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Phipps, Ioody
Rangelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. #7
Page #1
PC
Harry Pearson, 53, was born in Lamar oo.,
!ex. His father operated a farm, then
moved to Pickens co., Indian Torr., in
1888, to establish a stock term. Hnrry
was taught to ride a horse at an early age,
and was employed on different outfits until
he was 20, when he quit the range to go to
7t. Worth, Texas., where he entered the
cattle commission business on the Stock
Yards. Us was again employed on the range
in 1934, and is able to explain the difference
between the cowboy of former day*, and the
ranch hands of today. Re was tweed to
retire from all activity in 1935, and now
resides at 305 Samuels Ave. Pt. Worth, Tex.
,Tis story:
"Yes wah, I really know the rang, life well because got it
in my blood just before the old time range went out. You see, there's
a great difference between the old time way of run;int critters and
the way it'd done today. But first, my name is Harry Pearson, end I
was born on my dad's farm, in Lamar county, June 26th, 1884. When
I was about four yeahs old, my dad moved us to Piokens county, in
what was known in them daystas, Thf Territory'.
"Marietta Okla was just then getting to be a place. I did
recall the fellow's name that put up the first store there, but I
guess it's done plum slipped my mind. Dad's p/aoe was five miles
South of Bowman's Station, and close to Marietta. The pleas he
got was known es the Old Thacker Place, but he didn't have so many
head of critters on it. Never as much as 500, and I done forgot the
iron he run under.
1 "Our place was just South of Bill Washington's place, and
ck he shore enough run a ranch. I reckon he had around 10-1$,000 head
on his place with the Garter brand. It was a line burnt all around
the left hind leg of all of his critters. I reckon that's the only
brand of it's kind in the world. It was known as the, 'Garter Brandt..
Phipps, Woody Page f2
Rangelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. 17 irc
if. had about three big ranches around over the Terratory. One of
'em was ob Big Stud Crick, about 60 miles from his place elose to ass
I don't know the brand or the number of critters in his iron out
there but I reckon 'twee about the same size as his place in Pickens
county. rhey tell on old Bill that he used to drive a couple of
bays and a heavy two -hoes wagon out there, 'tend to business, then
drive back in one day. Of a)uret, the day might have been 18 lours
or more, but they said he made it in one day. 120 miles in one days
"They was so many cow punchers around there in that county
that it was just as nacheral for me to learn to ride a hoes as it is
for a duck to learn to swim. I got to *here I was a fair to middlin'
wild hose buster by the time I was 12. At that time, I went to work
for Jeff Thompson, who run about 2,000 head in the 'JD' iron. His
place was located about five miles Souk's of Marietta, Okla.
"Since it was a pretty small place, I didn't have but very
litle eleepin' out to do, but what I done, was done just like the
punchers on the big outfits done. That is, I slept with my saddle
for a pillow, my saddle blanket for amattress, and my slicker and
another blanket for cover. ?hey was eev'el tines that I got caught
aleepino out when a NBlue Norther' come up. A 'Blue Norther' is a
cold, wintry spell that just freezes everything up in no time flat.
I can't explain it in anyway except that it comes up in an blur or
two, and noway to tell it except by the critters getting restless
about six hours in advance. They had some sort of sense that told
them. These blue northers are not always so bad, but are pretty
tough when you're out on the prairie without much cover or any
protection.
"The thing we all done in a case like that was after we
Phipps, Woody ,pagit #3
Rangelore
Tarrant Co. Dist. #7 PC
got through cooking up our beans and coffee, with a little beef,
we'd move the fire over and make our flop down on the warm spot.
The ground would ordinarily keep warm for as much as six hours at a
time this away. Then too, another thing to remember about maki*g
a bed down like this, is to always make it down on a sort of a
high spot, and make drains away from you. You could make these
drains with your boot heels, dragging them away from the spot you
intended to flop on.
"I never will forget my first boots and Stetson* I bought
'em with money I made myself, working on the 'JD'. They was lotsa
prices you could pay for hand made boots but I just paid $10.00
for my first, and 115.00 for my Stetson. Maul, was I mocked out?:
Some of the old timers still like to rag me about the way I acted
when I got my first cow puncher clothes.
