George W. Chorpenning Jr. (sometimes spelled 'Chorpening'; 1 June 1820–3 April 1894) was a pioneer in the transportation of mail, freight, and passengers through the arid and undeveloped western regions of nineteenth-century United States.
His efforts in the 1850s were vital to the integration of the then-new state of California with the established government and economy east of the Mississippi River.
At the time there was need for reliable mail service between California and the eastern states, most of which was then being transported by steamship via the Isthmus of Panama.
[1] He teamed with fellow Pennsylvania entrepreneur Absalom Woodward, and they received a contract in April 1851 from the U.S. Post Office to provide monthly transport of the mail between Sacramento, California and Salt Lake City, the most difficult leg of the first overland mail service.
[2][3] Captain Woodward, of Indiana County, Pennsylvania, made his first run, from California to Salt Lake City, in the winter of 1851/1852.
He (as well as four other men in the party) was killed in an Indian attack at Stone House, Nevada;[4][5] after that Chorpenning had the contract alone, and initially rode the trips himself.
Companies headed by William Hepburn Russell took over the route, and used Chorpenning's way stations to establish the short-lived Pony Express mail service.
His hometown newspaper, the Somerset Herald, printed his obituary on 11 April 1894: -- Death of Major Chorpening -- -- Was the First Man to Carry the Mails Across the Continent -- Major George Chorpening died in the New York Hospital, New York City, last Tuesday morning [3 April 1894].
During the years that Chorpening was engaged in running coaches and carrying mails over the plains he was assisted by his brother-in-law, Mr. Irwin Pile, of this place.
For a number of years following the war Major Chorpening made his summer home in this place [Somerset, Pennsylvania], where he owned one of the handsomest properties in town ...