2014 Abernathy Day

Jaye McLaughlin (left) as Jessie Pearl Abernathy and Fred Peters (right) as Jack Abernathy visit with Frederick youngster Jake Schreiner (center) who portrayed Bud Abernathy at last year’s Abernathy Day. The car is a 1910 Brush Runabout like the one that Bud and Temple Abernathy drove from New York City to Oklahoma in 1910.

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Abernathy Day Dinner Set for June 7

The Tillman County Historical Society’s 2014 Abernathy Day Dinner will be held Saturday evening, June 7, 6:00 p.m. at the Pioneer Townsite Museum in Frederick.

In addition to a complete chuck wagon BBQ dinner, the event will feature two acclaimed storytellers who will perform as early Frederick area settlers Jack and Jessie Pearl Abernathy.

Fred E. Peters will portray Jack “Catch ‘em Alive” Abernathy, famous wolf hunter and friend to Theodore Roosevelt. Abernathy served as U.S Marshal in Oklahoma Territory and later, the young state of Oklahoma. Jaye McLaughlin will portray Jessie Pearl Abernathy, Jack’s wife and mother to his six children.

They will present an original program titled “The Intrepid Adventurers: Catch ‘Em Alive and the Boys”. They plan to perform this program at the National Storytelling Conference in Phoenix this July. Peters and McLaughlin live in in Fort Worth, Texas, and have told the story of the Abernathys in many performances to school and civic organizations throughout the region.

They are associated with Tipi Storytellers and are members of the Tejas Storytelling Association and the Tarrant Area Guild of Storytellers.

The dinner and performance will be held on the beautiful museum grounds east of the townsite’s red barn. Ticketholders should bring their own lawn chairs.

Tickets to the dinner are $15 for adults and $7 for children 10 and under. All proceeds will be used for operations of the Pioneer Townsite Museum.

Tickets will be sold through Friday, June 6, at the Pioneer Townsite Museum’s general store.

Tickets are also available at the following Frederick businesses: Frederick ACE Hardware, KC’s Gift Shop, BancFirst, First National Bank of Altus (Frederick branch), and Tillco Supply.

The tickets may also be purchased at the Frederick Chamber of Commerce, 580-335-2126.

The Abernathy Day event, held annually in Frederick on the first Saturday of June, celebrates the 1905 visit of President Theodore Roosevelt to Frederick for a hunting expedition with famous wolf hunter Jack “Catch ‘em Alive” Abernathy. It also celebrates the remarkable exploits just a few years later of Jack and Jessie Pearl Abernathy’s young sons Bud and Temple, including the boy’s 1910 trip from Frederick to New York City and their return trip to Oklahoma driving a Brush automobile.

The Abernathy Story

Statue of the Abernathy Boys stands on Tillman County Courthouse Square in Frederick.

Story of the Abernathys 

      Those of us who are associated with the Tillman County Historical Society and the Pioneer Townsite Museum often find ourselves telling the remarkable story of the Abernathy family to folks who have never heard it.
     For folks who do not know the story, it follows. Links are to related past posts in "Tillman County Chronicles".

The Remarkable Abernathys

This brief account of the adventures of Jack Abernathy and sons Bud and Temple includes references to “Tillman County Chronicles” entries that tell sections of the story in detail with photographs.
As you read, click on the links for more detailed information.

Crossroads Ranch

The area that is now the western part of Tillman County, Oklahoma, was opened to settlement by land lottery on August 1, 1901.

One of the men who secured land in this newly settled part of Oklahoma Territory was a man named John “Jack” Abernathy. Jack Abernathy had grown up in Texas and had an adventurous upbringing. As a very young boy he had worked as a cowboy and during his growing-up years he even worked for a while as a saloon piano player.

Jack Abernathy and his wife Jessie Pearl had homesteaded their ranch west of Frederick in the Tesca and White Lake community in 1901 (the nearest early post office at the time was Tesca. The nearby school was White Lake). Their first “residence” there was a piano box, followed soon after by a dug-out, and later a house. The couple had six children: Kittie, Golda, Louie (Bud), Johnnie, Temple, and Jessie Pearl.

In the new territory, Jack Abernathy was renowned for being able to capture wolves alive… with his bare hands.

His ability was so remarkable and so unique that President Theodore Roosevelt, himself a great adventurer, heard about Jack Abernathy and wanted to see Abernathy’s feats for himself.

On April 8, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt came to Frederick for a five-day wolf hunt with Jack Abernathy. 

The Wolf Hunt

http://tillmancountychronicles.blogspot.com/2011/03/roosevelt-visit-april-1905.html

http://tillmancountychronicles.blogspot.com/2011/03/abernathy-philosophy-for-child-rearing.html

After the hunt, President Roosevelt and the hunting party departed from Frederick on April 13, 1905.

The President had a wonderful time. On his return to Washington, D.C. he wrote an article for Scribner’s Magazine called “Wolf Hunt in Oklahoma” in which he described day-by-day the adventures of the hunt.

The wolf hunt forged a friendship between the Roosevelt and Jack Abernathy that lasted for the rest of their lives.

