Ben Kinchlow
From:
Texas
BEN KINCHLOW, 91, was the son of Lizaer Moore, a half-white slave
owned by Sandy Moore, Wharton Co., and Lad Kinchlow, a white man.
When Ben was one year old his mother was freed and given some
money. She was sent to Matamoras, Mexico and they lived there and
at Brownsville, Texas, during the years before and directly
following the Civil War. Ben and his wife, Liza, now live in
Uvalde, Texas, in a neat little home. Ben has straight hair, a
Roman nose, and his speech is like that of the early white settler.
He is affable and enjoys recounting his experiences.
"I was birthed in 1846 in Wharton, Wharton County, in slavery times. My
mother's name was Lizaer Moore. I think her master's name was Sandy
Moore, and she went by his name. My father's name was Lad Kinchlow. My
mother was a half-breed Negro; my father was a white man of that same
county. I don't know anything about my father. He was a white man, I
know that. After I was borned and was one year old, my mother was set
free and sent to Mexico to live. When we left Wharton, we was sent away
in an ambulance. It was an old-time ambulance. It was what they called
an ambulance--a four-wheeled concern pulled by two mules. That is what
they used to traffic in. The big rich white folks would get in it and go
to church or on a long journey. We landed safely into Matamoros, Mexico,
just me and my mother and older brother. She had the means to live on
till she got there and got acquainted. We stayed there about twelve
years. Then we moved back to Brownsville and stayed there until after
all Negroes were free. She went to washing and she made lots of money at
it. She charged by the dozen. Three or four handkerchiefs were
considered a piece. She made good because she got $2.50 a dozen for men
washing and $5 a dozen for women's clothes.
"I was married in February, 1879, to Christiana Temple, married at
Matagorda, Matagorda County. I had six children by my first wife. Three
boys and three girls. Two girls died. The other girl is in Gonzales
County. Lawrence is here workin' on the Kincaid Ranch and Andrew is
workin' for John Monagin's dairy and Henry is seventy miles from Alpine.
He's a highway boss. This was my first wife. Now I am married again and
have been with this wife forty years. Her name was Eliza Dawson. No
children born to this union.
"The way we lived in those days--the country was full of wild game,
deer, wild hogs, turkey, duck, rabbits, 'possum, lions, quails, and so
forth. You see, in them days they was all thinly settled and they was
all neighbors. Most settlements was all Meskins mostly; of course there
was a few white people. In them days the country was all open and a man
could go in there and settle down wherever he wanted to and wouldn't be
molested a-tall. They wasn't molested till they commenced putting these
fences and putting up these barbwire fences. You could ride all day and
never open a gate. Maybe ride right up to a man's house and then just
let down a bar or two.
"Sometime when we wanted fresh meat we went out and killed. We also
could kill a calf or goat whenever we cared to because they were plenty
and no fence to stop you. We also had plenty milk and butter and
home-made cheese. We did not have much coffee. You know the way we made
our coffee? We just taken corn and parched it right brown and ground it
up. Whenever we would get up furs and hides enough to go into market, a
bunch of neighbors would get together and take ten to fifteen deer hides
each and take 'em in to Brownsville and sell 'em and get their
supplies. They paid twenty-five cents a pound for them. That's when we
got our coffee, but we'd got so used to using corn-coffee, we didn't
care whether we had that real coffee so much, because we had to be
careful with our supplies, anyway. My recollection is that it was fifty
cents a pound and it would be green coffee and you would have to roast
it and grind it on a mill. We didn't have any sugar, and very rare thing
to have flour. The deer was here by the hundreds. There was blue
quail--my goodness! You could get a bunch of these blue top-knot quail
rounded up in a bunch of pear and, if they was any rocks, you could kill
every one of 'em. If you could hit one and get 'im to fluttering the
others would bunch around him and you could kill every one of 'em with
rocks.
"We lived very neighborly. When any of the neighbors killed fresh meat
we always divided with one another. We all had a corn patch, about three
or four acres. We did not have plows; we planted with a hoe. We were
lucky in raisin' corn every year. Most all the neighbors had a little
bunch of goats, cows, mares, and hogs. Our nearest market was forty
miles, at old Brownsville. When I was a boy I wo'e what was called
shirt-tail. It was a long, loose shirt with no pants. I did not wear
pants until I was about ten or twelve. The way we got our supplies, all
the neighbors would go in together and send into town in a dump cart
drawn by a mule. The main station was at Brownsville. It was thirty-five
miles from where they'd change horses. They carried this mail to
Edinburg, and it took four days. Sometimes they'd ride a horse or mule.
