USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 28
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tion, Indian Territory, he fattened fifty thou- sand cattle a year for the market, at the same time operating extensively in Texas and New Mexico. He has branded twelve thousand calves a year, but has never been a feeder, as he has always fattened his cattle on the range or sold them to feeders.
"Jim" Daugherty, as he is known throughout the length and breadth of the live-stock "cir- cles," is a man of graceful figure, somewhat above the average in height, with a warm hand- shake and a pleasing salutation for every one he meets, and it is acknowledged by his friends that he is endowed with a capacity for business and for managing large affairs allotted to few men. At fifty-three years of age, in the prime of life, he is one of the powerful factors in the cattle industry, and gives promise so to remain for many years to come. He has seen the In- dians driven from the range to make room for the white man, the buffalo exterminated to make room for the cow, and now he sees the great cattle owners gathering their herds within en- closed pastures before the irresistible advance of the small settler. His range of vision covers all the interesting period from 1865 to the pres- ent time, and as the "boy contractor" he delivered forty thousand head of cattle to the government for distribution at Indian agencies. The life of a man who appears to have been a born leader, reaching back to the close of the Civil war, can- not fail to be of unusual interest. Mr. Daugh- erty is an interesting talker, and he has an origi- nal way of expressing himself.
"When I was a boy fourteen years of age," said he, "I reasoned as follows concerning the stock business. The raising of hogs may be a good business ; hogs are all right, but they may take the cholera and die. Sheep are all right, they increase rapidly, and there is always a mar- ket for wool, but sheep are liable to take scab or foot-rot and die. Horses are pretty, they are nice to have, and we all ride, but the country has lots of horses and may become overstocked. Cattle furnish the best meat in the world and peo- ple are going to eat it as long as grass grows and water runs. As cattle seemed to me to be the most desirable property in the stock list I
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decided when a boy in favor of cattle, and I have never known of any reason for changing my , opinion.
"Conditions are changing, but they will ad- just themselves. The time is rapidly drawing to a close for handling large herds in the United States, and the only breeding country now avail- able is Mexico. There the laws are such that land cannot be taken up by the little settler. On this account many large ranches will be operated by Americans in Mexico. In this country it re- quires forty acres of range for an animal, and land is not available or it is too valuable, but the cattle business will continue under new condi- tions, and there will be as much money in it as ever when properly conducted. My idea of the cowman is that he should not have too much classical book education. It may interfere seri- ously with him as a cowman. I said to my son, now sixteen years of age, 'I do not care for you to stay too long in school. It might take the snap out of you. Master a little mathematics, learn to read and write and understand grammar, and I do not care whether you learn anything else in school or not.' I believe in some educa- tion but not too much.
"One of my plans is never to let a good man go. I have paid many a man a salary to do nothing in order to have him when I wanted him. A bad man is dear at no price, but it is bet- ter to pay a good man for six months than to lose him. A cowman should start at the bottom, sleep on the blanket, eat any kind of grub, and he will lcarn the business. I regard the cowman as one of the brightest men in the world, and he is safe to tic to. In the earlier days a coward lost his life or he went home. He was out of place in the cow camp and actually dangerous to the rest of us, for we could not depend on a coward in an cmergency. A man is born with a certain amount of metal in him. It belongs to his nature. While he may be as good as an- other man in other respects, he can't face the music. I remember a little fellow who came out from St. Louis to Indian Territory while I was ranching in the Creek Nation. He came to clerk in a store. There was a pitched battle in town, and two men were killed that day. The
little clerk crawled behind the salt barrels. He was honest, a good business man and a perfect gentleman, but the boys guyed him until he could stand it no longer, and in six months he disap- peared. He lacked the grit to make the genuine cowman."
At one time on the Washita river Mr. Daugh- erty had opportunity of testing the metal of fourteen cowmen who were assisting him in driving a herd of five thousand cattle. In those days constant vigilance was the only assurance of safety, and when a herd was on the trail in the Indian country, picked men rode ahead of the herd and experienced riders kept within hailing distance along the flanks. Life might depend on a single word, and men were trained to re- spond instantaneously to orders. Such was the nervous condition of men leading this hazardous life that a cowman spending the night on the open prairie at a strange cow camp warned his entertainers not to touch him in the night if they wished to wake him. "Speak to me," said he, "but don't put your hand on me or I may shoot you."
