 EXCITING EXPERIENCE WITH A FRESH TEAM AT LATHAM. Page 276. |
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CHAPTER XII. THE OVERLAND STAGE DRIVERS.
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the eastern division of the overland line, which embraced
that part of the route between Atchison and
Denver--comprising about one-third of the distance across to
the California terminus--there were, in the early '60's, at
least fifty drivers regularly employed, and fully as many
stock tenders. About the same number of drivers and stock
tenders were also employed on each of the other two
divisions, between Denver and Salt Lake and Salt Lake and
Placerville, the western terminus. The drivers alone made
quite an army on the great stage line. Besides those
regularly employed, there were perhaps fifty others who
would be waiting--at different points, hoping to get an
occasional job for a few runs, and, perhaps, get on as
regular driver. Almost without exception they were a jolly
set--the most genial, whole-souled fellows I ever knew. In
disposition hardly any two were alike.
Quite a number of the boys were experienced in their business, having driven in a dozen or more different states and territories. Several were holding the reins of four- and six-horse stage teams in the West long before a railroad had reached the "Father of Waters." Now and then there was one to be found whose locks and beard were silvered from having sat on the box and weathered the wintry blasts of a third of a century or more driving on various lines between the Alleghanies and the Rockies. Most of them were first-class drivers, and among them were several experienced business men and some fine singers. Often, riding over the trail in the "stilly hour of night," while sitting by them, have I listened to their sweet songs. Quite a number could play different musical instruments. The violin was the favorite with the most of them. Some were quite expert in picking the banjo; some enjoyed the guitar; others blew the clarinet, flute, fife, or piccolo, and one good-natured chap could "rattle the bones" to perfection. One was a good tambourine player; one was lightning on "chin music"; while another declared he could "rip a five-octave jew's-harp all to pieces." While a number of them were farmers and ranchmen, others had had some experience as mechanics and clerks, and a few had been employed in one way or another on some railroad. One had steered a boat on the "raging canawl"; another had been a pilot on a Western river steamboat. Some were natural geniuses--" Jacks of all trades." Apparently there was nothing that delighted a good many of them so much as, when on the box, driving a wild, dashing team over a rough and crooked mountain road on a down grade. The rougher the trail and more dangerous, the more skill it required to handle the team and the better it appeared to suit them. It used to be a common remark--a sort of byword many years ago--that it took a good driver to run against every stone in the road, but the "Overland" boys usually managed to get over the trail at a lively gait and knew just how to miss all of such obstructions. In turning short curves and going at a breakneck speed around a precipitous embankment on the very edge of a dangerous-looking ledge of rocks, with a yawning abyss into which you could look hundreds of feet below, a fearless, care-for-nothing driver appeared in the height of his glory. The most of them seemed to know no fear. Every one of the boys was my friend. If I had an enemy |
among them I never knew it. A few of them, however, were indescribab1y tough characters, frequently "spilin' for a fight"; but in most of the difficulties and knock-down-and-drag-out engagements in which they occasionally participated it was found, on investigation, that they were most always on the defensive. On the frontier every driver, however, was armed. He nearly always went around with a revolver in a belt at his side, and some of them also carried in their belts or had safely secreted in their boot-legs big, ugly-looking knives. A number of them were well versed in the ways of the Indian and could speak, so as to be understood, the Sioux, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Arapahoe and Comanche tongues; besides, they were experts at many of the gambling devices then in use on the frontier. No "heathen Chinee" versed in "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain" could excel, even if he could equal, them in the science of dealing cards from the "bottom of the deck." Only an occasional one of the boys as I knew them seemed strictly moral and religiously inclined. It may be that some, perhaps all, of those who, in a limited way at least, professed Christianity and occasionally offered an earnest, fervent prayer from thirty to forty years ago have long since passed to the "great beyond." BOB HODGE, who every other day drove forty-eight miles from Atchison to Kennekuk and return--stood as straight as an Indian, and was a rather heavy-set man. In a number of respects he was a curiosity. Nearly every one in Atchison knew him. He had a copper bugle that he always carried, and which he had blown on the golden shores of the Pacific. He had also blown it the entire length of the overland line. He seemed to be very proud of his instrument and, no matter what the weather was, he took it along with him every trip. No living mortal ever appeared to enjoy anything in the way of a musical instrument more. He had blown it from the summits of the Sierra Nevadas, the Wasatch range, and the Rocky Mountains; along the parched alkali region of Nevada and in the Salt Lake valley. He blew it as he entered the Mormon capital, in the early `60's. He blew it over the plains, on the "Great American Desert," on his entry in to Denver and Fort Kearney; along the Platte and Little Blue rivers and over the rolling prairies of Nebraska and Kansas. Nearly every time Bob came to Atchison on his return trip from |
