By Martha Glauthier - Curator/Past President
San Dimas Historial Society

She was the first - and perhaps the only - female to carry the U. S. Mail driving a stagecoach. And she was only 14 years old! The San Dimas Press in the mid- 1930’s had several articles about Delia Haskett Rawson, who was then in her mid-70’s, living and working on her 10-acre orange grove on West Bonita in San Dimas. In the 1870’s and ‘80’s, her father owned the Ukiah hotel, blacksmith shop, and stage line. When Delia was so small her feet wouldn’t touch the floorboards, she began riding with him and begging him to let her hold the “ribbons,” which he often did. As she got older, she was given more practice, until the day when the regular driver was suddenly taken ill. She was given the opportunity then, at age 14, to drive the stagecoach, with the U.S.Mail, from Ukiah to Willetts. It was a long trip, beginning at midafternoon, and ending about 3 the next morning. She told about being alone on that trip - no passengers - and after being warned several times to “be careful” and “watch for highwaymen,” she became quite alarmed about midnight when she heard a group of horsemen overtaking her coach. When they reached her, she was mightily relieved to realize that they were singing hymns, on their way home from a local Revival Meeting. Delia’s parents, Samuel and Miranda Haskett, had come West in a “prairie schooner” in 1854, and first settled in Petaluma, then Ukiah, where her mother taught school for 48 years. She was the first California teacher to be retired on a State pension. Delia was born in 1861, and acquired many skills - taking prizes in trick riding, roping, shooting (with a long pistol) - and also was a singer and winner of beauty contests. She was most proud to be able to say at age 75 that she had enjoyed excellent health, had never worn glasses, and until two years before, had no dental work done!

In 1934 when the Pioneer Stage Drivers of California Association was organized at Carpinteria, she was elected Vice President, with Capt. William Banning as president. Apparently the meetings were mainly devoted to reminiscing and “swapping” tales. Mrs. Rawson said she was never held up by ‘Black Bart’, a notorious highwayman of the area, although he had ridden on her stage a couple of times. She was noted for entertaining her passengers with her singing, and when she sang in the evening at impromptu affairs, she was often paid in gold dust from the mines, a cow or a sheep, or even vegetables and fruits. (The latter were not thrown at her, but given in appreciation of her lovely voice.) Delia Rawson had moved to Southern California in the 1880’s with her husband, and subsequently raised her family of 2 sons and a daughter. The daughter, Dale Fuller, worked in the early movies as well as helping her mother with the orange grove in San Dimas. In the evening when their work was done, they sat enjoying the fragrance of the orange blossoms, and reliving the exciting days when Delia drove the ‘four-in-hand’ coach over the hills and through the redwoods to deliver passengers, freight and the U.S. Mail.

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