TX BIOS: H. P. Cook
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   00011
   
   [Folkstuff - Rangelore?]
   
   Fuller, Chas. R.
   
   Rangelore
   
   Cottle Co.
   
   Page #1
   
   FEC
   
   H. P. Cook, 76, was born near Peoria, Ill., but moved with his father
   to Texas in 1866, first settling near Veil Station in Parker co. In
   1867, moved to Indian Creek about 18 mi. N.W. of Fort Worth, in
   Tarrant co. Here, as a boy, he learned to ride a horse, and become
   thoroughly accustomed to frontier life. They moved to Jack Co. in
   1871, settling 7 mi. E. of Jacksboro, on W. Fork of the Trinity River.
   Worked as cowboy for Hillery Bedford, and at age 10 went "Up the
   Trail" to Fort Dodge, Kan. Was also employed by John Chisum and drove
   cattle up the famous "Chisolm Trail". Was in Indian raids, and was
   present at famous trial of Indian Chiefs, Big Tree and Santana. In
   1878, moved to Cleburne, Johnson co., then on to Lamar co. Moved west
   again to Young co. in 1888, and pioneered in 1890 in Cottle co. As a
   dugout pioneer in Cottle, was visited by Will Rogers on his first
   run-a-way from home in Okla., keeping Rogers on his place for a month
   or more. Cook quit farming to move to Paducah, where he is now engaged
   as proprietor of the Cook Hotel.
   
   "I was born near Peoria, Ill., March 26, 1861. As my father had been a
   soldier in the Confederate Army, after the war it wasn't so healthy
   for him in that part of the country, so he moved to Texas in 1866 to
   start life anew.
   
   "We spent the first year at Veil Station, Parker County, then, in
   1867, moved to Indian Creek in Tarrant county, locating about 18 miles
   from Fort Worth, Texas. At that time, Fort Worth was about "Where the
   West ended". As I remember it, there were just a few frame buildings
   on the west side of the square.
   
   "Four years later, in 1871, we moved to Jack county, and settled on
   the West Fork of the Trinity River, about 7 miles E. of Jacksboro.
   Indian raids were so severe about that time, that we lived in
   Jacksboro, which was then called Fort Richardson. as I remember it.
   
   00022
   
   "Speaking about Indian raids, I well remember the excitement in the
   community when we heard about the famous wagon train murder, in which
   seven freighters were killed and scalped. Must have been about 1872.
   General Sherman happened to be down there about that time, and it
   looked so bad to him that he just had the Indians responsible for it,
   'Big Tree', "Santana", and "Santank', brought back from their
   reservation in the Territory and turned then over to the civil
   authorities for trial, instead of giving them a military trial.
   Santank was killed when he tried to escape, but the other two were
   tried there in Jacksboro and given the death penalty. I was there at
   the trial, and will say that the excitement was running plenty high.
   There were over a thousand people there, besides a lot of Indians. I
   think one of the Indians was finally pardoned, and the other committed
   suicide.
   
   "Along about the time of the wagon murder, there were other raids
   pulled off. The way it was, these Indians were assigned to their
   reservations, but they would get permission to go on hunts, or just
   slip out, and go on raids instead. It was a funny thing to me, but
   they nearly always picked a moonlight night for these scalping parties
   of theirs. They would steal all the horses and cattle, too.Lots of
   times they would come in broad daylight. I remember once when a band
   of them came through in their war paint. I was out in the pasture.
   Just as soon as I caught sight of them, I climbed a big mesquite tree
   and hid myself the best I could so they wouldn't see me. Well, they
   went on by, and made a raid in the community and scalped 00033some of
   the settlers (I don't remember who they were, now) and stole a lot of
   horses. I still think it was just a miracle that they didn't see me in
   that tree.
   
   "Yes, it is true that I went 'Up the Trail' when I was only 10 years
   old. It was in 1871 that I made my first trip. [At?] that/ time I was
   working for [Hillery?] Bedford, who lived on Black Creek, near
   Decatur, Tex. He had several thousand head rounded up to take to Fort
   Dodge, Kan., consisting of native Spanish cattle (longhorns), and
   including steers, cows and yearlings. I think there were 12 cowboys
   and a chuck wagon. Now, I wasn't taken along as a mascot, but as I was
   working for [DEL: [?] :DEL] Bedford and doing regular cowboy work, he
   told the boas to let me go if I wanted to. I made a regular hand on
   the trail, too, and took my place on the shifts at night, after the
   cattle were bedded down. You know, back in those days, lots of boys
   were good cowboys by the time they were 10 years old. But the next
   oldest boy on this drive was 18. I don't think there was anybody body
   else in that part of the country/ of my age that was doing regular
   cowboy work on the ranches.
   
