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Dan DeQuille [William Wright] (1823-61) http://tinyurl.com/deQuille

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Snow-Shoe's Courage

From Snow-Shoe Thompson, 1886.

Reader: Kevin Hearle

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." So reads the famous inscription on the James Farley Post Office in New York City. But maybe it better describes one of California's most colorful figures.

Snow-shoe Thompson was a legend. As profiled by reporter Dan DeQuille, the Norwegian native was a hardy, bigger-than-life figure who never failed his appointed round, between Genoa, Nevada across the Sierra crest to Placerville, California.

Snowshoe Thompson statue in Mormon Station Park, Genoa, NV. Larger.

All that he carried in the way of provisions was a small quantity of jerked beef, or dried sausage, and a few crackers or biscuits. He never carried provisions that required to be cooked. The food that he took into the mountains was all of a kind that could be eaten as he ran. For drink he caught up a handful of snow, or lay down for a moment and quaffed the water of some brook or spring. He never took with him brandy, whisky, or liquor of any kind. He was a man that seldom tasted liquor.

Snow-shoe never stopped for storms. He always set out on the day appointed, without regard to the weather, and he traveled by nights as well as in the daytime. He pursued no regular path—in a trackless waste of snow there was no path to follow—but kept to a general route or course. By day he was guided by the trees and the rocks, and by night looked to the stars, as does a mariner to his compass. . . .

To ordinary men there is something terrible in the wild winter storms that often sweep through the Sierras; but the louder the howlings of the gale rose, the higher rose the courage of Snow-shoe Thompson.

Snow-shoe Thompson carried the mail over the Sierra for two decades, from 1856 to 1876.