TX BIOS:  S. P. Merry
   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.
   
   0001
   
   500 Words
   
   Mrs. C. May Cohea
   
   Amarillo, Texas
   
   District #16 PANHANDLE PIONEERS
   
   Related by S. P. Merry
   
   609 Washington Street
   
   Amarillo, Texas
   
   Mr. Merry on June 11, 1883, came to Mobeetie, the "capital of the
   Panhandle", as he designated it. Later, he worked for the Diamond F
   Ranch, the Powo, and the T-Anchor, not as a regular cowboy, but as a
   fence rider or odd-chore man. When the railroad was surveying a route
   through tho Panhandle towards Las Vegas, New Mexico, he drove a water
   wagon which the rail officials hired from the Diamond F, for whom Mr.
   Merry was working at the time. When the surveying party reached the
   sand hills of New Mexico, he returned to the Diamond F with the wagon,
   which was no longer needed.
   
   Mr. Merry worked for the T-Anchor ranch under the management of John
   Hudson, an Englishman who had received his cattle training at the
   stockyards of the north and in Canada. Mr. Hudson, with the knowledge
   of the work of hounds in the English countryside, brought a number of
   them to the plains to rid the ranch of wolves which were making
   inroads on the cattle. These hounds often followed him to town in the
   manner of an English country squire.
   
   A man named Poston. a friend of Mr. Merry, was placed in charge of the
   dogs. The cow hand thoroughly disliked playing nursemaid to a pack of
   hounds. Once, tiring of the arduous duty, he left for town, (Canyon)
   feeling the need of a little something to sustain his morale. Before
   departing, Boston chained several of the animals, perhaps thinking
   that the others would "hang around" and not be unaccounted for upon
   his return. His spree, binge, or high lonesome , lasted for several
   days. Upon returning to his charges, he found that wolves had devoured
   the chained hounds, which could not defend themselves as well as the
   free animals. Houston, asked what he was going to say when he made his
   report to the manager, spat disdainfully and drawled, "Anyway, I've
   done something better than catch wolves. I have got rid of some of
   them dogs".
   
     NOTE: [???]
     
   00022
   
   Mr. Merry, whose work often found him camping in the Palo Duro, seeing
   that nesters and others did not denude the range of its canyon cedars
   for posts and building purposes, riding fence, and performing other
   outside duties on the T-Anchor range, had numerous encounters with
   wolves and bears, which were plentiful in the canyon at the time. The
   big lobo, or "loafer" wolf was canny and hard to catch. The ranch had
   a bounty of $10 on a lobo scalp and also maintained the hounds to help
   in exterminating the wolves and coyotes of the canyons. One day,
   riding the rim of the canyon, he saw a mother wolf with several pups
   ambling along the precarious wall beneath him. His approach alarmed
   the old wolf and she quickly sped into the distance, before he could
   have shot her, even if he had had a gun with him. "He had left the
   only gun which he and his brother owned in common at camp, since his
   brother wished to use it to kill a panther that had been prowling in
   the vicinity. Dismounting, he picked up rocks from the canyon rim and
   attempted to kill the lobo pups. The little wolves looked up at him
   with quick, bright eyes, dodging the rocks neatly at each throw. A
   stone dislodged accidentally from the rim fell upon the head of one of
   the little fellows and he ran whining with pain into a small opening
   in the canyon wall, the others following him into the shelter. After
   the pups had gone into the hole, Mr. Merry climbed down to the spot
   and filled the opening with dirt and stones to keep them safe until he
   could go to camp and bring back a wagon to take them to the ranch
   headquarters. Returning with the wagon and team, he cut an eight-foot
   ceder pole, about as thick as his wrist at the larger end and attached
   it to a shovel which he bent in the shape of a hoe. With this
   contraption he raked away the obstructing dirt and twisted the little
   wolves out of their hiding place. The opening was too small for him to
   enter, but be did crawl part of the way into the 20-foot deep aperture
   to get the last of the 14 pups, one of which got away later. He took
   the wolves to Hudson and asked for the bounty on the 13 scalps. The
   manager paid half the bounty and asked Mr. Merry to wait for the other
   half, saying that he could not 00033afford to pay so much for scalps
   when he was maintaining a large pack of hounds for the purpose.
   
   Mr. Merry and Mr. Poston were out working in the canyon one day when
   they sighted a beer. The latter refused to go nearer the animal and
   Mr. Merry borrowed the other's gun to follow the bear and kill it. He
   had not gone very far when he heard a shout and his companion
   indicated that he wished to go with him. The bear ran to shelter in a
   thicket and Mr. Merry let his companion shoot it, since he seemed to
   want to do so after recovering from his "bear ague".
   