Less than one month after the hunt, Roosevelt appointed Abernathy as Deputy U.S. Marshall for Oklahoma Territory. He would be sworn is as full U.S. Marshal on March 8, 1906.

The Abernathy family moved to Guthrie, the territorial capital, although they kept the family ranch west of Frederick and returned there often. Abernathy relatives remained on the ranch.

The family’s happiness in Guthrie would be short lived.

Jack’s wife, Jessie Pearl Abernathy, died in Guthrie in May 1907. Her reported cause of death was Bright’s Disease.

Certainly, Mrs. Abernathy’s death coupled with Jack Abernathy’s adventurous upbringing combined to allow the remarkable adventures of sons Bud and Temple that came just a few years later.

THE ABERNATHY BOYS, Bud and Temple

In 1909 when Bud and Temple were just five and nine, Jack Abernathy took a trip to New Mexico Territory. When he arrived home, he told the boys about his trip and they begged to go, too. So… He let them go, alone on horseback, to New Mexico Territory. The boys survived the trip well and made it home safely.

The next year, in 1910, a huge celebration was planned in New York City to welcome then former President Roosevelt home from a year that he had spent abroad in Africa collecting specimens for the National Museum in Washington, D.C.

Jack Abernathy had planned to attend the celebration, travelling there by train.

Bud and Temple, then ages six and 10, begged their dad to let them go, too – on their horses.

In 1910 when the boys were ages six and 10, they rode their horses alone from the family ranch west of Frederick to New York City to greet the former President. Along the way the "little cowboys from Oklahoma" (as the 1910 news media called them) became celebrities of the day and met many important people of the time, including President William Howard Taft, his Cabinet officials, and one of the Wright brothers.

Their father was in New York City to meet them on their arrival, having travelled there by train. Also on hand to greet them were huge crowds of people.

In New York City they were part of a giant celebration and tickertape parade that welcomed former President Theodore Roosevelt back to the United States after his long trip abroad. The boys were treated like celebrities in the big city.

When it came time for the trip back to Oklahoma, though, they convinced their father to abandon their plan to travel home on the train. They shipped their faithful horses home by train. The boys drove home – in a brand new bright red 1910 Brush Runabout.

The Brush Runabout… and the Trip

http://tillmancountychronicles.blogspot.com/2011/03/brush-was-remarkable-car.html

http://tillmancountychronicles.blogspot.com/2011/03/abernathy-automobile-route-1910.html

The boys’ trip back to Oklahoma was remarkable and received extensive coverage in newspapers of the day. What’s more, the famous Abernathy Boys were used in Brush advertising.

http://tillmancountychronicles.blogspot.com/2012/01/1910-ads-featured-abernathys.html

The boys went on to have other great adventures in coming years, including a coast-to-coast horseback ride from New York City to San Francisco and a cross-country trip on an Indian motorcycle in 1913.

Abernathy feats remembered

Bud and Temple Abernathy, headed home to Oklahoma in their Brush, 1910

More information at www.tillmanokhistory.org

Abernathy Day Set for June 1

   Every community of any age has stories to tell from its history.

   In Frederick one of the stories that we tell with pride is the unique story of the Abernathy boys – Bud and Temple.

   Theirs was an amazing story in its time, and it seems even more amazing by today's standards.

   In 1910 when the boys were ages six and 10, they rode their horses alone from the family ranch west of Frederick to New York City to greet a former President. Along the way the "little cowboys from Oklahoma" (as news media of the day called them) met many important people of the time, including President William Howard Taft, his Cabinet officials, and one of the Wright brothers. Their father, U.S. Marshal John "Jack" Abernathy, was in New York City to meet them on their arrival, having travelled there by train.

   In New York City they were part of a giant celebration and ticker-tape parade that welcomed former President Theodore Roosevelt back to the United States after a long trip abroad, and they were treated like celebrities in the big city.

   When it came time for the trip back to Oklahoma, though, they convinced their father to abandon their plan to travel home on the train. They shipped their faithful horses home by train. The boys drove home – in a brand new bright red 1910 Brush Runabout.

   That story and many more of the boys' adventures are detailed in the book Bud and Me, written by the late Alta Abernathy, Temple's wife.

   Among those other adventures was a 1913 Indian motorcycle trip from Oklahoma to New York City when the boys had reached the advanced ages of nine and 13.

   For years the Tillman County Historical Society celebrated the stories of the Abernathy Boys and their famous wolf hunter dad Jack "Catch 'em Alive" Abernathy with an annual Abernathy Day Celebration. The event was not held in 2012 because Frederick hosted Free Wheel bicycle visitors for a giant event during June, but the Abernathy Day celebration IS back on for 2013. It will be held at its traditional time – the first Saturday in June. This year that will be on June 1.

   And... Early planning for the event promises to make this a special and unique Abernathy Day, different from ones that have been held before.  That's because this year, to commemorate the boys' trips in their Brush Automobile and on the Indian motorcycle, the historical society is inviting owners of vintage (pre-1940) cars and motorcycles to come to Frederick that day to show off their wonderful cars and bikes.

