William Cromwell Blackmore

WILLIAM “BILLY” CROMWELL BLACKMORE WAS ONE of those colorful, entertaining individuals who make Nevada’s history so rich and compelling. He was born in 1839 near Freeport, Illinois, the son of John R. and Nancy Wallace Blackmore. John was among the earliest settlers of northern Illinois and fought in the Black Hawk War in defense of white settlers in the region. He is often credited as the oldest settler of Warren, Illinois, and among the earliest settlers in the vast area between the Rock River in Wisconsin’s Mineral Point region and the Mississippi River.

Very little is known about Billy Cromwell’s early life. In the 1850 U.S. Census, however, he appears living with his parents and siblings in Cadiz, Green County, Wisconsin, where his father was farming. He does not appear in the 1860 census, but by age 21 he had almost certainly left the family home to make his own way.

Billy enlisted in the Missouri State Militia Cavalry in December 1863 and served as a private in Company F of the 4th Regiment during the Civil War. The 4th Missouri State Militia Cavalry was a Union unit organized in 1862 that served primarily in central and southwestern Missouri. Its duties included defending Springfield, fighting at Marmiton, and participating in major campaigns such as Curtis’s operations. Company F, which recruited heavily in St. Louis, took part in key actions including Pea Ridge and Vicksburg and played a vital role in keeping Missouri under Union control against Confederate guerrillas. Billy was discharged on March 25, 1865, at the expiration of his term of service, having been compensated regularly for “the use of his own horse and equipment.”

By 1866, Billy appears in the voter registration lists of Santa Clara, California. According to the 1870 U.S. Census, he was then living in Carson City, Nevada, with his wife, Carrie, and their son, William George Blackmore. (They disappear from his life in later census records, and no record of a divorce has been found.) At this time, Billy was working as a stage driver, a profession in which he would soon earn a formidable reputation as a “Master of the Whip.”

In the era of stagecoaches, “Master of the Whip” was a colloquial title reserved for the most skilled and respected drivers. It signified complete mastery of the long, ten-to twelve-foot bullwhip and the reins required to control a team of four or six horses, often under treacherous conditions. These men held one of the frontier’s most demanding and dangerous jobs, requiring exceptional expertise, courage, and concentration.

Billy Blackmore was particularly noted for his devotion to duty. One newspaper recalled: “His foot was always on the brake, with stock always in hand and whip ready to touch a leader. He was so attentive while on duty that his nightmares were a repetition of his run, and when asleep, his dreams were always of the dangerous places on the downgrades. At such times he would pull himself up by the blankets and press the footboard off the bed, muttering ‘Whoa there! Whoa!’ believing all the time he was bearing down on the brake. He was a terror to the landlords, who finally adopted the plan of building bedsteads that he couldn’t kick down.”— Reno Evening Gazette, August 6, 1891

In May 1872, Billy partnered with Luther Olds to operate the Genoa and Silver Mountain Stage Line. Using Concord coaches, the firm carried passengers, express, and U.S. mail between Genoa and Silver Mountain. Departures from Genoa were scheduled for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with return trips from Silver Mountain on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The partnership was short-lived, however, and a notice dissolving the firm appeared in the Carson City Daily Appeal on September 6, 1872. Around this time, Billy was also known to be a close associate—or “pard”—of the celebrated stage driver Hank Monk, famous for his association with Horace Greeley.

By 1879, Billy—by then widely known among fellow drivers as “Slippery Bill”—was living in Mono County, California, still working as a stage driver. Over the years that followed, newspapers carried numerous thrilling accounts of his experiences, including an incident in April 1887 when he was held up twice by highwaymen while driving the Wells Fargo Express near Ukiah, California.
How he came to the next chapter of his life may never be known, but by April 1894 Billy was working in San Francisco for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. There he “held the lines over six fine grays” in performances that included dramatic reenactments of stagecoach attacks by Indians.

The 1900 U.S. Census finds Billy once again on the move, this time in Hartshorne, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, where he was still earning his living as a driver. After hearing of the great mining strike, he headed west to Tonopah, Nevada. It was there, at the age of 63, that Billy met his end.

On September 27, 1903, Billy died from severe head injuries sustained in an accident the previous week. Still practicing the trade that had defined his life, he had set out from Tonopah toward the new camp of Ray with a four-horse wagon loaded with provisions. For reasons unknown, the team ran away, throwing Billy to the ground and scattering supplies along nearly a mile of road.

His obituary in the Carson City Daily Appeal poignantly observed that “Bill died in harness, and could he have had his way of going, this would probably have been the choice. Bill Blackmore was one of the few old-time drivers left in this section, as he flourished about the time Hank Monk was in the driver’s seat.”

Perhaps the saddest note in Billy Blackmore’s extraordinarily colorful story is that he lies today in an unmarked grave in the Old Tonopah Cemetery.