A handwritten account of trailing cattle in Texas -- in the 1870s.

A handwritten memior of a cowboy who drove cattle north
to markets in the 1870s. Click on any image to enlarge.

A kind reader brought by an incredible gift a few weeks ago.

It’s a first-person account of Texas cattle drives during the 1870s, written by a man named Joseph H. Knowles. 

The forty-six-page manuscript is written in pencil, on the back of a letterhead for W. H. Holmes, who appears to have been a dealer in building supplies, who had an office in the Angelus Hotel in El Paso, Texas. Mr. Knowles’s handwriting is legible, and the spelling is pretty good. He also had storytelling skills.  And he was thrifty – using the back of someone’s stationery.

“I was born December 20, 1856,” Knowles begins, “on my father’s ranch one mile west of old Rancho, which is now known as Nixon in Gonzales County, Texas – one of the finest stock ranges in South Texas. Sparsely settled at that time, the country was open and one’s Ranch was his headquarters, and as far every direction as he cared to work. No fences obstructed his way. My father raised horses principally, and on that account I learned to ride early.”

Though Knowles was not from Kerr County, and his story takes place in other parts of Texas, his accounts of trailing cattle are important to our local story. The cattle trailing businesses of local men – including Charles Schreiner, as well as others – provided the first real financial capital to our community. Without money from cattle trailing operations, Kerrville and Kerr County would not have prospered for many years.

In 1884, Ike T. Pryor, a successful Texas cattle “transportation agent,” calculated the costs of moving 3,000 head of cattle north. A 3,000-head herd could be moved inexpensively: “The salaries of [eleven drovers] including the boss, were $30 each for the ten men, including the cook, and $100 a month for the boss. This gave an outlay of $400 a month; and estimating $100 for provisions, there was an expense of $500 per month to move a herd of 3,000 cattle 450 to 500 miles.” In less than two months, a 3000-head herd could be moved from south Texas to the Kansas railheads for a cost of about $1,000. At $1 to $1.50 per head, could clear around $2,000 — less the cattle lost along the way, which was rarely above 3%, and paid for at the lower Texas market prices.

In the late 1800s, that was a lot of money.

The work was not easy. Unlike many of the movies we've seen, most of the cowboys on those cattle drives were young, and most only made the trip once. It was a very difficult journey.

According to a master’s these by Frank R. Gilliland, "the herds had increased sufficiently by the 1870's for a number of Kerr County ranchers to send cattle 'up the trail.' Some of the largest buyers were Charles Schreiner, Hance Burney, R. H. Burney Sr., Thomas A. Saner, and C. C. Quinlan. Among the herd bosses and cowboys who made frequent trips to Abilene, Dodge City, Wichita, and other Kansas markets were Jones Glenn, Sam Glenn Sr., Jesus and Simon Ayala, John M. Hankins, Seebe Jones, Elick and Jim Crawford, Bill Wharton, Till Driscoll, Zack Light, Doc Burnett, Buck Hamilton, and Bill Caveness."

The manuscript memoir by Joe Knowles tells the story of life on the cattle trail, and it really helps me understand what it was like, some of the dangers the cowboys faced, and the physical endurance the journeys required.

I’m very grateful to the kind reader for sharing Knowles’s story with me – and with our community.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who is glad he isn’t responsible for moving cattle north to markets, by horseback and on foot. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times January 13, 2024.

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