TX BIOS:  Seaton Keith
   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
   
   Folk [Stuff?] - Range Lore
   
   Range-lore
   
   Nellie B. Cox
   
   San Angelo, Texas.
   
   Page one
   
   RANGE-LORE
   
   Seaton Keith, (Englishmen), came to West Texas in 1881. He was the
   owner of the Lipan Springs Ranch and his style of living was befitting
   one "to the manner born". His large house was luxuriously furnished
   and servants kept it in perfect order. The meals were prepared and
   served according to the best of English tradition-correct china,
   silver and napery, the carving of the immense beef roast by Mr. Keith,
   and the passing of the finger bowls was the every day order. This was
   embarrassing to many guests, especially if they were old ranchmen who
   for many years had been served from a chuck wagon and had eaten from a
   tin plate. Mr. Keith drove a team of the best horses to be had, to a
   double buggy, on his frequent trips to town. He kept English bird dogs
   for hunting. Many guests have enjoyed the hospitality and pleasures of
   the Lipan Springs Ranch during the years when Mr. Keith was owner. He
   is now 81 years of age.
   
     NOTE: [C 12 - 2/11/41 - Texas?]
     
   00022He sold his ranch and retired from the cattle business about
   fifteen years ago. He became a naturalized citizen four years after
   coming to this country but in many ways, appearance, mannerisms,
   accent and expression, he is typically English.
   
   Mr. Keith says: "Our family lost their titles in the Stuart Rebellion
   in 1715. My father finished the study of surgery in the School of
   Surgeons at Aberdeen. This school has changed names but some three
   hundred years before my father's entrance to the school, it had been
   endowed by a Keith of my father's family.
   
   "Do you wish to hear the whole story? Very well, I shall proceed. My
   father performed the first operation for the removal of ovarian tumor
   ever to be performed. He became a noted surgeon and we lived in quite
   good style in London. Father could speak many languages and he wished
   my brother and me to learn to speak at least the French and German
   languages so we spent one year in France and one year in Germany.
   After I came West, I wished devoutly that I had learned to swear in
   Spanish. But to proceed with the story, later I worked in London but
   when I was 21, I went to [Burme?]. I did not like it there. The
   coolest day was 84 degrees and that was in the winter, then my pay was
   only eighty pounds a year.
   
   "My father having heard of the opportunities in the States, wrote and
   asked if I shouldn't like the cattle business. I came in a
   round-a-bout way to West Texas and except for occasional trips to
   England, I have been here since.
   
   00033
   
   "I first bought a share in the cattle on the Lipan Springs Ranch, then
   owned by Jefferson, Miller, and Erskine. When I first came, the only
   house on the ranch was a picket house. It had been built by DeLong
   during Indian times. A very funny thing happened the first night I was
   at the ranch. The picket house had only two rooms below and some kind
   of sleeping quarters in the attic. Outside was a small rock room where
   lived William Scherz and his wife. Mrs. Scherz cooked for the ranch
   and the dining table was in this rock room, along with other
   furniture. It was so very crowded. We squeezed in to the table by one
   path and passed out the same way. This night of which I speak, quite a
   number were there to eat. Uncle Joe Ellis finished his meal and went
   out first. I went next and as I walked out into the dark, I fell over
   the wheelbarrow. Oh! I fell all over the place! When I got up, I
   reached down to pick up the wheelbarrow and out of the dark, Uncle Joe
   grabbed me and said, 'Leave the blasted thing alone. I fell over it,
   then I saw you fall over it, now let's watch the others fall over it.'
   
   "Our ranch neighbor was the [Becan?] Creek Ranch owned by Frost and
   Leath. You do not object to a little gossip, do you? Jack Leath kept a
   [Mexican?] woman and that was not pleasing to all, so he left and went
   to 00044Mexico, Mrs. Frost was a society lady and did not care for the
   West. Someone brought a turtle in one day, just a common old
   hard-shelled turtle, and Mrs. Frost was determined to make turtle soup
   but the last I heard she had not succeeded in getting the turtle
   tender. Frost always liked to drink and after he left the ranch
   someone said that Frost was just as near Heaven as he wished to be,
   that his home was on a hill in Louisville, Kentucky and surrounding
   him were distilleries by the dozen.
   
