By Tania Millen, BSc, MJ

Shortly after 5 pm on Wednesday, February 21, 1849, a lone rider galloped from the pier in Halifax, Nova Scotia west towards Digby, 232 kilometres (146 miles) away on the east coast of the Bay of Fundy. He carried a highly sought-after news packet that had arrived just moments earlier by the Cunard Royal Mail steamship Europa, from Liverpool, England.

Travelling 29 kilometres per hour over hill and dale in all weather, our rider changed horses about every 20 km. Halfway to Digby, he passed the all-important news packet to a second rider at Kentville, Nova Scotia. Together, they completed a total of 12 stages with 12 different horses, travelling the entire distance in just over 11 hours. It was the first of many hell-bent Pony Express rides that occurred over the next nine months.

Once riders delivered the news packet to Victoria Beach near Digby, it was transferred to a ship that raced west across the Bay of Fundy to Saint John, New Brunswick. There, a telegraph operator used Morse code to send the news south to Calais, Maine and onward to Boston and New York by electric telegraph wires.

The technology of the day could only deliver messages about 200 km, and each section of the single-strand wire was owned by a different company. So, about every 200 km the messages were transcribed by a telegraph operator and then retyped in Morse code and sent onwards. Regardless, short messages could be delivered from Saint John to New York in an hour or two. Longer Associated Press messages of about 3,000 words took three or four hours to transmit. Even at that rate, the Halifax-to-Saint John route utilizing Pony Express horses was about 12 hours faster than steamships travelling directly from Liverpool to Boston.

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Liverpool, England — at the time, a global port at the centre of the Industrial Revolution — was considered the “New York of Europe.” It’s still the home of the Grand National steeplechase that first ran at Aintree in 1839. It was also the centre of the slave trade, a financial centre, and could dock over 100 ships. Since Halifax is the closest port to Liverpool, mail ships that serviced North America arrived in Halifax.

Speeding up the transfer of news from Halifax to Saint John was the brainchild of Halifax’s Joseph Howe, publisher of the Novascotian newspaper. The route didn’t have telegraph service, and Howe thought he could speed up the transfer of news by utilizing horses and riders.

Joseph Howe is one of Nova Scotia’s most well-known public figures. He was a journalist, publisher, politician, premier of Nova Scotia, and the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia. He was charged with seditious libel, which was punishable by life imprisonment. He defended himself in court and was subsequently acquitted, largely due to his spectacular oration skills. His case was instrumental in gaining freedom for the press.

Howe’s statue was erected in 1904 on the grounds of Province House in Halifax, 100 years after his birth. Province House is where Nova Scotia’s legislative assembly has met every year since 1819.

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By 1835 there were over 1,200 newspapers serving the American population. Much like today, information about politics, trade, business, and who’s doing what, was incredibly important to the wealthy and politically astute. The first to know was the first to benefit, hence newspaper presses paid handsomely to receive news quickly. The presses that could print important news the quickest sold the most papers and were successful businesses.

The Canadian merchant class (businessmen), politically active, culturally interested, and those with agricultural investments, all wanted news, too. As printing became cheaper, presses became independent from their political benefactors and could criticize government policies. The concept of an independent press evolved, and newspapers sought to drive change.

Mail steamships arrived in Halifax about every two weeks and could dock at any time of day or night, so the Express riders and 12 fresh horses had to be ready to start their ride at any time in any weather. News to the east-central provinces of Canada was primarily delivered by stagecoach from Halifax — the galloping Pony Express riders delivered news to America.

The second Pony Express ride began on Thursday, March 8, 1849, after the arrival of the steamship America, and only took eight hours and 27-and-a-half minutes to complete — two-and-a-half hours faster than the original ride.

This time, competing papers hired rival teams. The British Colonist newspaper in Halifax reported that two pony expresses — one team hired by Associated Press members from Philadelphia, New York, and Boston; the other hired by American businessmen — left the city “travelling at a rate of speed that is, we believe, unprecedented.” 

One of the couriers broke his stirrup when crossing the Avon River bridge and “was thrown from his horse with such force, that he lay insensible for some time.” Regardless, he reportedly remounted and finished the ride with one stirrup, arriving at Digby within two-and-a-half minutes of the other rider. 

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On March 10, 1849, The Acadian Recorder (newspaper) of Halifax considered this second Express ride to be “the longest and fleetest, if not the most exciting race that was ever run in this country.” It was subsequently reported that the second ride helped the news travel between Halifax and Saint John in a speedy 15 hours.