As Mr. Daugherty and his men were moving forward on the trail a war party of seven hun- dred Indians suddenly dashed in view. The cowmen were all armed with Winchesters, and each man carried two six-shooters. A signal from Mr. Daugherty brought every cowman to his side. Had they hesitated the entire party would have been annihilated. The cattle ware abandoned, and the brave little band gathered on a knoll awaiting the attack. The order was, "No bad breaks." No man was to fire unless the Indians opened battle, and then it would be a fight to the finish. Every man accepted the situation, and every man expected to die. The Indians recognized that they were facing a des- perate body of men and they would lose per- haps one hundred warriors before the enemy could be wiped out. Result: The Indians killed seven hundred cattle, but not a single shot was fired at the white men. The same presence of mind that saved the lives of Mr. Daugherty and his cowboys saved the life of a minister of the gospel who was leaving the church on Sunday, during the early days of Fort Worth. Mr.
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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.
Daugherty was conducting a drove of cattle through the settlement, the trail leading along what is now Main street in the city. When the cattle reached the point about where Eighth street crosses Main, without an instant's warning the entire drove began to stampede. The af- frightened cattle plunged straight ahead, and the minister was walking with his head bent toward the ground right in front of the rushing herd. Mr. Daugherty was fortunately riding ahead of the cattle, and his practiced ear instant- ly detected the danger. He turned his horse, rode to the side of the minister, seized him and lifted him behind the saddle and succeeded in carrying the rudely awakened man to a place of safety. It was a "close shave," but like many other bold dashes made by the daring cowman it ended happily. The pioneers of the plains lived in the midst of danger, they courted excite- ment, and incidents like the one here given were regarded as ordinary occurrences, inseparably connected with life in the new country.
James M. Daugherty was born in Texas coun- ty, Missouri, February 27, 1850. When he was a year old his parents moved to Texas, so that Mr. Daugherty, for all practical purposes, is a son of the Lone Star state. His father, James M. Daugherty, was of an old Virginia family. He was a live-stock raiser and a man of large influence wherever known. He held offices of trust in Missouri, but died in Denton county, Texas, three years after taking up his home in the state. The mother of Mr. Daugherty was Miss Eleanor McGhee, a member of the McGhee family of Kentucky. She died in Denton county in May 1860. There were seven children in the family: C. C., T. W., Matthew, W. A., D. B., Mary Jane (now Mrs. Eddleman, of Muskogee, Indian Territory) and James M. The property of the family was mainly invested in negroes, and was swept away during the Civil war. The Daugherty brothers all took part in the war. T. W. Daugherty was a member of the state legis- lature and C. C. was county sheriff, but they resigned to espouse the cause of the Confederacy. T. W. recruited a company for the Twenty-ninth Texas Cavalry, and commanded the company during the war. James M. was too young when
the war opened to take any active part, and at- tended Mckenzie's College near Clarkville, Texas, from 1861 until 1864. At the age of fourteen he joined Cooper's Brigade, which was operating in Indian Territory, and as his youth prevented regular enlistment he was accepted as express rider, and for a year performed active service as bearer of dispatches, participating in several engagements. He was at Sherman, Texas, when peace was declared. After a visit to his home in Denton he went to San Antonio and engaged as a cowboy for James Adams, a prominent cattle-raiser of southwestern Texas, who proved a good friend to the ambitious and energetic young man. In 1866 Mr. Daugherty decided to enter business on his own account, although only sixteen years of age. His ex- perience in the army gave him valuable informa- tion concerning trails and outdoor life, and he persuaded Mr. Adams to let him have a herd of twelve hundred cattle to drive to a new market that was opening in Missouri. The war had practically wiped out the cattle in many of the states in 1866. Texas was the only state that could claim any great number of cattle. It is estimated that there were seven or eight million in Texas at the close of the war. The state had not been overrun by great armies, and the beef supply was almost as great in Texas as it is today. The herds of many of the northern states were therefore recouped from the vast ranges of Texas.