   "My first jury experience was really very funny. Oh! It was great! A
   big negro was being tried for criminal assault. At night, the jury was
   fed at the Nimitz hotel and were put in the bridal chamber for the
   night. Eleven of us men voted to give the negro a penitentiary
   sentence but one big, fat [boozer?] held out for letting him go with a
   fine. We were sitting around in the room about eleven o'clock and this
   fellow said, 'God-damn it,' (you don't mind a few rough words, do
   you?), 'I'm going home where I can get some sleep. If you fellows have
   to send this man to the pen, then I'll vote that way.' If I had been
   the only one of twelve to think differently, I tell you I would have
   sat there until Doomsday.
   
   "I was the poorest rider in the whole country. A boy named Henry, from
   Fredericksburg, would break all my horses to ride, but a horse had to
   be perfectly 00055gentle for me. One time my horse fell with me as I
   was riding in the pasture and I lay unconscious for six hours in the
   sleeting weather. No one found me. My pony was standing near when I
   regained consciousness and I rode back to the ranch.
   
   "Oh, yes! When I first ranched, I did not boss. I worked as a hand. I
   listened to the cowboys talk and got their opinion of this man and
   another. I also learned to observe livestock closely.
   
   "I bought most of my land for $1.00 an acre. There were five or more
   sections of land on my ranch owned by people in other states. One
   section was owned by a Swede, by the name of Nelson who come all the
   way from Minnesota to sell me his land. I bought it for $640.00 but he
   was satisfied. Another fellow came from Kansas. In dress and manner,
   he reminded me very much of a Scottish Presbyterian Elder. Oh,
   botheration! I cannot recall his name, but anyhow, he had a stack of
   deeds to lands in Texas which people had bought or traded for. Some of
   the deeds were no good and he had failed to even find some of the
   land. Most of it had been pictured as fine farm land, some with
   streams flowing through. He did have a deed to a section in my south
   pasture but it was very rough country.
   
   "Lord Chetwynd who died a few months ago, was a good friend of mine.
   Chetwynd was the second son 00066of a second son and was greatly
   surprised when he came into the title. He came here in '83 and was the
   best land surveyor we ever had in the country. I have seen him dig
   down to find old stumps where trees had formerly stood to mark
   corners. Lord Chetwynd possessed a rod which he thought could point
   out hidden or buried treasure. I do not think he ever found any. I
   visited him in his home in London in 1913.
   
   "Other Englishmen were Frank, Claude, and Billy Anson. The
   Head-of-the-River Ranch which they bought is still owned by Billy's
   daughter. Claude told me that when he got to Abilene on his way out
   here, a man said to him, 'Let's open a bank here.' Anson, having been
   accustomed to the banks of England with soads of money did not think
   he had anything with which to start a bank. 'Why,' the man said, 'we
   can take in deposits and when we think we have enough, we'll split and
   go our way.'
   
   "I have had droughts on the ranch. One spring when I had had no rain
   for a year and half I killed the calves as they came, but Mr. Wallace
   didn't send me a check for them. They were a total loss.
   
   "It is outrageous the way people will overstock their pastures. It is
   said of one man, that if he goes out in his pasture and finds three
   blades of grass growing, that he becomes very much excited 00077and
   says, 'Oh, my God! I must get some more stock. Just look at the
   grass.'
   
   "Will Carver used to work on my ranch. He was a good, quiet, steady
   boy, but his wife and baby died and he seemed to go all to pieces. He
   joined Black Jack's gang of desperadoes and was shot in Sonora.
   
   "I know a good story of Tom Ketchum. Our boys were working at a
   round-up on the San Saba River. My wagon was there and among the boys
   was a short, stocky fellow named Springstun. We called him 'Dogie'. He
   had been quite a wrestler. One evening as the boys were sitting around
   waiting for supper, Tom Ketchum, a tall, rawboned fellow, came by and
   said, 'Dogie, I think I'll just take you down and duck you in the
   river.' With that, he took Dogie by the back of the collar and began
   dragging him to the river. Dogie bided his time. When a convenient
   time came, Dogie grabbed Tom by the legs and threw him over. Tom lay
   there, limp and gasping. Someone said, 'Dogie, you have killed Tom.'
   'No, I reckon not,' replied Dogie, nonchalantly. The next day Tom was
   able to laugh with the others at himself. Poor fellow! He got off to
   the bad and was hanged.
   
   "Sometimes I wonder if a different life would not have been better.
   Now, I have no wife, no children, but possibly they would not have
   enjoyed my mode of living and my friends, in the way I have. Oh,
   really, my life has been very pleasant." 0008Range-Lore
   
   Nellie B. Cox
   
   San Angelo, Texas.
   
   BIBLIOGRAPHY
   
   Seaton Keith, San Angelo, Texas, interviewed, February 8, 1938.

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