by John Rossel
February, 1936
(Vol. 5, No. 1), pages 3 to 14
Transcribed by Elizabeth Lawrence; digitized with permission of
the Kansas State Historical Society.
NOTE: The numbers in brackets are links to footnotes for this
text.
THE
Chisholm trail is one of the most important but least known
trails in American history. Its story has never been
completely told, which accounts, to a large degree, for the
many misconceptions which are held concerning it.
At the annual meeting of the Old-Time Trail Drivers'
Association in San Antonio there ensues a perennial dispute
both as to the origin of the Chisholm trail and its
location. At present they seem to be no nearer the solution
than at the beginning. In their monumental work entitled,
The Trail Drivers of Texas (1925 edition), written
by the trail drivers themselves, we find on page 289 one
explanation, while on page 950 we find an emphatic denial of
this, with quite another explanation set forth in no
uncertain terms.
Modern scholarship has as yet neglected to deal with the
subject in a thorough manner. Thus most that is known
concerning the Chisholm trail is from the stories of the
trail drivers, whose memories are no doubt dimmed by time,
and from various accounts dealing with the cattle industry
which treat it only in an indirect manner.
The object of this monograph is to make a critical analysis
of available source material concerning the origin and
location of the Chisholm trail. It will emphasize material
brought out by maps of the period located in the Library of
Congress, and bring to light the hitherto unpublished
accounts of James R. Mead, an associate of Jesse Chisholm in
the early-day trading business. Brief comment concerning the
volume of trade that passed over the trail and its end will
be in the conclusion.
When the Civil War drew to a close the plains of Texas were
swarming with cattle for which there was no ready market.
Herds of cattle were offered for sale upon the range at one
to two dollars per head without finding a buyer. So critical
did the situation become that Joseph G. McCoy, prominent
cattleman of the time, was led to remark, "--there dawned a
time in Texas that a man's poverty was estimated by the
number of cattle he possessed." [1]
But the situation in the North was quite different. A good
animal which would bring only a few dollars in Texas would
sell for as much as ten times that amount in the North.
[2]
Prior to the Civil War there had been attempts to drive
Texas cattle to market, but never on a very large
scale.
After the Civil War, towns in southwestern Missouri and
southeastern Kansas were the destinations of these early
drives. It was not, however, until the railroads began to
move westward that the movement was to reach its height. The
North was demanding the meat which already existed in Texas.
The big problem was to find a connecting link, and in this
fact we see the beginnings of the Chisholm trail.
Joseph G. McCoy, a cattle buyer of Illinois, heard of the
conditions in Texas and determined to see what he could do
to remedy them. He came to Abilene in 1867, which was, as he
describes it, ". . . a small dead place, consisting of about
a dozen log huts, low, small rude affairs, four fifths of
which were covered with dirt for roofing," and determined to
establish a cattle terminal there.
The Kansas Pacific Railway had already extended its lines to
this place, and McCoy decided that if the proper shipping
facilities were set up it would be a comparatively easy
matter for the Texas ranchers to drive their cattle overland
to market. [3]
He bought 480 acres of land at five dollars an acre, and
soon began the construction of shipping-yards, corrals
capable of holding 3,000 wild Texas steers, along with
chutes, scales, barns, and other equipment.
[4]
In the short space of two months, from July 1, 1867, to
September 1 of the same year, he and his helpers had
everything in readiness. [5]
But as yet there was no connecting link between Texas and
Kansas.
We shall leave the cattle business for the moment and
consider the details of the origin and location of the
Chisholm trail.
In considering such a problem it is necessary to make use of
the many maps which made their appearance before the Civil
War. Jefferson Davis, who was appointed Secretary of War in
March, 1853, became interested in the extension of railroads
to the West, and he had numerous surveys made of the
territory in the Mississippi valley and westward. The
results of these surveys are carefully preserved by maps in
the possession of the Library of Congress. One of the
earliest surveys of this territory was made by a Capt. R. B.
Marcy, between the years 1849-1852. [6]
The results were published soon after. He shows in detail
the many trails in the West, but the ones we are
particularly interested in are those located in the Indian
territory, later Oklahoma. He clearly indicates trails
originating south of the Wichita mountains, and extending
north on both sides. After passing the mountains, they join,
swing out into the central part of the Indian territory and
extend about half-way. If the trail had extended in the same
general direction, it would have entered the Kansas
territory at about where Caldwell is now located.
