never confessing to killing an Indian he made no secret of his frequent homicidal impulses and actions. (See this blog  12/01/2014.)

Another frontiersman, with genocidal impulses, living along the New York-Pennsylvania border,  was Tom Quick Jr.  Subject of several NYSHMs, Quick became something of a local 19th century folk hero. The Quicks were early settlers of the upper Delaware Valley. In 1756 Quick had watched helplessly as his father was scalped by a band of marauding Delaware Indians, who were rebelling against the appropriation of their ancestral lands. From that day forward, the unhinged Quick Jr. appears to have made a career of hunting down and murdering Indians wherever he found them along the frontier. Not surprisingly, verifiable facts about his deeds are almost non-existent but it is alleged he may have killed anywhere between six and (his count) ninety-nine Native Americans.

NYS 209, North of Accord

DECKER'S TAVERN
HERE MODELINE, THE INDIAN
WHO SCALPED TOM QUICK, SR.
REENACTED THE OLD MAN'S
DEATH AGONY. HE W AS SHOT'
FOR IT BY TOM QUICK, JR.
ON US 209 ABOUT 3/4 MI. NORTHEAST OF PORT JERVIS

 Tom Quick, Sr. moved from his family farm near Accord, New York about 1733, and settled in Milford, PA.  In 1889, a wealthy descendant of the Quicks erected a monument in Milford and brought Tom Jr's. remains from Metamoras, a town across the border from Port Jervis, N.Y.  to Milford. For years the monument stood there neglected and undisturbed on a side street of sleepy Milford, until in 1997 when it was vandalized.  The town repaired the monument but the national attention the vandalism received ignited a firestorm of controversy and the repaired monument was never reinstalled. In its place a small bronze plaque was set marking Quick's grave, commenting that the original monument was from a different time and reflected a different "mindset," and noting that the historical facts of Quick's life are in dispute.

The rapid removal of Indians from New York and the absence of a written record presenting their side of the Indian /European conflicts allowed 19th and early 20th century antiquarians and historians to give their biases and prejudices full reign and to give uncritical credence to stories and myths passed down from European settlers and their descendants.

"Mohican" Cemetery on  Co.Rte.56, Turkey Hill Rd., Milan

Last year I wrote a post about the Mohican Indians of Dutchess County (6/9/15).  In it I published this picture.  Following my post I received an e-mail from Bill Jeffway the Town of Milan Historian.  Mr. Jeffway has done  research that led him to conclude that this cemetery was, in fact, a  cemetery for blacks and not an Indian burial ground. He speculates that local residents and historians from the turn of the century through the 1930's wished to distance themselves from New York's Black and slave holding past and were eager to embrace any romantic half-remembered stories of Christian Mohican Indians, conveniently dead or historically removed to far-off Wisconsin.

NY444, cor. NY96, Victor, NY

An even clearer-cut case of romanticizing long dead Indians,  and attributing their actions to the furtherance of "manifest destiny" and the taming/christianizing of the frontier is found in a small monument in Victor, New York.  In 1687 the Marquis de Denonville led a punitive raid deep into Seneca Indian territory. The raid's purpose was to punish the western Iroquois for their attacks on French towns outside of Montreal. Accompanying Denonville was a large party of Caughnawaga Mohawks who had been converted to Catholicism a few decades before by Jesuit missionaries and had emigrated to French Canada.
 Upon seeing this monument, the first detail that grabs your attention is the Plains Indian headdress and cigar store Indian pose of the bust on the monument. Secondly, you observe the large cross around the figure's neck that looks as if it were removed from a Jesuit's robe. The third is the inscription. There is little doubt that  Athasata and his Mohawks were allies to the French and their interests, but can "the Great Christian Chief" (in fact a chief whose position depended upon his status as a warrior) be credited as a "promoter of peace, respecter of treaties, defender of righteousness" in light his attacks on the Seneca, in violation of "The Great Law of Peace" that had united the Iroquois for centuries? Athasata (Kryn) also appears to be the Indian leader leading the "massacre" two years later (1689/90)  of the Dutch/English (ie. Christian) town of Schenectady. (see my blog of 9/12/15).                                                                                                                                                                                                   
(Marker text:  In perpetuation of the Name of /Athasata (Kryn)/ The Great Christian Mohawk Chief/
Promoter of Peace, Respecter of Treaties, Defender of Righteousness--Valiant Warrior Leader of the Indian forces forming one third of the army of the DeNonville expedition which passed (1687) along this Indian Trail,/ "I cannot speak too highly of the assistance we receive from this great Mohawk chief and his warriors. Our Christian Indians surpassed all and performed deeds of valor, especially the Iroquois upon whom we had not dared to rely to fight against their relatives."--Denonville/ The Name of Athasata merits a place in history beside the names of the Greatest Iroquois Leaders.)

