But let him tell the tale:
In the fall of 1867, I became a cowboy to go with a herd of cattle
from that place to Fort Stanton, New Mexico. The herd was owned
by a man by the name of Bill Cloud, and the trail boss was a man by the
name of Bill Bostick.
Cloud had a contract with the United States Government to deliver
his herd of cattle at Fort Stanton, New Mexico, the cattle to be
rationed out at that place to the Indians. We left Gainesville in
September, and there were two wagons in the outfit, and about
twenty-four men, all told. I was the youngest one in the bunch,
and I was not then old enough to vote. Each Wagon was drawn by
four mules. We left Gainesville with 804 head of cattle.
You want to remember this number, 804, so that we can make comparisons
with the number of cattle we had when we got to the end of the
trail. Coming westward, we struck the trail of the old Southern
Butterfield Stage Line in the vicinity of Jacksboro. It was
plainly marked all the way. All through Jack, Young and Stephens
Counties, we passed ranches and ranch homes which had been temporarily
abandoned by their owners on account of numerous Indian raids through
that region during the preceding months. The owners of these
homes had been driven away from them.
Forts and camps were supposed then to be occupied by United States
soldiers, but there were no soldiers at that time at Fort Belknap, Camp
Cooper, Phantom Hill or at Fort Chadbourne, which were all on the line
of road we traveled, and the first soldiers' camp that we came across,
we found at Wilson's Creek in Shackelford County, near where Fort
Griffin was afterwards established.
Bill Cloud had been an old Texas Ranger and came with the herd as
far as Wilson's Creek, and then turned it over to Bill Bostick, the
trail boss. At the Wilson Creek camp, the Trail Boss applied for
soldier protection for the herd, and was furnished a sargent squad,
consisting of the sargent and six men. These went with the herd
from there until we reached the Middle Concho, twenty miles above the
site of Fort Concho and there we camped for a week or ten days, waiting
for another squad of soldiers from Camp Concho to go with us. The
first soldier escort was composed of Irishmen, and they were a good
bunch; but out of Concho, we were furnished a corporal and about twenty
men who were altogether different in type and make-up, from the first
squad. The cow outfit did not think much of this latter bunch, as
they consisted of Dutchmen, Italians, etc., and we thought that in case
of trouble with hostile Indians, the cow outfit would have to protect
the soldiers, rather than get any protection from them.
The ruins of the old stage stands were then still to be seen all
along the road every fifteen to thirty miles. Near the mouth of
Dead Man's Creek, a few miles northeast of the site of Abilene, a
younger brother of Bill Cloud and I-both of us mere boys-got after
several buffalo, but it was so late in the evening that the coming on
of dark interfered and prevented our getting our meat. Men who
had been sent ahead of the herd to locate a camping place, told us they
had seen two Indians in the vicinity where we were chasing the buffalo;
but we never believed their statement, always thinking that they sought
to scare us into being more careful in our movements. At that
time, the buffalo herds were just beginning to come into that region
from their northern grazing grounds.
In Mulberry Canyon, in Taylor County, the ruins of the stage stand
showed that it had been constructed of rock. In other places
these had been built of adobe brick, and at other places, of
poles. The stage road which we were traveling passed right by old
Fort Chadbourne, whose ruins were at that time in a fairly good state
of preservation, with the roofs still in good shape on the old
buildings. We followed the old Butterfield Trail to the Horsehead
Crossing on the Pecos River. At that time John Chisum was moving
his cattle from the Concho to New Mexico, and was locating them in the
vicinity of where Roswell, New Mexico, is now located.
When his herd reached the Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos, they
turned up the Pecos toward Fort Stanton, and followed the route which
had been followed by the Goodnight and Loving herd previously crossing
the Pecos to the west side near the mouth of Delaware Creek, which ran
eastward along the Texas and New Mexico line and emptied into the Pecos.
When our herd got in about fifty miles of Fort Stanton, we ran out
of some of our supplies, and the boss went ahead with one of the
wagons, and several men, to old Fort Stanton, to get the supplies we
needed. When they reached Fort Stanton, they learned of the
incident surrounding Oliver Loving's fight with the Indians and his
death.
At that time, all supplies reaching Fort Stanton were being hauled
by mule and ox teams by way of the Old Santa Fe Trail from Leavenworth,
Kansas, and quite naturally, When they reached Fort Stanton they were
rather expensive. When we delivered our cattle at Fort Stanton we
delivered 1,160 head, 356 more than we had left Gainesville with.
We never bought a head or stole one, nor did the outfit knowingly
pick up any strays. The only explanation of this increase in the
number of cattle we had, after driving them over six hundred miles is
that back in Jack and Young counties the settlers had been driven away
from their homes by the Indian raids and their cattle were left behind
running wild on the old ranges. As our herd passed, these cattle
might, without being noticed, have filtered into our trail herd.
This was made possible by reason of the fact that there were then no
inspectors on the trail, and no need to clean the herd from the time we
left Gainesville until we reached Fort Stanton, New Mexico.
Our outfit stayed at Fort Stanton that winter, and in February
following threw in with the Oliver Loving outfit to return to
Texas. At that time, Goodnight was driving his stock cattle to
southern Colorado where he was locating a ranch.
When Oliver Loving died from injuries received in his fight with
the Indians, his friends knew that his remains would be carried
back to Texas for burial, so they had an old-style coffin built out of
one-inch lumber, incased with tin. This coffin was put in a
larger box and between the walls of the coffin and the box several
inches of beaten-up charcoal was packed, and thus, the coffin was
completely surrounded by several inches of charcoal. This made
the containing box and all of its contents large and heavy. In
this manner, the remains of Oliver Loving were brought back to his home
in Palo Pinto County for burial.
We had no unusual experiences on the return trip, and there was
nothing indicated by our manner of traveling that we were bringing back
to Texas for its last resting place the remains of one of the
outstanding cattlemen of the period and the region. When we got
to Loving's old home in Palo Pinto County, the box was so heavy that it
took six big strong men to handle it, and it was so large that it could
not be carried through the doors of the Loving home.
On the return, we saw large number of buffalos, and ate buffalo
meat most of the way back, especially in the open prairie
country. In the open country in the region where Winters is now
located, there were great herds of them. There is something
rather peculiar about the way buffalo graze while traveling or
migrating. The buffalo does not, like the cow, move his head from
side to side, or cut a very wide swath, but moves straight ahead, and
eats the grass clean as he moves forward, eating as he moves with the
herd.
When I came to Nolan County, James Manning was still running his
little store out on Sweetwater Creek, about three miles southeast of
where Sweetwater is now located. He was Postmaster at the time,
and I got my first mail there, though the Post office was soon moved to
the present site of Sweetwater.
This store was first started in a dug-out, but when I came to that
vicinity, it was being conducted in a shack built of cedar poles.
There is a fence between Sweetwater and where I live, which was built,
in part, of some of those poles which were in this old Manning store,
the building having been torn down, and the poles used in fence
construction.
THIS LAST ONE IS AN ADDED ONE DUE TO HIM LIVING IN
REGION.
(I can remember daddy taking me & my sister to drink out of
the springs there before we moved from area in 1953.)
May 14, 1998 Abilene Reporter