The drive from southern Texas to Missouri was accompanied with danger, as the country was infested by desperadoes from armies of both the north and the south, and human life was held at little value. Arriving in southwestern Mis- souri, with Sedalia, the railway terminus, as the objective point, Mr. Daugherty and a com- panion who were riding ahead of the cattle were unexpectedly attacked by a party of twenty Jay- hawkers. The companion of Mr. Daugherty was killed and he was taken prisoner and carried to Cow Creek, where he was tied to a tree. The cattle in the meantime had been stampeded, and one hundred and fifty beeves were separated from the herd and not seen again. The robbers held a conference as to whether they should hang
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the young cowman or burn him, alleging that he was introducing fever-infected cattle into Mis- souri. This charge was merely a pretense. The prisoner felt that the moment was critical, as two men had been hanged the day before at the same spot, and he made a plea, presenting his youth as an extenuation, which would be interesting reading at this time if it could be reproduced. The appeal of the youthful stranger and his tone of sincerity touched the heart of one of the desperate men and he espoused the cause of the boy. This led to an angry debate, but the cause of mercy prevailed, and Daugherty was permitted to live. At different times he had attempted in vain to learn the name or where- abouts of his savior, but he never saw the man after that exciting scene. The main body of the herd had been collected by the cowmen, and a short time afterward the cattle, minus one hundred and fifty which were taken by the rob- bers, were sold for thirty-five dollars a head to a purchaser at Fort Scott, Kansas. Mr. Daugh- erty received money enough to pay for the whole herd and have a snug profit besides.
This was a tragic introduction to life on the trail, but for several years Mr. Daugherty drove herds to the north. In 1867 he drove to Junction City, Kansas, in 1869 to Nevada, in 1870 to Oma- ha and in 1871 he conducted a large herd to the spot where Muskogee now stands in Indian Ter- ritory. The year following he established a ranch sixty miles east of Trinidad in Colorado terri- tory, where he operated for two years. In 1873 he drove ten thousand beef cattle over the trail to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he sold the entire herd to contractors who were supplying Indian agencies. The next step of Mr. Daugherty was to secure a contract himself to supply the Chey- enne and Arrapahoe agency, the Kiowa and Comanche and the Washita agency in Indian Territory with beef. In two years he delivered forty thousand cattle to these agencies, making deliveries twice each week. Mr. Daugherty's extensive operations in Indian Territory gave him an intimate acquaintance with Indian char- acter and a working knowledge of the plains. After closing out his government contracts he moved the stock that was left over to Stonewall
county, Texas, on the south fork of the Brazos river, and as Abilene was his nearest supply point he established his home in that place and engaged in raising, buying and marketing cattle on a very large scale. He now has three ranches, two in west Texas and one in New Mexico, all with- in convenient access of El Paso, where he is preparing to establish his permanent home. "El Paso," said Mr. Daugherty, "is destined to be the leading city of Texas. It has a beautiful climate, is surrounded by a fine grazing coun- try and the mining interests are highly promis- ing. It is the gate-way into Mexico, New Mexi- co, Texas, Arizona and California, and has many advantages of a great commercial and in- dustrial center." Mr. Daugherty says there was more profit in cattle during the early days of the trail than at present. The trail was cheaper than the railroad. It cost from fifty to seventy-five cents a head to drive cattle from southern Texas to Kansas points and one dollar to drive to Wy- oming and Montana points. The railway charge is from three to four dollars. Wonderful op- portunities were open to the early cattlemen. All West Texas and many counties of the Gulf coast was a great cow country, and the little settler was in evidence only at intervals of twen- ty-five or fifty miles. Mr. Daugherty remembers when the section of land on which the business part of Dallas is located was offered for a pair of boots. "Why didn't you buy the land?" was asked of the old timer who first told the story. "I didn't have the boots," was the reply.
Mr. Daugherty is interested in a valuable mining property in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, one hundred and fifty miles from the railroad in the Sierra Madras. The organization known as the Southern Mining Company, with headquarters in Kansas City and El Paso, owns a group of twelve properties carrying two or three ounces of gold to the ton and one hundred ounces of silver. The experts report immense possibilities in these properties, and systematic development on a thorough business scale is in progress. The mine is reached only over moun- tain trails, by means of burros.