Two very significant facts are noted in this map. First,
that the trail indicated by Captain Marcy followed very
closely the natural topography of the land, indicating that
Indians had early learned the easiest way to traverse the
territory, and second, that the trail followed substantially
the same path as the later Chisholm trail. Captain Marcy is
very careful to note the natural topography. Mountains,
rivers and crossings are traced in great detail. The trail,
he indicates, simply followed the easiest course through the
territory.
From this map we conclude that there were probably many
trails traversing the Southwest, originated by the Indians
at an early date. Being familiar with the land, they would
naturally pick the easiest way through. Later when the white
man appeared, he simply made use of the existing trails.
Joseph Stroud, who made many trips over the Chisholm trail,
suggests further that many of these trails followed the old
routes of the buffalo migrations, from the spring grazing
grounds in the North to the winter grounds in the South.
[7]
In 1858 another map was made at the instigation of Jefferson
Davis. [8]
This shows several military trails which assume great
importance in the solution of our problem. One is especially
significant. Prior to 1858 a Major Merril had left Fort
Belknap, Tex., and moved northward, east of the Wichita
mountains. At the mountains he swerved eastward into the
central part of the Indian territory and headed towards
central Kansas. A comparison of this map with the previous
one mentioned clearly indicates that this military trail
followed closely the course of the earlier Indian trail
noted by Captain Marcy.
In 1861 federal troops located in the Indian territory were
ordered to Fort Leavenworth for mobilization. The federal
garrison at Fort Smith, Ark., left its post, and joining
with the troops of Fort Washita, the combined garrisons
under the command of Col. William H. Emory marched up the
valley of the Washita river. Continuing farther, the troops
from Fort Arbuckle and later Fort Cobb joined with them, and
they all set out for Fort Leavenworth. [9]
In doing so they traversed much of the same territory of the
Indian trails as indicated by Captain Marcy, and the
military trail of Captain Merril. The principal difference
is that they went farther north, through the territory near
present Wichita, and thence to Fort Leavenworth.
From these facts we arrive at the following conclusions:
First, that at an early date Indians had marked out the
easiest paths over the territory, following the natural
topography of the land; second, that military leaders under
their guidance had followed substantially the same paths;
and third, that these were later used by Jesse Chisholm in
laying out his trail.
In the spring of 1864 the affiliated bands comprising the
Wichita Indians, about 1,500 in number, began their trek
northward. Their ultimate destination was the mouth of the
Little Arkansas river, the site of present Wichita, where
they made their village. With them was Jesse Chisholm, a
half-breed Cherokee Indian, who established a trading post
there in the same year. [10]
He was quite familiar with this territory as he had guided a
party from Arkansas in search of buried treasure to the
mouth of the Little Arkansas in 1836, and had made many
subsequent trips. [11]
After Jesse Chisholm had established his trading post at the
mouth of the Little Arkansas he immediately began to make
plans to trade with the Indian territory. In the spring of
1865, when it was apparent that the war was drawing to a
close, Chisholm invited James R. Mead to join him in a
trading venture. Mead accepted the invitation. Together they
loaded their wagons, crossed the Arkansas, and slowly drove
to the crossing of the North Canadian. There a short side
trip was made to Chisholm's trading post at Council Grove,
just west of the site of present Oklahoma City, which had
been abandoned at the outbreak of the Civil War.
[12]
In the summer of 1865 Chisholm collected a herd of 3,000
head of cattle which grazed over the site of present West
Wichita, and in the fall drove them to the Sac and Fox
agency, and thence to fill government contracts in New
Mexico. In December, 1865, Chisholm, purchasing goods from
James R. Mead, loaded a number of teams, and in January,
1866, started across the Indian territory to his former
trading post on the North Fork of the Canadian river and
points south. In April, 1866, he returned over the same
route, bringing with him teams loaded with furs and robes
and 250 head of cattle. [13]
This trail over which Chisholm traveled included present
Wichita, Clearwater, Caldwell, Pond Creek, Jefferson,
Skeleton ranch (near Enid) , Bison (formerly Buffalo
Springs) , Kingfisher, mouth of Turkey creek, Cheyenne
agency (Darlington) , Wichita agency (Anadarko), and Fort
Sill. [14]
The historical student today, taking a map and drawing a
line along these towns, will note that the trail laid out by
Chisholm followed very closely the Indian trails as noted by
Captain Marcy, 1853, and the military trails of Captain
Merril and Captain Emory as they made their way through the
Indian territory. We conclude that Jesse Chisholm simply
followed the best paths over the territory, paths that had
been used many years earlier by the Indians and by military
authorities. This does not in any way detract from the honor
due Chisholm. He knew the land well, and guided the traders
over the best possible routes to the North.