We'd get our mail once a week. We got our mail at Brownsville.
"The country was very thinly settled then and of very few white people;
most all Meskins, living on the border. The country was open, no fences.
Every neighbor had a little place. We didn't have any plows; we planted
with a hoe and went along and raked the dirt over with our toes. We had
a grist mill too. I bet I've turned one a million miles. There was no
hired work then. When a man was hired he got $10 or $12 per month, and
when people wanted to brand or do other work, all the neighbors went
together and helped without pay. The most thing that we had to fear was
Indians and cattle rustlers and wild animals.
"While I was yet on the border, the plantation owners had to send their
cotton to the border to be shipped to other parts, so it was transferred
by Negro slaves as drivers. Lots of times, when these Negroes got there
and took the cotton from their wagon, they would then be persuaded to go
across the border by Meskins, and then they would never return to their
master. That is how lots of Negroes got to be free. The way they used to
transfer the cotton--these big cotton plantations east of here--they'd
take it to Brownsville and put it on the wharf and ship it from there. I
can remember seeing, during the cotton season, fifteen or twenty teams
hauling cotton, sometimes five or six, maybe eight bales on a wagon. You
see, them steamboats used to run all up and down that river. I think
this cotton went out to market at New Orleans and went right out into
the Gulf.
"Our house was a log cabin with a log chimney da'bbed with mud. The
cabin was covered with grass for a roof. The fireplace was the kind of
stove we had. Mother cooked in Dutch ovens. Our main meal was corn bread
and milk and grits with milk. That was a little bit coarser than meal.
The way we used to cook it and the best flavored is to cook it
out-of-doors in a Dutch oven. We called 'em corn dodgers. Now ash cakes,
you have your dough pretty stiff and smooth off a place in the ashes and
lay it right on the ashes and cover it up with ashes and when it got
done, you could wipe every bit of the ashes off, and get you some butter
and put on it. M-m-m! I tell you, its fine! There is another way of
cookin' flour bread without a skillet or a stove, is to make up your
dough stiff and roll it out thin and cut it in strips and roll it on a
green stick and just hold it over the coals, and it sure makes good
bread. When one side cooks too fast, you can just turn it over, and have
your stick long enough to keep it from burnin' your hands. How come me
to learn this was: One time we were huntin' horse stock and there was
an outfit along and the pack mule that was packed with our provisions
and skillets and coffee pots and things--we never did carry much stuff,
not even no beddin'--the pack turned on the mule and we lost our skillet
and none of us knowed it at the time. All of us was cooks, but that old
Meskin that was along was the only one that knew how to cook bread that
way. Sometimes we would be out six weeks or two months on a general
round-up, workin' horse stock; the country would just be alive with
cattle, and horses too. We used to have lots of fun on those drives.
"I tell you, I didn't enjoy that 'court' at night. They got so tough on
us you couldn't spit in camp, couldn't use no cuss words--they would
sure 'put the leggin's on you' if you did!"
Uncle Ben hitched his chair, and with much chuckling, recalled the
"kangaroo court" the cowboys used to hold at night in camp. These
impromptu courts were often all the fun the cowboys had during the long
weeks of hunting stock in the open range country.
"Oh, it was all in fun. Just catch somebody so we could hold court! They
would have two or three as a jury. They would use me as sheriff and
appoint a judge. The prisoner was turned over to the judge and whatever
he said, it had to be carried out exactly. The penalty? Well,
sometimes--it was owing to the crime--but sometimes they would put it up
to about twenty licks with the leggin's. If they was any bendin' trees,
they would lay you across the log. They got tough, all right, but we
sure had fun. We had to salute the boss every mornin', and if we forgot
it...! They never forgot it that night; you'd sure get tried in court.
"We camped on the side of a creek one time, and we had a new man, a sort
of green fellow. This new man unsaddled his horse by the side of the
creek and he lay down there. He had on a big pair of spurs, and I was
watchin' him and studyin' up some kind of prank to play on 'im. So I
went and got me a string and tied one of his spurs to his saddle and
then I told the boss what I'd done and he had one of the fellows put a
saddle on and tie tin cups and pots on it and then they commenced
shootin' and yellin'. This man with the saddle on went pitchin' right
toward that fellow, and that man got up, scared to death, and started to
run. He run the length of the string and then fell down, but he didn't
take time to get up; he went runnin' on his all-fours as fur as he
could, till he drug the saddle to where it hung up. He woulda run right
into the creek, but the saddle held 'im back. We didn't hold kangaroo
court over that! Nobody knowed who did it. Of course, they all knowed,
but they didn't let on. But nobody ever got in a bad humor; it didn't do
no good.