   Hopefully, a significant number of vintage vehicles will come to Frederick that day. Perhaps the most special guests, though, will be current-day owners of Brush Automobiles and early Indian motorcycles!

   Numerous special programs and events are in the planning stages, there will be wonderful entertainment throughout the day and evening, and the historical society will sell tickets for a wonderful dinner on the grounds that evening at  Pioneer Townsite Museum.

   It promises to be a special, fun day!

   If you own a vintage car or motorcycle, plan to attend! Or... If you know someone who does own such a vehicle, pass the word!

   Detailed plans for Abernathy Day will be posted to the Tillman County Historical Society website (www.tillmanokhistory.org) as they develop.

Roosevelt Visit, April 1905

Sent to The Frederick Leader and The Frederick Press

March 23, 2010

Jack Abernathy (L) with President Theodore Roosevelt during the 1905 Wolf Hunt east of Frederick, O.T.

1905 Roosevelt Wolf Hunt Preceded Statehood

President Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Frederick aboard a private five-car train on Saturday, April 8, 1905. When he departed on April 13, 1905, the President promised to make Oklahoma a state. That is a promise that he kept more than two years later on November 16, 1907, when Oklahoma became the 46th state. Oklahoma was the only state admitted to the Union during Roosevelt’s presidency.

John R. “Jack” Abernathy, who lived west of Frederick with his wife and family, was famous for his wolf catching abilities, most notably for catching them alive. The President, always a sportsman and adventurer, had heard stories of Abernathy’s amazing wolf-catching abilities and planned the hunt in Oklahoma Territory to meet Abernathy and see the amazing skills for himself.

The land surrounding Frederick had been opened to settlement in the land lottery of 1901. The Frederick area was considered part of Comanche County, Oklahoma Territory, until Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Tillman County, which Frederick serves as the county seat, was created at statehood.

The hunt took place in the Big Pasture. The western edge of the Big Pasture, which encompassed 480,000 acres, began several miles east of Frederick and was not opened for settlement until December 1906. The Big Pasture area was therefore unsettled at the time of Roosevelt’s visit in 1905.

The hunting party camped at Panther Springs on the west bank of Deep Red Creek near a natural spring. The site is located some distance south of the current Deep Red Bridge on State Highway 5.

Abernathy captured several wolves during the President’s visit, genuinely impressing the President and beginning a lasting friendship between Roosevelt and the Abernathy family. Soon after the hunt, Roosevelt appointed Abernathy as U.S. Marshal, and Abernathy’s sons Bud and Temple visited Roosevelt during their famous solo trip to Washington, D.C. and New York City in 1910.

Numerous dignitaries accompanied Roosevelt and Abernathy on the hunt, including Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, Texas oil man and rancher Burk Burnett, and rancher Guy Waggoner.

Although Roosevelt had visited Oklahoma City before becoming President, his 1905 hunting trip in the Frederick area was his only visit to Oklahoma Territory (the western part of present-day Oklahoma) during his presidency.

During the days immediately preceding the Frederick visit President Roosevelt had attended a Rough Riders Reunion in San Antonio, Texas. On April 5, 1905, his train had briefly passed through several communities in Indian Territory (now Eastern Oklahoma) enroute to South Texas. Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were merged to become the State of Oklahoma in 1907.

Roosevelt’s presidency ended in 1909. Following his presidency, in 1912 Roosevelt campaigned in several communities in the central and eastern part of Oklahoma during his failed run for re-election as President as a candidate of the Progressive Bull Moose Party.

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To provide what must surely be one of the most accurate accounts of Roosevelt’s visit, following is a story written on April 14, 1905, (the day after Roosevelt’s departure) by R.H. Wessell for The Frederick Enterprise. The Enterprise was the forerunner to the Frederick Press. Wessel was a Frederick journalist for many decades.

THE FREDERICK ENTERPRISE -- Frederick, Comanche County, Oklahoma Territory. Friday, April 14, 1905.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ARRIVED IN FREDERICK LAST SATURDAY (April 8th, 1905) afternoon and welcomed by about 6,000 Oklahomans

IS IN FAVOR OF IMMEDIATE STATEHOOD

Was driven to his Camp in the Big Pasture where he has spent a delightful time hunting Wolves, and other game – seventeen wolves Captured and Abernathy displays his prowess by catching some alive – Gov. Ferguson, Dennis Flynn and Cong. Stevens, here.

When President Roosevelt reached Oklahoma soil last Saturday afternoon he beheld a canopy without a single cloud, a green velvety carpet stretching as far as eye could see and when about twenty minutes later as he talked from the grandstand to the 5,000 to 6,000 eager auditors not even the faintest zephr was in evidence to interfere with his oratorical effort. All nature seemed to be inacced in making an ideal day for this the greatest event that has happened in the history of the new country. Despite the fact that those here who knew of the President’s coming nearly a fortnight before were importuned not to make it public, nevertheless parties were here from as far east as Lawton, to the west as far as Altus, to the North from Hobart, and to the Lone Star state on the South. The hotels and eating houses were crowded, for miles around the farmers left their fields to come to Frederick and get a glimpse of their chief executive.

