USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 41
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In 1853, when the Weatherspoon family were massacred by Indians, Mr. Evans organized a company of sixteen men and followed them to the Twin mountains, where a fight took place, also in Erath county at Ball mountain at the head of Stroud's creek and in Palo Pinto county. Darkness then overtook them and the Indians were lost sight of. A number of men were killed, and two men and several horses were wounded, but they succeeded in getting nine scalps. Mr. Evans rode a horse which was a half-brother to Grafton, the first horse ever sold for over $10,- oco in the United States. His horse was slight- ly wounded.
In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil war, our subject organized and drilled a company of cav- alry, afterward left his company and went to New Orleans, thence to Montgomery, Alabama, after which he returned home and was the only one to raise a company of infantry in Tarrant county. Mr. Evans first served in the Twenty- first Texas Regiment, Trans-Mississippi Depart- ment, took part in a number of battles, had many narrow escapes from death, and served until the close of the struggle. He was at Galveston at the time of the surrender, and he then brought his command to Robinson county, where they dis- banded.
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After returning home Mr. Evans bought a drove of sheep on credit which he shipped to New Orleans and sold at a loss of $800. While returning on the boat to Galveston, he made the acquaintance of a Jew cotton buyer and engaged with him to buy cotton, and at the end of two months he had made $2,800, the Jew having shipped the money to him in nail-kegs, and for which he never asked security or a receipt. Dur- ing his four years' service Mr. Evans never drew but two months' pay, and he gave that to two boys to return to their homes. He paid a short visit to his mother, also spending some time in Chicago, and then returned to this ,coun- ty. He next took a drove of cattle to Kansas, shipping them from there to St. Louis, Chicago, and Philadelphia, and they were the first cattle bought and driven from Tarrant county.
In 1866 Mr. Evans was elected to represent his county in the legislature of Texas, and after the reconstruction served as a senator four years, his term in the lower house being in the eleventh, and in the upper house in the twelfth and- thir- teenth legislatures. After witnessing the cor- ruption of the parties, he denounced them both, and still refuses to be a believer in the principles of either. In 1877 he joined the call for a Green- back convention to be held at Memphis, to which he was the only delegate from Texas, and at that convention there were only seven delegates to represent the fifteen southern states. He was instrumental in bringing the first seven rail- roads to Fort Worth, and no man has ever done more to start and keep the wheels of progress rolling about Fort Worth than he.
J. WRIGHT MOOAR. Back to a picturesque period in the history of the great west can Mr. Mooar's connection therewith be traced. He is one of the most prominent characters of the western country and the part which he has played in its development is a unique and interesting one. Long prior to the date when settlements were being made in this section of the country in order to raise stock or develop farms he came to Texas and hunted upon the plains the buffa- loes that then roamed in great numbers, but which have been almost exterminated by the hunters
until it is indeed an unusual thing to find one of those animals at large. The history of Mr. Mooar if written in detail would give a very com- plete and accurate account of the development of what became an important and profitable in- dustry of the west, that of buffalo hunting for the purpose of securing the hides and also mar- keting the meat.
Mr. Mooar was born in Pownal, Bennington county, Vermont, August 10, 1851. The Mooar family is of Scotch descent and its progenitors in the United States arrived here about the be- ginning of the seventeenth century. John Mooar, the grandfather of J. Wright Mooar, removed from Massachusetts to Vermont, becoming one of its early residents and there he established and operated one of the first tanneries in that state.
John A. Mooar, son of John Mooar, was born in Vermont and at an early day in the history of Michigan took up his abode in that common- wealth. There he established a sawmill in the midst of the primeval forest of Saginaw county. It was his intention to leave his family there and make the place his home, but he suffered a stroke of paralysis and subsequently returned to Vermont, his active career being thus ended. He was a man who capably controlled large affairs and he speculated to a considerable extent in both land and lumber in Vermont and in Michigan. Notwithstanding the ill health which overtook him he lived to the advanced age of eighty-one years, passing away about five years ago. He married Miss Esther K. Wright, a daughter of Josiah Wright and a descendant of Silas Wright, once a prominent factor in political life in New England. They became the parents of four chil- dren, of whom Mrs. John W. Combs of Pownal, Bennington county, Vermont, John Wesley Mooar of Colorado, Texas, and J. Wright Mooar of this review are now living.
