Document text
JUL-6 1936
S. it.Emery
866 words.
TH.suzneaD 01 1889
The wore, blizzard I was ever in? I'll toll yoa about it.
It happened in 1889. 1 was working for the New tmgland Live 31.00X ComPLAY,
:his VW a big outfit eosa by Ft. Samar. %ben the 3overnment had moved the
the Indians away from Ft. Summer and abandoned the Fort in 1868, they sold t
the improvemeats to Fo1411 Maxwell. Then in 1682 they divided the land in forty
acre plots and pat it a? for sale. Through a man by be name of Lennon,
who handled the deal, the Mow 4ngland Live Stock Company purehased a large
tract of the land, and started one of the largest ranches in Maw Maxioo.
I had come to Fort Sumner in 1883 as a messenger, and in 1864 I
returned to the Fort and went to work for this Company as their foreman.
I and made several trips up the Trail with oattl• before this
trip in 1889.
It was in October of that year that we started to the nem toss of
Gliyton, with 2000 head of (tattle to pit them on the oars. Everythiag went
fine until we reached the mouth of the Muerto. ie made oaap hero for the n4211,
on Ootober 30, the next morning, October 31, the storm hit Just after day-
light. io got the herd and started to he IL raneh, about seven miles up the
Tramper°s from our camp.
livery one has always laughed at me about; .7 old lead steer saving our
lives in this storm, but he sure did. be were traveling up a ridge between
two canyons and not sure of the location of the IL ranch. te same to a trail
loading down into the canyon to our loft. 1 tried to tarn the oattle down there
as it looked like it was a USW trail. Of course we couldn't see very far
in that storm. Well, this old load steer we Gallia him John Mises
-elixzerd of 1889
92
just refuseu to go that way; every ti -tie I tried to turn blahs started right
Aa1,1•4
the same direction we had been going.
eina14 I said, 1”aoll, if you know so blamed mush about where
you're going we'll just follow you."
It wasn't ten minutes until the ranch buildings of the IL ranch
appearec in sight. Old John sure knew where he was going. Le would have
froten to mouth if we had gone the way 1 sante(' to go. ae were all dressed
in our summer clothes; we hadn't expected a biizsard this time of year.
There were ten of us slept in the bunk house at the IL's that
night. ie burned pine knots for fuel. It was forty hours before we were
again on our way.
up
Ws hadn't gone far when the storm starteu u-ain; this time worse
than before, with snow falling every minute. Ilkis was on November 201. Us
finally made it to Glayton, and oorraled our Gattia in a pasture just north of
LWAA in apaches Canyon, near old apaohe 3prings. This pasture was owned by
u man named Ai/Cullum.
we went baSk to town to find a place were we could stay until the
storm was over and our oars came. Here we found Jim finials, who had his
herd of three thousand head of Cattle near Clayton. Re had been waiting
twenty days for his oars. The Carlisle 8rothers from moue, Utah, and
trailed their cattle from Swab and were waitiv for thoir oars. There were
a number of other outfits the," too; all together there were thirteen large herds
of Gatti() waiting for shipment around Clayton.
That storm lasted for thirteen dais. ahen it was over there wasn't
a oow to be seen. Ahoy had all drifted with the storm. There were 20,000
head of cattle left their herders and want south. Two hundred of the
of 1889
Carlisle cattle had drifted over the edge of the Carrizo Mesa and died, but
the rest went on to scatter over the plains from Clayton to the Canadian
river.
The snow drifted higher than the fences and froze solid, so my cattle
just walktv right out of the pasture and drifted down the canyon until they hit
the 112 fence. They followed around the feaee, and we found them the next
year aroumd Adobe Walls, and Cold Water, '..lekes.
lie were snow bound, ilt, the U a railroad got a snow plow from the
Union i'acifio railroad paying 4600.00 a day for the use of it and cleareG
the drifts off of their tracks. le stock yards were so fall of snow that
it would have been impossible to have corraled the cattle if they bad been
there.
Reports began to come in from the surrounding oountry; five men
belonging to the Dick Read outfit, who were waiting with their herd for cars,
south of Grenville weru frozen to death. A prominent rancher south of
Clayton had been caught in the storm several miles from home, and had stopped
at an isolated cabin for the night. After eating supper he started to go to
bed, but as het threw aacic the terpau.iin he foand a dead Mexican in the bunk.
fhis man had evidently been out with sheep and had been 90 cold when he reached
the Cabin that he had gotten into the bed rather than build a fire, and had
frok.en to death. This was to much for the rancher, who got on his horse and bt
Oravee the storm until he reached home. Sumerous abhor reports on the same
order come in.
the round -up wagons want out the next fall a year later all
of these cattle ware gathered and were again brought into Clayton, this time
to be put on the oars and shipped.
jlizsard of 1889
SOURCE:3 Ok INI,ORAA.21011
Pottor, Unions' Jaox.,
story as Lola to tale sritsr by yr. Potter
of his experience in this histories' storm.