"I felt pretty important, going *rota in my cow puncher
rags, and really tried Igo make Jeff a better hand. What I wanted
to do, was get to be as good a cow puncher as Hilly Thompson,
Jeff's bud, who run around 12 to 1500 head in his iron over in
Love's Valley. I don't recall the iron, but I do recall that Billy
wrangled all those critters by his lonesome without anybody's
help. He was regarded as pretty tough, and capable of taking care
of anything he had so he was left strictly alone by the loose rope
gentlemen.
"They was some more fellows that I admired, and wanted to
copy. A couple of them *omit from a family of farmers by the name
of Epps. Bill Epps was an ordinary cow punch but his bud, Caleb
Epps, was as swashbuckling a buckaroo es ever slapped an iron on a
Phipps, woody pegs f4
Rengelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. #7 7C
critter. Caleb swaggered and grendstanded,everything he did. He
was good and knew it, and he wanted you to know it while you was
around.
"I saw Caleb bust many a wild hose, and nobody ever saw him
throwed. I sew him riding a killer that had stomped several men,
and this killer had a trick of bucking hard for awhile, then coming
back over on his rider. 4hat was a most dangerous prectioe, and one
thet usually was the end of a hoes become* sousbody'd shoot it to
save the middy riding him. Caleb asked that nobody shoot the hoes,
no matter what, so we all lined up on the Hoes corral fence, to
watoh the show.
"Bill Washington himself, and Bill Epps, helped Caleb to
get off good. he hoes booked, sunfished, swapped ends in mid-air,
and put on a big show for about five minutes, which is a hell of a
long time to be in the storm seat of n bucking oayuse, then went up
and over. le all yelled out becalm* Caleb got his boot hung in the
stirrup. Some of us turned our heads, others jumled down and started
to run to 'Caleb to help him. Several had their guns out, but Caleb
had risked that the boss not be shot, so there we was. The hose
only pinned a part of Caleb's left foot under him, though, and when
he rolled over to get up, Caleb was beside him. When that hose
got on his feet, Caleb was still ridin' in the saddle, and what's
more, rode that hosts to a stand -still. 70 all took our hats off
to Caleb and had a big celebration on that.
"Caleb, as I said, was quite a swaggerer. He bullied around
and men had to take it because they knew he'd never met his equal in
fast shooting. Caleb could draw his six shooter in the time it takes
to say it, and he never missed sole anybody could tell it. nne
Phipps, Woody
Rangelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. #7
Christmas Day, him and some more fellows had been gambling all
night and day, down on the Green Parma about five mile South of
Marietta, andan argument come up. The man that started the argument,
got reel bad about it, and jerked his gun out to shoot Caleb. I
never saw this because I was just a kid, but I remember all excepting
the names of the men that took part. They said that Caleb let him
get his gun plum out, then drew and shot him before be could shoot.
One shot got him in the heart. Caleb had same sort of a triggerless
pieta that shot reel fast. I think they called him a 'Gun fanner'.
That meant that his gun didn't have a trigger bat was shot by
gently hitting the hamar with his hand. Anyway, it shot so fast
that this man was killed before he could shoot, and another was shot
in the foot.
"Caleb had to light out after that, and he became a desperado
after that. 'Twee a shame too, bemuse his whole family were good
people. I reckon all 'sullies has black sheep in thee though.
The man he killed, was took to the cemetery by a bunch of men. On
the way, they come to a crick, and the crick was up so high that
they decided to come heck the nett day.. They just ooveriou the VOA
up out on the field, and come back the next day and buried his.
"When I got to be about 14 years old, Zeff sold his critters
to a commission company, who come and got the herd, and drove it
to Abilene. I was offered a chance to go with it, but turned it
down because a lawyer out of Gainsville, Texas, bought the land
and promised me a job. Jeff went to Ametillo to ranch, end that's
the last I ever sew of his. This lawyer, I don't recall his name,
stocked the place with about 8-900, two to five year old beef
Phipps, Noody
Rangelore
Tarrent Co., Dist. i7
steers.
Page fes
PC
"All I done wastto ride the fen*. line, and keep it repaired.
