Fargo, James
James Congdell Fargo (1829 – 1915) was in the express-mail delivery business. It was, however, a business of chugging trains and huffing horses, and nobody could seriously expect delivery by the start of the next business day.
Fargo was born in Watervale, New York in 1829, the seventh in a family of 11 children. At the age of 15, he moved to Buffalo, New York and swept floors and ran errands in the main office of his brother William’s express service. Wells & Company which operated between Buffalo and Albany, and between Buffalo and Detroit.
Between 1848 and 1855, James ran the firm’s Detroit office. Then he took over the Chicago office of the reorganized firm, which had merged with other express-mail firms and had been renamed the American Express Company.
William Fargo and his partner, Henry Wells, went on in 1852 to found a second company, Wells, Fargo & Company, which handled banking and express business created by the California Gold Rush.