The two brothers in Texas maintained a con- tinuous partnership under the firm style of Mooar Brothers from 1870 until July 15, 1905, or a period of thirty-five years, and then by mutual consent decided to divide their interests largely for the purpose of having their affairs in shape so that the estate could be easily settled if either were called from this life. The firm of Mooar
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Brothers, however, was through more than a third of a century a conspicuous factor in busi- ness life in Western Texas.
J. Wright Mooar remained at home in his youth and as a boy went into a woolen factory, where he was employed in the summer seasons, while in the winter months he attended school until eighteen years of age. He then went to Michigan and lived with his uncle, E. B. Wright, an engineer on the Michigan Central Railroad, who resided at Marshall. Mr. Mooar remained with him and attended school for a year. He then went to Chicago, where he ob- tained a position as conductor on the Madison street car line. This was in the winter of 1868. He afterward went again to Vermont and ob- tained employment in the weaving department of the mills for one winter, when he again start- ed westward with the intention of going to Kansas, but did not arrive in the Sunflower state as soon as he had anticipated. This was in the spring of 1870 and he stopped at Ro- chelle, Illinois, where he worked at carpenter- ing for five months. On the expiration of that period he went to Fort Hays, Kansas, where he chopped cord wood for the government south of Fort Hays on what is known as Wal- nut creek and also on Big Timber creek, being employed in that way for about six months.
Before taking this contract for getting out cord wood Mr. Mooar had given some attention to buffalo hunting and with the money he ob- tained from chopping wood he managed to save enough to secure a little outfit to engage in buffalo hunting on a more extensive scale. A party was formed of six persons. They had two horse teams and one yoke of oxen of four head. They first engaged in hunting buffaloes for the meat, which was shipped largely to Quincy, Illinois, and to Kansas City, Missouri. The hindquarters of the animals were all that was used and the hide and forequarters were left on the prairie. The party did its hunting in the country south of Fort Hays, as far as Fort Dodge, and there were also some buffaloes killed on Pawnee creek. At that time the hide was not supposed to have any value. This
hunting was done in the fall and winter of 1870 and 1871.
W. C. Lobenstein, of Leavenworth, Kansas, was a hide, pelt and fur speculator and dealer and he made a contract with some English tanners to supply them with five hundred buf- falo hides for experimental purposes, the same to be shipped to England to be converted into leather. Mr. Lobenstein bought this number of hides and filled the contract, Mr. Mooar sell- ing him a number of the hides. He had, however, fifty-seven left over, which he shipped to his brother, J. W. Mooar, who was then in New York City. At the same time he wrote him that the other hides had been shipped to Europe for experimental purposes for the manufacture of leather. This was in May, 1871. In the summer of that year the Santa Fe Railroad was being built up the Arkansas river and Mr. Mooar then changed his headquarters to Fort Dodge. His brother, John W. Mooar, in New York, started out to find a possible market for his hides. Not knowing anything about such hides, and probably doubting if he could find any one who did, he made his way to the firm. of J. J. Bates & Company, the oldest hide house in the country. The senior partner was an old man and had been in the hide business all his life, but when asked what buffalo hides were worth replied that he had never seen one and that such a thing as a flint buffalo hide had never before been on the market. Mooar explained the situation to Bates, who asked that the hides be brought to him and if found desirable he wanted the reputation of making the first sale of buffalo hides. Mooar informed him that the shipment would be stored at 91 Pine street and could there be seen. In the meantime the hides arrived in New York and were being hauled down Broadway to Pine street, where they were to be stored. They at- tracted the attention of many people on the street, among whom was a tanner from Penn- sylvania, who followed the wagon to its destin- ation. Two hours later two gentlemen appeared at the place of storage to examine the hides, both being tanners from Pennsylvania, one of
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them the man who had followed the load as it passed down Broadway. In the course of the conversation that followed the tanners said there was no market price that could be put on them, but as they wanted the hides to experi- ment with offered to give Mr. Mooar three dollars and a half each, or fourteen cents a pound for the