The trail immediately became known as "Chisholm's trail"
(1865) but not "The Chisholm Trail." It did not receive the
latter appellation until after it was extensively used by
the cattlemen. [15]
The reader should note that Chisholm did not layout a trail
for the cattle trade. He laid out a trail for his own
private business which was later used by the cattlemen.
However, it was the cattle trade which made it famous.
In 1867 William Mathewson, the original "Buffalo Bill," went
down over this trail taking two boys he had rescued from the
Comanches to the commandant at Fort Arbuckle. There he met
Colonel Dougherty of Texas on his way north over the new
trail, and guided him as far as the North Canadian. This is
the first herd of Texas cattle known to have passed over the
Chisholm trail. [16]
On December 5, 1867, William Griflinstein crossed the
Arkansas river with a wagon train and went on down the
trail. He was followed a little later by Mead, with teams
loaded with goods for Jesse Chisholm, who was trading with
the Indians at his post on the North Fork of the Canadian
river. [17]
According to James R. Mead, "Mr. Chisholm's teams and my own
were the first which ever passed over that route and marked
out what afterward became known as the Chisholm trail."
[18]
Before returning to the cattle business at the close of the
Civil War, it is interesting to note the present route of
the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway. It passes
through Wichita, Caldwell, Pond Creek, Enid, Kingfisher, El
Reno, Chickasha, Waurika, and Fort Worth. The Chisholm trail
went through Wichita, Caldwell, Pond Creek, Enid,
Kingfisher, El Reno, and then branched off to Anadarko and
Fort Sill. The railroad engineers recognized that the
Chisholm trail was the best possible route through the
territory because it followed the natural topography of the
land. Thus the similarity of the routes.
As noted before, Joseph G. McCoy had completed his yards at
Abilene September 1, 1867. Before he finished his structures
he started a man toward southern Kansas and the Indian
territory to round up every drover possible and bring him to
Abilene. This agent started at Junction City, then went in a
southwesterly direction toward the mouth of the Little
Arkansas, now Wichita, and then into the Indian territory.
[19]
The first herd of cattle to arrive in Abilene was driven
from Texas by a Mr. Thompson. He sold them to some dealers
in the Indian territory, by the names of Smith, McCord, and
Candler, who in turn drove them to Abilene. Another herd
owned by Wheeler, Wilson, and Hicks, all from California,
and en route to the Pacific coast, was located about thirty
miles from Abilene. The owners of the cattle were finally
persuaded to dispose of them at Abilene, and this little
town was on the road to big business. [20]
A total of 35,000 head of Texas cattle were rounded up and
disposed of at Abilene in 1867. The first shipment was made
September 5, and consisted of a twenty-car train, en route
to Chicago. [21]
The cattle shipped from Abilene this first year were rounded
up from various places. But it is significant to note that
some of the drovers began to use the newly laid-out Chisholm
trading trail.
McCoy was just getting started. During the winter of 1867
and 1868 circulars were sent to every Texas cow man whose
address could be secured. These circulars told of the
advantages of Abilene as a shipping terminal, and invited
all the Texas drovers to bring their cattle to this city.
Then, in the further interests of his trade, McCoy sent two
men to Texas to advertise Abilene and to make personal
contact with as many ranchers as possible. At the same time
he was running full-page advertisements in many of the
Northern newspapers, urging buyers to come to Abilene to buy
their stock. Over five thousand dollars was spent in
advertising in these newspapers. [22]
But the climax to McCoy's advertising schemes came when he
hired some Spanish cowboys to rope wild buffalo, load them
in a reinforced boxcar, and ship them to Chicago. On the
sides of the cars were huge circulars advertising Abilene
and urging cattlemen to come there to buy their cattle.
[23]
Since the Chisholm trading trail reached only to Wichita,
McCoy hired a civil engineer by the name of T. F. Hersey,
with a group of flagmen and workers, to extend the trail to
Abilene. They took along spades and threw up mounds of dirt,
thus completing the trail to its northern terminal. This
task accomplished, McCoy placed a workman, W. W. Suggs, at
the mouth of the Little Arkansas to direct the herds over
the new trail, so that they would be sure to come to Abilene
and not to some other point. [24]
Thus we see the Chisholm trading trail being extended in
length, and being used more continuously by the cattlemen.
