TX BIOS:  Jack Robert Grigsby
   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 And Folkways - Range Lore 3,120 Words
   
   EDITORIAL FIELD COPY
   
   by
   
   Mrs. Florence Angermiller, P. W.
   
   Page 1
   
   232
   
   MAR 21 1938
   
   RECEIVED
   
   MAR 21 1938
   
   WORKS PROGRESS
   
   ADMINISTRATION
   
   SAN ANTONIO
   
   TEXAS
   
   From F. C. by
   
   Mrs. Gussie Hale, P.W.
   
   Pioneer Experiences and
   
   Cowboy Tales of Early Days. REAL COUNTY, DISTRICT #10
   
   JACK ROBERT GRIGSBY
   
   Leakey, Texas.
   
   "I was born in Tyler, Texas, August 26, 1854, coming to this country
   in November, 1870. I was about sixteen years old when I came here. I
   was raised an orphan. I don't ever remember seeing my mother, and my
   father died when I was six or seven years old. After that I lived
   first one place and another till I came out here.
   
   "I started work on a ranch when I first got to this country, working
   for Will Pruitt. I just lived in the woods, for there were very few
   people [DEL: her :DEL] here at that time. I worked for Mr. Pruitt
   about six years, just working for my board and clothes, and it wasn't
   many clothes either.
   
   "I went part of the way up the trail to Oklahoma, twice with stuff for
   Will Pruitt. But he would always turn me back at Red River. He knew
   that I had a half brother living on up in Oklahoma and I always
   thought he did this so I wouldn't find my brother and stay with him,
   for he wanted me to work for him. I would come all the way back from
   Red River alone. Sometimes I would meet up with herds on the way and
   sometimes I would ride all the way back without seeing anyone.
   
   "I have had all kinds of ups and downs in the cattle buisness. Once we
   took a bunch of cattle to the old Woodhull ranch out south of
   Spofford. Part of the herd belonged to Mr. Furness.
   
     NOTE: C-12 [????]
     
   00022
   
   He had come up here and bought them up, and we got twenty-five cents a
   head for all we delivered, and furnished ourselves. But we had to pay
   for all we lost. One night we had camped about where Cline is now and
   had put the herd in a corner of a pasture for the night. We were
   herding them too, but along in the night something scared them and
   they run through all three of those wire fences. As we would turn them
   from one string they would go into another. But we only lost two. One
   broke it's shoulder and one got away. It was a steer that belonged to
   old Man Vogel and three years later , Millard Parkerson caught him and
   sold him for old Man Vogel. But the one that got its shoulder broke
   didn't cost us anything for it belonged to one of the boys in the
   bunch.
   
   "Our boss wanted to get there with the cattle looking good. So after
   we crossed Turkey Creek, we heard the train coming and he asked us to
   take the cattle a mile or so away from the track so the train wouldn't
   stampede 'em. Well, we all had cattle in the outfit and we made it up
   to hold them right to the track. So we took our slickers from behind
   our saddles and whipped the herd right up to the track. We had to do
   some riding for about two miles, for those cattle really did run. But
   we stayed with 'em. The boss sure got red but it didn't do him any
   good.
   
   "The next day we got to the ranch and was going down on a creek to
   camp, and one of the boys roped the pack horseman and he went to
   pitching and scattered skillets, frying pans, coffee pots and all our
   [DEL: ub :DEL] grub everywhere. But we got everything back but our
   grub. So we went up to the house and told Mr. Furness what had
   happened. He told us to come on up to the house and stay. So we helped
   him brand out his cattle, and he give us enough grub to get back home.
   
