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you couldn't beat the Pony Express. As California began to boom from the Gold Rush, business owners and settlers needed a faster way to communicate with folks farther east. At the time, letters and packages took roughly twenty five days to travel by stagecoach, even longer if going by ship. The Pony Express more than half that time, with an

average delivery window of about ten days. Not everyone used the Pony Express, though it was really expensive for the average person to send a letter at five dollars per half ounces of mail. The service was primarily used as a delivery method for newspapers, business correspondents, and government bulletins. Gold Rush hopeful's just couldn't afford the speedy service, and speedy it was. Ten days may have been the average time it took to deliver a letter, but it certainly

wasn't the fastest. That record belonged to Robert Haslam. He earned the nickname Pony Bob for a very good reason. He was responsible for the fastest delivery in Pony Express history. Bob had come to the United States from England as a teenage major, just as the Pony Express was getting up and running. He had gotten his start by building depot stations, but was soon given a route of his own, from Lake Tahoe to Buckland Station, a seventy five mile

stretch of Nevada Territory all his own. In May of eighteen sixty, with his deliveries in tow, Bob traveled on horseback from San Francisco to Buckland Station, where he got a taste of a growing war. Not the Civil War, mind you, but one that must have seemed equally as terrifying. The Pyramid Lake Indian War had found its way to Buckland's Station in a bad way. The relief rider, who was supposed to carry Bob's mail east to Smith's Creek was too scared to ride due to the growing Native

American threat. Bob couldn't let the letters he had been carrying go undelivered. He had a decision to make and quick, or his trip would have been for nothing. So he mounted up and kept going one hundred and ninety miles on horseback and just under nine hours without rest, and he made it. Bob slept all night before traveling back to Buckland Station the next day. Once he reached the depot at Cold Springs, he noticed the war had finally arrived.

The station keeper had been killed and everything inside had been taken. There was no time to stop. The longer he lingered, the more danger he was putting himself in, so he just kept going. Three hundred and eighty miles later, Pony Bob had done it. He'd completed the longest round trip on record for the Pony Express in less than two days. Bob Hasslum rode for the Pony Express for months following his record breaking journey, but the most important

ride of his life was still yet to come. In April of eighteen sixty one, a very special delivery had to get from Fort Kearney in the Nebraska territory, all the way to Placerville, California. If it didn't make it, the fate of the entire country might be at risk. Only one rider was fit to carry such precious cargo, pony Bob himself. He picked up the bundle, tucked it into his saddle bag, and rode for one hundred twenty miles.

His route took him through Piute, Indian Territory, and as he traveled, he encountered a handful of braves who didn't take kindly to him trespassing on their land. One of their arrows found its way into his arm, while another flew straight into his jaw, knocking out several of his teeth. The attack didn't deter him, though, and his horse galloped faster until they were out of danger. He made it to California in just eight hours and twenty minutes and

then delivered his package. You see, that precious cargo he'd been carrying had been Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address, which was to be telegraphed to Sacramento for publication up and down the West coast. And if Bob hadn't made it in time, California might have chosen to side with a Confederacy at the start of the Civil War. What's most interesting about the Pony Express isn't the roster of riders like Pony Bob Hasslum or Buffalo Bill Cody, nor the blistering speed

with which mail was delivered across the country. It wasn't even the dangerous conditions it's rider's face, like mounting threats from the Native Americans or the harsh weather. No, it's that this company, which has such an enduring legacy as an icon of American industry, only lasted for eighteen months. Selling a house can be a real pain between fixing it up and staging everything just right. Hooking a potential buyer takes a delicate mixture of truth with a little

bit of fiction. Sometimes the seller needs to drum up interest by any means necessary. But not Helen Actley. She didn't have this problem. Her house had been the talk of the town for quite some time. Helen moved into her home in Nyack, New York, in the late nineteen sixties. She had been warned of what awaited her. That the home came with three other tenants who showed no signs

of wanting to move out any time soon. She her husband, and their four children, George, Kara, William, and Cynthia didn't have a problem with that, though, and they lived there for years, getting along just fine with their de facto roommates. Sometimes one of them would shake Cynthia's bed in the morning to rouse her from sleep. Others would give the athlete children coins or trinkets that would vanish later, never

to be seen again. Helen spoke to her neighbors about doors slamming and loud footsteps of conversations that carried on into the night, keeping them all awake. However, despite these disruptions, the family never tried to have their fellow home dwell or is evicted. One day, as Helen was painting the living room ceiling, one of the older housemates just sat and watched her, never saying a word. On a particularly eerie night, her son awoke to find another of the

residents pressed their face right up against his own. Of course, people change, they grow, just like the children did before moving out into homes of their own, one they didn't have to share with three inconsiderate other people, and their parents will they grew tired of their current arrangement and decided to sell the house in They reached out to a local realtor to facilitate the sale. Explaining the odd situation regarding the house. People from all over heard about

the accles and the people who lived with them. Everyone knew what buying that home meant for their dreams of peace and quiet. Well, everyone except Jeffrey Stambowski. Jeffrey toured the home quickly, deciding it would be a good fit. He made a down payment and went into contract on the house completely unaware of the three other tenants living inside. Neither Helen nor the realtor told him about them. By the time he learned about their presence, it was too late.

He tried to rescind the contract and ended up losing his down payment. As a result, Mr Strombowski filed a lawsuit against Helen Ackley for fraud. In fact, the case went all the way to the New York Supreme Court. That's because this wasn't just any fraud case, and the other tenants weren't your average renters. Mr Strombowski alleged that Helen Ackley neglected to disclose the presence of poltergeists in

her home, which would have lowered its value. They were Sir George and his wife, Lady Margaret, who had lived in Nyack in the seventeen hundreds, as well as a Navy lieutenant who served during the American Revolution. They were not the malevolent ghosts of films and television. But Mr Strombowski didn't care. He had been made to look like a fool, and the court surprisingly agreed with him. It didn't matter that the Actlee ghosts were the subject of

numerous articles in national magazines. It didn't matter that everyone in town knew all about the haunted house on Love at a Place. According to the New York Supreme Court, Mr Strombowski should have been told about the three spirits residing in the home. The ruling, officially titled Strembovski versus Actley, is now commonly known as the ghostbuster ruling. It states that if a home was ever advertised to the public as haunted by ghosts, but a potential buyer was unaware

of it, the contract can be rescinded. Today, the ruling is taught in law schools and often printed on contracts for new homes in the state of New York. No one else has reported any paranormal activity since the Accles moved out, Mediums who have made contact with the spirits have said that they're none too happy with the new homeowners and maybe they grew tired of waiting for another family like the Accles, or maybe they decided to haunt

a warmer climate. I say that because after the ruling against her, Helen Accley was reported to have said she was moving to Florida and taking her ghostly roommates with her. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.