Uvalde County, TX - Bios:  Andrew Jackson Hale, Part II

  Pioneer Experiences and Tales of Early Days UVALDE COUNTY, DISTRICT
   #10 PART TWO
   
   ANDREW JACKSON HALE
   
   Uvalde, Texas.
   
   "On September 1, 1887, I was married to Miss Alice Montgomery of
   Granger, Texas. We were married by the justice of the peace, an old
   man named Van Zant. Well, I didn't belong to any church but my wife
   and all her people were Catholics. For about eight months after we
   were married, we lived with My wife's father. He would go to mass if
   it was raining and hailing. One day her father said to me, 'Jack, I
   have meant to tell you before-- you and Alice have been married by the
   justice of the peace. Now, I want you to be married by the priest; if
   you don't, Alice can't commune with the Catholic church.' I told him
   all right, so he went to Taylor and told the old priest all about it.
   Then the time came we went down to the Catholic church. The priest and
   two nuns were ready and the priest asked for the wedding ring. And
   then he says. 'Now, Jack, you have got to make me some good promises.'
   I said, 'All right.' He says, 'Your marriage is no marriage. You are
   living in adultery. You must be married in the Catholic church, for if
   you don't, and there is ever any children born to you, they will be
   illegitimate.' I said, 'You're a liar! We have been married legally
   and it's on record at the court house in Georgetown. And if we have
   forty children at a pop, I will not promise to raise a one of them
   Catholic.' My wife agreed with me and said I was right. So we left.
   
   "About two months later, I was plowing one day out back of the
   orchard. My wife came out and said that 'Old Brother John' (the
   priest) was in the house.
   
   00152
   
   Well, when twelve o'clock came, I didn't go to dinner for I wanted to
   avoid trouble. As the rest of the family sat down to the dinner table,
   my wife's father asked where I was. And she informed them that I was
   not coming to dinner. About three o'clock that afternoon, the old
   priest came out where I was. He said, 'I want to talk to you about you
   and Alice getting married.' I said, 'We have already been married.' He
   said, 'No, you haven't. You are living in adultry.' Well, when he said
   that, fire flew. I had a rope in my hand that was wet and muddy and
   about three feet long after it was doubled, and I hit him with it. I
   hit him once across the shoulders and once across the seat of the
   pants. He left immediately. I could see the print of that dirty, wet
   rope on him till he got to the house. He went on in the house and
   talked awful to my wife, told her she was going to hell if she didn't
   quit me at once. When she told me what he said to her, I was sorry I
   didn't kill him with a monkey wrench while he was out in the orchard.
   
   "After that, I sold out and we moved to Rockport, Texas and lived
   there six months. While we were there, a little priest came out to the
   house. They had written him from [DEL: Willia :DEL] Williamson County.
   He told me his business at once and/ said if I would be married by the
   priest, he would not ask that the children be brought up Catholics. I
   agreed to this and we were remarried by him right there. We had one
   small baby and he asked if he could christen the baby and I said yes.
   
   "After that, we left Rockport and went to Cameron County. On the way
   we had to cross a reef about twelve or fifteen feet wide and it had
   posts on each side with big sign boards saying, 'Stay between these
   posts.' We drove on to this one day about twelve o'clock. And before
   we could get across it, the tide had come in and the water was
   belly-deep to the oxen. And before we got off of that reef, the water
   was high enough to swim the 00163lead steers. The two next to the
   wagon managed to reach bottom by the weight of the load, holding them
   down. The water was way up in the ed of the wagon and the steers
   became frightened and begin to try to turn around. I knew if they did
   they would turn the wagon over in the deep water. So I jumped out into
   water over waist deep and caught the lead steer by the horns and
   stopped them. About that time some men come along and helped us lead
   them out on the other side to land. We spent the night in Corpus
   Christi and was on our way early next morning traveling right down the
   bay toward [DEL: Bronsville :DEL] Brownsville.
   