   "Yes, we always used a pack horse to carry our grub for we worked
   00033in this rough country and there were no roads, so we had no use
   for a a chuck wagon. Except one time when we made a trip up on the
   divide above Leakey. Well, there was no road and the wagon broke down.
   We had gotten ahead with the herd, so some of the boys went back to
   see what was wrong and to get some corn from the wagon to feed the
   horses. The man saw a light out across the country and came back and
   told us it was Indians. So we had to get out and round up the horses.
   We built a brush pen to put them in and guarded them all night. The
   next morning we had gotten breakfast and started to eat. But it was
   always the custom then, when the cowboys were eating, for someone to
   keep watch for Indians. Well, one of the boys got up to look and saw a
   big bunch of men coming. He says, 'Boys, here they come!' But it
   turned out to be soldiers and they had seen us and thought we were
   Indians. So the boss got up and hollered at them to wait and the
   officer in charge come on up to the camp. We had killed a beef the
   evening before, so we gave them part of that and they gave us about
   twenty-five pounds of coffee.
   
   "One time Joe Pan Pelt came to work with our outfit down here about
   Rio Frio. Well, we always turned all the horses loose at night except
   one or two we kept to ride after the others next morning. We never
   cared what we kept up to ride -- just anything, no matter how [?] they
   were. The boys always took it turn about going after the horses in the
   morning, so it came Joe's time to get the horses. It was a cold,
   frosty morning and he said he didn't want to get on the horse. But I
   told him yes, he must go. So he got on the horse and he began pitching
   and finally turned a somersault with him. He got up and said he
   couldn't ride the horse again. But I told him we had those horses
   there to ride and if he didn't ride him I couldn't keep him for I
   couldn't afford to keep a hand that could not ride the horses. So he
   got on him again and that time he 00044rode him.
   
   "Joe Collins used to come out in this country and buy fat cattle and
   take them to New Orleans and ship them from there. I have seen him
   ride into cow camp with a morral (nose bag) full of gold [DEL: [?]
   :DEL] and go off and leave it there maybe all night and no one ever
   bothered it. I guess if someone had taken it he would have just been
   killed and that would have been all there would have been to it. There
   wasn't any court. Uvalde was the nearest post-office.
   
   "Old Man Schwartz used to come to the cow camps with his hack peddling
   drygoods and lots of times he would stay all night. He always went
   prepared to camp, for them days you couldn't always make it to a house
   for the night. But he would always sell something to the cowboys, such
   as gloves and if they didn't have the money they got them just the
   same. And I don't believe those cowboys ever beat him out of a
   quarter. He was sure a fine old man. I thought a lot of him.
   
   "When I first commenced work for myself I had some awful mean horses.
   I traded for the meanest ones I could get, so the boys wouldn't ride
   'em when I was gone. I had one I only rode every three days. Well, he
   was so mean I would have to tie him to a tree and beat him up before I
   could get a bridle on him, for he sure would fight.
   
   "I broke a horse down here once for Mart Pruitt. He finally traded him
   to Calvin Bowles. The horse was getting tender-footed so I met Calvin
   one day and told him his horse needed shoeing. He said yes, but he was
   too mean to shoe. But the old blacksmith in Leakey come out and said
   he could handle him. Well, they brought the horse down and the old
   blacksmith fooled around him a little while and finally dropped the
   rope. I said, 'Don't do that; he'll run off.' He told me to just let
   him alone he would handle him. So he went in and got his nails and
   hammer and horseshoes and 00055and put the shoes on him and the horse
   never moved. I don't know what he did to the horse for after that he
   was just as mean to kick anyone else as he ever was.
   
   "Yes, times are quite different now to what they used to be. I
   remember when Old Man Hanson come in here and taken up a preemption of
   a hundred and sixty acres. Hatten Elms come along and wanted to trade
   him out of it. Elms asked him what he would take for it and he said,
   'Two cows and calves,' which meant about eight dollars for a cow and
   calf. Well, they traded for about a week, and then Elms backed out. So
   you can imagine about what land was worth then.
   
