Shot in the forehead and left for dead: a Pony Express rider’s story

An arrow struck a young Pony Express rider two inches above his left eye, the station boys broke off the shaft and rolled him under the trees as good as dead, and he woke after 18 days and went back to riding. The National Park Service tells the story of Elijah Nicholas “Uncle Nick” Wilson, as he told it.

Elijah Nicholas “Uncle Nick” Wilson. Public domain.

Can the tall tales be trusted?

The Pony Express produced many tall tales, and some riders’ stories are so unbelievable they could not have happened. The page says the historian Howard Driggs trusted Wilson as a primary source on the Pony Express experience. Wilson was born in April 1842 and had a pioneer childhood in the West. At about twelve he went to live with Washakie, the great chief of the Eastern Shoshone, and followed the seasons across their territory for two years. At 18 he signed on as a rider as the Pony Express began hiring young men. Having learned to break wild horses among the Shoshone, he was not afraid of a challenge. The work was exhausting, physically demanding and dangerous, but, he said, he got used to it.

The arrow

Returning from driving horses to Antelope Station in Nevada, in Superintendent Howard Egan’s division of the route, Wilson stopped at Spring Valley Station. Two orphaned boys, left by the station manager to run the place alone, invited him to supper. As his horse grazed, he saw the horses being driven toward a stand of cedar or pinyon pines by two raiders, likely Paiute or Shoshone. He ran after them firing three times and missed, and one raider shot a flint-tipped arrow that struck him two inches above his left eye. The boys tried to pull the arrow out, but it would not come, so they broke off the shaft and left the flint tip in his forehead. Thinking he was dead, they rolled him under the trees and ran for help.

Pony Express in Nevada. Red points are the stations Wilson mentioned in his account. NPS map.

The account leaves some details hazy: it is not known whether the boys ran to Antelope Spring Station, about 13 miles east, or to Schell Creek, about 10 miles west. They returned the next day with men to bury him and found him alive. They carried him to the station and sent for a doctor from Ruby Valley, 60 miles west. The doctor dug out the arrowhead but doubted the outcome, told the boys to keep wet cloths on Wilson’s head and left. Six days later Superintendent Egan happened by, found Wilson unconscious but alive and sent for the doctor again. Wilson stayed unconscious for 18 days; once awake, he recovered quickly and went back to riding.

Afterward

Wilson wore his hat low to hide the scar and had headaches for the rest of his life. He rode until the Pony Express shut down in October 1861, then lived as a western pioneer with a reputation as a storyteller. Children who loved his yarns gave him the nickname “Uncle Nick,” and he learned to read and write to share his adventures with a wider audience.

A painted photograph of Wilson. Public domain.

Sources

• National Park Service, Pony Express National Historic Trail, “Pony Express Rider’s Graze With Death”, drawing on Howard R. Driggs, “A Flint-Headed Arrow” in The Pony Express Goes Through (1963), and Wilson and Driggs, The White Indian Boy (1991); the page’s “Learn More” thumbnails and its claim about a film are left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.