In the meantime Charles Rath, who had purchased the hides for Lobenstein, had set up a store at Dodge City, the town being started during the summer of 1871 on the coming of the railroad. That fall Mr. Mooar was hunting buffaloes west and south of Dodge City and selling the hides and meat to Mr. Rath, the meat now being sold in short-cut hams with one bone in it, the price paid being three cents per pound. This was what Wright Mooar was doing when he was joined by his brother John W. at Dodge City. The firm of J. W. Mooar Brothers was then organized for the pur- pose of hunting buffaloes. J. Wright Mooar had quit the former outfit, and when his brother John came he was hy himself with only one hired man. In the course of a year, however, they had several teams attached to the outfit. J. Wright Mooar did the killing, while John W. Mooar did the marketing of the products. Operations were continued south of Dodge City, first on Kiowa creek and later on the brakes of Medicine Lodge creek. When they left that ranch the party drifted over on Sand and Crooked creeks and on Cimeronne creek and Beaver creek in what was known as No Man's Land. They also operated on the tributaries of the Beaver, coming out of the
Panhandle of Texas on the south side of Beaver creek. There were three of these tributaries- San Francisco, Coldwater and Paloduro creeks. The movements in these districts covered a period of two years. In the winter of 1873 they went as far south as Canadian river and went into winter quarters at the head of
entire lot. He accepted the former price and ' Paloduro creek, about twenty-five miles north thus to him belongs the honor of having made of the Canadian. That winter they put up a large quantity of dried meat and had a meat camp twenty-five miles north of Canadian river, but did their hunting on the brakes of that stream. The Indians were quite trouble- : some, for they disputed the inroads of the white men upon their hunting grounds. the first sale of buffalo flint hides ever on record. The purchasers shipped the hides to their tanneries in Pennsylvania and after making practical experiments with them sent in an order for two thousand more. Mr. Mooar, foreseeing what all this meant, and that it would prove the inauguration of the greatest buffalo slaughter that the world has ever known, re- signed his position with the Richards house and immediately joined his brother, J. Wright Mooar, at Dodge City, Kansas.
All this time Dodge City was the nearest railroad point and the place of marketing, the product being shipped from there to the east. A big market was established there by Charles Rath and Robert Wright, a suttler of the gov- ernment post at Fort Dodge, who established a house in Dodge City in connection with Rath. They were partners in their mercantile venture under the firm style of Rath & Wright. The buffaloes being hunted and killed, the herds kept going farther away from the railroad. In March and April of 1874 Rath & Wright estab- lished a trading point on the Canadian river. James Hannerhan put up a saloon there, while A. C. Myers became proprietor of the first store there and a few days later were followed by Rath & Wright. This was the beginning of the town of Adobe Walls in Hutchinson county, Texas.
In May, 1874, the Mooar brothers, in com- pany with five others and with three wagons, went on an exploring expedition down the Canadian river, across it and to the south into the country on the Red river in what is now Wheeler county. This country had never been traveled by wagon trails previous to this time. John Mooar had gone to Dodge City with the freight outfit. When he returned to Adobe Walls he met a man who had been sent there to meet him and who piloted him to where the hunting outfit were operating. The stock they had on hand was loaded up and hauled to Adobe Walls and the entire output was sold to
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A. C. Myers. On the trip the party had five encounters with hostile Indians, who were making depredations throughout the country generally. From Adobe Walls the Mooar outfit changed their headquarters back to Dodge, they anticipating from previous occur- rences that the Indians were going to attack that place, an anticipation which proved true and showed the wisdom of the party in getting away from there, as the fight occurred the day before they reached Dodge. This was the famous and well remembered Adobe Walls en- counter with the Indians which took place in June, 1874. The party remained in Dodge that summer because of the hostility of the Indians. Many other hunting outfits also remained in that vicinity, staying there for protection.
