The Rattlesnake on the Mail Trail
A rattlesnake struck Ed Plaskett's horse on the mountain mail trail. The horse left the county. The story has a happy ending — eventually.
Carrying the mail over the mountain was the Plaskett family trade. Byron Plaskett had the first post office in his own house in 1890 and rode the Jolon road twice a week with a string of horses; a Plaskett post office served this coast for decades — the place is still Plaskett, California, 93920 on the map. His son Edward Abbott Plaskett rode the same country, and told this one to his grandson Bill.
Ed was riding the mail over the hill — the long haul between the King City and Jolon side and the coast, all switchbacks and chaparral and heat — when his horse came up on a rattlesnake in the trail.
The snake struck the horse.
What a horse does next is not up for discussion. He bolted — off the trail and gone, over the ridge and out of the country, taking his fright with him and leaving Ed standing in the dust with the mail and a long walk to think about.
The story’s ending is the part Ed liked. Much later — a good while later — he found the horse. And the horse was fine. Rattlesnake bites on a big animal often are survivable; a horse’s leg is a lot of horse for a little venom, and this one had run off the worst of it. Ed got his horse back, the mail got where it was going, and the coast got one more story about what the mail run cost.
Recorded from the memory of Bill “Bull Plaskett” Alderson, as his grandfather Ed Plaskett told it to him. See also Plaskett Mail Carriers Swimming Icy Rivers and Mabel’s history, Mailmen Are Important Link In Coast Country History.