att WHITING researchers
I found this article in Australia, picked up from the 'Marysville Appeal', printed in the
Sydney Morning Herald dated, Thursday, 3 May 1860.
DOG EXPRESS TRAINS.—The California Expressmen beat
the world in display of enterprise and perseverence.
Burck Whiting, who runs an express between Marysville
and the American valley, employs dogs in transmitting letters,
packages, and passengers over the snow, between the Mountain House
and the American Valley.
He works five of the sagacious beasts, and has them harnessed to
a sled, upon, which which, besides himself as driver, he
frequently takes a load of seven or eight hundred pounds. Last winter,
his dogs hauled through a lady passenger, from the Mountain House to
Meadow Valley. One of the dogs, "Mark," has been in the
express business for some four winters. Whiting says he would have no
hesitation in sending this dog through alone. Mark always has the post of honour,
and "works in the lead." This not only instanced the daring and energy of our
Mountain Expressmen, but is another proof of the value and sagacity of
"man's best friend in the brute creation," — Marysville Appeal.