William Bradford Waddell

William Bradford Waddell (born October 17, 1807, Fauquier county, Virginia, U.S.—died April 1, 1872, Lexington, Missouri) American businessman and coproprietor of Russell, Majors and Waddell, the most prominent freight, mail, and passenger transportation company in the United States in the mid-19th century. The company founded and operated the Pony Express (1860–61).

Waddell’s grandfather emigrated from Scotland as an apprentice, and his father married into the distinguished family of William Bradford of the Plymouth colony. When Waddell was age five, his mother died, whereupon his father remarried and moved the family from Virginia to the wilds of Kentucky. Leaving home at age 17, Waddell worked as a lead miner in Illinois and as a retail clerk in St. Louis before returning to Kentucky and eventually marrying and starting his own dry-goods store. In the mid-1830s his family relocated to Lexington, Missouri, where he built new stores that brought him great wealth.

In 1852 he and William Russell created Waddell & Russell, a wholesale trading company. Among their first mutual endeavours, and Waddell’s first experience in the freight business, was delivering a wagon train of supplies to the U.S. Army at Fort Riley, Kansas Territory, in 1853. In 1854 Russell and Waddell joined Alexander Majors to form Russell, Majors and Waddell, which would corner the market on freight delivery to the military west of the Missouri River. Waddell’s role in that company—which provided the foundation of the Pony Express—was as its stabilizing force, taking care of the everyday management of the business. After paying off his debts in the wake of the demise of the Pony Express in 1861, Waddell never returned to business.