USA > Texas > Wise County > Pioneer history of Wise County; from red men to railroads-twenty years of intrepid history > Part 7
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Should other prominent features of the life be sought, the attention would be attracted to the almost constant outdoor living followed by the people. The chief duties of the time fell to the fields and prairies where products were raised and herds attended, and where healthy existence was pursued in the face of the extremes of weather. Under such circumstances, the people grew hardy, strong and robust, ate their daily victuals with the keenest of appetites and dreamed in peaceful sleep at night. The constant conflict with nature's brawny and ele- mental forces produced men of giant stature, both of body and of mind. Doubtless the latter lacked something in refinement, but the loss was made up in sheer native force, power and ingenuity. Personal bravery was another concomitant of the character of existence. Forced at all seasons into the teeth of the most tumultuous weather and to contact with the burly dangers or an unsettled environment, indifference to personal safety and life became an ingrained habit, and men dared the lightning and the thunders and slept through storms with sanguine expectations of living to see quieter moments. The
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PIONEER HISTORY OF WISE COUNTY.
women grew accustomed to loneliness and to desertion for long periods, as well as to bravery in meeting with fortitude the many burdensome tasks that fell to their lot.
Should now the chief characteristics of the old settlers be passed in review as a summing up of this chapter, one may first say that he was kind, that he was lovable and generous, and that he was the most affectionate of fathers and husbands; that his charitableness knew no limitations and his hospitality no subsidence this side of according to all the full outpouring of whatever he had of heart and hand to bestow; that he was a good and loyal citizen and that he loved his country with an affection which caused him to spring to its defense upon all occasions whenever such became necessary; that he was a man of honor whose word was his bond; that he was chivalrous, brave and open-hearted; that he was sympathetic with the unfortunate and downtrodden and tolerant of the weaknesses of his human brothers. In his public capacity he aided the cause of education and the growth of good citizenship; upheld the law and sustained the forces of progress everywhere. His type is fast fading from view, and while among his many sub- stantial virtues, he had others that were weak and undeveloped, and while he shared in the imperfections common to mankind, yet by reason of certain-original traits of character he was one of the most picturesque and original of the many varieties of per- sonality which the different phases and periods of American life has produced. On his rugged shoulders the institutions of our latter day civilization are erected; we are the beneficiaries of his brave persistency and obstinate courage; it is the heritage of his blood that will perpetuate our society and our morals; let us note his passing with reverence and respect.
EARLY MARKETS AND COMMERCE.
Changing conditions make it possible to separate the carly years into two alternate periods for the purpose of investigation. Up until the beginning of the war the markets at Houston, Jefferson and Shreveport were accessible to this frontier, and were the points where the people went for supplies. But upon
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EARLY MARKETS AND COMMERCE.
the beginning of hostilities between the North and South, the ports were blockaded, and no commerce permitted between them and the outer world. The effects of this cutting off of supplies were far-reaching and especially destructive to the settlements on the frontier, ending in bringing about a period of limitation and restriction directly opposed to the condition of freedom and accessibility to supplies which obtained during the earlier years.
During the first years a system of ox-team freight transporta- tion was kept up between the above bases of supplies and the frontier. The service was virtually abandoned during the war, but was revived again after the war subsided. An average rate of $3.00 per ewt. was charged by the regular freighters, which, when considered with the many weeks required in going and returning, put a burden on business enterprise under which modern institutions would succumb.
The gradual extension of the Houston and Texas Central railway into north Texas had the effect of changing the markets from the original ports to the northern terminus of this road wherever that annually happened to be. One year it was at Hempstead, later on it was at Bryan, then at Dallas and MeKin- ney, lastly at Denison. The markets having been brought nearer, the freight charges were lessened proportionately. New Orleans was occasionally patronized by the frontier merchants, and whenever this was done the merchandise purchased was shipped on Red River boats to Shreveport and thence hauled overland. Visits by merchants to markets for buying were made a horse- back twice yearly, like unto the journeys made by merchants of later days, with the exception that none of the case and comfort of modern times was then to be enjoyed. The route lay over the black land districts of North and Central Texas, which, when softened by much rain became almost impassable to travellers and teamsters. It was not uncommon for heavily loaded wagons to discharge parts of their cargo by the roadside to be returned for at a more favorable time. Because of these conditions, merchants have had goods and wares scattered from the frontier to Shreveport, soaking in rain and mud. The Red River boats also had a habit of sticking in sand bars and snags for days at a time, thus producing other delays.
