TX BIOS:  Joe C. Woody
   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
   
   Life history Range lore
   
   Phipps, Woody
   
   Rangelore
   
   Tarrant Co., Dist. #7 [124?]
   
   Page #1
   
   FC
   
   Joe C. Woody, 57, was born on his father's stock farm at Paradise,
   Wise co., Texas. His father built the first barb wire fence in Wise
   co., on a ranch he owned near Booneville, Wise co. His neighbors tore
   the fence down, and he traded the entire ranch to his father, Joe's
   grandfather, for a ranch near Springtown, Tarrant co., Tex. When Joe
   was five, his father's death caused the burden of rearing eight
   children to fall on his mother. His mother sold the stock farm in Wise
   co., and moved the family to the ranch in Tarrant Co. The shortage of
   labor on the ranch forced the children to experience work at an early
   age. Joe liked to work with cattle, so he naturally did all of his
   work with cattle, learning to ride a horse at the age of six, and
   taking a regular cowboy's place at eight. When he left the ranch, he
   went to Fort Worth, where he dealt in cattle. From a small beginning,
   he now operates a large cattle commission co in the Livestock Exchg.
   Blg. Ft. Worth, Tex. His story:
   
   "Why, yes, I know a good deal about the old range. In fact, I was born
   on June 27th, 1880, at Paradise, in Wise county, when there wasn't a
   fence anywhere to be seen. My own father was one of the first to see
   the value there was to a fence, and he built the first barb wire fence
   in Wise county on a ranch he owned at Booneville.
   
   "The fence didn't stay up long, though, because the neighbors all tore
   it down. After dad went to all the trouble to put the fence up, and
   make sure it was a good job, he went out one morning, and it was all
   cut down. There wasn't a fence post standing anywhere. When they'd cut
   the wire between two posts, they'd also lassoed the posts and drug 'em
   down. Some men would have been mad, and wanted to shoot somebody. Not
   dad. He just went to my granddad and traded ranches. He got my
   granddad's ranch at Springtown, in Tarrant county.
   
     NOTE: C. 12 - 2/11/41 Tex. [?]
     
   00022"When I was still a baby, my dad moved the family down to the
   Springtown ranch. I don't remember how many head there was on the
   place when we first moved there, but it seemed like there was a
   regular sea of beef and horns. One thing really stayed with me, and
   that was the iron. All the beef was in the 'WOODY' iron. The reason it
   stayed with me was because after dad died, I had to burn our brand on
   our cattle.
   
   "One of the things I remember about my childhood was the sheriff
   coming by to get dad. There were several gangs operating in Wise
   county from time to time, and the Campbell gang was one of them. Every
   time the Wise county officers figured they could capture one of the
   gangs, they always got word to the sheriff at Weatherford, and he'd go
   up to help. On the way, he'd pick dad up, and they'd go together. You
   know, in those days when there wasn't so many people, a sheriff had to
   be careful who he chose to help him when he went after a desparado.
   Likely as not, he might pick a relative of the desparado, or a good
   friend, and he'd lose out when it came to a tight spot.
   
   "This time I remember the folks talking about, the sheriff had come by
   and got dad. They left word that the Wise county officers had the
   Campbell boys in a trap, and just needed more men to close in with.
   Dad especially wanted to see the Campbell boys stopped because he knew
   two of them had rustled some hosses of his. Chalk and Bob. They were
   the two.
   
   "When the sheriff and dad got to the rendezvous with the Wise county
   officers, they saw a two story farm house with the top floor all lit
   up, and sounds of music with dancing could be heard. Everybody was
   really feeling good, because there was no possible [?] 00033chance of
   escape from the house. The officers and their men had it completely
   surrounded. After a good deal of talk about whether to charge in and
   capture, or just let the folks leave one by one, and capture them
   then, it was decided to wait and take them one at a time. Well, the
   music played on and on, 'til finally, at about two in the morning, it
   stopped with the dancing. The officers all waited and waited, then
   decided that everybody had gone to bed in the house. Just before
   daylight, it was decided to rush the house and make the capture. This
   was a dangerous procedure because the stairs leading up to the second
   floor had a solid wall on both sides, all the way up, with no place to
   dodge bullets should the outlaws discover their predicament. Well,
   sir, my dad was the first to mount those stairs. All the way up, he
   said he expected bullets, but none came. When he got to the top, the
   doors were unlocked. He eased the door open, and to his surprise, the
   entire building was vacant. There wasn't a man to be found anywhere.
   Some way or other, all the men and women escaped through the line the
   officers and their men had drawn around the house.
   
   "When I was quite a bit over five years old, dad died, and left the
   burden of raising eight healthy children to my mother. She filled the
   bill better than many men could. The first thing she did was to let
   the cow punchers go. Dad had four or five, and the place really needed
   them, but mother let them go. The next thing she done, was to sell off
   all the scrub stock, and only keep 200 head of the very best stuff.
   
   "Since I'd always liked to mess around stock, and knew how to ride a
   horse, it fell my lot to ride herd on our cattle. That was the best
   job I could have been given because I wanted to 00044be the cow
   puncher my uncle, Joe Woody, was. Uncle Joe was a cowman from the tip
   of his boots to the crown of his stetson. What he didn't know about
   cattle wasn't worth knowing. I saw a good deal of him after dad died,
   because he advised mother about her cattle. He was the foremen of the
   Farmer Ranch, which was owned by old Uncle Jim Farmer's father. Old
   Uncle Jim runs the Farmer Commission company with several desks in the
   lobby of our office.
   
