Tom Green County, TX - Bios:  Tom Massey

TX BIOS:  Tom Massey
   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
   
   Range-lore
   
   Nellie B. Cox
   
   San Angelo, Texas. Interview
   
   Page one Tales-Personal Anecdote
   
   RANGE-LORE
   
   "My father and family came from Mississippi to Dallas when I was one
   year old," says Tom Massey. "There was a very small settlement around
   one store. I've heard my parents tell of their hardships in traveling
   by wagon train. I can remember that in those years we didn't have a
   great variety to eat but we were happier than people are now and we
   didn't ask "Mr. Government" for no help either.
   
     NOTE: C.12 - 2/11/41 - Texas
     
   "In 1873 we moved to [Lampasas?] County. That trip was a great
   experience. My father had several hundred head of horses and driving
   them and moving the family was a big job. Hunters used to come in from
   the west 00022of us with great wagon loads of buffalo meat and we
   dried the meat, enough for a winter supply.
   
   "My father's people came to the Concho Country in 1884 but I didn't
   come until the next year. I worked first on the Americk Ranch on
   Little Lipan Creek. This was the prettiest country that anyone ever
   saw. Grass was knee high. [e?] could put down a saddle blanket to
   sleep on at night and the grass was so thick that it seemed like we
   were on a mattress. Lipan [Flat?] at one time was covered with great
   mesquite trees, but a prairie fire swept over it one August when the
   moon was right and killed the trees. The old stumps were there when
   the farms were put in.
   
   ["?]There wasn't a fence in the whole country. Cowboys rode all the
   time to keep stock from drifting too far. Our horses would go as far
   as Brady Creek. Every March, ranch men would start out on their work
   of rounding up. [e?] would organize I suppose you'd say- decide who
   would be boss, wagon boss, and all the others that would be needed for
   good work. Sometimes as many as sixty men would start out. We'd work
   toward Paint Rock, then across toward Brady, through the Menardville
   and old Fort [McKavett?] Country. After we had covered the country,
   each fellow would take his own horses and go in home. In May we began
   the cattle work.
   
   "Cowboys were the nerviest fellows that ever were 00033in the country.
   When they went to bring in a cow or horse, they stayed until they
   brought in what they were sent for. One Monday morning, old man Bright
   and his boy George, started out from their place near Mullin Crossing
   (on Veribest-Miles Road) together. Mr. Bright had heard of some of his
   cattle down in the Eden Country and George was going to the Loomis
   Ranch to work at a round-up. When George reached the Loomis Ranch they
   were not ready to start work but he had seen about twenty head of
   their I.C. horses and he thought he would throw them back toward the
   home ranch. While he was running the horses, his saddle horse stepped
   in a hole, fell and broke George's right leg in two places and knocked
   him unconscious. When he came to, his horse had run off with the loose
   bunch and George was left. He took off his boots and left them and his
   quirt on the ground. He took his knife, cut splints of mesquite
   sticks, tore up his undershirt and bound up his broken bones. The
   nearest human being was four miles away so he started out crawling to
   this house. The first night, a thunderstorm came up and the next
   morning George found that he had traveled in a circle and was just
   about one hundred yards from where his horse had fallen with him. He
   then crawled down into the bed of Lipan Creek, crawling along the
   creek until he came to Dry Lipan and followed it toward the dwelling
   of some people by the name of Frame. 00044As he crawled down the
   creek, he would pack mud on his broken leg, that kept down the
   inflammation. He lost his hat, his clothes were torn to shreds, and he
   was covered with blisters as big as a dollar. On Friday morning, a
   rider heard a dog from the Frame ranch barking down the creek and went
   to investigate and found George. It was a long time before he got well
   but he lived to be an old man. We found the boots and quirt where he
   said he had left them and his horse with the loose bunch, still with
   the saddle and bridle on.
   
   "I lived in the rock house built by Ike Mullins who came to this
   country in 1868. The house used to have port holes for shooting at
   Indians. This old house is still in use. Below the Mullin place, R. F.
   Tankersley (father of Wash, Fayette, Mrs. Frary, Mrs. Lewis and Mrs.
   Emerick), had built a rock house and dug a great ditch from the river
   in order to irrigate a small tract of land. Parts of the old ditch are
   still there.
   
   "There were plenty antelope but buffaloes were scarce. One time I was
   looking for some horses. About night I came to Bird and Mertz's Ranch
   where I stayed all night. Mr. Mertz had just killed a buffalo and the
   meat was fine.
   
   "In the fall of 1888, Ab Blocker brought four herds of cattle up here
   and wintered them around Lime-Kiln 00055Crossing. The next spring he
   trailed them to Kansas.
   
   "One spring then we were working cattle, we had 3,000 head in one
   bunch. We got them bedded down but a big cloud was coming up so none
   of the fifteen men with the herd turned in for any sleep. The cattle
   were restless and with the first hard clap of thunder they were off.
   They ran all night and until nearly dark the next day. We boys rode
   with them through the dark and rain. We could see the lightning on
   their horns and on the tips of our horses' ears. We tried every way to
   get them milling, fired our six-shooter in front of them and beat them
   with our slickers. When they did begin to mill, the ones in the center
   were crushed to death.
   
   "A lone robber held up two stage coaches at a stage stand between
   Ballinger and where the town of Miles is now. W. J. Ellis was driver
   of one stage but I don't know the name of the other driver. Each had
   seven passengers and each passenger handed over his money. Harry
   Bennett, a saloon keeper, was going somewhere to buy liquor. He had
   $700.00 with him and when he saw what was happening he stuffed his
   money down his shirt collar. The robber gave each passenger 50¢ to buy
   dinner. A preacher on the stage only had 35¢ and his daughter who was
   with him didn't have any money but anyhow, 00066the robber gave each
   of them 50¢. 'Haven't you been in my congregation when I preached?'
   inquired the preacher of the robber. 'Well, if this is the effect your
   sermons have,' said Ellis, the driver, 'I don't think much of it.' The
   robber laughed but the preacher didn't like it much. The robber left
   on horseback. He rode to the north, stopped and put sacks on his
   horse's feet, rode east awhile, then changed directions again. They
   picked up his trail twice but in the thick grass, he was hard to
   follow. They arrested a fellow who used to work on a ranch down the
   river named Jim Brent (maybe I don't remember the name exactly) and
   sentenced him to twenty-five years in the pen. The only evidence that
   they had was that Jim had several large bills which amounted to a
   hundred dollars.
   
   "Jim stayed in the pen about two years, then Mr. Ellis and a man at
   Ballinger got him a pardon. Years later a man in Chicago confessed to
   that robbery and other things of like nature.
   
   "W. J. Ellis drove stages all over this country. He was never scared
   of anything and was equal to any emergency.
   
   "This country has never been the same since it has been cut up into so
   many pastures and farms. We old fellows used to have lots of fun in
   our early days. Dances were our great pleasure. We'd ride for miles to
   attend one." 0007Range-lore
   
   Nellie B. Cox
   
   San Angelo, Texas.
   
   BIBLIOGRAPHY
   
   Tom Massey, San Angelo, Texas, interviewed, January 24, 1938.

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