   "It has been so long ago, I don't remember so much about the details
   of the trip. I remember we crossed Red River somewhere about Spanish
   Fort, and bumped right into a band of Indians the very first thing. We
   had explicit instructions from the Government not to molest the
   Indians in any way, so we were going pretty careful, not knowing what
   might happen. Well, it was a funny thing; The bucks had sent the
   squaws out in advance and they were waving their red blankets and
   shawls, which almost 00044caused a stampede. We soon found out,
   though, that what they wanted was 'toll' - that is, they wanted some
   of our cattle far crossing their reservation.We cut out some of the
   scrawny beeves for them, and they gave us no further trouble. But it
   was a sight to see how quick those beeves disappeared. They must have
   been pretty hungry for beef, because as soon as they were killed, they
   didin't wait to cook it, but devoured/ it raw. It wasn't any time at
   all before they were picking the bones.
   
   "Well, we passed through a lot of Indian reservations and saw a lot of
   different tribes, but they were all just Indians to me. I remember
   they said some of them were Comanches, some Kiowas and some Cherokees.
   Nearly all of them wanted toll, and this cut our hard down some before
   we got to Fort Dodge. We were more afraid of the Comanches, as they
   were considered the most warlike of all the tribes.
   
   "I made another trip to Fort Dodge with the Bedford cattle in the fall
   of the same year, and over the same trail. We had a tougher trip this
   time, because there was almost continuous rain, snow and sleet all the
   way up. We had three shifts of the guards at night, after the cattle
   were bedded down, and I took my place on these shifts along with the
   rest of them. The trip must have taken about six weeks,./ going and
   returning, It was really tough, sleeping on the ground this trip, it
   was so wet and cold. I had just a couple of cotton quilts, and by
   morning there wasn't a dry thread in then, it was so wet. I used my
   saddle for a pillow. [We?] would move the fire over, and flop down on
   the ground where the fire had been, which would stay warm for a while.
   00055We were struck by a 'Blue Norther' and the next thing it was
   sleeting. The wind was blowing so hard that it cut like a knife. I had
   to dig into the ground that night, to keep from freezing. This herd
   was gathered up in the counties of Johnson, Hill and Ellis, and must
   have been 3,500. I heard some say it was 5,000, but I don't believe
   they could drive that many in a herd.
   
   "The last trip I made 'Up the Trail' was in 1874. They were John
   Chisum's cattle, and were rounded up in Denton and Tarrant counties.
   It was a big herd, too, at least 3,000. Some said it was 6,000 head,
   but I don't see how that many could be handled on a drive, unless it
   was made in two herds. We crossed Red River at Doan's Crossing and
   took up the Chisolm Trail. I have heard people say over three million
   head crossed at Doans in one year, but you know that's a lot of
   cattle.
   
   "We handled the Indians about as usual, paying them a little toll now
   and then to keep them satisfied. But we had a new experience when we
   got to the Kansas state line. We ran into a bunch of settlers. The
   cowboys always called then 'nesters'. Now, they didn't like for these
   trail herds to cross their lands at all, and there they were gathered
   in groups, armed with shotguns and clubs, to force us to narrow the
   trail down as much as possible and keep the cattle moving. They were
   afraid they would lose some of their grass. You know, later on the
   Kansas Legislature passed a law to keep cattle from south of a certain
   line from being driven at all into their state. They claimed it was to
   prevent the spread of the so-called 'Texas 00066Fever'. It was in June
   of that year that they almost came to war with the cattlemen coming up
   the trail. There might have been a war, too, but word came through
   from Washington, granting the Texas cattlemen the right to drive their
   cattle through the Indian Territory, and to the Kansas market.
   
   "About cowboy lore; I don't remember so much of it. I don't talk it
   either, like some of the old trail drivers, because my cowboy days
   were over even before I came to Cottle county in 1890. I have heard
   about driving across the quicksand to get water for the cattle, when
   the rivers were dry, but on the drives I made we had more water than
   we wanted; they were all during the wet seasons. I can tell you one
   thing, though, a cow wont start across a swollen stream until she
   noses the calf around to the upstream side, and then the calf just
   rests snugly up against that mammy cow's left side. Just the opposite
   with a mare, though; they swim across with the colts on the downstream
   side. I think it is because the mare is a little longer and breaks the
   water so that the colt has still water to swim in on the downstream
   side. It would be hard to say which side is the best, but I guess
   nature just takes care of that.
   
   "Well, we'd usually stay in Fort Dodge about a week, and of course,
   after coming such a long distance, the cowboys were always ready to
   celebrate. They'd ride around the square and discharge their
   sixshooters until there wasn't any ammunition left, then quit. Nearly
   all the cattle were coming to Fort Dodge then, and the place was full
   of cowboys, and they usually 00077pulled a few wild pranks before
   their return to Texas. You know, the cowboy is noted for pulling
   pranks.
   