   "Once the Indians come into the country and was stealing horses. Well,
   we heard of them and the settlers got together and took their trail
   down here about Rio Frio. We followed them on across the Seco to the
   Sabinal Canyon and on to Frio Town, down by Old Man Westfall's ranch,
   which was a big cow ranch. And when we crossed the Frio near where
   Loma Vista is now, we had run out of food and were sure hungry. We
   hadn't had anything to eat for several days but a little coffee. There
   didn't seem to be any stock in that country then. But we finally met a
   Mexican sheep herder with a herd of sheep and asked him for one. He
   said we would have to go see the boss. We didn't have time to fool
   around hunting the boss. So Joe Van-Pelt jumped off his horse and shot
   at a big old mutton and killed two. We took them on down to a little
   creek and cooked them and the eighteen of us ate every bit of those
   two sheep.
   
   "The Indians killed nineteen people before they reached the Rio
   Grande. Well, we went on for a day or two without overtaking them and
   some of the men got discouraged and kept dropping out till there was
   only five of us left. We had appointed Henry Patterson as captain. So
   he decided it was best to go back to Uvalde and wire Lieutenant Bullis
   00066for help so he met us here with his Seminole Indian soldiers and
   we took up the trail again and followed it on to the Rio Grande. But
   they had already gone across. We could see men riding back and forth
   and we were satisfied it was these Indians, but we were not allowed to
   go after them. They killed one man by the name of Byrd and about five
   of his men who was herding sheep for him. Mr. Byrd was in his buggy
   when the Indians overtaken him and after they killed him, they taken
   everything he had in the buggy and his buggy harness. They cut the
   leather harness up in little pieces and scattered it along the way. Of
   course it was of no value to them. But we found it as we followed the
   trail. They had also gone by the Mount Woodward ranch and killed two
   or three men there. We didn't see anyone as we passed the ranch. We
   wasn't bothered about seeing people -- we was just following that
   Indian trail.
   
   "Another time we followed a bunch of Indians over on Dry Frio. They
   had killed a man by the name of Terry and captured his two children a
   little boy and a little girl. The girl's name was Mattie and the boy's
   name was Joe. But Joe had fought them so hard they knocked him in the
   head and left him for dead, right before his little sister's eyes. But
   he didn't die. Well, we rode all night that night till daylight. [?]
   daylight we took up the trail again and overtaken them just before
   noon. They didn't offer to fight for it was raining and their bow
   strings were wet. They couldn't shoot and that gave us the best of
   them. One old Indian was off ahead of the others and they were
   crossing a creek when we begin to shoot at them. We followed them on
   into a shin-oak thicket. After awhile we come into a little opening
   and just as we got to this opening we saw the little girl. It looked
   like she had just been kicked off of the horse by the old Indian she
   was riding behind. She had an Indian blanket wrapped around her and
   when she saw us she started to run. But we told 00077her to wait, we
   wouldn't hurt her, so she sat down on the blanket and waited. We went
   on after the Indians, still shooting at them every chance we got.
   Finally , we got so close to the old Indian that had dropped the
   little girl that we could see him kick his horse every jump trying to
   make him go faster. Anyway, he had a bed tick around him and and we
   found that full of bullet holes and bloody. I don't know if we killed
   any or not but there was plenty of blood along the trail. He ran on
   till he got to a ridge and when he went over this ridge and into
   another thicket, we was close enough to see he [?] long lance in his
   hand. None of us wanted him bad enough to go in there after him, for
   you know they can throw those old lances through you.
   
   "We got the little girl and started back home. On the way back we
   found a lot of stuff the Indians had lost, such as goat hides and one
   buffalo robe. It was cold and everything was wet. So we picked them up
   and took them to camp and used them for bedding. Just before night
   someone said, 'Do you suppose these things have lice?' But we slept on
   them just the same. Yes, we got plenty lice. When we got back to Old
   Man Shores' where we were in cow camp, we took a big wash pot, got off
   down on the river and cleaned up. We boiled all our clothes and tied
   the buffalo robe in the river for about three days. Jim Avant took the
   little girl on to his home, but he had to stay in camp with the rest
   till he got rid of those lice. Mrs. Avant took the little girl and
   combed and washed the lice out of her hair, and washed the paint off
   of her face that the Indians had put on it. And she put clean clothes
   on her.
   