Finally, there is the monument and NYSHM honoring Gu-ya-no-ga.  Gu-ya-no-ga was a statuesque Seneca chief of noble bearing, reputed to stand six foot or six foot four inches tall.  In the early stages of the Revolutionary War Gu-ya-no-ga had fought for Colonel Butler and his Loyalists during the Wyoming Valley Raids, and his son, Panther had died at the Battle of Chemung, but he came to sympathize with the American cause and regretted having supported the British. 'A veritable Roman of the New World,' and 'one of the Noblest men of the Woods,' he became a friend and adviser to General George Washington.  Following the War he lived in peace and dignity in his wigwam on the farm of Frank Botsford in Jerusalem township near Penn Yan, N.Y. He died and was  buried in an unmarked grave on his small piece of ground, early in the century; his remains were discovered by accident about 1850.

Co. Rt 29 (Guyanoga Rd.), Penn Yan

--And there is one more fact about Gu-ya-no-ga: None of the above is true!  There is not a shred of documentary evidence that Gu-ya-no-ga ever existed, not in the oral traditions of the Senecas, not in the early records of Yates County, or of the followers of Jemimina Wilkinson--among the earliest settlers of Jerusalem township, or in any of the extensively studied papers of George Washington.

 Gu-ya-no-ga seems to have first appeared in an undated local newspaper clipping  written some time between 1873 and 1888. based on information supplied by Samuel Botsford (Frank's son) and a neighbor James A. Cole. A biographer of the Universal Friend, Jemima Wilkinson, Arnold Potter,       relates a story of how Gu-ya-no-ga came about. According to Potter, a group of strangers gathered together for a lumbering project sat around after work. Relaxing around a barrel of (hard?) cider they began swopping stories about Indians. One of their number revealed he wrote a column for a local paper and was pressed for a story. They prevailed on him to create a composite character from the stories they were telling. (Perhaps because stories of "bad"Indians and their deeds were so commonplace, they focused on a "good" Indian--one who repented his "misdeeds" early in the revolution, settled down, and became a friend to the local farmers, and faced his reduced circumstances and his own extinction with quiet dignity.) As the cider got lower in the barrel, the "good' Indian grew both in physical and moral stature, becoming at last, a confidant of George Washington, himself!

For a while the family and friends of the creators of Gu-ya-no-ga were secretly amused by this "in joke" but gradually the reputation of Gu-ya-no-ga grew. The valley in which the Botsford farm was located became the vale of Gu-ya-no-ga, and the local road, Guyanoga road. The truth became an embarrassment. The local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution embraced  the story and named themselves the Guyanoga Chapter. In 1910 a monument was created.  A concrete obelisk was cast. It was topped with a sheet iron Indian that had once been an ornament on a Hudson river steamer, and more recently graced a barn in Branchport. Four hundred people attended the day's festivities, that included a 'farmers' picnic,' a band concert, a baseball game, an 'Indian princess' and of course, several speeches. Notable among them was one by the local historian who gave many interesting details of Guyanoga's life, citing as his sources 'accounts that have drifted down through various ways'.  Two decades later local community leaders applied for, and received a NYSHM honoring their local Native American hero. 

In the long war that Native Americans (in general) and New York's native peoples (specifically) fought to preserve their homelands for themselves they lost twice. They lost the battle for  their homelands to European settlers, politicians and land speculators, and they mostly lost the historical narrative of that battle to white historians, myth creators and story tellers.  Their claims on the land are mostly gone forever; their claims on the historical narrative may be only partially recovered.