   "Well, we moved to Lamar Bounty for a while, then went to Young
   county. I lived there about two years. As I had got married, we
   decided to go further west and make a new home, so in 1890 we came out
   here and settled in the Ogden community, about 12 miles east of
   Paducah. W.G.Morris and John Wilson were the only families living
   there at that time, so Mrs. Cook and I are actual pioneers in this
   county.
   
   "You know, there are drawbacks to every country. I guess the most
   complaint here is sandstorms and drouths, but some years we don't have
   either. Besides, most everybody who has lived [here?] very long have
   about got used to it, even the gyp water. Even the top soil seems to
   have gyp in it, and I suppose in some places more [than?] others. I
   remember we once made up a batch of sorghum molasses, sometime back in
   the 90's, and do you know at the bottom of the vat there was at least
   six inches of solid gyp.
   
   "In 1896, we moved to about 5 miles west of Paducah, into the Fairview
   community, now called Valley View, and several years later moved to
   Paducah. Mrs. Cook and I run the Cook Hotel here. We are accustomed to
   this country and think the people here are as good as they are
   anywhere.
   
   "There is one happening I didn't tell you about. In fact, I didn't
   think anything of it much at the time. It is about Will Rogers. I
   think it must have been about May, 1894, when we were living/ in a
   dugout in the Ogden community. As I remember it, it 00088was in the
   late spring. One morning, a dilapidated buggy, drawn by a small bay
   pony, rolled up to my front yard gate and stopped. It must have been
   about 12 o'clock, because it was just at dinner time. I could see that
   the driver of the buggy was a loose-jointed, bow-logged boy, about 15
   or 16 years old. As I started to the gate to see what he wanted, he
   hailed me and said: 'Say, mister, don't you want a hand?'.
   
   "Well, all the settlers were having a tough time that year to make
   ends meet. A long drouth was on and nobody had raised anything much. I
   was hunting and trapping wolves and varmints and selling the hides, in
   order to get money to feed my family. During some of the long drouths
   that occurred back in those days, many of the early settlers resorted
   to [gathering?] bones off the prairies and hauling them to market 65
   miles away for the paltry sum of three or four dollars a load, just so
   they could live 'til times got better. So I just told the boy that I
   didn't have a job to offer him, but to hitch his pony and come on in
   to dinner. He said his name was Will Rogers, and it was, too, because
   I saw him afterwards in a little town in New Mexico where we both
   happened to be at the same time.
   
   "That boy stayed with me for a month or more. He went out with me on
   my hunting trips, and he helped do the farm chores. He was an
   interesting chap and was a big help to me. I really wish I could have
   kept him. After he had been there awhile, he and I began to get better
   acquainted. I treated him like a guest, and soon won his confidence.
   He told me that he had left home because his dad wanted to send him
   off to school, but he wanted 00099to be a cowboy and make some money.
   He was anxious to get a job on a ranch. It wasn't long before he sold
   the horse and buggy/ for $45.00 to a man by the name of Cunningham,
   and then he bought a little mustang mare from Frank Easley for $15.00.
   I could see that he was getting ready to go. He said he was going
   further west.
   
   "Well, the mustang wasn't broke to ride, so I roped him for the boy
   and helped him saddle up. Then he got on him, and you should have seen
   that pony pitch. He was plunging and bucking so wild all over the
   place that I thought he would be thrown and maybe badly hurt. That
   'Strawberry Roan' that you've heard so much about didn't have much on
   that little mustang. But Will Rogers just stuck to him like a tick.
   
   "He finally told me goodbye and said the next time I heard from him he
   would be ridin' the range. I didn't see him again until that time I
   met him in New Mexico, like I told you, but I saw a lady who runs a
   hotel at Plainview, who told me that it wasn't long after he left my
   place 'til he showed up there. Said he stayed at her place a little
   while and then got a job on a ranch out there, but didn't stay on it
   long. Later, I got a letter from him and he wrote me about everything
   that happened to him after he left my place. That letter got lost and
   we never could find it again. I would give a lot if I could find that
   letter now.
   
   "The old dugout where I lived when he stopped with me is about fifteen
   miles east of Paducah, about a couple of miles to the right of the
   highway and beyond the Ogden schoolhouse. 001010You turn in at the old
   Evans Place and go south. It has been a long time since I saw it, but
   there isn't anything there but a hole in the ground, almost filled up,
   and a few rocks laying around. I guess the settlers out here nearly
   all quit living in dugouts by 1900.

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