   "Every [?] in the whole country wanted the little girl, but she didn't
   want to stay with any of them. She wanted to stay with us men who had
   rescued her from the Indians. When they did take her back to 00088her
   mother, she went with a herd of fat cattle that Pruitt was taking to
   San Antonio. When they got to San Antonio, she wouldn't get on the
   stage coach to go home unless one of the cowboys went along, so one of
   them got on the coach up with the driver and put the little girl back
   inside with the mail. There was a little window in the top where she
   could see the cowboy sitting up on top. Well, when they got down the
   road a piece, they picked up another passenger/ so the cowboy slipped
   off and this man took his place. The little girl didn't know the
   difference. But I never saw her after that.
   
   "I knew Billy the Kid. He stayed in camp with us down here about
   Hackberry once for about a week. He rode into camp one day and his
   horse was rode down. He told us his name was Word and he wanted to
   stay a few days. I told him all right. So he stayed on and helped us
   round up cattle till one day he got into a fight with a Negro we had
   working with the outfit. Billy cut the Negro across the side of the
   face and down the back with a long butcher knife. The Negro finally
   run. And when he stopped, I walked over to where he was and he said,
   'Mr. Jack, please don't let him hurt me any more!' About that time
   Billy came up and said, 'Oh, shut your damn mouth. I have already done
   all to you that I want to.' Billy stood there and wiped the blood off
   of the knife with his hands and looked at the cut on the Nigger as
   unconcerned as if he hadn't done a thing. But he left after that. He
   was afraid the officers would hear of this and would get him for other
   things he was wanted for.
   
   "When he left camp he went on up to Bill Patterson's ranch and got a
   job going up the trail to Kansas that spring. They said he stayed with
   them part of the way back home, but stopped one day away out on the
   prairie and took his bed but turned his horse aloose. So they left him
   right there without a horse. They said they guessed he didn't want
   00099to get any closer to Texas.
   
   "I knew several other desperados. Among them was Bill Longley, George
   Gladden, John Beard and Lew Sawyers. They all come through this /
   country one winter at different times. They didn't do any kind of work
   while they was here but they took in all the dances.
   
   "There was one man, a desperado, come in to this country one time. I
   can't remember his name right now. Anyway , he stayed over on the West
   Prong a lot. I don't know what he had done, no telling what. Anyway,
   while he was staying up on the West Prong, he shot a Mexican one day
   just to try out his gun. The Mexican was about two-hundred and fifty
   yards away and as he stooped over to dig a hole this man shot him in
   the hip. I met the man about a mile down the road just after it had
   happened but he didn't say a word about what he had done. Well, the
   rangers come in and got after him and caught him away from home
   without a horse. But he got away from them and Old Man Lyman Smith
   helped him get out of the country by exchanging clothes with him so he
   would be disguised and wouldn't get caught. Those fellows were very
   peaceful and nice unless trouble come up.
   
   "I was married to Miss Jennie Horton in January 1888. We were married
   right up the river here about a half-mile in my wife's parent's home.
   [?] walked on down here after the wedding and have been here ever
   since. But I had to give a dance at Leakey in the court house that
   night to keep the boys from shivareeing us. We had a big supper and
   danced till about four o'clock, then it came up a big, snow storm and
   we had to go home to keep from freezing. It was one of the biggest
   snow storms I ever saw in this country. I guess me getting married
   caused it.
   
   "This past year, on January 12, we celebrated our golden wedding
   anniversary with a dinner at our home. Our son, Guy, and two grand
   001010daughters, Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Elms, and a few of our close
   friends came. We received many nice and useful gifts.
   
   "I don't ride any more because I can't get on my horse. I haven't rode
   now in about three years. My wife did all the riding up till about a
   year ago, then Guy came back home to live, so he does the riding for
   us now."
   
   -30-

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