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PIONEER HISTORY OF WISE COUNTY.
The supplies brought on during the earliest days included those articles needed by the people which were not produced by them on the farm, and did not vary in nature. The mode of buying and selling was typical of the time; very little exchange of money, which was scarce, taking place. Cattle and other stock were received in exchange for merchandise and in turn were driven to the wholesale markets and traded for goods in large lots.
Under these conditions local prices for staple articles ranged about as follows: 51bs. sugar, $1.00; 4lbs. green coffee, $1.00; 200lbs. salt, $10.00; 100lbs. flour, $6.00; tea per Ib, $1.00; whiskey per gallon, $4.00: calico, 12}c. per yard ; yard wide domestic, 25c. per yard; Kentucky jeans, 75c. to $1.00 per yard; brogan shoes, $2.50 per pair; boots, $5.00 to $10.00 per pair; coarse wool hat, $2.50. Famine prices sometimes prevailed when green coffee would sell at 50c. per fb. and salt $12.00 per ewt.
Store accounts were usually settled once in twelve months with neither notes nor mortgages taken. It was a time when all were trusted and with few betrayals thereof. Sums of money were loaned without security and without demands of interest. It remained for a much later date to demand five per cent. per month interest rates and comprehensive mortgages.
FARMING MODES AND CONDITIONS-COMMENT.
A detailed description of the farming conditions of the time would involve an elucidation of the cattle raising business, since the limited farm efforts were designed as a support for the latter industry which was paramount. No cash remuneration was sought from crop raising at this stage. This was because there were no approximate markets, and because certain soils, es- pecially the black lands of the prairie, were deemed unsuitable for farming purposes. Farming efforts were directed principally to raising sufficient grain for family bread stuffs and grain and forage for domestic work stock. Not until the late sixties did general farming receive any impetus in Wise County; cotton raising during the early years was a thing little dreamed of.
The primary industries of Wise County had hardly begun to unfold when two calamitous conditions visited destruction upon
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FARMING MODES AND CONDITIONS.
the county, materially affecting all its chief interests and bringing immigration to a decided pause. Reference is here made to the drouth of seven years' duration and a pestilential shower of - grasshoppers, both combining to produce general havoc. Prior to the inception of these destructive conditions, this country was attracting wide attention as a land flowing with milk and honey, and as affording boundless advantages to those seeking inexpen- sive homes. But under the changed conditions prospective comers were turned away and drifted into channels that led elsewhere.
The crop failure and pest evils added more rigorous hardships to the people already burdened with the countless trials of a frontier existence. As was said the erop failure lasted seven years, beginning about the year 1857, during which time scarcely any corn was raised. Should the country have been at that time in a state of sole dependence upon erop productions, the frontier would have been depopulated and the settlement of Wise County postponed indefinitely. But very fortunately there were other dependencies, chiefly those supplied by the abundant wild game of the forests, and the home hog herds which fattened on mast, and made a sweet, deliciously flavored mcat. Also the people, forced to the experiment, began the raising of small grain, wheat, oats and barley, of which crops enough were raised to provide the family bread.
But the grain erops in turn barely escaped devastation by the pest of grasshoppers, which during the years of their prevalence, made appearances at the approach of each autunmal season, when they were borne in on the winds of the early " northers." Commonly denominated as " Mormons," they were described as being small of body and brown of color, and when settled on the vegetation, the face of the earth assumed a decided brown tinge. As they came in, the atmosphere would be blackened with them, and the sun almost obseured. Continuing on south, they fell into the Gulf of Mexico, when the tides would wash them ashore in great ridges along the beach. In the spring, the hoppers would depart, but not before devouring the young gardens and nearly destroying the grain erops. When freed of the incubus the latter would spring up and make such indifferent harvests as the reign
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PIONEER HISTORY OF WISE COUNTY.
of drouth would permit, which commonly was sufficient to make breadstuffs. The chickens feeding on the hoppers died of crop- swelling, constituting an additional disaster.