I done 8 little branding and so on, but not much. The main thing
about this period was that I was really riding wild 'losses. I
busted about eight of them in that year, 14E4 had to go out and
catch 'em up myself. 2hey run loose on the plains, and all we had
to do, was go out and snare 'en into a trap. The trap was always
a corral built pretty high in an arroyo, with an open gate totards
the way you expected to haze 'em in. When you got 'en in, you
closed the gate, roped the hoes to a snubbing post in the center,
which was almost always a tree that the corral was built around.
After the hoes was snubbed and tied, it was up to the rider to
put his saddle on and take the hoes from there on.
"After a year working for the lawyer, he sold all the beef
off, and left me without a job. From 15 to 20, all I could get to
do, was a day4s work here and there. No steady job with anybody.
It was hard times in the cattle business, and top hands were getting
414.00-$15.00 a month and chuck. Working by the day, got 50v
to a 1.00 a day. _'bout the most I done was to hunt. They was
shore good hunting in them days. Plenty prairie chickens, which
aint nowhere* now, big flints& of wild turkeys, and plenty deer.
"Along about this time, I took to spending more time in
Marietta, where I'd meet the ram rods for the different outfits,
and ask them for a job. The U.S. Airshalls for the Territory would
come through, and I'd get to see them. They was ill ex-oow punchers,
and had to be bad men to get the job they had. They was sent out
to get bad men just like the Texas Rangers, and they pretty well
handled the job. I recall MoLemore, Ledbetter, Mashawn, MoClure,
Phipps, Woody Page #7
Pangelors
Tarrant Co., Dist. #7 TO
and several others. They'd come through with about:our-five wagons
and 12-14 deputies with 'am. One of them, on oClue,, never toted
a gun. Be got his man just like the rest of them, but he always
out -talked his man. I recall now how hard it was for the cow
punchers to believe that Tom never toted a gun. They always believed
he had a hide-out on him somewhere*, which he pulled when his man
wasn't expecting it. I don't know. did see him a number og
times and I never saw
t gun on him. He later got to be sheriff in
some Texas county, and I read something about him and a kidnapping
case in the papers. That's about all I could tell about him, or
any of the rest of them. Of course, every one of them had tales
going the rounds about how tough they was, but I don't recall any
of them right now.
"After I got married when I was 20, I took my wife and went
to the Horseshoe Ranch at Hickory Grove, which was owned by Judge
Lindsey at Gainsville, Texas. They was so many sections on this
place that I never got to where I'd covered all of it. I don't yet
know how many sections there were on it. The Hosseshoe run good
stock end it was along about this time, that cattlemen started to
dehoreing their critters. We'd þ and brand at the same time.
"The roundups was the semi on all the places. The Spring
roundup to brand the calves and make a count, besides selling off
a few if the money was needed or there was a good market, and the
Fall roundup for the branding and sorting of the market critters.
You see, you'd have several grades of critters from the prime fat
to the scrubs, and if the critters was sorted before the *sale,
the number made more money.
Phiva„ Woody Palle #15. Rangelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. f7 rc
"The thing I liked beat about the Horseshoe was the wild
bosses. 7hey was plenty of them, and several different kinds.
Spanish, Mustang, and mixed stock with a little of all kinds of
blood in them. Some of 'em would buck like sixty, and some of the
others would give up in just a short time of bucking. /t did seem
like the harder a hose was to bust to a brono, the better a hoes he
made for cutting out and other ranch work. I guess that was because
he had more salt to him. Or it might have been that when we had
a hard time busting him, we appreciated him more and took more pains
in training him.
"I worked a year on the Horseshoe, then came here to Fort
iorth to go into the oomnission business. That's the way I made my
living up 'til '34, when I went to work on the Aired Ranch in Parker
county. They called it a ranch. I wouldn't call it a ranch because
they wasn't but about 400 head on the place. It was more of a feed
lot than a ranch. I don't reoall Whether they even bothered to
brand the critters or not. I didn't work but 5 months beoeuse the
modern cow boy aint a cow puncher but a ranch band. His job calls
for more plowing and farming than it does cow punching, which never
did appeal to me so I left 'em with their ranch and came back to
Fort Iorth.
"Since I got back, I've done a little of this, and a little
of that, but not much of anythingamoause I'm not able to do a day's
work like I used to be.