   "One night it came time to make camp. We had an old man traveling with
   us by the name of Myers. He says, 'Here is the place to camp right
   here under this big live- oak tree.' It was an immense tree. I said,
   'No , it is dangerous to camp under that tree. It has too many large
   limbs on it. I want to go up on that hill, where that live- oak
   thicket is, to camp.' So we did. I left him and my wife and baby at
   camp, picked up my gun and went out to try to kill a deer. It got
   dark, came up a big cloud and begin to lighten and thunder and I got
   lost. Didn't find my way back to camp till eleven o'clock that night.
   Well, it came one of the hardest rains and windstorms and such
   lightening I never saw. I was wet as I could be and didn't now where I
   was at all. Rattlesnakes! My [lord?], they were every where. It was
   dark as a dungeon. I got ma a long stick and beat in front of me and
   when I would hear a snake rattle, I'd go around him and go on. Once it
   lightning and I saw a big tree and climbed it to see if I could see a
   light. Well, they knew I was lost so the old man had sense enough to
   hang a lantern high above the top of the wagon so I could see the
   light. I saw the light behind me and went toward it. Every once in a
   while, I would climb a tree to keep my direction. I finally reached
   the light and to my surprise I was at my own camp, for I had thought
   this light must be a ranch house somewhere. Well, the lightning hit
   that big live- oak tree where the old man had wanted to camp and split
   it right 00174down the middle. I said, 'Now , who's the wise man?' He
   said, 'By God, Jack, you are a regular Solomon.'
   
   "We stayed there all next day drying out our [bedding?]. There was a
   lake of water not far from there so I went down there and found a
   great bunch of young ducks. They could swim but too young to fly. They
   were everywhere on the water and in the grass. I caught them with my
   hands and put them in a sack. Fat! They were like butter and the best
   meat I have ever eaten in my life life. We had more ducks than we
   could use and turned part of them loose.
   
   "Along the road we saw sand hills sometimes drifting up so high it
   would cover a ranch house and big live-oak trees. We landed on the
   King ranch and lived there three years. I farmed and made four bales
   of cotton during the three years. The failure was due to drouth.
   
   "About that time a man named Gibson came in there and came to see me
   about going to work on the stage line driving it from the King ranch
   to Brownsville a fifty-mile drive. Well, Gibson spent the night with
   me and we went 'fire hunting.' I knew the country well. So we started
   out about ten o'clock and went to a lagoon of water where I knew the
   deer always come in. He had never killed a deer so I gave him the head
   light and gun. When we got within about forty yards of the water, he
   stopped and says, 'I see some eyes.' I looked over his shoulder and
   says, 'yes, that eyes.' So he cut down. When he did, fire flew in
   every direction. He had shot into some Mexicans' camp fire who had
   camped there and were stealing cattle from the King ranch. They left
   there pronto, and so did we. I said, 'Put out that head light quick,'
   for I knew what we had run into. We went back the next day and found
   pieces of rope, durk knives and pieces of meat the Mexicans had run
   off and left. They thought we were Texas rangers. We notified Ed
   Raymond, the foreman of the King ranch, and he went down and got the
   meat. The town of Raymondville took its name from this man, Raymond.
   
   "That was a wild country then. I caught and tamed a leopard cat. He
   00185was as gentle as a house cat, but I had to keep his claws cut off
   so he would not get too rough playing and scratch too hard. One day a
   man , named Tom MeGee , and I took my dogs and went hunting. Well, the
   dogs found a big bob-cat, and of course he went up a tree. I says,
   'Tom, you rope him and I'll take this big wool sack I have and when
   you jerk him out of the tree, I'll catch him in this sack.' He said,
   'By God, I'll do it.' Our skeme worked and we sacked our cat. He says,
   'We have him but how will we get him home?' I was riding a mule and I
   says, 'I'll take him home behind me on old Pete' I tied him to the
   saddle behind me and the sack hung down by the mule's side. So I got
   on Pete and we started. Well, the cat smelled the mule through this
   sack and grabbed him with both claws right in the flank Oh, boy, did
   that mule pitch! He pitched so hard he slung the cat in every
   direction beating me on every side. I finally went off over the mule's
   head and the cat right after me. But the cat stayed in the sack. I
   says, 'We are not going to put him on that mule again,' so he cut a
   long pole , put the cat in the middle , he took one end and me the
   other and we carried him home. Well, my old pet leopard swelled the
   bob-cat and here he came. I just opened up the cage and in he went.
   You never saw such fighting. Fur flew in every direction. They would
   roar and fight some more. But the bob-cat finally whipped the leopard
   because his claws had been cut off, and I had to take the leopard out
   of the cage.
   