In the winter of 1874 the Mooar party re- mained on Beaver creek in No Man's Land, killed buffaloes, put up meat and hauled it to Dodge. In the spring of 1875 they took a cir- cuitous route from Dodge by way of Newton, Wichita and Caldwell, Kansas, into the Indian Territory, passing through the Cheyenne Agency, Wichita Agency and Fort Sill. From the last named place they turned due east and crossed the Red river at Colbert's Ferry and went into Denison, Texas, reaching there on the last day of April. They bought some ox teams and they also had mule teams which they had brought with them from Kansas. They loaded their wagons with government freight in July for Fort Griffin, reaching the latter place in August. At Fort Griffin they met some of their old friends, among whom were Jim White, Bill Russell and Mike O'Brien, who had preceded them to this place. In com- pany with their outfits the combined parties went out to Twin Lakes in Haskell county. The first hides ever taken to a Texas market were hauled to Denison and were accompanied by John W. Mooar and W. H. Shyder, the lot amounting to about two thousand hides. In making the trip to Denison the strange look- ing outfit created much excitement and curios- ity, especially at a point near Sherman, Texas, where the party went into camp for the night.
A great many people came out from the town to take a look at the hides, including some of the local hide buyers, who had never seen a buffalo hide and knew nothing about one. After reaching Denison Mr. Mooar sold the cargo by telegraph to Lobenstein, of Leaven- worth, Kansas. This lot was the only one Mr. Mooar ever sold in Texas, as he soon afterward found a market in New York and shipped all of his hides to that city. The money that was re- ceived for the first hides was spent in Denison in laying in a supply of groceries, clothing, am- munition and other things that were needed. These were carried back to the camp in what is now Haskell county, at the head of Miller creek. From this time the killing was con- tinued and the Mooars were followed by many others, who embarked in the same line of busi- ness and the new enterprise was from that time carried on in a systematic manner until the buffaloes had been exterminated. The tanning of hides became also an extensive and important business industry. At first the heavier hides were converted into sole leather and the lighter ones into harness leather. Afterward, however, the most of them were tanned and prepared for robes and this process became an important business enterprise with two leading tanning concerns, one in Connec- ticut and the other. in Michigan.
In the spring of 1876 Wright Mooar went to Dallas on horseback and there he left his horse and continued his journey by rail to New York City, where he spent the month of July. He then went to his old home in Vermont, where he visited for a few weeks. In company with his sister and brother-in-law, John W. Combs, he attended the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, after which he returned by rail to Fort Worth and thence traveled by private conveyance to Fort Griffin. There he met his brother John, who had recently returned from Dallas, where he had shipped their entire rounds of about twenty-three hundred hides and was at Fort Griffin waiting for the return of his brother Wright. John Mooar had the outfit all in readiness and the men engaged for
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the next season's work. They immediately struck out to hunt a new field for another year's operations and came to their present location at the head of Deep creek in Scurry county, where they arrived and established a camp for the winter on the 7th day of October, 1876. On the day of their arrival there Wright Mooar killed a white buffalo, about six hundred yards below their camp. The hide of this ani- mal was sent to Dodge City and a French tanner by the name of Shefflee, who was an acqaintance of Wright Mooar, dressed the hide into a robe. This is one of the finest specimens of white buffalo robes ever taken from the buffalo herds in the western country, and prob- ably the only one in existence today, and it is still in possession of Mr. Mooar in a good state of preservation.
It was while engaged in killing. buffaloes in Texas that the Mooar brothers started in the cattle business on a small scale. , In the sum- mer of 1877 they bought what was known as the Goff cattle, then the only cattle in the country, and started their herd in Fisher county at the mouth of Cottonwood creek. This herd was marked X T S. They took their cattle to Fisher county and changed the brand to S X T, which is the brand they still keep up. They built the first house ever erected in Fisher county and the building is still standing on section 16, being known as the Cooper place. The buffalo hunting was continued for about two years longer, they making expeditions west on the plains and still keeping up their camp on Deep creek. By this time the Mooar brothers had prospered so that they could leave men at camp, caring for the hides and also at the place where their supplies were kept.