Upon maturing the grain was cut with reap-hooks and later on with cradles, either mode being very laborious work. An energetic workman could cut three or four acres a day. Thresh- ing was accomplished by the crudest of processes. The grain was either tramped out by horses or oxen or else spread over rail pens and beaten out with poles; the wind was then allowed to blow on it in order to separate the chaff. A flutter mill was finally introduced which did the work more quickly and with less trouble. Milling was the next step, and no mills existed this side of Mc Kinney, Dallas and Ft. Worth. Ten days were usually required to take a load of grain to mill and return.
Finally three crude mills were established in the neighborhood of Sand Hill, this after the population had increased to the demand of such conveniences. The mills were put up by Jim Brooks, Jim Browder and John Pauley, and were of original and novel construction, and operated quite as originally. A large wooden wheel, many feet in circumference, was inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees, attached to which were shafts, cogs and smaller wheels, all perfected into a mechanism which ground the grain which was poured into the hopper at a distance.
Fastened to the upper surface of the large wooden wheel were cleats which aided the ox-teams, the propelling forces of the machinery, in giving impetus to the turning of the wheel. The oxen were trained to stand on the rim of the wheel nearest to the ground and keep up a perpetual walking which kept the wheel in constant motion. Twenty-five to forty bushels of grain could be reduced daily, a fourth of which went to the miller for toll. About fifteen years later Browder's mill was converted into a cotton gin, the first in the country-capacity, four to five bales daily.
Ox-teams were the dependence in all industrial affairs of the community needing higher propelling power than man alone could provide. Trained to obey oral commands from the driver, they took the indicated direction without the necessity of guid- ance by lines, and being, when thoroughly broken, lazy and
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WILD GAME-BUFFALO-WILD HORSES, ETC.
slow of motion, were persuaded to action by the use of a long whip called a " black-snake," which, in expert hands, could be " cracked " with much deftness over the animals' backs.
Strange and peculiar to coming generations will be the " gee and haw " of the pioneer period.
The people derived advantages from the sparsely settled conditions; grass was free and abundant and procurable at all seasons, and the only expense attendant upon stock raising was that arising from salting and herding. The chief efforts of the times were to raise a little corn for bread and to feed the work stoek in plowing time, a so to have a little to throw occasionally to the range hogs to keep them gentle. As Samuel Woody summed up the situation: "In those days we sowed a little wheat and corn and raised cattle and hogs, looking out only for meat, bread and whiskey." Possibly the full statement would not apply generally, otherwise is pointed and illuminative.
The first year's efforts of a new arrival in the county would be directed to elearing a little patch around which a brush fence would be thrown; then would follow the cultivation of a patch of maize and potatoes and other vegetables. Later on the field would be enlarged and a rail, stake and rider fence, put around it, and probably the original log dwelling would also be enlarged. The dream of settlement was then completed.
Fifteen years lapsed before the feasibility of cotton raising was discovered, during which schools were conducted and well attended in all seasons, a sad comment on the present time.
The first cotton raised is attributed, by Mr. J. D. White, to Broadstreet, who lived in the Pavillard community. This was soon after the closing of the war, and the cotton was hauled to Ft. Worth to be ginned.
, WILD GAME-BUFFALO-WILD HORSES-TRAINED INSTINCT IN HORSES.