It Happened Here--The Expressmen

Part 2

Gold was discovered in California in 1848 and by 1851 Henry Wells and William Fargo were itching to get a piece of the express business that resulted from the $60 million of gold that was dug from the hills or panned from the streams east of Sacramento and needed to be forwarded1   by express companies to miners families and banks in the east. But John Butterfield and several of the other directors of American Express were not so sure. Managing an enterprise from 3000 miles and several months away in an environment where there was little stable civil government and often no law enforcement was risky at best. When the issue of expansion into California was debated in March 1852 Butterfield was able to get the proposal voted down. In ten days, Wells and Fargo assembled a group of new investors and formed a new company, Wells, Fargo and Co., to exploit the far-western market. The old teamster was furious and used all the language he had acquired over the years of encouraging recalcitrant horses and mules over torturous turnpikes and trails. Henry Wells remembered in later years Butterfield’s reaction: ‘All the profanity that one head could hold, or one tongue could utter, was used to express his friendship toward me and Fargo' (Fradkin, 7.)

Within the first year, twelve offices, sporting the bright green iron security shutters that would become a hallmark of Wells Fargo offices, sprang up in California. Samuel P. Carter who had run Wells’ American Express office in Albany came to run the express operations while Reuben W. Washburn, a Syracuse banker came to oversee the banking aspects of the business.

The phenomenal growth of population in California from the gold rush caught the U.S, Postal Service unprepared. The San Francisco post office was flooded annually with 2.6 million letters. As mining camps sprung up by the score throughout gold country the post office was at a loss as to how to provide service. Express businesses, Wells, Fargo and Co. included, stepped in to fill the void. The higher rates that express companies charged enabled them to search out the often-transient miners among the myriad of camps. The Wells Fargo office in Auburn in Placer county, California, for example, had a somewhat typical service area for Wells Fargo offices in gold country. Express riders went to ‘Spanish Flat, Millertown, Junction bar¹, New York bar, Louisiana bar, and Murder’s bar on the Middle fork of the American River; Kelly’s bar, and Barnes bar on the North Fork; Illinoistown, all bars on the North Fork and Bear River, between Illinoistown and Cold Springs, and all points between the two rivers.’ By 1877 Wells Fargo was even providing their own bright green letter boxes in San Francisco, and a special route staffed by three Chinese mail sorters served San Francisco’s Chinatown. Though Wells Fargo’s delivery of the mail remained technically illegal for many years they were able to avoid a government crackdown by buying Post Office stamped envelopes—thus paying the Post Office’s delivery charge, then adding their own Wells Fargo frank and delivering them at two to three times the government’s price.

Wells Fargo grew, in part by buying out its California competitors, one each year in 1852, 1853 and 1854. In 1855 a bank panic occurred. Though its causes were many and complex, a dry year in the Sierra Nevada’s resulted in less gold being taken from the gold bearing sands. (Large quantities of water were needed to flush the lighter sands from the heavier gold particles.) With the decline in gold, businesses became over extended. Reduced sales meant they were unable to pay on loans or were forced to withdraw savings to pay their bills. Panic spread as depositors rushed to withdraw their money, fearing the banks and express companies would not have enough assets to cover all the withdrawals, and would close. One hundred and ninety seven business houses failed in San Francisco, among them Adams and Company Express, the largest express company in California, and one of the largest in America. But Wells Fargo remained solvent with sufficient reserves and became the only major express company in California.

Despite John Butterfield’s anger at Fargo and Wells for creating a new express company the three had multiple business interests together, and “business was business”. In 1857 Congress proposed a $600,000 subsidy for a contractor to develop a route and carry the mail from Missouri to San Francisco. Butterfield turned to William Fargo to help him develop a proposal. The contract would not necessarily go to the low bidder but would go to the contractor who could impress the Postmaster General of his ability to carry out the contract. Butterfield and Fargo made an impressive proposal, and it probably did not hurt any that Butterfield was a close personal friend of President James Buchanan. The route, itself, was specified by Postmaster General Brown. Brown, a Tennessean, chose a southerly “oxbow” route through Arkansas, Indian Territory, Texas, Arizona and southern California. Northern critics howled that this was a ploy of the southern slaveholders to develop southern territories so they might eventually enter the union as slave states. Butterfield himself was reportedly unhappy with it, but this route had the decided advantage of being snow-free all year long.