   "The reason I wanted to pattern after Uncle Joe was because even
   though he limped, he was still a swaggering cow poke that was good and
   he knew it. He could rope, ride, and shoot as well as any circus
   performer of today. And better, I expect, because the wild hosses he
   rode had never seen a man before, and even a hoss with a saddle made
   them skittish.
   
   "One of the things folks tell on Uncle Joe was about an Indian ambush
   on the Farmer Ranch. One day, he and about 19 cow pokes were out on a
   roundup. They were given a certain section around Flag Springs and
   Farmer's Creek to roundup the cattle. They'd never separated, and were
   still in a bunch when they rode into a canyon. All of a sudden, a
   regular hail of bullets fell into them. The shots were all coming from
   one side of the canyon's rim. Uncle Joe ordered everybody to dismount
   and force the hoss to lay down. This would give each man something to
   hide behind.
   
   "Every man in the 20 were good shots, and all of them wouldn't be
   afraid to tackle the old devil himself. All of them except the negroe
   cook. This nigger, he didn't do any shooting. Instead, he went to
   praying in a loud voice. Uncle Joe told him to shut up and go to
   shooting, but the nigger didn't pay any 00055attention. Since Uncle
   Joe and the other cow pokes were reloading and shooting as fast as
   they could, it made him mad for the nigger to not join in on the
   shooting. Uncle Joe said later, that it seemed like everytime when he
   was out of ammunition in the gun, he'd get good shots. That gave him
   an idea, so he had the nigger, whose name was Dick Davis, to reload
   his pistols and another man's.
   
   "That was the main trouble. The cow pokes didn't have anything but
   pistols to shoot with, while the Indians were above them, and had the
   advantage of the canyon's rim to hide them. They never did find out
   how many Indians there were, but since he'd been in Indian fights
   before, and everytime the fight lasted anytime, always before, the
   Indians high tailed it home. All during the fight, he'd hear a certain
   'thump!', which indicated that a shot had struck another unfortunate
   cow poke. The fight lasted all evening, beginning along about noon. It
   looked like the Indians were going to kill all the cow pokes, so a
   talk was had.
   
   "Finally, it was decided to let some man volunteer to go for help.
   Since this was almost certain death to leave the party, it had to be a
   volunteer. Uncle Joe volunteered, and left. When he left, he had six
   or seven bullets already in him, and one of them almost made him lose
   his leg. One of the hosses had gotten away from his rider, but hadn't
   run off. Instead, he was about 200 yards from the ambush, behind some
   big boulders. Uncle Joe had watched the hoss all afternoon, with the
   idea that they might have to use it. When he left the party, he
   crawled down the canyon, keeping in to the walls as close as he could.
   He finally made it, got on the hoss, and zig zagged a way back 00066to
   the ranch headquarters.
   
   "When he reached the headquarters, he got every man out that could
   possibly go, and started back with wagons and plenty of ammunition.
   When the wagons reached the men, the Indians had left. There were only
   four or five of the white men living, and they were [DEL: [?] :DEL]
   badly wounded. The wagons were used to carry the dead and wounded back
   to the ranch, but the nigger, Dick Davis, didn't even get a scratch
   out of the fight, so he rode a hoss back. Of course, it couldn't
   possibly have been funny then, about the nigger not fighting but
   praying, but later on, the men razzed him so much that he almost left
   the ranch. The remaining wounded finally died, leaving Uncle Joe and
   the nigger the only ones to come out of the fracas alive.
   
   "I didn't want to get into any shooting scrapes like that, but I did
   want to be able to take care of myself in scrapes that might come up,
   and I did want to know cow critters like he did. They say that in a
   matter of a beef contract for so many pounds, he'd guess each
   critter's weight as it passed him, mentally tally it all up 'til he
   had the beef weight to fill the contract. He could come closer to
   picking the scrubs out of a herd than any body else. That was also my
   ambition. To be able to look at a critter and tell if it had stamina,
   or if it was the kind of beef that looks good outside but isn't so
   good inside. This may sound sort of jumbled to you, but it's part of a
   cowman's business to be able to know what he's buying. Also, if he
   intends to build his herd up, he has to know how to cut the scrubs
   out.
   
   "I had this in mind, and studied cattle all the time. Another thing
   that helped me to know scrubs was when a critter 00077got sores on it,
   I doctored it. I always toted a bottle of cru-silic ointment with me
   to daub on the sores. These sores were from the barbs on the fences,
   and other things. Doctoring them gave me a close opportunity for
   study.
   
   "Another thing that gave me a chance for study, was once when a
   brother of mine got a chance to buy up 40 head of cattle, and he did
   it. We drove these cattle to our ranch, and right away, they began
   dieing. It wasn't nothing to look out and see a critter drop over
   dead. After we got down to where we only had about 10 of them left,
   Uncle Joe came out and said that the critters had come from a
   tick-free country. He said that unless a critters is born in tick
   country, it couldn't live with ticks. That ticks gave cattle fever,
   and the other cattle always died with it.
   
   "People had funny ideas about ticks in those days, and among the other
   ideas they had about cattle was that a cow would dry up if it's calf
   was taken away from it before the calf had been weaned. Along when I
   was about nine and 10 years old, I started to buying these calves. I
   could always sell them when they got to be three-year olds, si I just
   started me a business of buying and selling. By the time I was 13, I
   had a large number of people who would sell me all their calves, and
   keep them 'til their cows weaned them. Sometimes, they'd keep the calf
   two years. Can you imagine?! They'd keep it, and feed it for two
   years, then I'd get it and keep it a year, and sell it.
   
   "From that start, I've built a big commission business here in the
   Livestock Exchange building. Lats year, we done over $12,000,000.00
   business. It's these business cares that 00088have weighed so heavy on
   me that I've forgotten all these things that happened to me in my
   youth.

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