At a meeting of the citizens, about twenty deputies were employed in addition about half this number of mounted police, with C.C. Shive, as marshal of the day. The crowd was an exceptionally orderly one and the marshals experienced little difficulty in keeping perfect order.

President Roosevelt during the 1905 hunt.

About 100 soldiers who had worn either the blue or the gray in the great war of the Rebellion marched side by side to do honor to their common president and testified more convincingly than volumes of the friendship that exists between all sections of the country. It was a sight long to be remembered to see the smoke from the pilot engine curling up into the azure some miles to the South, while still farther away could be discerned a faint dark smoke from the engine that the expectant throng knew was bringing the president. Five minutes after the pilot engine, the President’s train, consisting of five handsomely equipped coaches, glided to the crossing on Grand Avenue. When the President emerged from the car, dressed in his outing suit, he was met by the reception committee and after he descried the decorated grandstand two blocks up the street, he was glad to address the assembly. He took a seat beside Mayor Kelly, and was driven behind Ed. Carter’s span team to the grandstand. The remaining members of his party were brought in other vehicles which were furnished by the reception committee. Atty. Geo. Ahearn introduced the President, who spoke in part as follows:

“The next time I come to Oklahoma I trust I will come to a State and it won’t be my fault if this is not soon. I greet the veterans of the Civil War, who come here today to greet the President because we are one people and one country, not to be divided forever. I am glad to see Quanah Parker here, who has done so well with his farm. One thing of which I am proud is that I have tried to give a fair deal to every man. Give the red man the same chance as the white. This country is founded on the doctrine of giving each man a fair deal to see what there is in him. I have traveled four days in Texas, and am now in what will soon be a great state of the Union.

“There is nowhere I feel more at home than in a town like this. I have confidence in the character of the men and women who have come here. Ever since the Revolution we have been making new States. Now we are about at the cole of this period. I don’t feel that I have to explain my policies to the Oklahoma people. You like to have the American people play a big part in the world, and then play that part well. I know the western people are with me when I say we must build the Panama Canal. You don’t think I shoud be quiet while the American people are being held up. We want our right not as a favor, but as a right.

“I had a middling busy three and a half years. I have liked my job, I enjoyed it and was thankful to the people for telling me to go on with it. Now I want four days’ play. I hear you have plenty of jack rabbits and coyotes here. I like my citizens, but don’t like them on a coyote hunt. Give me a fair deal to have as much fun as even a President is entitled to. Good-bye and good luck.”

At the close of the speech, he entered Burnett’s carriage and was rapidly driven to the camp, accompanied a portion of the way by members of the mounted police.

It was about dark when the party reached the camp, eighteen miles southeast of here nestled cozily in the timber skirting Deep Red Creek. Sunday morning the President was up early and when he first beheld the beautiful panorama of virgin prairie without a sign of civilization except that of the camp, he said he felt perfectly at home. He did little during the day except to exercise his horse. His doctor, however, took a number of views of the party with their dogs and horses which will be used to illustrate the article which Mr. Roosevelt will write concerning the hunt.

The President killed a huge rattlesnake.

The hunt for which the president has been yearning as anxiously as the pack of dogs chained in camp who made the night hideous with their yelps, was begun Monday morning. From the start the President was invariably in the lead and even the cow boys and veteran troopers from Fort Sill were astonished with the ease with which he kept his seat while going at breakneck speed over ravine and hill. By noon the pack had caught three wolves and the party returned to camp with an appetite which left but little of the picked yearling which had been take out that morning. In the afternoon the President saw John Abernathy catch a wolf which the dogs had harassed.

Once on Monday, after the long chase in the hot sun, the President spied some water in a buffalo wallow, he spurred up his horse and beating the dogs to the spot, leaped from the saddle and lapped up the refreshing liquid in good old-fashioned cowboy style.

“The next day he ran over a six foot rattler, which sprang at him four times before he had dispatched it with his 18 inch quirt.

The President was particularly pleased by the manner in which the public heeded his admonitions regarding a square deal and remained from the pasture. He says this would be impossible in many sections of the country, and this, in addition to the rare sport which he enjoyed in the chase, may cause him to return to the spot at some time when he wants real uninterrupted hunt.

The President concluded his big wolf hunt in the big pasture yesterday at 4 o’clock P.M. (April 13th, 1905) and shortly afterwards started for Frederick with his party. He has become very much attached to John R. Abernathy, the famous wolf hunter, and desired to see his family. When the President discovered that Abernathy, who is but a man of 35 years of age, but has a wife and five children, he declared he was a man of his own heart. Mrs. Abernathy and the children were sent for and the president met them near the pasture gate where he spent a very pleasant half hour.

It was expected that the president would speak in the grand stand in Frederick where he spoke last Saturday. The reception committee were seated in this grand stand while Cong. John H. Stevens, of Texas, was addressing the crowd, as the president and his party mounted on their charges, rode into town.

