The Clifton Record (Clifton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 35, Ed. 1 Friday, June 25, 2004 Page: 33 of 108
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THE CLIFTON RECORD — BOSQUE COUNTY, U.S.A.
FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 2004
13
The Chisholm Trail Ran Through Bosque County
By Joe Marchman
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
The historic old Chisholm Trail has been
claimed by most of Texas’ 254 counties at
one time or the other, but this is not true
to historical fact. Indeed, there were many
cattle trails that stomped their way
through this state leaving their dust on the
pages of history for us to wipe away from
time to time in fond remembrances. How-
ever, the Chisholm Trail was more specific
in its placement on the Texas map and be-
came a legend that the entire state would
like to claim/
WHERE IT STARTED
In South' Texas, after the Civil War, the
rough brush country nurtured millions of
wild Spanish longhorn cattle. Texas was
dead broke. The ingenuity and necessary
nature of those early individuals gave rise
to Texas’ most colorful era. Times were
tough and the country was wild, lawless,
and savagely difficult.
It was an amazing, prodigious effort that
sent Texas cattlemen on the trail seeking
markets for their cattle all the way to Kan-
sas where the railroads from the East
were now reaching.
Beginning in 1867, cattle drives were
gathered and moved north which helped
Texans recover from the poverty that had
beset them after the Civil War.... Histori-
cally this was one of the greatest deeds of
pioneer bravery and daring recorded in
Texas history.
These early herds were shaped up be-
tween Brownsville and San Antonio and
driven to Austin crossing the Colorado
River and on to Waco where they swam the
Brazos River. Waco’s new suspension
bridge, across the Brazos, was not com-
pleted until 1869. The longhorn herds then
continued north to Dallas — then up what
is now Preston Road to the Red River and
on across the Indian Territory to Missouri.
This beef cattle trail was blown as the
“Shawnee TVail,” but was the precursor to
the “Chisholm TVail,” the most famous and
romanticized cattle trail in history.
By 1870 Waco’s suspension bridge was
completed and cattle crossing the Brazos
there were required to pay a three-cent toll
per head. Cowboys, horses, and
chuckwagons were assessed far larger
fees. To onset payment of these fees, herds
were soon turned north before reaching
Waco and traveled through Bosque
County... thus the Old Chisholm Trail came
into existence.
The Chisholm Trail was named after
Jesse Chisholm, who is not to be confused
with John Chism, the famous old pioneer
rancher of the “High Plains” of Texas and
New Mexico. The cattle trail’s name had
Chisholm Tkall Map
A Chisholm TVail get-together was
held in Clifton last year, at which a
new brochure was unveiled. This is
a song-and-dance saloon scene that
-......wMAre-Anaotert..........
been captioned in 1870 when it was cited
in Kansas newspapers to describe a new
stagecoach route which was to operate
between Wichita, Kan., through the In-
dian Territory (Oklahoma) south to
Texas.
In 1871, another Kansas newspaper
disclosed the Chisholm Trail as a favor-
ite route for Texas cattle drovers and
mule skinners with their height.
In 1874, a Texas newspaper referred
to Texas cattle “going up the famous Old
Chisholm Trail.” Undoubtedly, the name
was aided by the off-told tales and songs
of the rambunctious Texas cowboys. At
any rate, the name stuck and the Old
Chisholm TVail was the Texas cowhands’
road to high adventure.
Bosque County, in those pristine
times, was a natural beef cattle path for
those thin rangy longhorns from South
Texas headed for the North and Eastern
cattle markets. The Bosque River flowed
clear and pure — tall luscious prairie
grass waved like a carpet over the face
of Central Texas’ rolling hills and coun-
tryside. Cattle actually fattened as they
meandered through the lush forage.
Long ribbons of cattle, usually four or
five abreast — numbering from 2,000 to
10,000 — entered Bosque County just
west of Valley Mills on the south. The
herds followed a northerly route on the
west side of the Bosque River.
From atop the small limestone Bosque
hills, one could gaze for miles without
seeing the end of the herd.
In Bosque County, the vast longhorn
herds crossed the Bosque River at four
or five different locations depending on
the high banks of the tree-lined river and
the availability of necessary forage for
the cavtle. The two most likely Bosque
Rivei crossings were the flats just south
of Clifton (marked only by the unmarked
grave of a Mexican cook who riled one of
the young cowboys) and at “Bee Rock
Mountain” across the river from Merid-
ian.
In 1871, a half-million horned relics of
the earlier Spanish days in Texas were
rounded up and driven through Bosque
County to Fort Worth and on up to the
Big Muddy Red River—then across the
Indian Territory to Kansas — arriving at
Ellsworth or Wichita in early May.
Sunburned stalwart men, who loved
the freedom of the open range, earned
their spurs through Bosque County on
the Chisholm TVail. These men, forever
eulogized as “the cowboys,” were crea-
tures of habit. For the most of their years,
they wore the same kind of boots and
hats. Many were Texas farm boys who
had no taste for the sod-bustin’ life and
hit the trail at an early age.
Many a cow helped a Texas youngster
learn his letters. Frontier mothers were
often frustrated by their son’s inability
to learn the alphabet. Countless thumps
on the head and grandpa’s razor strop
applied in the right place didn’t produce
fhQ HpgirpH rocilife .On thpgp nnt tn hp
denied pioneer mamas of frontier Texas
had cattle branded with each of the letters
to be learned. In those days a young Texan
could easily learn brands as it was second
nature to him. However, the carefree life
of a cowboy and not education was utmost
in the hearts of the young men of Texas in
that day.
Ab Blocker was a famous Ttexas trail boss
and looked down the backs of more longhorn
cattle than any man who ever pointed a herd
towards the north star.