Evidence of McCoy's success is shown by the fact that in
1868 75,000 cattle arrived in Abilene for shipment,
[25]
and that in 1869 150,000 were driven there.
[26]
These figures correspond quite closely with those given in
the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Animal
Husbandry for the total number driven to market during
these years, and they establish the importance of Abilene as
a cattle terminal. [27]
According to McCoy there was no place in the west five times
as large as Abilene that was doing one half the business.
Her cattle business amounted to more than three million
dollars annually, aside from an immense trade in camp
supplies. [28]
It should be clearly understood that McCoy had very little
to do with the origin of the Chisholm trail. His great
contribution was to establish a terminal at Abilene, and
then by successful advertising to cause the Texas rancher
and Northern buyer to meet there. The connecting link was
the trail laid out by Chisholm earlier for his own trading
ventures.
Now let us consider the completion of the trail to the
south. At this time, 1867, there were a multitude of cattle
trails in Texas. A map issued by the Kansas Pacific Railway
in 1874, and now in possession of the Kansas State
Historical Society, Topeka, shows a large network of trails,
embracing the entire state of Texas, resembling somewhat a
huge fan. However, nearly all crossed the Red river at a
place known as Red River station, near the present town of
Terral. From there the trail followed a course almost due
north, crossing the Washita river near the present town of
Alex, the South Canadian near Tuttle, and the North Canadian
just west of Yukon. From the North Canadian it inclined
slightly westward and joined the Chisholm trading trail at
the crossing of the Cimarron between Kingfisher and Dover.
Inasmuch as the cattle trail from Texas and the Chisholm
trail were thus joined together in the Indian territory, the
name Chisholm trail soon came to be applied popularly, if
not accurately, to the trail throughout its entire length
from its beginning in Texas to Abilene.
[29]
Now let us consider the disputes concerning both the origin
of the trail and its location. Reviewing briefly the
material which we have already covered there can be little
doubt that the Chisholm trail received its name from Jesse
Chisholm, the half-breed Indian trader, who laid out a trail
between his trading post at the mouth of the Little
Arkansas, now Wichita, to the Indian territory. We have
already seen how the cattlemen later made use of this trail
and extended it northward to Abilene, and southward to
Texas.
But some of the pioneer cattlemen insist that the Chisholm
trail received its name from John Chisum (sometimes
incorrectly spelled Chisholm), a large cattle owner of New
Mexico. [30]
This Chisum was a frontier stockman who was said to have
been one of the first to drive cattle over the trail. He
formerly lived at Paris, Tex., and had many thousand head of
cattle on the ranges in the southern part of the state.
[31]
He was the owner of the famous Jingle Bob outfit, and in
1867 he drove his herds into New Mexico from Texas, up the
Pecos river, and located ranches near the present town of
Roswell, N. Mex. It is said he did not know himself how many
cattle he possessed, but a conservative estimate puts the
total at over 75,000. Chisum trailed many cattle to Arizona
and to various points in New Mexico to fill army and Indian
agency beef contracts.
Charles Goodnight, who was the partner of John Chisum for
several years says, "In conversation with me, he (John
Chisum) said that one Chisholm, in no way related to him,
did pilot 600 steers from the Texas frontier to old Fort
Cobb, and he presumed that this was the origin of the name
of the Chisholm trail." [32]
And Goodnight adds, "I positively know that no trail north
was laid out by John Chisum." [33]
This should clarify the issue as to whether the Chisholm
trail received its name from Jesse Chisholm or John Chisum.
[34]
Turning our attention to the location of the Chisholm trail,
we have what on the surface appears to be a complicated
situation, but actually it is relatively simple.
The existence of any point as a cow town must of necessity
have been brief. As the settlers came in, they found their
interests in direct conflict with those of the cattlemen.
And it was the cattlemen who had to give way. Thus we see
the cattle trails of the prairies shifting westward before
the vanguard of civilization. The northern end of the
Chisholm trail was located first at Abilene. Then it shifted
to Newton, Wichita, and Caldwell in rapid succession. But
finally population became so dense in the central part of
Kansas that a branch trail was laid out, leaving the
Chisholm trail near Elm Spring, Indian territory, going
northwest into western Kansas and ending in Dodge City.