The President and his party rode past to the train on a gallop but a courier returned to the grand stand and announced that the president would speak from the rear end of the platform. The President dressed in his brown trousers and hunting jacket, appeared like a private citizen out for a hunt. Gov. Thos. B. Ferguson introduced the president who spoke in a happy vein as follows:

“My friends and fellow citizens, I thank you for as pleasant a five days outing as any president ever had; I especially thank the people of Frederick for giving me such a pleasant time and letting the party alone during the hunt. It was the kindness of the people especially of Frederick, and of Oklahoma, and Texas, in general in not disturbing our party; for hunting and crowds don’t go together. One reason I hesitated coming here was because I was doubtful if I could hunt here unmolested.”

“You never had a guest who enjoyed himself better than myself, and I will come to Oklahoma again. I especially thank your citizen John Abernathy, for his hunting ability and the party who entertained me; Also Ed Gillis, Taylor and Billie More, As remarkable an exhibition of pluck and skill as I have ever seen has been shown by your townsmen carrying a wolf five miles in his gloved hands, but he beat it today by getting a wolf which he tied to the back of his saddle, and then after a seven mile chase, getting another which he brought to camp alive. I will come to Oklahoma again when I hope you will be a state with your senators and congressmen. Good night, Good luck and many thanks.”

The president was extremely pleased to meet his old friends, Ex-Delegate Dennis T. Flynn, and Cong. John H. Stevens, and chatted pleasantly with them.

After these gentlemen retired he ate his dinner, and looked at some papers. At 8:25 the train left for Vernon. The President came on the rear platform and smiling to those at the depot, said Goodnight until out of hearing.

Cong. Stevens accompanied the train to Vernon where he resides.

The train left Texline at 8:20 A.M. today and will arrive at Colorado Springs at 7:30 P.M.

John Abernathy and C.B. McHugh, of the hunting party were left at this place where they reside.

Col. Lyon, Sloan Simpson, the Burnetts and the Waggoners will leave it at Vernon, to go to their respective homes.

Joe Wynn serves as a member of the Tillman County Historical Society Board of Directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at jawynn@cableone.net.

Hunt participants were important men

Sent to the Frederick Leader and the Frederick Press

April 13, 2010

The 1905 hunting party. President Roosevelt is standing 2nd from right. Jack Abernathy is standing in center, holding dead wolf. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker is kneeling left of Abernathy.

Men of 1905 Roosevelt hunting party

were wealthy and influential

Last weekend in Frederick (April 10, 2010) we celebrated the 105th anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Frederick for an Oklahoma Territory wolf hunt. The President’s private train arrived in Frederick on April 8, 1905, and he spent the next five days east of Frederick hunting wolves with Jack Abernathy in the then-unsettled Big Pasture. He departed Frederick on April 13, 1905.

Roosevelt was the most famous man of his time, so his visit to Frederick, than a raw, three-year-old town on the Oklahoma prairie, was a momentous event. Roosevelt did not come alone.

With him as members of the hunting party were some of the richest, most influential, well-connected people of the day.

Following are some basic facts about several members of the hunting party.

Samuel “Burk” Burnett was 56 at the time of the hunt.

He had established the Burnett Ranch in Wichita County of North Texas in 1875, between the Red and Big Wichita Rivers. In 1900, he had bought the “Four Sixes” Ranch which he enlarged to nearly a half million acres in four divisions.

In the early 1890s Burnett became a friend of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker and negotiated leasing rights to more than a million acres of land in the then-unsettled Kiowa and Comanche lands of Oklahoma Territory. This greatly benefitted not only Burnett, but also other large northern Texas ranchers who were able to secure grazing rights to the vast expanses of rich green prairie.

Burnett and Chief Quanah Parker had met with Theodore Roosevelt some years before the wolf hunt.

When the federal government had initially required cattlemen to vacate their leased lands in Oklahoma Territory to prepare the land for settlement, Burk Burnett had traveled with Chief Parker to Washington and convinced President Roosevelt to grant a two-year stay so that the ranchers grazing in the lands could have a more orderly transformation from the loss of their lease interests.

At the time of the hunt, Burk Burnett lived in Fort Worth where he had many business and social connections.

Tom Burnett, Burk’s son, was 34 at the time of the wolf hunt. At 21, he had served as a wagon boss on his father’s herds in the Kiowa and Comanche lands. Chief Parker and Tom became close friends. They worked cattle and hunted together on the Comanche prairies.

Cecil Lyon of Dallas was an enormously rich and powerful man. In 1905, he was the owner of many lumber yards and hardware stores, a bank director, a director in Great Southern Life Insurance Company, and a close personal friend of the President.

He was head of the Texas Republican Party and a member of the Republican National Committee. As chair of the Texas party, Cecil Lyon was responsible for distribution of federal patronage in Texas under Republican Presidents. This was an enormously powerful position.

Lyon remained a major force in Texas politics for many years and was a very loyal friend of Roosevelt, even in future years when Theodore Roosevelt broke with the traditional Republican Party to run again for President as a member of the Bull Moose Party.