In April, 1878, Wright Mooar started from the camp on Deep creek across the country to Prescott, Arizona. He was fifty-six days on the trip, driving eight mule teams loaded with dried buffalo meat. He remained in Arizona and hauled freight on the Marocopa and Pres- cott freight road until September, 1880, when he sold his freighting outfit at Phoenix, re- serving his best span of mules, which he then
hitched to a hack which he had purchased and returned to Fort Griffin, Texas, making the trip alone. He arrived on the 5th of November after being on the journey for thirty days. In the meantime John Mooar had cut a lot of hay in Howard county and when the Texas & Pa- Gific road graders came to that locality they sold the hay to them and continued to supply them with that product all the way west as far as Pecos. This proved a very paying deal. The town of Colorado was established in 1881 and the brothers then went into the livery busi- ·ness there, at the same time keeping up their ranch in Scurry county, the ranch having been purchased in 1883 in order to secure them a tract sufficient on which to keep their stock, for they were also extensively engaged in handling cattle. It is upon this ranch that Wright Mooar still makes his home.
It was through the correspondence of the Mooar brothers outfit with Sharpe's Rifle Manufacturing Company at Bridgeport, Con- necticut, that the big fifty caliber gun was made for the buffalo hunters. This gun car- ried eleven bullets to sixteen ounces of lead and the shell carried a charge of one hundred and fifteen grains of powder. This was the gun that killed the buffaloes. It was a central- fire single-shot and the weight was from twelve to sixteen pounds. Wright Mooar has in his possession a twelve-pound gun with which he has killed four thousand buffaloes and also a fourteen-pound gun with which he has killed six thousand buffaloes. The white buffalo, be- fore mentioned, was killed with this gun. The usual distance to do execution was from one hundred to three hundred and fifty yards and Mr. Mooar killed over twenty thousand buf- faloes in the eight years in which he was en- gaged in the business.
On the 13th day of April, 1897, Mr. Mooar was married to Mrs. Julia Swartz, of Colorado City, Texas. She was born in New York City and was reared in Mobile, Alabama. Mr. Mooar is a Mason, having been initiated into the order on the 10th day of August, 1883, at Colorado, becoming a member of Mitchell
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Lodge No. 563, A. F. & A. M. He also be- longs to Dallas Commandery No. 6. He has filled all three of the principal chairs in Mitchell Lodge at Colorado and has served four years in the master's chair in Scurry Lodge No. 706, of which he is a member.
Such in brief is the life history of J. Wright Mooar, who has indeed been a prominent fac-
tor in the events which have shaped the annals of Western Texas. He has for many years been a noted figure in this part of the country, having a very extensive acquaintance, and his interests and efforts have been of a character that have enabled him to contribute in sub- stantial measure to the growth and upbuilding of the southwest.
CHAPTER IX.
BUILDING OF TOWNS AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRY THROUGH EX- TENSION OF RAILROADS. THE TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILROAD. HISTORY OF EL PASO.
From the preceding chapter we can realize fairly well the status of development of West Texas before the coming of the railroads. The range cattle industry was still the occupation that offered the greatest money-making possi- bilities and to which the unsettled country was best adapted. Farming on a fixed and perma- nent basis was restricted to the areas within reach of railroad facilities and the larger towns. The preponderance of the range business over agriculture, especially its more picturesque fea- tures, was doubtless the cause, or one of the causes, for the iniquitous reputation which Texas had to bear so many years and which diverted many steady and worthy homeseekers from settling here. The following slanderous paragraph from the Chicago Drovers' Journal in 1876 indicates how stories originating, per- haps in jest, pass to earnest, and become serious factors in the growth of a new country. "When a man goes to Texas to engage in agricultural pursuits," says the Journal, "he doesn't have to take plow and other labor-saving tools as here, but simply a shotgun, derringer and ammuni- tion." "When I left my home in the east to settle in Texas," said a now prominent citizen of this state, "my people gave me up for lost, as though I had cast myself into the abyss of barbarism and would never return except by miracle. Some years later my brother visited me. That his journey from the center of American civilization to my city was continu- ous by railroad, without the employment of a
lumbering stage coach, and was complete with all the comforts of travel as he had known them in the east, was the first of a series of surprises to which he was introduced every day of his stay. Where he had expected to find the cow- boy garbed in fringed buckskin, sombrero and lariat and six-shooter, he met our urbane and enterprising business man ; where in his imag- ination stood the dry-goods-box store, he looked in astonishment at our brick and stone modern business blocks; the tents and shacks of his anticipation were discovered to be com- modious and architecturally beautiful resi- dences, churches and schools; and instead of having come to a land of barbarism he was in only a younger stage of the same civiliza- tion which he had just left."
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