Many of the patriots who participated in the 1976 Mantua to Chardon Pony Express Bicentennial Ride are no longer in the saddle, but eight of the 20 riders from that bicentennial event showed up for a few of hours of reminiscing on Nov. 2.
Many of the patriots who participated in the 1976 Mantua to Chardon Pony Express Bicentennial Ride are no longer in the saddle, but eight of the 20 riders from that bicentennial event showed up for a few of hours of reminiscing on Nov. 2.
As they munched order-out pizza and homemade brownies at the Geauga County Fairgrounds in Burton, the group took stock, sharing that six of them continued working with horses after their mad dash up state Route 44 in June 36 years ago.
In a low-key, good-natured humor, they recalled various parts of the day when each rode a mile, some on horses they had never ridden before, to hand off the mail to the next rider.
Besides traffic and unfamiliar riders, the horses had to deal with banners, bands and crowds of excited well-wishers.
It’s a wonder the mail ever got delivered.
In fact, as Rich Bradshaw recalled, it’s a wonder the ride ever got started.
Rounding Up Riders
Bradshaw, who has a barn full of horses he trains and boards at the fairgrounds, said Joe Spear, who was organizing the event, to ride for a one-mile leg, approached him.
Five years before, Bradshaw had gotten his first horse to train from Joe’s father, Bill, for two weeks in sub-zero January weather.
By 1976, Bradshaw said he had 24 horses in training and his time was tight.
“I was swamped,” Bradshaw recalled. “I wasn’t all charged up about this.”
But Spear came back several times, asking his friend to recommend other horsemen for the event.
Bradshaw made some calls and found a few volunteers, but they didn’t have horses to ride, so the trainer loaned out some of his fairly reliable mounts.
Since he had committed horses to the event, Bradshaw decided he might as well participate, too — except he’d promised most of his string.
“I’d loaned out so many horses, I had to ride my wife’s barrel horse,” he recalled.
Adding to the logistics headaches was the timing of the pony express ride, which was on a weekday.
Folks didn’t get personal days in 1976, so the best people could do was show up at their appointed location to ride, then hop off the horse and head back to work, Bradshaw said.
He found himself operating a horse taxi for several hours and missed the celebration at the Chardon Post Office when the mail was delivered.
“Rich got me involved. I rode a horse called Winneywood,” recalled Robert Meyers.
Bradshaw added the quarter horse hailed from Oklahoma.
Fond Memories
Bradshaw recalled Bill Plants and Nick Dimitri were two Pony Express riders who have passed away.
Plants, who was a past member of the fair board and served as grounds manager, talked about the event from time to time, he said.
Dimitri told Bradshaw several weeks before the reunion he was in the hospital, but he really wanted to attend.
“He said ‘If I’m not in the hospital, I’ll be there,’” Bradshaw said, but Dimitri died in late October.
The bittersweet memories were lightened by Spear’s recollection of Jim Fisher’s leg of the Pony Express ride on an appaloosa stallion called Warlord’s Reflection.
“That horse didn’t play well with others,” Spear said, adding it did, however, pile up a load of awards during his career.
Fisher, who was unable to attend because of health problems, wrote a book called “Custer’s Horses,” Spear said.
Laughter and jibes punctuated the showing of a home movie of the ride filmed from the back of a moving pickup truck.
Motivated by a Medallion
Spear said he got the idea for the ride from a magazine article about the wagon trains that were to converge on Valley Forge during 1976 from states as far away as California, Florida and Texas.
One started on June 8, 1975, in Washington. A commemorative medallion was struck with a wagon train on one side and a pony express horse and rider on the other side.
“I told my wife I’d like to be part of the bicentennial celebration,” Spear recalled.
When she encouraged him, he started the ball rolling.
‘Mochila’ Re-Created
Jim and Sue Fields researched the gear a pony express rider needed.
Postage for each letter written one onion-skin paper was $5 and they traveled in leather boxes sewn on to all four corners of a “mochila,” Sue Fields said.
A mochila was a leather square shaped knapsack to be thrown over a bull-hide covered saddletree or a regular western saddle.
Pony express riders could quickly transfer the mochila, letters and all, from one horse to another.
Fields went to work making the mochila and they ordered two trees, which she covered with the hide. They ordered the stirrups and, of course, Fields said she had to try it out.
“I rode in it. It’s not comfortable,” Fields said. “I did it just for the event. I was still working on it the night before the ride.”
The committee also ordered 25 brass belt buckles commemorating the event.
Each rider received one, four went to the historical societies of Chardon, Geauga County, Mantua and Portage County, and the last one was auctioned off, Jim Fields said.
The one that was sold brought enough money to pay for the rest, he said.
Mail Hot Off the Pony
One after another on that hot June day, the riders, who had all sworn the Pony Express oath not to swear, fight or drink while employed, enjoyed their 15 or 20 minutes of fame.
After all the planning and excitement, the mail was delivered from Mantua to Chardon in about two hours, Fields said.
“The postmaster in Chardon said he’d never gotten the mail (from Mantua) that fast,” he said. “What we did in 1976 was a very patriotic thing.”
Tom McDonald, Chardon postmaster at the time, received all the letters and stamped them with a special stamp. As a guest at the reunion, he recalled setting up an antique post office outside.
Also attending the event were Bob Hood, who rode a gray mare he bought from Bradshaw, who won 64 blue ribbons during her career; John Bratnick, a horse trainer; Tom Snyder, who rode a Bradshaw horse called Cracker Jack; and Dennis Hill, a blacksmith who rode a horse called Rio that he bought from Bradshaw.