   "On the King ranch they always bred and raised their own saddle
   horses. There would be a stallion and twenty or twenty-five mares
   about every five or six miles over the ranch. They were called manados
   and the saddle horses were called remudas. One day, one of Raymond's
   ranch hands reported to him that a Mexican lion or panther was killing
   the colts in a certain manado on the ranch. This would often happen
   and when a lion or panther starts in killing one bunch of colts, they
   never stop till they get them all. Raymond 00196came to me and says,
   'Hale, I'll give you fifteen dollars if you'll take your dogs and go
   up to that pasture and kill that panther or whatever is killing those
   colts.' I says, 'Good! I need that fifteen dollars, Ed. I'll get him.'
   So I took my dogs and rode up to the pasture one night about ten
   o'clock. I could hear the bell running and my dogs were rearing to go.
   On all sides of the pasture there was thick brush, but the center was
   all open country. ot every one in that country was Mexicans and I
   always spoke to my dogs in spanish. I said , 'Andale ! Uehile
   (oo-she-lay)!' and the dogs were gone. In a few minutes, I heard them
   on the trail and about that time, I hear the old panther scream on the
   other side of the pasture. You could have heard him a mile, he sounded
   just like a woman screaming. My horse begin to rear and cut up, and my
   knees were shaking a little too. Suddenly, I heard the the horse-bell
   stop rattling and I knew the dogs were making it hot for the panther.
   So I sat sill and listened. All at once, I heard the panther scream
   about fifty yards from me. He was coming right toward me. I said 'The
   Devil!' I wouldn't hit the side of the house, for I was shaking like I
   had a '[??]' and my horse was having fits. I turned him toward home
   and said, 'Charley, go to camp,' and believe me he did. The farther he
   run the faster he got. Well, when I got home my wife says, 'Did you
   get him?' I said no and told her what happened. She sure did laugh at
   me.. But I got a divorce that very night from hunting panthers.
   
   "I drove the stage line two years from the King ranch to Brownsville.
   I would go to Brownsville one day, spend the night there and come back
   to the stage stand the next day. About a month after I started driving
   the stage, one day I noticed a fresh mound of dirt out beside the road
   by a big, mesquite tree. I knew it had just been dug, for I had never
   seen it before. I turned my horses and drove out to it. The hole was
   about three feet deep, five feet long and / two-and a-half feet wide.
   The dirt was all on the left 00207side of the hole. There was no other
   evidence of any kind--there/ was just the hole. [Hell?], it bothered
   me, for I didn't know what it was all about. Were they digging for
   money or was it a grave? So I drove on into Brownsville and the next
   day on my return to the stage stand, I stopped again. I had a
   passenger with me this time, a soldier. So he said, 'Lets' stop and
   investigate it.' When we got there, to my surprise, they had turned
   the dirt over the other way and by the side of the dirt was a little ,
   round pot. It had been buried so long it was as thin as a newspaper.
   You could see it had had money in it for a long time for you could see
   the print of the money on the sides of the pot. We could see the
   tracks of two men there, but money, man and all were gone. We took
   some of the pieces of the pot along with us and people came from miles
   around to see these pieces of pot and to look at the hole where the
   money had been burried.
   
   "Well, we begin to look around the spot and ran upon two snakes, a big
   bull-snake and a rattlesnake. [DEL: he :DEL] The bull-snake is a blue
   snake. The Mexicans say that the bull-snake kill all the rattlesnakes
   they find and this convinces me they do. Both snakes were about six
   feet long. The rattlesnake was coiled with his head about six inches
   in the air. The bull-snake was going around and around the rattlesnake
   but out of striking distance. Finally the rattlesnake seemed to begin
   to get sick, as his head would go up and down but the bull-snake kept
   on going around. The rattlesnake got so sick that his head dropped
   over. The bull-snake came closer and made a jump and caught the
   rattlesnake by the back of the neck. Then they begin to wrap around
   each other and rolled up till they were as round as a rubber ball and
   larger than a bushel basket. The bull-snake never did release his hold
   he had on the rattlesnake's neck. By that time I had lost all the time
   I could spare for the road, so we went on. Next day, I went back and
   found both snakes dead. One American had come along and killed them
   both. But I am con 00218confident had they been left alone the
   bull-snake would have killed the rattlesnake.
   