The Butterfield Overland Mail Company was a gigantic enterprise that put all of Butterfield’s impressive organizational and leadership skills to the test. The contract specified he had one year to get the stagecoach line, the longest in the United States, up and running. Almost $1 million would be invested. One thousand horses, 500 mules, 800 hundred harnesses, and almost 500 wagons needed to be purchased, ready and in place. More than 800 employees had to be hired to drive the teams and maintain the way stations. Over time 200 stations would be built. For his main stagecoach, Butterfield chose the “Concord” nine-passenger coach manufactured by Abbot Downing Company of Concord New Hampshire. The Concord coach featured a unique suspension that supported the coach body on leather straps causing it to rock when it went over bumps. The manufacturer maintained this made for a smoother ride than spring suspensions that could bottom out when a coach went over severe bumps and was easier on both passengers and horses. Less well known were Butterfield’s “Celerity” wagons that Butterfield, himself, was said to have designed. Built on a Concord frame the Celeritys were lighter and with a canvass roof had a lower center of gravity that made them less likely to turn over on some of the worst trails. Pulled by mules, they would be used on some of the roughest sections of the route. Butterfield contracted for one hundred of these “mud” wagons to be built by James Goold’s factory in Albany. Freight and utility wagons built in Troy to carry hay and supplies were also purchased.

The government lost money on the Overland Mail delivery, but Butterfield, through good management, was able to operate at a profit within the $ 600,000 per year government subsidy enhanced by some passenger fares and regular express business from Wells, Fargo and Co.. Twice a week, from 1858 to 1861 both eastbound and westbound stages came and went despite occasional Apache raids on way station horse corrals and much more infrequent Indian attacks on the stage coaches themselves. The succession of Texas from the Union and the beginning of the Civil Was brought the southern route to a close. In 1861 Wells, Fargo Company bought out and reorganized the Overland Mail. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, transcontinental stagecoach service came to an end.                                 

Wells College Campus,  Aurora

Henry Wells and William Fargo remained on the board of Wells, Fargo Co. for several more years but others ran the company as Fargo and Wells became interested in other projects. Henry Wells’ health declined after 1853 and he retired from Wells Fargo in 1867 and from American Express, the following year. In 1868 he founded Wells College for Women in his hometown of Aurora New York, one of the first colleges exclusively for women. John Butterfield became mayor of Utica in 1865. He died in 1869. William Fargo invested heavily in railroads and became a director of both the New York Central and Northern Pacific Railroads. Fargo, North Dakota, created by the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad was named for him. Involved in Democratic Party politics, Fargo was elected major of the city of Buffalo from 1862 to 1868. He was president of American Express from 1868 to his death in 1881.

1Typically, miners would deposit their gold dust with Wells Fargo (or other express companies) and be issued a bank “sight” draft that the express company would deliver to their families out east. Shipments from San Francisco of gold bullion were made by steamship, on a regular basis.  

2 A“bar” refers to a sand or gravel bar of gold bearing sediments.

 
Sources: 

               Fradkin, Philip L. Stagecoach, Wells Fargo and the American West, New York. 2002.

               Loomis, Noel M. Wells Fargo. New York. 1968.

Marker of the Week -- The "Coffin Man"

Early America saw a proliferation of itinerant merchants, tradesmen and craftsmen servicing the remote farms and tiny communities across New York and most of the United States, as well.  One of the stranger sights must have been that of the itinerant stone carver with his heavy wagonload of cut slabs of stone,  inquiring at local farms and country crossroads if anyone knew of any families who had buried a loved one in recent months, or even years, and needed a tombstone for their grave. When he found a customer he might set up shop along the road, in a side yard or barn and begin personalizing the family's choice of a tombstone with the deceased's name, dates, perhaps some particulars of his life or death, and most certainly a personalized epitaph.
    