   At another time Mr. Merry, alone at the time, killed a bear which he
   discovered on an op osite canyon wall. He fired, wounding the bear,
   seemingly breaking its back or paralyzing it. Having finally
   despatched the animal, he had great difficulty in loading it upon his
   horse, which objected to the scent of the bear. At camp that night he
   prepared bear steaks for him and his partner, who at first refused to
   eat the stuff. He took a bite to taste the steak and liked it so well
   that he ate his whole portion. Later, while Mr. Merry was at town,
   Poston, prepared a bear steak for himself and Merry but reported to
   the latter that he had devoured both his own and the other's share
   before Merry returned.
   
   Bears were not the only things to fear in the Panhandle at that time.
   When the Indians scare of 1891 developed, people in the region were
   not surprised, for the Indians had been wandering at various times
   upon the plains from their reservation and were always threatening to
   cross the plains on their way to their old grounds in Mexico. The
   night of the day upon which the rumor was heard there was a dance at
   Canyon. The people danced on, intent upon having their pleasure at all
   costs. Men and women came into town for protection. A man who ran a
   store asked Mr. Merry to keep it for him while he took his family to
   town for safety. Men threw up breastworks about the little frame
   courthouse which occupied the center of the town square for defense
   from the Indians who never came. When the stage driver with the mail
   arrived from Amarillo, he was asked about the truth / of the report.
   He 00044verified the rumor and added gruesome details to spice the
   tale. He told the townspeople how two rangers bad been attacked near
   Claude, Red Murphy, one of the two, had had his fingers shot off of
   one hand. With such refinement of detail, the citizens of Canyon could
   not refuse to believe the report. When the people found out that they
   had been spoofed, they lay in wait for the return of the stage and its
   driver, who was working for Clisbee, who held the mail contract. The
   driver, anticipating the retaliation on which he might expect from the
   Canyonites, got "stage" fright and had someone else to make the return
   trip for him.
   
   Mr. Merry was working for the T-Anchor when the cowboy strike of 1883
   was in progress. A few of the men on the ranch joined the strikers,
   the manager telling all those who wished to go to work at the former
   wage to stay on and those who did not to go. Mr. Merry's nephew was in
   the strike, later going to New Mexico. A blacksmith shop about a
   hundred yards south of the T-Anchor headquart rs was mined in
   anticipation of attack by the striking cowboys. A bomb of scrap iron
   was placed in the shop, beneath the dirt floor with a keg of gunpowder
   under it and a fuse leading to the headquarters building. Mr. Merry
   recalls that when he came to the ranch the main bu lding had only one
   room completed, the second being in the course of construction. A cook
   shack was nearby, made of picketts with log and sod roof.
   
   Mr. Merry recalls that duststorms were not general over theplains in
   those days, although winds were terrific then as now. Dust was so
   etimes stirred up from ploughed fields after the settlers came, but
   sandstorms were not as heavy and lasted a shorter time than now. He
   was overtaken by one on his return trip with the water-wagon from New
   Mexico. Observing a low black cloud in the north, he expected to be
   caught in a terrible storm or tornado, but it was only a duster, which
   did not last very long.
   
   A tornado near Canyon in the early days blew down barns, and haystacks
   and lifted big mules up and set them down 75 or a hundred yards
   distant from their corrals. Another tornado, contrary to the usual
   idea of such storms, failed to jump the Palo 00055Duro Canyon, but
   went down the walls, uprooting tress on the canyon side. Still another
   wind storm from the southeast blew up against the canyon rim, throwing
   huge stones and rocks into the air.
   
   When Mr. Merry visited in Amarillo in the early '90's, there were
   about 15 rangers quartered in their barracks near the old Rock Barn.
   They were here "to keep the sheriff out of mischief". Jim Gober, then
   the youngest sheriff in the United States, was drinking too much and
   feeling his liquor - or his importance."
   
   Rangers leaving Amarillo for duty elsewhere killed their negro cook
   near Runningwater Draw, claiming self-defense, saying that they had
   told the cook to either return or go with them (Mr. Merry was not sure
   which) and he had been ugly about it, refusing to do their bidding and
   offering resistance. Mr. Merry and Mr. T. D. Hobart saw the grave soon
   after it was made, when he was accompanying the latter to see about
   buying some land in that vicinity.

************************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE:  These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced 
in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons.  Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must
obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative
of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of
this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives
to store the file permanently for free access.

http://www.usgwarchives.net/

Thanks to the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/txcat.html
***********************************************************************