Winter won

TL;DR -- As we track New England folks across the country and back, we note that information becomes available continually. The Woodbury folks pointed to the Wyoming History Society and their article on the Pony Express in which we have an interest for many reasons. This new source has interesting graphics of which we provide two. One is of the Butterfield (southwestern) route. The other has details about the route through Wyoming as research for the 1960 look back. 

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As we follow New England's influence away from the east coast, we have to consider that left coast which was also accessible by sea and the huge middle. A recent post looked at the excursion of Hernando de Soto through the southeast all the way to Boone's Missouri. Then, we had periods of time from Lewis & Clark's jaunt onward with trappers and fur traders leading the way. 

A major theme for our posts which were done after some research has always been rivers. Then, we had looks at people, including other cultures such as New Spain. When New England was the origin, we tracked down their information, if available, on WikiTree and Wikipedia. And, destinations were important whether Oregon or Texas or any other of the current States. 

We also looked at the work of other researchers. Recently, we became aware of Woodbury Historical Tours. These are cousins via the Cape Ann venture. But, there have been lots of other researchers that we paid attention to, such as those with the Jedediah Strong Smith's society. 

On Facebook today, the Woodbury's pointed to the work of the Wyoming Historic Society. Anyone going west in the northern U.S. went through that region. One reason was that the mountains of Colorado were too difficult. So those headed to Oregon or California went up out through Wyoming and then split. We have had many posts on the various trails. 

Butterfield route 
through the Southwest

What was interesting about the article on The Pony Express in Wyoming is its focus on accuracy. They mention, of course, Buffalo Bill Cody but just cursorily. What caught our attention was the acknowledgement that "winter won" with respect to the effort to establish the Pony Express (which we wrote of last year) as a northern mail route. 

At the time, the Butterfield southern route was in operation (see  map). In our post, we tracked down the principals, one of whom was of the Giddings family of Ipswich, MA (Ann's kin). Too, we noted some of the other players who ended up founding banks and other businesses. 

 

As we saw earlier, the Butterfield route stopped when the Civil War brought too much uncertainty. So, the effort was taken back to the northern route which Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) took out west in the days of the stagecoach. Ralph Waldo Emerson went out via train a little later. 

We will get more into detail, but the Pony Express did run in the winter. It took longer. The southern route was longer and arduous as it carried freight, to boot. We need to know of these enterprising people, many of whom were of New England stock. 

Let's just leave it with this map of the 1960 rerun. Plus, we will mention one of the founders: William Russell (Wikipedia, WikiTree) born in VT in 1812, moved as a kid to MO.  

Pony Express
Route through Wyoming

Remarks: Modified: 06/23/2023

06/23/2023 -- Reminder: research continues. Example open research topic.