NY Rt. 41, Coventryville

Most stone carvers labored in obscurity with their work no more recognized than the average carpenter, wheelwright, blacksmith or cooper, but in south central New York and northern Pennsylvania one itinerant stone carver distinguished his work by carving small coffin shapes at the bottom of his stones to represent the people buried there.  A man and his wife would have two coffin shapes; a parent and child a large and a small coffin; a mother and her infant, one large and one tiny coffin. For over 30 years, local researcher, Mary Dexter of Cortland was obsessed with locating as many works of the "Coffin Man" as she could, and attempting to discover his identity.  She found over 200 of them, likely carved between 1811 and 1822. And finally she discovered his identity in the estate papers of one of his 'customers.'  Jonas W. Stewart (II), of Coventryville, Chenango County, New York was paid $5 for a stone he carved.  Son of a New Hampshire stone carver, he and his brother were both itinerant tombstone carvers, each traveling separate territories and producing, on the spot, memorials for bereaved families.  Ironically, no headstone for J.W. has ever been found.


Source:  "Mystery in Stone," in Tin Horn, Blog of the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown, Delaware County,
                2016. Margretville, NY.

It Happened Here--The Expressmen

Part 1

 

One of the enduring images of the American “Old West’ is the image of a nine passenger stagecoach speeding across the prairie or racing through the desert southwest in a cloud of alkali dust, pulled by a team of six horses, guided by a driver perched high on the drivers’ box. He is accompanied by a Wells Fargo “messenger”, “riding shotgun” with a sawed off double barreled weapon, thoughtfully provided by the Wells Fargo Company. Beneath them sits the green iron clad “strong box”, likely filled with bundles of banknotes, bullion or even bags of gold dust, direct from the mining camps of the California Gold Fields. Who would guess that a trio of entrepreneurs that created the companies behind this image started as farm boys from small towns in upstate New York State?

 

Up until the 1830’s there was no organized way to ship parcels in the United States. Though the postal service began early in colonial times to handle letters, and commercial carriers of merchandise and raw materials came into being almost as soon as roads were cut through the wilderness or docking facilities were built along riverside and coastal towns and cities, there was no easy way for an individual or a business to ship a package. One was faced with the choice of finding a friend who was going to the desired destination, sending an employee, or relative, or putting one’s package in the care of a stranger. A ship captain or a business associate might be able to vouch for, and connect one up with, a passenger who would be willing to make sure a package arrived where it was intended. A stagecoach driver might look after a package if given a sufficient tip. Rather large financial transactions were sometimes made by giving a top-hated coachman a bundle of bank notes, admonishing him to “keep this under your hat.” Though thefts and losses under these sorts of arrangements appear to have been remarkably infrequent, it was inconvenient for everyone and a cumbersome and haphazard way of doing business. And it became increasingly risky as the needs of business grew. By the end of the 1830’s the odd keg of nails, the imported bolt of cloth, the gunsmith’s firelock mechanism and the wealth landowner’s custom cast brass hinges for his front door were regularly joined by bundles of banknotes, promissory notes, stock and bond certificates, and even specie and bullion. The situation was aggravated by the closing of the Bank of the United States, in 1836, which, while it operated, had transported currency and financial instruments between itself and regional banks and customers.

In 1839 William Harnden open the first successful “express” business running between New York and Boston. (Perhaps a half dozen others had begun businesses before him, but he was the only one to succeed for any length of time.) Harnden was the first to use the term “expressman” to refer to himself, conveying the idea of rapid personalized delivery service. Having negotiated a special rate for himself with a railroad and a steam ship company between these two cities he began to offer a regular service of delivering packages to their destinations. But beyond this he advertised additional services. “Particular attention will be paid by W.H. to purchasing goods, paying and collecting (bank) drafts, notes and bills. He will promptly transact any and all business which may be entrusted to his charge.” (Loomis, 6)   Harnden was anticipating the banking functions that many express companies would soon find themselves drawn into.