his run to Kennekuk, as he reached Commercial street about Eighth, with his bugle in one hand and the four or six lines in the other, he would blow all the way down the street to the Post. office--then located in a one-story frame building on the south side of Commercial street, between Third and Fourth--a distance of nearly five squares. One of Bob's favorite pieces--especially if the stage came along from the west in the night--was "Get Out of the Wilderness." This piece evidently was his favorite. While he appeared to be a great lover of music, in reality he knew no more about the various musical characters than a Hottentot does of the geology of Kansas. However, he was possessed of a pair of gutta-percha lungs, and he could, if an opportunity was given, "toot his horn" from morning till night, only stopping occasionally to irrigate his throat with Kentucky whisky. Apparently nothing gave him so much pleasure as blowing his bugle. He could, in his peculiar way, blow "Susannah" way up and down the hill and send "Yankee Doodle" over on the "Other Side of Jordan." Before coming to Atchison, Bob used to drive in California; later out in Nevada and Utah and on a number of divisions east of there. He was jokingly spoken of as the "great blower" from the eastern to the western terminus of the long stage line. He held the reins of a spanking four-horse team of bays in and out of Atchison for a long time and seemed very proud of them. While employed on the east end, he had his harness decorated with scores of ivory rings and ornamented the finest of any driver on the line. He was dressed in a gorgeous buckskin suit, wore high boots with pants' legs inside, and was a rather gay-looking fellow. Socially, Hodge was a good man, had any amount of friends, and was one of the best drivers on the line. His great failing, however, was his uncontrollable appetite for liquor. Under his cushion he always carried a private bottle when on the box. While he was most always "full," and apparently could hold the contents of a limited Kansas saloon, he seldom was seen beastly drunk. Very few ever saw him on the "Overland" without being fortified with a drink or two of "cold pizen." He finally left the stage line and went away--no one, so far as I could learn, ever knew where. Many of the boys employed on the great line were continually moving east to west and west to east, during the period the daily stage was in operation. They might be driving one month on a |
division between Atchison and Denver and in three months afterward would perhaps be employed between Salt Lake and Placerville Many preferred to drive on the west end when greenbacks were at such a tremendous discount. They were paid in gold at the western terminus of the line, and, besides, desired to get a taste of California fruit and become acquainted with the climate. Naturally some of the drivers were restless and apparently never contented. They wanted to be continually on the move, and it seemed they were never happy until they could get transferred to some other division on the line. They had relatives or particular friends driving at other points and they wanted to be with them. It was just the same with many employed a thousand miles or more west of the Missouri river, for they were seemingly as anxious to come east and drive among old friends and acquaintances, where living was better, and where they could enjoy more of the comforts and luxuries of life. Nearly every driver I knew seemed more or less fascinated with his chosen occupation, sitting on a stage box, and when once in the business it appeared as if they never could retire from it. There evidently was some sort of a charm about stagedriving that they never could resist. Old drivers frequently told me that. Some were good for nothing else. Once in it, they appeared to be there for the better part of their lives. A driver would cover from two to three "stages" (25 to 35 miles), but occasionally one would go four of five "stages" (from 50 to 60 miles). Remarkable as it may appear, some of the drivers were such experts in handling their favorite whip that they could sit on the box and cut a fly off the back of either of the lead horses or mules with the lash, while going at a lively trot. Nearly every driver fairly worshiped his whip, and considered it worth almost its weight in gold. Some had the stocks ornamented with silver ferrules. A driver almost held his whip sacred and hated to loan it even to his most intimate 'friend and companion driver. Nearly all of the "Overland" drivers were finally knocked out by the iron horse after the completion of the Pacific railroad, in 1869, which, for many hundreds of miles, traversed almost the identical route which, for about eight years previous, had been taken almost daily by the old Concord stage-coaches. Their occupation having gone, most of the boys finally went on ranches in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and other states and |
territories in the great West, and many of them are now married and in easy circumstances, and, since they are well advanced in years, have no desire to engage again in staging. Among the army of drivers employed on the stage line at various periods between Atchison and Placerville, in the '60's, many of whom I became personally acquainted with, were:
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In the foregoing list one Brown appears, but no Jones. No less than five answered to the name of Smith; but, singular as it may appear, John Smith was conspicuous for his absence. There were a number of other drivers employed from time to time whose names cannot now be recalled. Quite a number went by some nickname. A fellow I simply knew as "Hank" drove on the Salt Lake division for some time. Another driver on the Platte was known as "Whisky Jack." As might naturally be inferred from the name, he had little use for water except for his infrequent ablutions. But he had achieved a reputation in another way; the fellow could get away with more double-rectified, copper-distilled, trigger-lightning sod-corn juice than any other man who sat on the box of a four- or six-horse stage-coach. Notwithstanding his prodigious appetite for whisky, he was a kind, good-natured fellow, had a big, warm heart, and he was seldom seen in such a condition that he could not properly attend to his duties as a driver. One of the boys from Benicia, on the Pacific coast, was known as "Heenan," and, as far as could be learned, few ever knew him by any other name. Another driver was simply known as "Brigham," because he had spent a good deal of his time at Salt Lake, and claimed to have known the great Mormon prophet. Another--one of the happiest on the line--went by the name of "Happy Jack," and still another as "Smiling Tom." One on the road northwest of Denver was known as "Rowdy Pete," another as "Puffey," and another--a warm-hearted fellow who drove west of Fort Kearney--as 'Waupsie." There was one, well along in years, who was known as "Pap" Wright; called "Pap," he said, because he was "always Wright." One chap out on the Salt Lake division, whose name I am unable to recall, but who frequently passed over the stage line, was known as the "tough cuss from Bitter creek." There was one who went by the name of "Rattlesnake Pete"; one was known as "One-eyed Tom"; one as "Cross-eyed John"; another as "Red Horse"; and still another --James H. Graves, of Centralia, Kan.--who used to saw catgut -18 |
at dances along the Platte, was better known as "Fiddler Jim." Lon Huff went by the name of "Arkansaw." Another was simply known as "Fish Creek Bill"; and Charley Lewis, until in the early '90's residing near Topeka, Kan.--a lean, lank fellow who stood over six feet three in his stockings, and who drove on the cut-off between Denver and Bijou creek in the later '60's--was known as "Long Slim." It was always a pleasure to me to sit on the box alongside the drivers and listen to them, as I frequently did, at all hours of the day and night, while they sang songs, told stories, and related their experiences before and since they began performing "on the stage." I was considerably amused in the fall of 1863 when a temperance lecturer made a trip by stage across the plains. At every opportunity he would talk a few minutes to the drivers and other employees of the line, who were drinking and passing their private bottle. He tried to show up, in its worst light, the dangers of using liquor as a beverage. He spent some time in a quiet way talking with a red-nosed driver, arguing the subject from various standpoints, and using all the powers he possessed trying to induce him and all the boys to abstain from using the vile stuff. The red-nosed fellow did not drink a drop of liquor, but on account of his florid complexion a stranger, at first sight, would invariably pronounce him an inveterate old toper. As innocent as a lamb, the driver listened attentively to every word the great reformer uttered. Then, seeing an opportunity to have a little fun at the expense of the lecturer, he said: "I admit, my good friend, that water is a great thing in its place. For washing clothes and dishes there is nothing to equal it. For bathing, I know of nothing better. For running steamboats and putting out fires, nothing, so far, has ever been found to take its place. But, for a steady drink, there is in my opinion nothing to equal the good, old Kentucky Bourbon whisky." There was a good deal of promiscuous drinking by a few of the drivers and other employees, and some of the boys who never drank now and then felt for the safety of their lives. Occasionally I felt for my own safety while on the box with a drunken driver, but I was careful never to even let one know I had the least fear. After the stage line had been in operation for a few years, it became necessary to promulgate a new order. It was afterward understood that any employee working for Ben. Holla- |
day, proprietor of the overland stage line, "who shall become intoxicated, and thereby neglect the business for which he is employed, or shall maltreat any of the other employees or any person on the line of the road, shall, for every such offense, forfeit one month's wages, which will positively be deducted on proof of the same. Wages to be settled by the paymaster only, at such times as the regular quarterly payments of the line are made." This stringent order for a while had the desired effect, many of the employees being careful not to imbibe too freely. They took their "fire-water" after that in more moderate doses until the excitement finally died away. Of all the drinking done by the boys before and since the order, I never heard of one of them having as much as a nickel deducted from his wages. It would have been a risky undertaking for any man in the employ of Holladay to report any such shortcoming as a drunken driver neglecting his duty while in the service of the stage company. Frequently I saw drivers while sitting on the box and riding with them when they were so drunk that the wonder to me was how they ever kept from tumbling off the seat. Many times I have been anxious for them, thinking every minute they certainly would fall to the ground dead, and that it would devolve on me to drive with the corpse to the next station. But of all the drunkenness I saw on the stage line, I never yet saw a driver so "full" that he could not, while on the box, hold the reins and his whip and go around a curve or turn a short corner as handsomely as any