"I've stood up of many a bad night, dozin'. It would be two weeks,
sometimes, before we got to lay down on our beds. I have stood up
between the wagon wheel and the bed (of the wagon) and dozed many a
night. Maybe one or two men would come in and doze an hour or two, but
if the cattle were restless and ready to run, we had to be ready right
now. Sho! Those stormy nights thunderin' and lightnin'! You could just
see the lightnin' all over the steers' horns and your horse's ears and
mane too. It would dangle all up and down his mane. It never interfered
with =you= a-tall. And you could see it around the steer's horns in the
herd, the lightnin' would dangle all over 'em. If the hands (cowboys) or
the relief could get to 'em before they got started to runnin', they
could handle 'em; but if they got started first, they would be pretty
hard to handle.
"The first ranch I worked on after I left McNelly was on the =Banqueta= on
the =Agua Dulce= Creek for the Miley boys, putting up a pasture fence. I
worked there about two months, diggin' post holes. From there to the
King Ranch for about four months, breaking horses. I kept travelin' east
till I got back to Wharton, where my mother was. She died there in
Wharton. I didn't stay with her very long. I went down to =Tres Palacios=
in Matagorda County. I did pasture work there, and cattle work. I worked
for Mr. Moore for twelve years. Then he moved to Stockdale and I worked
for him there eight years. From there, after I got through with Mr.
Moore, I went back to =Tres Palacios= and I worked there for first one man
and then another. I think we have been here at Uvalde for about
twenty-three years.
"I've been the luckiest man in the world to have gone through what I
have and not get hurt. I have never had but two horses to fall with me.
I could ride all day right now and never tire. You never hear me say,
'I'm tired, I'm sleepy, I'm hongry.' And out in camp you never see me
lay down when I come in to camp, or set down to eat, and if I =do=, I set
down on my foot. I always get my plate in my hand and eat standin' up,
or lean against the wagon, maybe.
"When Cap'n. McNelly taken sick and resigned, I traveled east and picked
up jobs of work on ranches. The first work after I left the Rio Grande
was on the =Banqueta=, and then I went to work on the King Ranch about
fifty miles southeast (?) of Brownsville. It wasn't fixed up in them
days like it is now. But the territory is like it was then. They worked
all Meskin hands. They were working about twenty-five or thirty Meskins
at the headquarters' ranch. And the main =caporal= was a Meskin. His wages
was top wages and he got twelve dollars a month. And the hands, if you
was a real good hand, you got seven or eight dollars a month, and they
would give you rations. They would furnish you all the meat you wanted
and furnish you corn, but you would have to grind it yourself for bread.
You know, like the Meskins make on a =metate=. You could have all the
home-made cheese you want, and milk. In them days, the Meskins didn't
have sense enough to make butter. I seen better times them days than I
am seein' now. We just had a home livin'. You could go out any time and
kill you anything you wanted--turkeys, hogs, javalinas, deer, 'coons,
'possums, quail.
"I'll tell you about a Meskin ranch I worked on. It was a big lake. It
covered, I reckin, fifty acres, and these little Meskin huts just
surrounded that big lake. And fish! My goodness, you could just go down
there and throw your hook in without a bait and catch a fish. That was
what you call the =Laguna de Chacona=. That was out from Brownsville
about thirty-five miles. That ranch was owned by the old Meskin named
Chacon, where the lake got its name.
"It seems funny the way they handled milk calves--you know, the
men-folks didn't milk cows, they wouldn't even fool with 'em. They would
have a great big corral and maybe they would have fifteen or twenty cows
and they would be four or five families go there to milk. Every calf
would have a rawhide strap around his neck about six foot long. Now,
instead of them makin' a calf pen--of evenin's the girls would go down
there and I used to go help 'em--they would pull the calf up to the
fence and stick the strap through a crack and pull the calf's head down
nearly to the ground where he couldn't suck. Of course, the old cow
would hang around right close to the calf as she could git. When they
let the calf suck, they'd leave 'im tied down so he couldn't suck in the
night. They always kep' the cows up at night and they'd leave the calves
in the pen with 'em, but tied down. But buildin' just what you call a
calf pen, they'd set posts in the ground just like these stock pens at
the railroad and lay the poles between 'em. Then again, they would dig a
trench and set mesquite poles so thick and deep, why, you couldn't push
it down!
