Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Portals to the Past

by David W. Jackson

Pony Express was just one stop on Majors’ up-and-down journey

Most Kansas City-area residents are at least vaguely familiar with the name, “Alexander Majors.” No? How about the “Central, Overland, California & Pikes Peak Express,” known more commonly as ‘The Pony Express?’” Now I have your attention!

While the Pony Express did not run through Jackson County, one of its founders lived in Kansas City. And, Majors’s palatial home (palatial in 1850s terms) is preserved at 82^nd and State Line, a small corner that once comprised extensive acreage.

Majors amassed and lost several fortunes in his lifetime. The Russell, Majors & Waddell Pony Express venture was his most notable, but short-lived (18-month) achievement. “Didn’t the Indians bother you a good deal in those early days of freighting?” Majors was once asked. “They annoyed us some,” he replied, but the outfit was never attacked when I happened to be along. I was always extremely cautious, never took any chances of a surprise, and was careful to treat the Indians well on all occasions, which may account for their attitude toward me. I regret to say that they were to so considerate when I was absent, for many a good teamster lies buried on the Santa Fe Trail and on the plains between the Missouri and Old Fort Laramie whom the savages shot from ambush.”

Majors, a religious man, apparently had a penchant for adventure with nomadic inclinations. Born in Kentucky in 1814, his father moved the family to Missouri four years later. They crossed the Mississippi River at St. Louis on a flatboat propelled by three Frenchmen. The ferryboat was only large enough to carry one wagon at a time, without the team. Majors married Katherine Stalcup in Jackson County on November 6, 1834.

The 45-year-old “overland commissioner” was enumerated with his family in the 1860 Census in Nebraska City, Nebraska (their real estate was valued at $22,500, and personal property at a whopping $791,150). Their home there might have been far more exquisite than the one they left behind in Jackson County during the Border- and Civil War period. It was during the mid 1860s that Majors’ business ventures went bust, his marriage crumbled, and he left everything and everyone behind.

Sadly, the Majors’s were plagued in their later years with poverty. His wife and one daughter were even admitted to Jackson County’s Poor Farm under assumed names to avoid ridicule from friends and neighbors. They claimed at the time that Alexander had abandoned them, leaving them destitute.

By 1870, Majors lived in a boarding house in Corinne, Ut., dealing in lumber. Within ten years in 1880, he was still alone, but operating as a “mining broker” in Helena, Montana.

Just over a decade later, around 1892, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody found his former boss in Denver, Co. (You can find a portrait of Majors in the Denver State Capitol Rotunda.) Majors--who had given Cody his first job as a boy, had taught him to read and write, and employed him as a freighter--was without money and had hardly enough to eat. He was trying to write the story of his life on the frontier, but his manuscript was all over the floor of his cabin when Cody visited. They struck a bargain. Majors was to finish his book. In return, Cody paid all his expenses until it was ready; he paid the cabin rent in advance and guaranteed it indefinitely; and, he instructed a grocer to give Majors unlimited credit.

When Cody returned after a year in Europe with his Wild West Show, Majors had written enough for several books. Don’t you wish we had that raw manuscript? In the end, it was edited by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, trimmed, and published by Rand, McNally & Company in Chicago, Il. Although, “Seventy Years on the Frontier,” never made Majors a fortune, it continues to be re-printed over and again after more than 100 years.

Cody sent Majors to take charge of his Scout’s Rest Ranch in North Platte, Nebraska. That didn’t last too long, because in January 1900, Majors died at age 86 in Chicago. He was laid to rest in Union Cemetery with little ceremony at the funeral.

David W. Jackson is archivist for the nonprofit Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society’s Archives and Research Library at 112 W. Lexington Ave. Suite 103, Independence, MO, 64050. Explore deeper into local history topics like those presented in this column through the Jackson County Historical Society JOURNAL, a scholarly periodical delivered to Society members twice annually. For more information, or to donate historical materials, visit www.jchs.org, call (816) 252-7454, or e-mail info@jchs.org.

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