Caldwell County MO Archives History .....KENTUCKY LIFE IN THE SEVENTIES 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mo/mofiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 3, 2008, 6:48 pm

KENTUCKY LIFE IN THE SEVENTIES
	Narrator:  Ed Vaughn, 72, of Hamilton, Missouri

	1.  Horseback Riding          2.  Civil War
                   3.  Droughts                  4.  Centennial Year
	5.  Driving Oxen with a Limber Tongue
 
     Mr. Vaughn was born in Estell Co., Kentucky on a farm and stayed there 
until he was 22 years old.  He followed his sister, Mrs. Robert Cash, to 
Caldwell Co., Mo., and worked the Kenney farm near Kidder which belonged then 
to Mr. Cash.
     The Vaughn family in Kentucky had been slave owners before the Civil 
War.  Their community during the war was about 50-50 in sentiment.  Even their 
own family was divided.  The father followed the Union because he thought 
secession was wrong, while one of the sons fought for the south.  The Vaughn 
home was not molested because the father was a strong Mason.
     Every boy and girl of well-to-do parents were given a horse and saddle at 
an early age, and that provided them a way to go places.  When a young couple 
went out to-gether, each provided their own way generally.
     There was a terrible drought in 1880 for one hundred five days.  Mr. 
Vaughn's father raised just enough feed to get through the winter.  In the 
spring, he paid a dollar a bushel for seed-corn and feed.
     He recalls vividly riding to town to attend the big Fourth of July 
celebration in 1876 when the nation celebrated the centennial of its birth.  
There were fire crackers, fire works, cannons, lots of whiskey and a half-
drunk orator.  He said he could still picture some of the fashionable clothes 
he saw on that occasion.
     One of his interesting experiences in Kentucky was driving steers over 
the hilly land.  He said that it was not at all uncommon to use two yoke wagon 
and from that up to eight yoke could be hitched together.  A chain on each 
side ran from one yoke to the one back and this last chain was hitched to a 
limber tongued ox-wagon.  There were no lines but the driver used a buckskin 
whip by which he controlled the steers.  Oxen, if uncontrolled, had a tendency 
to make for streams of water.  Steers were broken to driving at two years and 
were splendidly fitted for the heavy loads on Kentucky hauls.  Every steer 
knew his name and obeyed at once.  "Whoa-haw-Buck" meant for the steer called 
Buck to turn to the left.  About one-fourth of the hauling was done in the 
70's and 80's by oxen.  The stiff tongued wagon, used for horses, which in 
Missouri has given way to the limber tongue is still the favorite type in 
hilly Kentucky.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mo/caldwell/history/other/kentucky157gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mofiles/

File size: 3.1 Kb