"Now, in dry times, they would have a =banvolete= (ban-bo-la-te). Hand me
two of them sticks, mama. Now, you see, like here would be the well and
you cut a long stick as long as you could get it, with a fork up here in
this here pole, and have this here stick in the fork of the pole. They'd
bolt the cross piece down in the fork of the pole that was put in the
ground right by the well, and have it so it would work up and down.
They'd be a weight tied on the end of the other pole and they could sure
draw water in a hurry. I made one out here on the Anderson Ranch. Just
as fast as you could let your bucket down, then jerk it up, you had the
water up. The well had cross pieces of poles laid around it and cut to
fit together.
"Now, about the other way we had to draw water. We had a big well, only
it was fenced around to keep cattle from gettin' in there. The reason
they had to do that, they had a big wheel with footpieces, like steps,
to tread, and you would have the wheel over the well and they had about
fifteen or twenty rawhide buckets fastened to a rope (that the wheel
pulled it went around), and when they went down, they would go down in
front of you. You had to sit down right behind the wheel, and you would
push with your feet and pull with your hands, and the buckets came up
behind you and as they went up, they would empty and go back down. They
had some way of fixin' the rawhide. I think they toasted it, or scorched
the hide to keep it hard so the water wouldn't soak it up and get it
soft. That was on that place, the Chacona Lakes. That old Meskin was a
native of the Rio Grande and run cattle and horses. In them days, you
could buy an acre of land for fifty cents, river front, all the land you
wanted. Now that land in that valley, you couldn't buy it for a hundred
dollars an acre.
"Did I tell you about diggin' that pit right in the fence of our corn
patch to catch javalines? The way we done, why, we just dug a big pit
right on the inside of the field, right against the fence, and whenever
they would go through that hole to go in the corn patch, they would drop
off in that hole. I think we caught nine, little and big, at one
trappin' once. It was already an old trompin' place where they come in
and out, and we had put the pit there. But after you use it, they won't
come in there again.
"You see, I tell you about them brush fences. The deer had certain
places to go to that fence to jump it, and after we found the regular
jumpin' place, we would cut three sticks--pretty good size, about like
your wrist, about three foot long--and peel 'em and scorch 'em in the
fire and sharpen the ends right good and we would go to set our traps.
We would put these three sharp sticks right about where the forefeet of
the deer would hit. You'd just set the sticks about four inches from
where his forefeet would hit the ground, and you'd set the sticks
leanin' towards the brush fence, and they would be one in the center and
two on the side and about two inches apart. When he jumped, you would
sure get 'im right about the point of the brisket. He'd hardly ever
miss 'em, and you'd find 'im right there. Oh, sometimes he'd pull up a
stick and run a piece with it, but he didn't run very far.
"I been listenin' to the radio about Cap'n McNelly and I tell you it
didn't sound right to me. In what way? Why, they never was no cattle on
the steamboats down the Rio Grande. I just tell you they was no way of
shippin' cattle on a steamboat. They couldn't get 'em down the hatch and
they couldn't keep 'em on deck and they wasn't no wharf to load 'em,
either. I was there and I seen them boats too long and I =know= they never
shipped no cattle on them steamboats. After they crossed the Rio Grand
into Mexico, they might have been shipped from some port down there, but
all them cattle they crossed was =swum= across. They was big boats, but
they wasn't no stock boats. They shipped lots of cotton on them
steamboats, but they wasn't fixed to ship no cattle. They was up there
for freight and passengers. The passengers was going on down the Gulf,
maybe to New Orleans. They would get on at Brownsville. The steamboats
couldn't go very fur up the river only in high water, but they could
come up to Brownsville all the time.
"I was in the Ranger service for about a year with Captain McNelly, or
until he died. I was his guide. I was living thirty-five miles above
Brownsville. I was working for a man right there on the place by the
name of John Cunningham. It was called Bare Stone. You see, hit was a
ranch there. McNelly was stationed there after the government troops
moved off. They had 'em (the troops) there for a while, but they never
did do no good, never did make a raid on nothin'. I was twenty or
twenty-one. How come me to get in with McNelly, they had a big meadow
there, a big 'permuda' (Bermuda) grass meadow. Me and another fellow
used to go in there, and John Cunningham furnished Cap'n McNelly hay for
his horses. That's how come me to get in with 'im. Fin'ly, he found out
I knew all about that country and sometimes he would come over there and
get me to map off a road, though they wasn't but one main road right
there. So, one day I was over in the camp with 'im and I say, 'Cap'n,
how would you like to give me a job to work with you?' He said, 'I'd
like to have you all right, but you couldn't come here on state pay, and
under =no responsibility=.' I told 'im that was all right. I knew how I
was going to get my money, 'cause I gambled. Sometimes I would have a
hundred or a hundred, twenty-five dollars. Durin' the month I would win
from the soljers dealin' monte or playin' seven-up. They wasn't no craps
in them days. We played luck too; we never had no shenanigans,
a-stealin' a man's money. If you had a good streak o' luck, you made
good; if you didn't, you was out o' luck. Sometimes, I had up as high as
twenty-five or thirty dollars.
