Few independent freighters could afford to maintain a large number of wagons and oxen. If they won a government contract, they had to scramble to buy their needed equipment and stock and hire teamsters.
Between 1848 and 1852, close to a dozen freighters contracted to deliver supplies from Fort Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory to forts in the west. A few took their profits and moved on to other less risky business ventures.
If contract freighting was to be profitable, a company needed financial backing. Three prominent men with money and insight joined forces to create such a freighting monopoly.
Lexington, Missouri, businessman William Hepburn Russell had made a fortune by taking financial risks early on. The middle-aged entrepreneur had a hand in two railroads, banks and land speculation as well as being president of an insurance company and a road-building company.
When Russell heard of James Brown's success contracting to freight supplies for the government in 1848, Russell convinced Brown they should become partners. Their company flourished until November 1850 when Brown was stricken with erysipelas and typhoid fever and died that December.
William Bradford Waddell, fellow Lexington, Missouri, businessman, became involved with contract freighting through Russell. The government insisted freighters post surety bonds to cover the cost of the supplies.
Waddell signed a $100,000 performance bond for the Brown and Russell Company for freighting government supplies to Santa Fe in 1849, and to Fort Hall and Santa Fe in 1859.
After Brown's death, Russell formed a partnership with John S. Jones. Waddell again signed surety bonds for their caravans to the New Mexico Territory and Fort Kearny in Nebraska.
In 1853, Russell and Waddell formed a partnership and won a contract to freight supplies to Fort Union in the New Mexico Territory and Fort Riley in the Kansas Territory. Their strongest competitor was Alexander Majors.
Majors, a man with deep religious convictions, had begun his freighting venture in 1848 with six wagons and sufficient oxen. Six years later, he had become the largest freight company in western Missouri with a net worth of over $100,000.
In 1854, Quartermaster General Thomas Jesup eliminated awarding yearly contracts to freighters in favor of two-year contracts. Whoever was granted the contract would be required to freight supplies from Fort Leavenworth to all military posts in the West and Southwest.
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