It was Lyon who first told Roosevelt about the wolf-hunting abilities of Jack Abernathy.

Sloan Simpson was the Harvard-educated son of an enormously rich, influential Texas ranching and banking family.

He had served in Roosevelt’s regiment of Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In 1907 Roosevelt appointed Simpson as Dallas postmaster.

William Thomas Waggoner, 54, was owner of the famous Waggoner Ranch. His land holdings and cattle empire were vast and, like Burnett, Waggoner and his son had leased more than a half-million acres from the Comanches.

In 1910, Waggoner’s land holdings were around 1,000 square miles.

By World War I he would be recognized as the “Cattle King of Texas”, with cattle, land, banking and oil interests worth $50 million.

In the 1920s Will Rogers was a frequent ranch guest. He quipped that each cow on Waggoner’s ranch had 40 acres of grass and its own oil well.

At the time of the hunt in 1905, Waggoner lived in Fort Worth.

 “Al” Bivins, 53, was an Amarillo rancher and oilman. By 1920 he would be the largest individual cattle owner in the country and the largest landowner west of the Mississippi River.

He reportedly once rode 90 miles from Dalhart to Amarillo without leaving his property.

General Samuel Baldwin Marks Young, 65, had risen to the rank of general in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, he secured a commission in the regular Army as a captain and was posted to the Southwest along the Indian frontier.

In 1898, he was promoted to Brigadier General and served with Roosevelt in Cuba. In 1901 he became the first president of the Army War College, and was appointed in 1903 as Army Chief of Staff. He had retired from that post in 1904.

Dr. Alexander Lambert was the President’s personal physician. He accompanied the President on his travels, which were extensive. Like Roosevelt, Lambert was a prominent citizen of New York. He would later serve as president of the American Medical Association and head of the Medical Research Department of the American Red Cross.

Chief Quanah Parker was in his mid-50s at the time of the hunt.

He was the son of Comanche Chief Pete Nocona and Cynthia Parker, a white girl who was captured in Texas by the Comanches in 1836 when she was nine.

Parker was born around 1850 in the present Texas panhandle. He became a warrior after his father’s death in 1862 or 1863.

General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered Army troops to capture his band of Comanches. In 1871 and 1872 Quanah Parker successfully led raids against and continually escaped from the Army troops. In 1874, though, he led the tribe at the Battle of Adobe Springs. His horse was shot from under him and he was wounded in the side.

In 1875, most Kiowas, Cheyennes and Comanches were forced to surrender and travel to Fort Sill.

In 1878, rancher Charles Goodknight advised Quanah Parker about raising cattle and gave him some cows to start a herd. He was becoming a rancher when he gained his friendships with Burk Burnett and the Waggoners.

For more information about the wolf hunt and about members of the hunting party, the Pioneer Townsite Museum has two books that make for fascinating reading.

Struggles in a New State by Larry Lewis is a hard-bound volume that contains information about the hunt and the Abernathy boys, as well as political and social developments in Oklahoma in the early 19th Century.

Catch ‘em Alive Jack by Ron Ward is a large paper-bound book that tells the story of Jack Abernathy in great detail.

Both books are great reading and would make great gifts for anyone who has an interest in history. For more information about either book, call the Pioneer Townsite Museum in Frederick, 580-335-5844.

Frederick area men depicted the original 1905 hunting party at an April 10, 2010 Tillman County Historical Society celebration at the Pioneer Townsite Museum.

 Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society Board of Directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at jawynn@cableone.net.

Abernathy philosophy for child rearing

Sent to Frederick Leader and Frederick Press

April 6, 2010

Louis "Bud" Abernathy and Temp Abernathy, 1910

Abernathy explained ideas for raising boys

Jack Abernathy undoubtedly loved his children, but by modern standards of parenting it is impossible to imagine how he let his two boys Louis (Bud) and Temple set out on long trips alone.

Jack Abernathy

Their first trip was in 1909 when the two boys went to New Mexico Territory at ages five and nine. The next year, in 1910, the two boys became celebrities of the day when they made their famous trip alone from Frederick to New York City.

Visitors to the Abernathy Boys exhibit at the Pioneer Townsite Museum in Frederick often express disbelief that any father would have allowed his children to make such trips. I always respond by reminding them of two points:

ONE: The children’s mother had died in 1907. Had she lived, I have no doubt that the boys would not have made those trips; and

TWO: Jack Abernathy was an adventurer who himself had lived through an independent, rough-and-tumble upbringing. Having complete trust in the abilities of his young children was natural to him.

When Louis and Temple left Frederick alone on horseback on April 10, 1910, headed toward New York City, they knew that their father was planning to travel there by train and would be waiting for them when they arrived.

Jack Abernathy did arrive in New York City a few days before the boys, and an article in the Oklahoman on June 12, 1910, (marked SPECIAL, New York City, June 11) explained his philosophy of raising children.

Headline was, “ABERNATHY PROUD OF ‘LITTLE CUSSES” – Wolf-catching Marshal Tells New York About his Sons.”