Cor. NY 31 and Canal St (38), Port Byron

Other companies were soon formed to enter the express business while Harnden expanded his area of operations into upstate New York and began hiring employees, “messengers” who would accompany packages entrusted to them. Henry Wells was working as a freight agent on the Erie Canal when William Harnden hired him. Henry had been born in Thetford Vermont and moved to Fayette, New York as a boy, with his family where he balanced helping out on his family’s farm with receiving a basic one-room school education. At sixteen he had been apprenticed to a tanner/shoemaker in Palmyra. Harnden hired him as a messenger from his Albany office. Before long Wells was urging his boss to expand into the regions to the west. The man who had pioneered the express business was unwilling to risk his business in such an undeveloped area and untested market. Harnden suggested Wells strike out on his own to develop his own company to the west. It is unclear whether this was a supportive suggestion, or a sarcastic challenge intended to redirect an over enthusiastic employee, but in any event the ambitious Wells had soon lined up a group of partners and in 1841, under the name Pomeroy and Co. (with partners George Pomeroy, and Crawford Livingston) Henry Wells was going into business for himself. Within a year the partnership was realigned and became Livingston, Wells and Pomeroy and then, Livingston, Wells and Co when George Pomeroy retired from the business¹. The Albany to Buffalo run was an arduous trip that involved taking three train from Albany to Auburn, a stage coach from Auburn twenty five miles to Geneva, the Auburn to Rochester Railroad to Rochester, a stage sixty miles to Lockport, and private transport (wagon, or horseback) to Buffalo. The business grew rapidly, however. Starting with a single carpet bag, on weekly trips he soon had to use a trunk, which was replaced by a larger trunk and then an even larger trunk, prompting a railway superintendent to quip ‘of all the wonderful growths he had seen in the west, none equaled the growth of Wells’ trunk!’ 

In 1842 Wells hired William George Fargo who had been employed as a freight agent, and sometime conductor, on the Auburn and Syracuse Railway. Like Wells, Fargo had grown up on a family farm, in Pompey New York, fitting in schooling between seasons of farm labor. But unlike Wells he had been the oldest in a family of twelve children, and had been supporting himself since he was thirteen years old—mostly working as a clerk in a several grocery stores, but also delivering mail on a thirty mile circuit for a local mail contractor working out of Pompey. Hired as an express messenger, by 1843 Fargo became the resident agent in Buffalo, for Livingston, Wells and Company. 

 

WM. G. FARGO

MAY 20, 1818-AUG. 3, 1881

ORGANIZER OF WELLS-FARGO
EXPRESS

COMPANY
SERVED HERE AS
FIRST FREIGHT AGENT

Location: ON 2ND STORY FACE SCHRECK BROS. STORE, 16 E. GENESEE ST., AUBURN

(This sign appears to have disappeared with the Schreck Bros. Store, The lot is now 

occupied by a Dunkin Donut shop)

 In 1844-5 Wells with another pair of partners, Daniel Dunning and William Fargo, opened “Wells and Company’s Western Express”, the first express company operating west of Buffalo. Service was extended to Cleveland and Detroit, and later, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis.

About this time Henry Wells decided to take on the United States Post Office. (It would not be the last time.) Wells began to offer to deliver a letter for $.06. At this time The Post Office was charging $0.18 to $0.25, depending on the distance. A local newspaper noted that while it cost $0.18 to ship a letter from New York City to Troy, a whole barrel of flour could be shipped the same distance, via the same route for only $0.12! Wells’ service was immensely popular, and soon letters could travel from Detroit Michigan to Bangor Maine for this low rate. But then the Post Office struck back. The Constitution gave the federal government the right to operate a post office and Postal officials believed that it was their exclusive right. Wells messengers were regularly arrested at Utica and other places. There were public rallies in support of Wells. Bail was raised for the messengers and became immediately available in cases of future arrests so that the messengers could continue on their way without delay. In several places the Government brought suites, but in every case juries rejected them. Backed by a group of investors, Wells presented a proposal to the Postmaster General. Wells offered to take over the entire delivery of the mails for $ 0.05 a letter! Postmaster General Hobbie was aghast and rejected it out of hand, as it would mean the end of 16,000 postmaster patronage jobs! Finally Congress stepped in². The six cent postal rate was adopted and the law concerning the federal government’s exclusive right to maintain a postal service was strengthened. Wells companies and their competitors left (for the time being) the delivery of mail.