[35]
This explains the conflict as to the location of the
Chisholm trail. As W. P. Anderson, railroad agent at Abilene
during its heyday as a cow town, comments, "Nominally every
man that came up the trail felt as though he had traversed
the old Chisholm trail. Each westward movement of the cattle
industry necessitated a new trail, yet so strong was the
force of habit, each in succession continued to be known as
the Chisholm trail." [36]
Separating myth and fantasy from historical fact, the issue
is clear. In 1865, Jesse Chisholm, the half-breed Indian
trader, established a trail from Wichita to Indian
territory. At the close of the Civil War it became necessary
to find a market for the Texas cattle. The Kansas Pacific
Railway had extended its lines westward to Abilene. Joseph
G. McCoy, recognizing the possibility of driving cattle to
market, established shipping facilities there, and by a
series of advertising activities, succeeded in persuading
the cattlemen to drive their cattle there. His contribution
to the Chisholm trail was its extension north from Wichita
to Abilene. Texas cattlemen extended the trail from Indian
territory to Texas.
As population increased it became necessary to find a new
shipping terminal. This caused the laying out of a branch
trail, leaving the Chisholm trail at Elm Spring, Indian
territory, and ending at Dodge City. But this was not the
Chisholm trail. Desire for historical importance, or any
other reason, cannot alter the fact that the Chisholm trail
extended from Indian territory to Wichita, and thence north
to Abilene. Although the trail drivers may have believed and
are now willing to argue that they were traveling over the
Chisholm trail, when traversing the western route, this
cannot change historical fact.
Dodge City became the last and probably the most famous of
all the pioneer cattle towns. Abilene had held the center of
the trade from 1867 to 1870; Newton, 1871; Wichita, 1872;
Ellsworth and Caldwell, 1873; and then Dodge City to the
close of the long drive.
Robert M. Wright, pioneer cattle dealer of Dodge City,
insists that ". . . there were more cattle driven to Dodge
any and every year that Dodge held it, than to any other
town, and for about ten years, Dodge City was the greatest
cattle market in the world." [37]
But even Dodge City was beginning to be affected by the
advance of civilization. Harry Norman of the New York
World, passing through Dodge City in 1925, says,
"Gone are the buffalo, the longhorn steers, the badmen, from
this once rip-roaring town, the center of a vast region of
which it was once said, that 'all they raised was cattle and
hell.' " [38]
With the passing of the range cattle industry necessarily
came the passing of the Chisholm trail. This trail was
followed continuously for more than twenty years, and since
it has been estimated that between five and six million head
of cattle were driven north from Texas, we can see the
volume of business that passed over it.
[39]
Probably no greater or more vivid description has ever been
given of the Chisholm trail than that of Charles Moreau
Harger, writing in 1892:
The wealth of an empire passed over the trail, leaving
its mark for decades to come. The traveler of today sees
the wide trough-like course, with ridges being washed
down by the rains, and with fences and farms of the
settlers and the more civilized redmen intercepting its
track and forgets the wild and arduous life of which it
was the exponent. [40]
In the New York Times for December 7, 1930, we find
the future of this historic old highway:
Progress has been made in marking out the trail, and
Oklahoma and Kansas have joined in. Thus we see the gradual
wearing away of the Chisholm trail, ". . . that legendary
highway acclaimed in song and story as most celebrated of
the Old West's premier cowland."
1. Joseph G. McCoy, Sketches of the Early Cattle Trade
(Kansas City, 1874), p. 261.
2. Monthly reports of the Department of Agriculture,
1867, pp. 168, 169.
3. McCoy, Sketches of the Early Cattle Trade, p.
44.
4. Joseph G. McCoy, "Historic and Biographic Sketch,"
Kansas Magazine, December, 1909.
5. McCoy, Sketches of the Early Cattle Trade, p.
50.
6. Capt. R. B. Marcy, "Map of Western Trails," Division of
Maps, Library of Congress.
7. Joseph Stroud, Memories of Western Trails. p. 9,
Library of Congress.
8. War Department "Survey Map, 1858," Division of Maps,
Library of Congress.
9. James R. Mead, "The Chisholm Trail," Wichita Eagle,
March 1, 1890; letter to author from George Rainey,
pioneer of Oklahoma, now a resident of Enid; Joseph G.