The article identified Abernathy as U.S. marshal for the district of Oklahoma, the man who catches wolves with his bare hands, and who thus endeared himself to Roosevelt.

At the time of the article, Louis and Temple had not yet arrived in New York, but the press quizzed their father about the boys.

Abernathy carried with him a packet of letters that he had received from the boys, sent to him during their trip. He refused to read the letters to New York City reporters, citing the fact that he could not violate the boys’ confidence by sharing the letters with others.

He did, however, tell reporters about one letter that he had received from Louis after the boys’ visit with President Taft and the cabinet in Washington, D.C. “They are bully,” the boys said of the officials in the letter to their dad. “Taft is all right. He treated us square.”

Abernathy went on to explain his child rearing methods to the press.

Speaking of Louis and Temple, the proud father said, “Those boys are the best ever. They are game from the ground up.”

He explained the boys’ trip the year before to New Mexico Territory when they traveled more than 1,000 miles in six weeks.

“We never bother about them,” he said. “Why should we? We have brought them up to take care of themselves.”

He said that he had never paddled them.

“I’m always around when they want to know what I think is the right thing to do, and they know pretty well what I think of things and the way they ought to be done.”

He continued, “Since they’ve been big enough to straddle a pony they’ve been up at 4 o’clock in the morning, rubbing down their own horses. They’ve gone to school when there was a school within reach. They’ve carried guns and gone hunting, alone and together, as soon as they were big enough to tote a gun. They have been too busy and too healthy to get any bad ideas into their heads.”

Abernathy continued to say that the boys were independent, and whenever he failed to give them spending money, they always set to work to earn some on their own. “They have got it into their heads that they must make something of themselves, and can.”

He concluded by saying that the boys realized that their adventurous trip from Oklahoma to New York was an educational experience, and that the things they had learned in school helped them to understand the many things that they were seeing.

The boys liked traveling and he said that they wanted to do a lot more of it in the future.

 Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society Board of Directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at jawynn@cableone.net.

Abernathy Family

 Column sent to Frederick Leader and Frederick Press

June 8, 2010

Frederick newspapers reported about Abernathys

Exactly 100 years ago this week, Bud and Temple Abernathy were approaching their destination – New York City.

They had left the family ranch west of Frederick on April 10, 1910; they spent more than a week in Washington, D.C. where they met with President Taft and his cabinet; and they arrived in New York City on June 11. Their father had traveled to New York by train and was waiting for them there.

The boys’ adventures on the trip were reported in many major newspapers of the day, and they were greeted by masses of people in New York City, including groups of children riding stick horses in imitation of their two young heroes.

The long trip by two young boys from Oklahoma all the way to New York City was remarkable in 1910, as it is to us today.

So, it is proper that today, exactly 100 years later, we remember the Abernathy family and the remarkable accomplishments of the two Abernathy boys.

We all know that the long close relationship between Roosevelt and the Abernathy family began during the wolf hunt in April 1905. Frederick newspapers provided many details of the hunt. Jack Abernathy became a well-known figure in the area.

Jack Abernathy and his wife Jessie had homesteaded their ranch west of Frederick in the Tesca and White Lake community in 1901 (the nearest early post office at the time was Tesca. The nearby school was White Lake). Their first “residence” there was a piano box, followed soon after by a dug-out, and later a house. The couple had six children: Kittie, Golda, Louie (Bud), Johnnie, Temple, and Jessie Pearl.

Newspaper Reports

In the years after the wolf hunt, Frederick newspapers also reported numerous details of the Abernathy family’s lives.

NOTE: Jack Abernathy is referred to in the newspaper accounts by his official name “John” or “J.R.”

May 5, 1905 – J.R. Abernathy has been appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal. This appointment came to Mr. Abernathy unsolicited. His headquarters will be at this place. He is the only U.S. Marshall in Comanche county.

NOTE: Abernathy’s appointment as Deputy U.S. Marshal by President Roosevelt came less than one month after the wolf hunt.

October 19, 1905 – John Abernathy took his little daughter, Goldie, to the Deaf Institute in Guthrie last week, where she will receive instruction.

March 8, 1906 – John R. Abernathy was sworn in recently at Guthrie by Chief Justice Burford as United States Marshal for Oklahoma.

NOTE: The Abernathy family moved to Guthrie at this time, although the family also kept the ranch west of Frederick. Jack Abernathy’s father and sister remained at the ranch.

May 9, 1907 – Jessie (Jordon) Abernathy, wife of United States Marshal John Abernathy, died Tuesday morning at the family residence in Guthrie. She was born at Brownsville, Tenn., and was thirty years of age at the time of her death. She was united in marriage to John R. Abernathy, in Cleburne, Texas, in 1894, and six children, the oldest twelve years, and the youngest three months old, were the result of this union. She also leaves five brothers. Her mother and father preceded her, the father dying two months ago. The funeral service was held from the Baptist church in Guthrie with interment in that city.

NOTE: Reported cause of Jessie Abernathy’s death was Bright’s disease.