In 1875 Mr. Daugherty was united in marriage to Miss Bettie Middleton, daughter of D. C. Mid-
JOHN T. LYTLE
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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.
dleton, one of. the pioneer cattlemen of Texas. Five children have been born of the union: Nora (deceased), Mabel, Lillie, Cleveland and James M., Jr. The latter promises to be a worthy suc- cessor of his father in the live stock business. The limitations of space in this work make it . impossible to go into details of many interesting stories that could be presented from the varied. experience of Mr. Daugherty. The events of frontier life were vividly impressed upon his mind and were instrumental in a great degree in shaping his character. Mr. Daugherty met on the trail many of the great leaders of the . cattle industry, and by following their advice he early gained a fortune which has since been increased many fold. Mr. Daugherty has ridden in a stage from Kansas City to San. Antonio and from Lawrence, Kansas, over the old Santa Fe trail, to Santa Fe. He was present at the barbecue when the Kansas City Stock Yards were opened, was one of the first members of the Texas Cattle-Raisers' Association and on two occasions served as delegate of that organ- ization to the annual convention of the National Live Stock Association. For years in his early career Mr. Daugherty lived in the midst of out- laws, and it was necessary to keep his eyes shut or quit the country. Many times he enter- tained desperate characters at his camp, and he would hear them say, "Daugherty is all right, he don't tell anything." To have talked would have been certain death. Self-reliant, instant in emergency, a dead shot, fearless and with a reputation for attending to his own business, the young cowman lived unharmed in a region where many others died. The type of which Mr. Daugherty is an example has almost dis- appeared. To the student of human nature it is one of the most interesting of all types of the plains. In years to come, as the country becomes settled and vast areas teem with population where once fed the great cattle herds of the plains, the student of the progress of civilization will stop with surprise when he reads of the achievements of men chronicled in this publication. He will receive new inspiration when he learns of their trials and their triumphs, and he will be im- pressed with the motto: "Nothing is impossible
to him who wills to win and who allows no thought of defeat to find lodgment in his mind." For after all, the mind is the greatest power in . the universe.
CAPTAIN JOHN T. LYTLE, a prominent and well known resident of Fort Worth, has for many years been identified in a successful and extensive manner with the cattle industry of Texas and is secretary of the Cattle-Raisers' As- sociation of Texas. Captain Lytle's career is typical of his state in that it has been varied in its interesting events and has always been pro- gressive toward broader success and power.
Born in Adams county, Pennsylvania, near the town of Gettysburg, a son of Francis and Marga- ret (Collins) Lytle, who, natives respectively of Maryland and Pennsylvania, both moved to Tex- as, where they died. John T. Lytle was a boy of fifteen when he moved to this state, being then just out of school. He went to old Bexar county, locating fifteen miles west of San Antonio. There he entered the employ of his uncle, William Lytle, a cattleman, who had come to Texas in 1836, the year of Independence, had first located in Washington county, whence in 1846 he moved to Bexar county, where he remained one of the foremost representatives of the cattle industry until his death.
From the strenuous life of a cattle ranch Mr. Lytle went to the yet more rigorous career of sol- dier. Enlisting in Bexar county in Woods' regi- ment, the Thirty-second Cavalry of Texas, he spent three years in the Confederate cause. His regiment being attached to the Trans-Mississippi Department, he saw his service in Texas and Louisiana. He participated in the fighting during Banks' Red river expedition, at the battles of Mansfield, Pleasant Hill and other engagements of that campaign. He received promotion to or- derly sergeant of his regiment and served as such for two years.