   "About five months later, I was driving along the road one day and
   found two Mexicans hanging to a big post- oak tree, right over the
   road to Brownsville. They were dead when I found them, so I drove
   around them and went on. However I would look back every now and then
   to see if they were going to come to life and take after me. When I
   got to Brownsville, I reported what I had found. They said, 'Oh, that
   isn't any thing. There have been more then one-hundred Mexicans hung o
   that very tree.' Other Mexicans were sent out to get them and bury
   them. The next day when I came back, they were gone. The bark on this
   big tree had all been worn off on this certain limb where they were
   hanging and the people said it was where the ropes had worn the bark
   off from men being hanged to it.
   
   "All along beside this road there were a lot of human skulls. Some
   looked like old people as they had only a few teeth, and some would
   have a complete set of teeth. Every once in a while I would pick up
   one and carry it to the stage stand. There was one man working on the
   stage who was very reglious. He said all these old skulls should be
   taken and buried. And he was right. The owner of the stage stand would
   pick them up and put them on the pickets in the fence, and the birds
   would build their nest in them. Well, this man kept on at [?] about
   burying these skulls till we got tired of it.
   
   "He always took his clothes to a Mexican family near the stage stand
   to have them laundered. He would put his dirty clothes in a valise and
   take them to be washed and when the washwoman had finished washing and
   ironing them, she would pack them back to this valise. So we decided
   to have some fun out of him. One day we slipped two of the skulls in
   his suitcase under his clean clothes. He took them on up to his stage
   stand where he spent the night, and when he went to get his clean
   clothes he found the skulls in his 00229valise. He really got on the
   war path. When he came back he said he could whip any man on that
   line, either with his fists or with a six-shooter. But we all kept
   quiet. No one knew anything about it. And he never found out who did
   it. He said he wouldn't work with a bunch that was so inhuman. He put
   in his resignation and quit the job.
   
   "I remember one time a bunch of Mexicans stole some cattle from the
   King ranch, and started to take them across the river to Old Mexico.
   Captain McNally was captain of the rangers at that time and he got a
   tip that the Mexicans were coming with the cattle to cross the river
   at a certain place. So McNally took his son and waited for them in a
   thicket of brush. Well, when the Mexicans came, the rangers made a run
   on them and killed the entire outfit. Twenty-seven in all. Then they
   put ropes on their necks and dragged them up in a pile. The rangers
   then went back to Brownsville and sent other Mexicans after them. They
   dug one big grave several feet long and buried them all together in
   this grave. They put a cross at each end of the grave. This was a
   warning to the others.
   
   "A man named John Riley was driving the stage with me. This was during
   the Worlds Fair in Chicago. And Mrs. Stien, his sister, had gone to
   the fair. While she was there her brother, John, took very ill with
   pneumonia and they wired her to come at once. When she reached my
   stage on her return home, I was an hour and a-half late. Half way
   between my stage stand and Brownsville was a / little store and
   telegraph office. I says, 'Mrs. Stien, you had better send a wire on
   to Edenburg to see how John is getting along.' When the answer came
   back, her brother was dead. She sent another wire to hold the body
   over, that she would reach home a certain time. Then she turned to me
   and says, 'Do you think you can get me there in time for the funeral?'
   
   002310
   
   I told her I could so we lit out. She says, 'If you can get me there,
   I'll pay you extra.' I said, 'No, I can't take any extra pay. It's
   against the rules of the stage and I would loose my job if I did. She
   says, I'll see that you don't loose anything.' When we got within four
   miles of Brownsville there was a bad mud hole in the road. There were
   a lot of stumps in this new road. So one of my horses stumbled over
   one of these stumps and fell. Well, when he got up, both horses begin
   to kick and run. I pulled up hard on my lines and they both broke. The
   horses kept running and suddenly turned the stage over. Then they
   broke loose from the tongue and ran eighteen miles to Port Isabel
   before they stopped. There we were with the stage turned over. You
   know those old stages were high and the driver sat up on top of it and
   the passengers and mail rode back inside the stage. Well, I had
   several sacks of mail that would weigh a hundred pounds. The stage
   only had one door on one side, and this door was lying on the ground.
   When it turned over, it threw me out to one side of the road. I wasn't
   hurt, just a sprained ankle. When I got back to the stage Mrs. Stien
   was up-side-down, with her head and body buried down between these
   sacks of mail, and her feet ad legs sticking straight up in the air,
   'Are you hurt?' all the answer I got was just a mumble, for her head
   was buried too deep in the sacks for her to talk. I was afraid her
   neck was broken. The only way I could reach her was through a small
   window in the front of the stage, I could only reach my hands and arms
   through this window as it was too small for me to get my body through
   inside the stage. I finally reached through and got a hold of both
   ankles and pulled her out. She wasn't hurt but 002411there we were
   without a team. I said, 'Old Man Cunningham lives about a mile down
   the road. If you can walk that far, he has a nice horse and buggy and
   he will take you on to Brownsville.' She said she could walk. On the
   way down to Old Man Cunninghams, she said, 'How Mr. Hale, I want you
   to have my suitcase and all that is in it.' I told her I didn't want
   her suitcase. But she insisted, saying there was something in it that
   I would be proud of. She said she wanted me to accept it as a gift.
   Well, when I opened it I found a lot of fine, wine, a / bottle of
   whiskey and a nice , leather purse with a twenty-dollar bill in it.
   Besides a lot of women's clothing, which was all very nice. I took it
   home and gave it all to my wife except the liquor, I kept that.
   