July 9, 1908 – United States Marshall John D. Abernathy, aged 31, and Miss Elmira Perviance, aged 19, a junior of the Logan County High School, were married at the home of Mr. Nichols in Guthrie.

The Abernathy Children

Visitors to the Pioneer Townsite Museum often ask what became of the Abernathy children later in life.

In his book “Struggles in a New State”, Larry Lewis provided the following account of the six Abernathy children: Kittie Joe attended Ursiline Academy in New York City and served as a nun at St. Joseph’s Academy in Guthrie; Golda, who was born deaf, married a deaf bank teller in Wichita Falls; Louie Van (Bud) graduated from the University of Oklahoma Law School and served as prosecuting attorney for several terms in Wichita Falls, Texas; Johnnie Martin married an oil promoter in Longview, Texas; Temple Reeves was also an oil promoter who lived in Fort Worth; and Jessie Pearl married a man in Gainesville, Texas.

Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society's board of directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at jawynn@cableone.net.

Abernathy Automobile Route, 1910

Column sent to Frederick Leader and Frederick Press

July 13, 2010

Maxwell Motor Car ad from 1910 (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

1910 Auto Trip was adventure for Abernathys

When Bud and Temple Abernathy, ages 6 and 10, left New York City in their Brush automobile on July 6,1910, for their long trip back to Oklahoma, they were accompanied by their father Jack in his own car.

The boys had learned to drive on the streets of New York City (no driver's license was needed in those days). Jack Abernathy had not yet learned to drive, but when he purchased the Brush for his boys he also purchased a larger Maxwell for himself. The Maxwell Auto Company would later serve as the starting point for Chrysler and was the forerunner of Plymouth.

Abernathy’s Maxwell was a four-cylinder touring model with a big back seat. He chose the larger car to accommodate the entire family back home.

Because he could not yet drive, though, Jack Abernathy hired a man who was combination driver and mechanic to drive the Maxwell for the trip to Oklahoma.

Their route back to Oklahoma was not a direct one. From New York City, the Abernathys drove north to Albany and then west to Buffalo where they visited Niagara Falls at the U.S.-Canada border.

Brush Runabout from a1912 advertisement (Smithsonian Institution)

In Poughkeepsie, New York, they narrowly averted tragedy. Six-year-old Temple had been riding with his father in the Maxwell, and jumped from the car as it was coming to a stop. Bud was following closely in the Brush and as he pulled alongside the Maxwell, his car struck Temple. Thankfully, Temple was only bruised, but the boys learned an important lesson about caution and safety.

When they reached Cleveland, Ohio, on March 11 they were greeted by a large crowd and Jack was greeted by the local sheriff and his six deputies.

It rained for much of the way from Ohio to Detroit, but the Brush led the way because it was able to handle the muddy roads much better than the bigger Maxwell.

In Detroit, they visited the Brush factory where their car had been manufactured. The factory produced 100 cars a day. Factory mechanics gave the boys’ car a tune-up while they were there.

In 1910, paved roads were rare and there was no well-established route system. Automobiles were a growing fascination for Americans, though, and from 1904 until 1913 Jasper Glidden, a wealthy telephone official and banker, sponsored long automobile tours to publicly test automobile reliability. There were many cars and drivers in the Glidden tours, and there was keen competition between car companies for their cars to excel in the tour.

Temp cranks the Brush while Bud sits behind the wheel.

In 1910 part of the Glidden Tour ran from Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago. In planning their route to Oklahoma, the Abernathys followed the Glidden Tour route in reverse from Chicago to Oklahoma City. Following this established route made their trip easier and faster than it would have been otherwise.

From Chicago, they drove west to Omaha, then south through Kansas City and Wichita, Kansas. They encountered rough terrain during much of this part of the trip and navigated very muddy roads that the boys referred to as “gumbo”. They also dealt with stifling summer heat.

Near Emporia, Kansas, a bridge had been washed away and the Abernathy cars were able to cross where the bridge had been only when construction workers laid narrow timbers for them to cross. Driving the cars over the narrow timbers required good nerves and steady skill!

Near Wellington, Kansas, Jack Abernathy’s Maxwell caught on fire. Although the car was not destroyed, most of the Abernathys' possessions, including their clothes and souvenirs, were a complete loss.

On Friday, July 29, the Abernathys arrived in Oklahoma City with much fanfare. The Brush’s “speed thermometer” measured 2,512.2 miles. Since their departure from Frederick in early April, the boys had travelled more than 5,000 miles on horseback and by automobile.

A large crowd turned out to greet the Abernathys in Oklahoma City, including a special group of Oklahomans who were owners of Brush Runabouts!

In the 1910 book “Meeting Roosevelt”, Bud Abernathy wrote, “At Oklahoma City we were met by city, state and county officials and 14 Runabouts just like the one I was driving. My car just seemed to brag to them about what it had done, and just to show the business of them what a dandy car it was, I ran ahead of all them and flew into the city. After 2,500 miles the little engine was purring like a kitten. It really was just getting limbered up and ready to run good.”

Bud and Temple Abernathy in the 1910 Brush Runabout

Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society Board of Directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at jawynn@cableone.net.