Ab was a modest man, God fearing, and
as honest as daylight. He was well-known
and revered by his many friends in Bosque
County as any cowboy that slept in his long
underwear only to be awakened from a
deep sleep by the earth-shaking and the
roar of a stampede caused by the frequent
Central Texas spring thunder storms.
The young men of Bosque County ea-
gerly anticipated the spring months when
the cattle herds moved north. Ed Nichols
was one such Central Texas youngster. He
as born on the west bank of Spring Creek
in 1863 at Morgan, Texas in his family’s
two-story rock house.
Ed Nichols recalls vividly, when he was
four years old, sitting on the split-rail fence
watching the great herds of longhorns pass
by. He recalls his mother finally allowing
him to go over to the cow camps across
Spring Creek with buckets of biscuits, milk,
butter, eggs, or whatever she was sending
to the Chisholm TVail cowboys. Completely
infatuated with listening to the cook or cow-
boys’ songs, he would often stay so late
watching the “goin’s on” that his mother
would blow a horn.
The trail boss would usually say, “She
blowing for that baby, some of you boys
take him home.”
A cowboy would then pull him up in the
saddle in front of him and lope off to the
Nichols’ home across Spring Creek.
Ed learned to ride at a very early age in
that the cow camp cowboys would put him
on a small calf — holding him with one
hand and the calf with the other. He re-
called, “They ’d let him pitch a little bit tell-
ing me to grip it with my legs. As I grew
older the cowboys put me on bigger calves
and then yearlings. In this way, I learned
to ride almost as soon as I could walk.”
Herd boss Ab Blocker was one of Ed’s
early cowboy heroes.
“I remember one instance when Ab
Blocker, one of the most noted of the
Chisholm TVail herd bosses, stopped his
herd nearby — A big six-foot Negro cow-
boy named Frank was his roper — Frank
had four good roping horses and he was
the best with a rope that I ever saw. He
didn’t work with the cattle at night like the
rest of the cowboys — he just did the rop-
ing.”
(The job of roper on a cattle drive was a
skilled position and he was paid more than
the run-of-the-mill cowboys. Many of the
ropers on the Chisholm TVail were colored
and former slaves.)
“On this day when I rode up to the
Blocker outfit while it was nooning (din-
ner),” Ed Nichols recalled, “Frank the
roper was a little piece off with his four
horses. In a short time, Frank rode up to
the chuckwagon pitching the loop end of
his rope out on the ground and leaving the
other end tied to his saddle horn.” — A
roper must always be ready for any emer-
gency — “He threw his bridle reins over
the neck of his horse — jumped off—and
sauntered up to the chuckwagon where the
other cowboys sat having just eaten din-
ner (lunch). He bent over the fire and
Bosque County is a mecca for
cowboy artists. Here several
gather at a Chisholm Trail bro-
chure unveiling in the
Clifton Civic Center.
about to touch his Ups to the hot tin cup
of coffee, when Ab let out a fearsome yeU
for him... Frank looked up and saw Ab
running for his life with a berserk long-
horn steer right on the heels of his
scruffy boots... Frank threw down his
hot cup... ran to his horse... tossed the
bridle over his horse’s head and swung
into the saddle. It was the quickest, pret-
tiest thing that I nearly ever saw. He
whirled his cow horse towards the mad
rampaging steer... stuck his spurs to
him and began doing his rope as they
ran. He made a loop not much bigger
than the steer’s horns was wide. As the
steer was about to tuck his head to hook
Ab. Frank galloped up behind. He
whirled the rope one time around his
head and hoUered, ‘Hold on boss, don’t
run no fu’ther.’ He threw the rope... the
cowhorse sat down on his hind legs and
the frothing steer changed ends... the
steer’s tail was almost touching Ab.
“As the danger ended, Ab started his
herd toward the town of Kimball on the
Brazos, some 10 miles distant.
“As the drovers got the herd pretty
close to Kimball,” Nichols continued,
“they would strike camp and let the
herd graze before they were bedded
down so as they would be fresh to swim
the Brazos River the next morning.
“After breakfast at daylight, the herd
was driven to the swimming pen at
river’s edge. The pen was built of cedar
rails, staked and ridered, ten rail high.
Three sides of the pen was fenced in a
funnel shape with the swimming water
end open where the cattle were to be
jumped off. The pen held 200 or more
steers. The cowboys then would get in
with the penned steers and force
bunches to jump off into the river. It took
all day to swim a herd across the
Brazos.
“The chuckwagon was pulled over to
the other side on the ferryboat... some
of the cowboys and their horses went
with it to hold the cattle when they came
up out of the river on the other side.”
Trail drives, cow camps, and river
crossings along the “Old Chisholm TVail
was usually a full day of fun for Bosque
County boys who had finished their
chores at home.
From Kimball and Bosque County the
herds continued to Port Worth, the Red
River, Indian Territory, and Kansas.
About the author—Joe Marchman,a
state-recognized award-winning
writer for The Clifton Record, is writ-
ing books on the legendary E.T. “Bull”
Adams, his wife, Mabel Wayi
yland
Adams of Glen Rose, Texas, and her fa-
ther, Dr. James. H. Wayland, a horse-
picked up the big coffee pot and poured ond-buggy, High Plains pioneer of
himself a tin cup of coffee.” Plainview and West Texas.
“Herd boss Ab Blocker had strolled off His history of the Chisholm Trail
across the Bosque prairie. Frank was just brings life to that era.
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Smith, W. Leon. The Clifton Record (Clifton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 35, Ed. 1 Friday, June 25, 2004, newspaper, June 25, 2004; Clifton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth791129/m1/33/?rotate=90: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Nellie Pederson Civic Library.