After leaving the army Mr. Lytle resumed work as a cowboy on his uncle's ranch. In 1868 he went into the cattle business for himself in Frio county, where he lived until 1873, when he moved to Medina county, making his headquar- ters at Castroville, then the county seat. At this
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point he built up a large cattle business. Although he has always had a good ranch and cattle of his own, he made a specialty in those early days of handling large herds for market, taking them over the trail to the markets of the north and the range country in the north and northwest, such as Dakota and Montana. In those days all business of this kind was overland, the railroads not yet having penetrated the great cattle ranges, and the cattle were taken over the trails through Texas, the Indian Nation, Kansas and Nebraska. Not seldom, too, were these expeditions fraught with much danger, both from Indian raids and other perils, and Captain Lytle can relate many adventures and interesting experiences connect- ed with his cowboy life. His familiarity with the western range country enabled him, in 1876, to open and establish in general use what was known as the Griffin trail, from Fort Griffin, Texas, to Dodge City, Kansas, which was a much better route than the old trail, which was many miles to the east of the new one.
Thus from 1860 to 1887 Captain Lytle's main business was driving herds over the trail and con- ducting his own ranch. When the I. & G. N. railroad was built south from San Antonio, Lytle station was established on his ranch, and this
then became Captain Lytle's home town and post- office. He still retains ranching interests there, and of late years has invested in a large cattle ranch in Coahuila, Mexico.
Captain Lytle was elected secretary and man- ager of the Cattle-Raisers' Association of Texas in 1903, and as the headquarters of the associa- tion are at Fort Worth he moved to this city on being chosen to the position, and has since made this his home. The association represents the great cattle industry of Texas and is an organiza- tion of great service and usefulness to the cattle- men, numbering among its membership not only all the prominent cattlemen of Texas, but per- sons in other states who own cattle and ranches in this state. Before his election as secretary and manager Captain Lytle had been a member of the association many years, and had served as a member of the executive committee, vice presi- dent, etc.
Captain Lytle married Miss Elizabeth Noonan, a sister of Judge Noonan, of San Antonio. His wife is now deceased, and there are two children, George N. and Miss Helen. Captain Lytle has fraternal affiliations with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE RAILROAD ERA-RAILROAD BUILDING IN NORTH TEXAS UP TO 1880.
After Peters Colony had ceased to be a factor of civilization, after the immigrants of the pioneer epoch had taken up their homesteads, had founded towns and the other essential institu- tions of society, after the Civil and Indian wars had scourged the people almost to despair and for two decades had held population almost at a standstill, there came to North Texas as the final and greatest resource and builder of civilization daries, North Texas is peculiarly inland. The numerous rivers cutting diagonally across the state and draining it from northwest to the Gulf, furnish so many avenues of commerce in South- east Texas where their flow is steady and of sufficient volume to afford permanent navigation. But in North Texas, nearer their sources, these streams have never exerted any influence on transportation and, consequently, development. the railroad. Were multiplicity of evidence de -. This is shown by the fact that the streams of sired to follow that almost axiomatic assertion migration and settlement have not followed the water-courses, but in the directions indicated by more artificial causes, such as military posts. And the Red river, on the north, though of greater navigable importance, never became a real factor in the settlement of this part of the state, for several reasons: Its north bank was the official home of the Indians, and fringes of settlement which sometimes formed along the south bank were the first to bear the brunt of Indian attack and therefore never extended, per- manently, to the west further than the frontier line which marked the settlements in the second and third tiers of counties. In fact, as we have seen, while Clay and Montague counties were settled before the war, they became depopulated during hostilities, and Gainesville marked the real western limit during that period, although, further south, Belknap and Decatur managed to continue a precarious existence during the troublous times of the sixties. Then, when Red river might have become a line of migration, all its value in that direction was lost sight of before the immensely superior advantages offered by the railroads. "Transportation is the key to population," North Texas history is most replete with exact and copious illustration. Each decade since 1870, when railroad building really began, has wit- nessed a larger increase in population than re- sulted in all the years before that date by reason of colonization and natural immigration. We have already, in discussing the overland stage route, listed such transportation agencies as among the principal factors in the upbuilding of the commonwealth, but the railroad, by its per- manence, its powerful organization, and its sys- tematic workings, takes precedence of all other means of transportation. While the stage coach was so essential to the pioneer period, it was at best a transient institution in every sense of the words ; practically all its efficiency was contained in the vehicle and the six horses, and, aside from its usefulness in conveying mail and passengers between outlying posts, it formed no permanent link to bind settlements together, and when the stage coach rolled away over the hills, isolation was the lot of the settlement until the crack of the driver's whip was heard again.
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