In 1846 the restless Wells sold his interest in Wells and Company to the other partners and moved to New York City to pursue, full time, the transatlantic express trade through his other company, Livingston, Wells, and Company. He would open express services in England, France and Germany. As America approached the mid century, in the turbulent express business, Livingston, Wells and Co. controlled a large share of the market in eastern New York, New England and the mid-Atlantic states; the Wells and Company’s successor, Livingston, Fargo and Co. continued preeminent in the western New York, the Great Lakes and Ohio valley to St. Louis. But a strong competitor was emerging in New York. Many small railroads had merged into the New York Central Rail Road by 1850, and the new competitor, Butterfield, Wasson and Co. had secured an exclusive contract with the N.Y.C. to carry their express business

                                 Perhaps the only NYSHM 
                                          reference to John Butterfield
                                          NY Rt. 22 Essex

 John Butterfield was born in the Helderberg “hilltown” of Berne, New York in 1801. By age 19 he was a professional coachman driving stagecoaches from Albany for Thorpe and Sprague Express Co. Three years later he moved to Utica to help manage an Albany to Buffalo stagecoach line. Like Fargo and Wells he was an aggressive entrepreneur and he was soon an owner in nearly all the stagecoach lines in western New York. In Utica, Butterfield built a street railway, a grand hotel, and a commercial block. In the mid 1840’s he was the driving force behind the New York, Albany and Buffalo Telegraph System. Butterfield also became part owner of a line of steamboats operating on Lake Champlain, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.

Early in 1850 Henry Wells bought into Butterfield’s express company, succeeding James Wasson. Later that year, in what would be known as “the great consolidation” Butterfield proposed a merger. Though a fierce competitor, Butterfield realized cutthroat competition benefited no one and he hoped that a merger of his express company, Livingston, Wells and Co., and Livingston, Fargo and Co. could dominate the industry. A new company, American Express, was formed with Wells, president, Fargo, secretary and John Butterfield, line superintendent.

 

1In the early 19^th century a convenient way to delineate a new relationship between partners, recruit new investor-partners or engage in a new enterprise and protect one’s other interests in the event the enterprise did not thrive was to simply form a new partnership, under a different name. Both Henry Wells and William Fargo would form many such partnerships, both together and separately throughout their careers. These partnerships were joint stock associations, not corporations which meant that the shareholders, often called “directors” were personally involved in running the business and could operate secretly without reporting to the government or a body of stockholders.

2Congressman Zadock Pratt, the subject of the previous post (11/2/14) had successfully presented a bill a half dozen years before that rolled back postal rates, but they had risen since. 

Sources: 

               Fradkin, Philip L. Stagecoach, Wells Fargo and the American West, New York. 2002 
               Loomis, Noel M.  Wells Fargo.  1968.

Marker of the Week -- Big Crime in a Small Town

NY Rt. 20, West of Buell Ave, Lima

One hundred and one years ago a masked man wearing blue glasses and a long black beard walked into the Lima, NY bank with two revolvers and a coil of telephone wire. He forced the bookkeeper to tie up the cashier with the wire and then he tied up the bookkeeper. He then proceeded to steal nearly $10,000 in bills and gold coins from the bank. A 20 year old seminary student, Cezlaw Gaczdnski was arrested, having bought telephone wire not long before.

Despite several days of "sensational" court hearings the Grand Jury refused to indict him, on the circumstantial evidence presented them. Witnesses said the young man presented a very sympathetic appearance and his jailer even bought him a couple bottles beer when he was in custody.  Upon his release Gaczdnski "sued everyone in sight" for $25,000.

Despite a $ 500 reward posted by the bank and its insurance company, no one was ever brought to trial, so the mystery of who robbed the Lima Bank remains. For me, another mystery is, How did they fit nearly $10,000 into that tiny vault?

Source: Mendon, Honeoye Falls, Lima Sentinel. April 30, 2009. Letter to the editor by Joyce Rapp, former Lima Historian.