These were the good "old days" of plentiful wild game; when deer jumped the field fence and pastured on the wheat; when quail and prairie chieken fed with the chickens in the yard, the prairie fowl strutting and drumming all the while; when the boys
-
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PIONEER HISTORY OF WISE COUNTY.
went out before breakfast, and led on by the matutinal noises of the turkey, returned bearing big gobblers for dinner; when the forests teemed with small game; when antelope in bunches of a hundred pastured on the hill tops and bear slunk heavy-footed through the wooded bottoms. Besides these a numerous variety of other beasts, both shy and ferocious, were numbered among the wild animal kingdom. Only one original species was absent, the buffalo had gone before. Thirty to sixty miles farther west the settlers found him existing in countless numbers, and it became a custom to make annual hunting expeditions into his midst, when large loads of the fresh meat would be brought home to be "cured" for future use. The disappearance of the buffalo from this county is attributed to the early hunters who came in and killed large numbers before the county was settled. Finally the great tribe was driven higher up on the plains and the only evi- dence the county had of its existence occurred later when the killing industry was fully established and Mexican teamsters began to pass through to Galveston conveying huge caravans of hides to port.
When the cattle industry had developed and the Indians began to make attacks on the settlements the people became desirous of the complete extermination of the buffalo, for on the one hand, he consumed the grass of the range, and on the other, furnished a sustenance for the savage. No one raised a hand in the defence of the buffalo, his doom 'being sealed with the coming of the white race.
A second picturesque species of the untamed kingdom of beasts were the numerous bunches of horses, called mustangs, existing and thriving on the abundant forage. Of all the animals found they were the fleetest of foot and the hardest to capture. Wild horse chasing became an exciting sport generally indulged in. The method of capture was original. The wild bunch rarely left a given range over which they pastured. When chased they eireled about this range at full speed until the chasers were tired down and defeated. Upon discovering this habit the people changed their taeties and instead of following at full speed, galloped about from point to point, taking cross-shoots and cuts and so maneuvering as to keep the wild bunch going at full speed,
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CATTLE AND HOGS AND CONDITIONS.
until after two or three days the chased bunch, from sheer ex- haustion would slacken speed and consent to be controlled. They were then driven into prearranged corralls, saddled and ridden.
"Bronco busting" became one of the amusements and arts of the times and a rider who could "stick" his saddle became a celebrity. The horses when captured were of inferior quality, small and scrawny, and incapable of being completely domesti- cated. The early horse stock of the county was tainted with this mustang blood and only within the last decade has its remaining evidences been obliterated.
During the latter years of savage hostility, a fleet horse became the most prized possession of the people; their usefulness being based on their ability to carry their riders to a point of safety when being chased by the Indians. It is said that the instinctive sense of the animals became more acute to Indian signs and evi- dences than that of their human masters. In other words they could "smell" the savages and would betray signs of uneasiness when their riders would least anticipate themselves as in the close proximity of the ambuscaded enemy. At such times they would, by well interpreted restless action, clamor for free rein, with which to fleetly vacate the area of danger. All such horses were appropriately named and are yet referred to in terms of affection and endearment.
CATTLE AND HOGS AND CONDITIONS.
An erroneous inference has been attached to the live stock sit- uation of the preliminary period. It has been said that cattle by the thousands populated the hills as free property and that men grew rich and opulent merely by gathering and marketing them. Pretty stories are also told of the picturesque wild boar chasing, the campaign being pursued against wild animals found originally inhabiting the woods. Both these inferences are wrong. Every hoof of the great later herds had their ownership distributed among the many engaged in the cattle raising business and were the offspring of the few domestic herds brought along by incoming settlers. And the shaggy, wild and ferocious boars were the de-
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PIONEER HISTORY OF WISE COUNTY.
scendants of gentle ancestors, the squealing and grunting swine of the home pen, turned wild in the unrestricted ranges of the bot- toms. Neither cattle nor hogs existed before the coming of the white race. When they were introduced they were respectively of the "long-horn" and "razor-back" varieties, which marks of breeding were retained until a later and very recent era intro- duced better qualities.
The county in its free and unfenced state presented an ideal sit- uation for the pursuit of the stock raising industry, which is largely accountable for the cagerness with which it was sought by carly settlers. All stock was at liberty to roam whither it would and the pasturage of that date was of an abundance and richness not known at present. Grass grew to the height of a man's head, both on the prairie and in timber, the latter being uninfested with undergrowth.