Interest in the Pony Express grew, and it became news in itself. Riders were hired from both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Spectators came out to watch the riders gallop by at great speed. Stables that lined the route reportedly took excellent care of the horses. Regional newspapers provided updates on the Pony Express trips.

Route of Nova Scotia’s Pony Express

The third Pony Express run collected the news packet from the steamship Canada, and left Halifax at 11 pm on Thursday, March 15, 1849, travelling horridly slick and muddy roads. The mud-encased horse and rider met the steamer Commodore the following morning and the news packet arrived at Saint John a mere 15 hours and 30 minutes after departing Halifax.

By April 1849, the trip from Halifax to Saint John had become very efficient. The Royal Mail steamship Europa took only nine-and-three-quarter days to reach Halifax while the Pony Express riders helped the news arrive in Saint John 15 hours and 20 minutes later — an impressive 10-and-a-half days from Liverpool.

From May through September, mail steamships arrived in Halifax every week and Pony Express horses and riders efficiently delivered the news packets in eight- or nine-hour trips. The Pony Express trip from Halifax to Saint John and south by telegraph was routinely faster than ships travelling directly from Liverpool to Boston.

But the Pony Express route wasn’t a permanent answer to efficient news transport. While the riders galloped, construction of an overland telegraph line from Saint John to Halifax continued.

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The last run of the Nova Scotia Pony Express was made on October 2, 1849, carrying European news brought by the Royal Mail Steamer Canada, which had departed Liverpool 10 days earlier on September 22.

Once the telegraph line was complete, the nine-month Nova Scotia Pony Express was obsolete and news from Europe made it to Boston and New York within a few hours of ships arriving in Halifax.

Over 100 years after the last Express ride, Reverend George McGray, Chairman of the 800-member Eastern Stock Horse Association in Nova Scotia, organized a commemorative Pony Express ride from Digby to Halifax. In 1973, 14 riders rode a section of the Pony Express route, completing the ride in 20 hours. The ride ended at the start of Halifax’s Joseph Howe Festival, a week-long event that attracted up to 20,000 people. The festival ran from 1973 to 1985 in honour of the legendary Joseph Howe’s achievements: winning freedom of the press and promoting responsible government in Canada.

In 1999, Nova Scotia riders again reenacted the Pony Express trip in honour of the 150th anniversary of those hell-for-leather rides.

Today, visitors to Victoria Beach — the western end-point of the ride — will find a memorial plaque commemorating Nova Scotia’s Pony Express. Although those flat-out rides occurred 176 years ago, the need to transport news quickly still exists, albeit at speeds far greater than the Pony Express riders could ever have imagined.

Today, visitors to Victoria Beach, Manitoba, the western end-point of the Pony Express ride, will find a memorial plaque installed by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, commemorating the Pony Express.

In English and French, the plaque states: Between February and November 1849 a pony express was employed to carry despatches containing European news from the steamer port at Halifax to Digby Gut, whence they were shipped to the telegraph station at Saint John, and relayed to the press of the American seaboard cities. The Halifax Express covered the 146 miles in as little as eight hours, with fresh mounts supplied en route and rider changes at Kentville. This successful system, financed by the Associated Press, was superseded after nine months by the extension of the telegraph to Halifax. 

American Pony Express

Canada’s little-known Pony Express occurred 11 years before the better-known 1860 American Pony Express used relays of riders to transport mail between Missouri and California. During its 18 months of operation, messages sent by Pony Express travelled between the east and west coasts of the United States in about ten days. The galloping riders became the most direct means of east–west communication before the first transcontinental telegraph was completed on October 24, 1861. Once the faster telegraph was built, the Pony Express was no longer needed and went bankrupt.

The 1976 bronze statue of a Pony Express rider and his horse by sculptor Thomas Holland is a tourist attraction in Old Sacramento State Historic Park in Sacramento, California, USA. The monument at 2nd and J streets marks the western terminus of the historic cross-country mail route that began in 1860 and ran from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento. The 1,900-mile (3,058-kilometre) trip took 10 days and required 80 riders, 400 horses, and 184 Pony Express stations along the way. This remarkable mail service ended after only 18 months due to the completion of America's transcontinental telegraph. Photo: Alamy/Grimm

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Main Photo: Alamy/JC Leacock