‘Thrilling in the extreme, holding the reader’s interest, as only true tales of adventure can…historically correct…good reading…Visscher was acquainted with many of the famous riders and Indian fighters who…contributed personal experiences and recollections…intensely interesting.’ -The Pittsburgh Press, June 16, 1908
‘Visscher…wrote…the first book-length history of the Pony Express in 1908 after interviewing a number of old timers.’ -Chicago Tribune, Feb. 22, 2004
‘Colonel Visscher’s early experience as a newspaperman in St. Joseph and other far-western cities, and his later adventurous career along the trail blazed by the daring riders of the pony express gave him unusual grasp of the subject and a ready reference library of old friendships with many prominent actors in the scene on which to draw.’ -Omaha World Herald, Nov. 22, 1908
‘Visscher’s greatest service to the legend of the Pony Express was his enshrinement of Buffalo bill as the king of the fast-mail couriers. Visscher claimed to be a ‘boy-hood chum’ of Buffalo Bill’s.’ -Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express (2004)
How did some of the brave riders of the Pony Express manage to keep their scalps intact despite riding hundreds of miles through remote territory inhabited only by hostile tribes?
In 1908, St. Joseph newspaperman William Lightfoot Visscher (1842-1924), close friend and acquaintance of many of the Pony Express Riders who were often stationed in St. Joseph, would write the first book-length history of the Pony Express under the lengthy title: ‘A Thrilling and Truthful History of the Pony Express: Or, Blazing the Westward Way, and Other Sketches and Incidents of Those Stirring Times.’ It is this book that has been republished here for the convenience of the interested reader of history.
As Visscher notes, ‘stories of the pony express riders, their adventures with Indians and outlaws, and ‘hairbreadth ‘scapes by field and flood’ could be told at sufficient length to fill a hundred volumes as large as this, but many of them were so much alike that they would appear in the narration to be simply repetition, yet one required as much dash and nerve as another. The service created the greatest enthusiasm, not only among the riders, but among all others of the employes and all along the route, and to aid a ‘pony’ in trouble was jumped at as a high privilege.’
About the author:
William Lightfoot Visscher (1842 – 1924) was a prolific author and Old West journalist, publishing his well-known account of the Pony Express in 1908, more than 45 years after the service’s termination following the construction of the transcontinental telegraph system. He served four years in the Union army during the Civil War, earned a law degree and was admitted to the bar.
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