Hogs were turned free to forage on the mast and herbs of the bottoms, being occasionaly rounded up and fed to keep them domesticated. Both hogs and cattle were marked and the latter branded as a means of identification; each citizen had a distinc- tive car mark which he instantly recognized; and he was well acquainted with the marks and brands of his neighbors. Each mark and brand was carefully recorded in the county clerk's office, the book containing same being the most resorted to in the office.
Hog killing was then done mostly on the range where men would repair with wagons and teams and slaughter the fat, mast- fed swine, which made the sweetest and most delicious of bacon and hams.
Many of the boars eluded watchfulness and lapsed into a state of ferocious barbarism in the bottoms, whence they were sought out by men and dogs, the sport contributing to one of the highest excitements of the times.
As was stated of the cattle, the gradually enlarging herds were the outgrowth mostly of the small numbers of prolific cows brought along for domestic purposes. There were a few notable exceptions to this rule; thus W. H. Hunt, Dan Waggoner and others were primarily owners of comparatively large numbers which were driven in on the coming of the citizens to the county.
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CATTLE AND HOGS AND CONDITIONS.
Both those named occupied extensive ranges in the western part, where foundations for vast fortunes were laid. But it is truthful to state that the great industry had its inception in the little bunches of the farm, whose annual increase multiplied and re-multiplied into countless thousands, until when the years had gone by, an era came when Wise County was one great cattle range and the theatre of operations of a large number of cattle barons.
These proportions had been reached and the conditions sur- rounding the industry were adapting themselves to a staid and solid foundation, formed of the opening up of accessible markets and a clear comprehension of the problems of the business, when the holocaust of civil war arose to force, within a few months, a complete cessation of all the related enterprise and an early abandonment of the industry.
But the degree of success attained prior to the beginning of the disaster of war, brought into relief a vivid and stirring life and a numerous company of striking and unique personalities, which latter as men confining their operations solely to cattle enter- prises, have long been prominently known to the people. Colonel W. H. Hunt, with headquarters at Cactus Hill, and Dan Waggo- ner, further east toward Bridgeport, were both strong, individual men, highly successful in business and the leaders and originators of prominence in Western Wise County. On the border of Jack and Wise County Captain J. B. Earhart was a dominating factor and a thoroughly individual man. Samuel, Pierce and Harry Woodward operated in the Bridgeport country as did Joe Henry Martin and Ed Cumby; occupying moving ranges were Colonel G. B. Pickett and Captain John W. Hale with large herds. Later on Thomas and Glenn Halsell assumed in the ranks a place of importance, while on the northwestern edge of the county Eli Linley was known as a cattle man of prominence. Others who engaged either prominently or actively in the business were Bat Millholland, Sylvanous Reed, Wm. G. Russell, John Crutchfield, Win. Waters, Jim Proctor, Jim Watson, Jack Moore, Marsh Cook, Wm. Perrin, Ben Blanton, John Looman and others.
Western Wise County, due to peculiar advantages offered by its topography and sparse settlement, was reserved almost ex- 7
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PIONEER HISTORY OF WISE COUNTY.
clusively to cattlemen and their industry. Numerous headquar- ters were established there, the range being apportioned by common consent to prior occupants. Moving cow camps dotted the country and rugged bands of "cow-boys" scoured the country rounding up and branding and preparing for the spring drives. Every cattleman of consequence retained an "outfit," consisting of horses and men, the essential labor being to keep the herds confined to convenient range and to keep all marked and branded.
The rapid increase of the herds, augmented by the smaller con- tributions of the lesser raisers, early forced the necessity of a market and New Orleans was the first experimented with, but the high rate of transportation proved the experiment unprofit- able. Other markets were being reached, however, and the indus- try was in a thriving and promising condition when in 1861 the blight of war fell over the land.
The effeet was immediate and ultimately disastrous. The only market now offered the very few who remained in the business was that of the Confederate Armies, which soon opened up nego- tiations with cattle owners here to supply certain numbers for beef purposes, an unsatisfactory market, since a small minority of the cattle were taken. But enough beeves were shipped away from Wise County to draw a statement from Colonel B. B. Paddock in his "History of Northwest Texas," to the effect that Wise County perhaps furnished more beef to the Confederate Armies than any other like seetion in the south or west.
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