one who never imbibed a drop. While none of them was ever docked on his wages, as a last resort it finally became necessary to quietly make out a "black list" of the most objectionable follows, who, after that time, it was understood by the division agents, were under no circumstances ever to be again employed. Occasionally a wild Mexican broncho team would be harnessed up and hitched to the stage-coach for the first time; then for a little while there would be a feast of genuine amusement for all hands. No one appeared to enjoy the sport better than the driver handling the lines. He would be in the height of his glory. For a few minutes the show would be a sort of "Wild West," equal to if not better than an ordinary circus. Each team would have to be held by the bit until all the passengers had taken their seats inside the coach and the driver his place on the box; this done, the performance would almost instantly begin. Usually the ani- |
mals would at once go off jumping and plunging on a lively run, while the driver would keep on throwing the lash among them. After running a mile or two at pretty fair railroad speed, the animals would finally, get cooled down; then, for the balance of the trip, they would go along at the accustomed gait of a stage team. Now and then the wild, unbroken steeds would cut up some extremely ludicrous antics. I never saw so much sport in so short a time as I once did in the spring of 1864 at Latham station, on the South Platte. A team of six wild bronchos were for the first time hitched up, late one afternoon, to the east-bound California stage destined for Atchison. When the passengers were seated and the driver said "Let go," the off leader immediately jumped over the near one, while the near wheeler jumped over the off one, and soon every animal was down. All were plunging and kicking and I never before saw such a mixed-up and tangled lot of stage animals. Every mustang was down and not one of them could get up. To me it appeared that the mixed-up steeds could not be untangled and get out alive. For several minutes it required the services of a half-dozen drivers and several stock tenders, the stage and mail agents and some others at the station to get their harness righted, and everything again in proper shape to make another start. But the drivers, as much as any one else, invariably enjoyed the highly exciting sport. They thought it a genuine stage picnic. In such a mix up they were always equal to any emergency; but to a number of anxious, timid passengers inside the coach the situation was not quite so interesting. Where such wild, spirited teams were used, the roads were usually level as a floor, and there was little if any danger of an accident from a runaway. The ranks of the old drivers and messengers and agents--in fact, all the employees of the noted stage line--are steadily being thinned out. Truthfully it may be said of a great many of them that "their frames are bent, their locks silvery white, and their eyes dim." Only about one-half of the vast army employed on the "Overland" in the '60's are now believed to be living. One by one the boys are dropping from the roll. None of them can last much longer. In the language of the pioneer paper of Denver, "it will only be a few years until the last one will have taken his departure over the long trail from which no traveler has ever returned." |
BUFFALO BILL was not only one of the best pony express riders, but he was an overland stage driver, and a good one. He drove between Fort Kearney and Plum Creek, in 1865, a handsome gray team, (page 101,) a decided favorite among all the stage boys in that vicinity. He participated, some distance west of Kearney, during the old staging days, in one of the liveliest fights that ever took place with the Indians on the great overland line. The story of the fight, in which he took a prominent part, is told by John M. Burke, the veteran driver, as follows: "The condition of the country along the North Platte had become so dangerous that it was almost impossible for the Overland Stage Company to find drivers, although the highest wages were offered. Billy at once decided to turn stage-driver, and his services were gladly accepted. While driving a stage between Split Rock and Three Crossings he was set upon by a band of several hundred Sioux. Lieutenant Flowers, assistant division agent, sat on the box beside Billy, and there were half a dozen well-armed passengers inside. Billy gave the horses the reins. Lieutenant Flowers applied the whip, and the passengers defended the stage in a running fight. Arrows fell around and struck the stage like hail, wounding the horses and dealing destruction generally, for two of the passengers were killed and Lieutenant Flowers badly wounded. Billy seized the whip from the wounded officer, applied it savagely, shouted defiance, and drove on to Three Crossings, thus saving the stage." One of the old-time stage-drivers is H. B. LOWE, of Caldwell, Kan., who was a familiar figure on the box forty years ago. In his time he has held the lines on "twos" and "fours" all over Kansas, and way "out west" as far as Utah. He was a driver in early days on the old Santa Fe stage-coach along the Arkansas river westward from Fort Dodge, which a third of a century ago was an important station on the trail leading into the great Southwest. He once drove for the Kansas Stage Company between Leavenworth and Lawrence, when these two towns were the biggest cities in Kansas. In the later '50's he drove on the Hockaday mail and express coach between Atchison and Salt Lake City, and hauled into the "City of the Saints" Horace Greeley, who was a passenger with him on his run when the philosopher made his overland journey by stage to California, in the summer |
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