   "A short time after this I got tired of the stage and left there
   moving to Cuero. My wife took the wagon and went on through with a
   neighbor family who was also moving to Cuero. About a week later, I
   started on with a man name Jim Diesman and three Mexicans driving
   one-hundred head of cattle through. One day we were driving along and
   I found a Mexican shawl. It was cold as everything, so Diesman says,
   'Hale, give me that shawl. I have a Mexican girl and I want to give it
   to her.' Diesman was a bachelor. I told him no, and put it around my
   head. Well, it was full of tiny lice just as black as the shawl. I got
   [?] good and proper. So I says, 'Jim, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
   give you this shawl for that old cow of yours that's always breaking
   away from the herd.' He says, 'You have traded.' So I slipped off and
   took a bath and washed my head in coal-oil and that ended the lice for
   me. [?] day he says, 'Hale , I believe this damn shawl is full of
   lice.' We examined it and to my [DEL: supprise :DEL] surprise it was.
   So he took a coal-oil bath.
   
   "Well, we went on for four or five days and one evening we came
   002512to a dry creek with a number of big cottonwood trees growing on
   it. We decided to camp and kill a calf. There was a cow pen near by
   and I went out to find the owner of the place to get permission to pen
   the cattle in that pen that night. When I found him, he said we could
   use the pen as long as we wanted to. Well, we went on and made camp in
   the bed of this creek. It was cold and the north wind was blowing
   hard. We made our beds down on the north side of the fire so the wind
   would not blow the sparks and set the bedding on fire. We had this
   fresh meat in a box right in camp. When it got dark the wolves begin
   to' come. They had smelled the meat and by the way they howled it
   sounded like the woods was full of them. We all had six-shooters and
   would shoot in the direction they were howling. The next morning every
   piece of the meat was gone; those wolves had slipped into camp and
   gotten it all. So we fried bacon for breakfast. They had all left but
   one big, old lone wolf. He was about fifty yards away and when he
   smelled the bacon , he begin to howl and his voice was so coarse and
   gruff, it sounded terrible. I says, 'Boys, that old scoundrel want our
   bacon,' and I picked up my pistol and shot. Well, he quit barking. It
   was still dark and I had just shot at random. But when it got
   daylight, we found him a little ways from camp, dead. My shot had not
   gone wild, I had hit the wolf just behind the ear and killed him
   instantly. I said, 'Jim you owe me the drinks. I sure got him.
   
   "One day we drove up to a little store at [Eioche?]. There was an old
   German lived there. He owned a big pasture. However, we were in a lane
   and in this lane was a bad, washed-out place so this old German had
   thrown out about three acres of his pasture into the lane. Isays, 'Now
   , Diesman, here is the place to camp. ' I told the Mexicans to drive
   the cattle on down in this wide spot in the lane 002613to graze. About
   that time here come the old German. 'He says, 'Say, Mister, what fur
   you camp on my ground?' I said, 'Is this your ground?' He said it was
   and if I camped on it he would kill and stampede my cattle. When he
   said that, I had a bridle in my hand, and I hit him over the head with
   it. I told him I was going to set up and watch these cattle, and I
   would kill the first damn Dutchman that came around. He didn't come
   back.
   
   "We went on to Victoria and sold the cattle. We had paid five dollars
   per head for them and we sold them for ten dollars. Then Diesman went
   back to Brownsville and I went on and met my wife at Cuero.
   
   "In 1900 I moved to Uvalde County and settled a place, and have lived
   here ever since."
   
   -30-

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