"One thing about the cap'n, he'd tell his men--well, we had a sutler's
shop right across from our camp, all kinds of good drinks--and he would
tell his men he didn't care how much they drank but he didn't want any
of 'em fighting'. He kep' 'em under good control.
"You see, they was all dependin' on me for guidin'. There was no way
for them cow rustlers or bandits to get to the cow ranches after they
crossed the river (Rio Grande) excep' to cross that road for there was
no other way for 'em to get out there. You see, there was where it would
be easy for me, pickin' up a trail. I would just follow that road on if
I had a certain distance to go, and if I didn't find no trail I would
come back and report, and if I would find a trail he would ask me how
many they was and where they was goin', and I would tell 'im which way,
'cause I didn't know exactly where they was goin' to round-up. He would
always give 'em about two or three days to make the round-up from the
time that trail crossed. And we always went to meet 'em, or catch 'em at
the river. We got into two or three real bad combats.
"The worst one was on Palo Alto Prairie, one of Santa Anna's battle
grounds. About twelve or fifteen miles east of old Brownsville. They was
sixteen of the bandits and they was fifteen of 'em killed--all Meskins
excep' one white man. One Meskin escaped. The cap'n just put 'em all up
together in a pile and sent a message to Brownsville to the authorities
and told 'em where they was at and what shape they was in. They must
have had two hundred or two hundred and twenty-five head (of cattle)
with 'em. It was open country and they would get anybody's cattle. They
just got 'em off the range.
"They mostly would cross that road at night, and by me gettin' out early
next mornin' and findin' that trail, I could tell pretty much how old it
was. I reckon that place wasn't over thirteen miles from Brownsville and
our camp was thirty-five miles, I guess it must have been twenty-five
miles from our camp to where we had that battle. We sure went there to
get 'em. I trailed them horses and I knowed from the direction they was
takin' that they was goin' to those big lakes called Santa Lalla. They
was between Point Isabel and Brownsville and that made us about a
forty-five mile ride to get to that crossin', to a place called Bagdad,
right on the waters of the Rio Grande.
"We got our lunch at Brownsville and started out to go to this crossin'.
I knowed right about where this crossin' was and I says to the cap'n,
'Don't you reckon I better go and see if they was any sign?' We stayed
there about three hours and didn't hear a thing. And then the cap'n
said, 'Boys, we better eat our lunch'. While we was eatin', we heard
somebody holler, and he said, 'Boys, there they are.' And he said to me,
'Ben, you want to stay with the horses or be in the fun?' And I said, 'I
don't care.' So he said, 'You better stay with the horses; you ain't
paid to kill Meskins! I went out to where the horses were. The rangers
were afoot in the brush. It was about an hour from the time we heard the
fellow holler before the cattle got there. When the rangers placed
themselves on the side of the road, the Meskins didn't know what they
was goin' to get into!
"The Meskins was all singin' at the top of their voices and they was
comin' on in. The cap'n waited till they went to crossin' the herd, he
waited till these rustlers all got into the river behind the cattle, and
then the cap'n opened fire on the bandits. They didn't have no possible
show. They was in the water, and he just floated 'em down the river.
They was one man got away. I saw 'im later, and he told me about it. The
way he got away, he says he was a good swimmer and he just fell off his
horse in the water and the swift water took 'im down and he just kep'
his nose out of the water and got away that way. They was fo'teen in
that bunch, I know.
"The echo of the shootin' turned the cattle back to the American side.
The lead cattle was just gettin' ready to hit the other side of the
river when the shootin' taken place and the echo of the shootin' turned
'em and they come back across. Now, in swimmin' a bunch of cattle, if
you pop your whip, you are just as liable to turn 'em back, or if you
holler the echo might turn 'em back. It'll do that nearly every time.
"After the fight, the cap'n says to the boys, 'Well, boys, the fun is
all over now, I guess we'd better start back to camp.' And they all
mounted their horses and begun singin':
"O, bury me not on the lone prairie-e-e
Where the wild coyotes will howl o'er me-e-e,
Right where all the Meskins ought to be-e-e!"
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