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FROM THE "HISTORIAN OF THE PLAINS"

The following letter was written to George W. Saunders, president of the Old Time Trail Drivers' Association, by William E. Hawks, of Bennington, Vermont. Mr. Hawks is the acknowledged "Historian of the Plains" and is collecting true data of the early days. He says:

"I want to thank you, for myself, and for every old timer who is lucky enough to get a copy of your book,

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for staying with the old timers until you got those letters and then having them published. I have spent thirty years gathering true data of the good old days, when men were men, and would offer you everything they had, even to their lives, and they thought it was right. I worked out on the old Overland Stage Coach and Pony Express trail long before Root & Connelly pub

lished their book, which is an epic. The Chisholm Trail, the Old Shawnee Trail, Middle or West Shawnee Trail from Red River north to Abilene and Baxter Springs. The Southern Texas Trail extended from Red River to the Coast. Joe McCoy started his yards at Abilene, Kansas, July 1, 1867, and sent W. W. Suggs down to pilot the herds to the new shipping place. The first herd to cross the Nation on that trail was Wheeler, Wilson & Hicks of 2,400 head bound for California. This herd drove within thirty miles of Abilene and stopped and were later shipped from Abilene. The second herd to cross the Nation and drive direct to Abilene was owned by Mr. Thompson, who sold them in the Nation to Smith, McCord & Chandler, and by them driven to Abilene and shipped. The first cattle shipped out of Abilene was on September 5, 1867, and there were 36,000 shipped from that point during the balance of that year.

"The Chisholm Trail is said to be named after a semi-civilized Indian who broke the road for government supplies to go to Fort Cobb from the Arkansas River.

"I have never seen but one of Joe McCoy's books and that is owned by Harvard College. Have been there and read it through several times. It names Wm. Perriman, James Ellison, J. M. Choate, James Daugherty, R. D. Hunter, George R. Baise, Hough-Reeves & Co., John Salisbury, W. H. Kingsbury, Holmsley, Ran Nichols, White, Allen & Co., R. C. White, Hunter, Patterson & Evans, L. M. Hunter, J. B. Hunter, Noffiner & Co., Tom Bigger, W. H. Winants, Noah Ely & Co., D. W. Powers, Joe Tanner, John Hittson, W. K. Shaeffer, G. W. Groves, Pedro Armego, Chas. Goodnight, D. Sheedy, Albert Crane, J. S. Driscoll, H. M. Childress, E. B. Millett, J. J. Myers, J. W. Tucker, Willis McCutcheon, J. H. Stevens, J. D. Reed, Seth Mabry, W. F. Tompkins, J. M. Day, Shanghai Pierce, Jonathan Pearce, J. T. Alexander, Tom Allen, J. S. Smith, Andrew Wilson, J. D. Smith, Rogers, Powers & Co., and others. I have pictures of

Chas. Goodnight, Oliver Loving, J. W. Poe, Pat Garrett, "Billy the Kid," Tom Ketchum, Big Foot Wallace, Wild Bill Hickok, J. S. Chisum, J. B. Dawson, E. B. Bronson, Clark Stocking, Cal Joe, Jim Bridger, Jim Baker, Calamity Jane, and hundreds of others. I gather only true data, and hope to live long enough to publish some of it for the benefit of the old boys who helped to make it possible for the punks to occupy the whole West.

"You can take a hackamore on your arm and you can't find in any place west of the Old Muddy, five people who know what it was used for. The only use I have for the West is the old timers and I don't want to be the last one to go.

"I hope some day to attend one of your old timers' reunions and shake with every man there. I sure know the pleasure of it."

THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS

Maude Clark Hough, Chairman Literature Committee,
Texas Club of New York City

In giving you a word that's true
About this book, both fine and new,
I want to say there's more to do,
Than just a simple, short review.

The book itself, is good, well done,
And takes us back where cattle run,
And each day's descending sun
Sees fame, success and virtue won!

The men who helped to build our Texas
And wrote this book, don't mean to vex us,
But answer questions that perplex us,-
How Mexico's tried to annex us.

Here we can see the progress made,
And how their plans were straightly laid,

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In order that a hero's shade

Should fall wherever the sunlight played!

Through "Trail Drivers" president,
George W. Saunders, high intent
With much of time and effort spent,
This book was made, and forthwith went

Out to tell the world, and you,
Facts that may be old or new,
But which are absolutely true.
Stories that will help you to

An understanding of their hope,

To build a monument, so they who grope In the future, for symbols, trope,

To make more plain all the scope

Of Texas men, and land and lives

Will thereby know that daughters, wives Had done their share! That Texas thrives Not alone on gun and knives.

But there dwelt in the heart of each,
A hope both high and hard to reach—
But which the wide prairies teach,

And Texas sunshine lights, "Free Speech."

The book has naught of vain conceit,

Is fine and plain; and I entreat

That no one here will make retreat,
But rise in patriotic heat,

And promise me to buy a book,
To read in some nice shady nook
This summer; or by prattling brook,
While they are seeking fish to hook!

MADE EARLY DRIVES

D. H. Snyder, Georgetown, Texas

My brother, J. W. Snyder, and myself made our first drive of cattle to the Northwest in 1869. We bought our cattle in Llano and Mason counties, and received them on the Llano River above Mason, paying $1.50 per head for yearlings, $2.50 for two-year-olds, $4 for cows and three-year-olds, and $7 for beef steers. We bought all on the credit, giving them our notes payable in gold coin. That country above Mason had plenty of range hogs in it and they were all fat in the spring on the dead cattle that had been killed and skinned for their hides. It was said that thousands of these hides were sold in Mason, Fredericksburg getting the largest share.

We drove from the Llano, where we received our cattle, to the Kickapoo and Lipan Springs and on to head of Main Concho River. Here we laid up two days doing all of our cooking and parching coffee to do us for our trip across the plains, ninety miles to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, without water. This drive we made, driving day and night, in seventy hours. John Chisum was the first to cross the plains on this route in 1868. His herd was all captured by the Indians except seventy head of cripples and tailings, up above where Roswell is now situated. Chisum, John Hitson of Palo Pinto county, Rube Gray and White, his brotherin-law from San Saba county, John and Tom Owens of Williamson county, Martin Cosner of Llano county, and our herd are the only herds I remember crossing that route in 1868, with no settlements of any kind on the route from head of Main Concho to Bosque Grande, the Apache Indian reservation this side of Las Vegas, New Mexico. These Indians were moved from the reservation here to Arizona in the spring of 1868.

We drove on from Horsehead Crossing to Bosque

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