Thoburn. "The Chisholm Trail," Rock Island Magazine,
v. XIX (December, 1924), p. 4.
10. Jesse Chisholm was born in Tennessee, 1806. His father
was of Scottish extraction, and his mother was a woman of
the Cherokee Indian tribe. He settled among the Western
Cherokees in Arkansas territory about 1825. Jesse Chisholm
accompanied the Leavenworth-Dodge expedition to the country
of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita tribes, near Red river,
and was one of the interpreters in the great peace council
at the Wichita village.
11. Mead, "The Little Arkansas," Kansas Historical
Collections, v. X (1907-1908), p. 9.
13. James R. Mead, "The Chisholm Trail," Wichita Eagle,
March 1, 1890.
14. Andreas, History of Kansas, p. 1385.
16. Mead, "The Chisholm Trail," Wichita Eagle,
March 1, 1890.
18. James R. Mead, "Reminiscences of Frontier Life" (1898),
p. 75, manuscript in possession of the Kansas State
Historical Society, Topeka.
19. McCoy, Sketches of the Early Cattle Trade, p.
50.
27. Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Animal
Husbandry (1885), p. 300.
28. McCoy, Sketches of the Early Cattle Trade. p.
204.
30. John Simpson Chisum was born in Hardeman coumty,
Tennessee. His father's name had been Chisholm and the
altered spelling is said to date from the time of the battle
of New Orleans. Claiborne Chisum, with his family, moved to
Texas in 1837.
31. Charles Moreau Harger, "Cattle Trails of the Prairies,"
Scribner's Magazine. v. XI (June, 1892), p. 734.
32. Charles Goodnight, "More About the Chisholm Trail," in
Trail Drivers of Texas. pp.950-952.
34. The reader should call to mind that the Chisholm trail
received its name approximately two years before cattle were
driven north to Abilene.
36. Letter from W. P. Anderson to Luther A. Lawhon,
secretary of the Trail Drivers Association, quoted in
Trail Drivers of Texas, p. 14.
37. Robert M. Wright, Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital
(Wichita, 1913), p. 260.
38. Harry Norman in the New York World, quoted in
The Literary Digest, August 22, 1925, p. 46.
39. Second Annual Report of Bureau of Animal Husbandry
(1885), p. 300.
40. Harger, op. cit., p. 734. The accurate
historical scholar would probably question Mr. Harger's
statement that the trail was a "beaten path." This would be
true only where the topography of the country necessitated a
limited trail. In order to feed the vast herds. the drovers
naturally had to spread out over the prairie wherever
possible. However, this does not detract from the merit of
Mr. Harger's description.
41. Carl L. Cannon, "The Chisholm Trail Lives Again," in the
New York Times, December 7. 1930.
From two hundred to four hundred yards wide, beaten
into the bare earth, it reached over hill and through
valley for over six hundred miles, a chocolate band amid
the green prairies, uniting the North and the South. As
the marching hoofs wore it down and the wind blew and the
waters washed the earth away it became lower than the
surrounding territory, and was flanked by little banks of
sand, drifted there by the wind. Bleaching skulls and
skeletons of weary brutes who had perished on the journey
gleamed along its borders, and here and there was a low
mound showing where some cowboy had literally "died with
his boots on." Occasionally a dilapidated wagon frame
told of a break down, and spotting the emerald reaches on
either side were the barren circle-like
"bedding-grounds," each a record that a great herd had
there spent a night.
The famous cattle trail from Texas to Kansas, celebrated
in the galloping measures of the songs crooned by all
cowboys a generation ago and now broadcast to the far
corners of the land--has recently acquired belated but
official recognition from the Lone Star state. For the
state highway commission has authorized the Chisholm
Trail Association to name two highways and mark them at
historical spots with long-horned steer heads. By this
action the most important of the south to north trails,
linking parts of the Far West before the coming of the
railroads, takes its place with the Santa Fé and
Oregon in the nation's history. [41]
He became a trader among the
many Indian tribes of the plains. At the outbreak of the war
he was prevailed upon to aid the Confederate authorities in
the negotiation of treaties of alliance wlth various tribes
in the Indian territory, but in the latter part of 1861, he
was numbered among the loyalist refugees who followed
Opothleyahola northward to an asylum.
Soon tiring of life in the
refugee camps, he drifted westward to the mouth of the
Little Arkansas river, where the Wichita and affiliated
tribes, also refugees from the Indian territory, were
located, and settled temporarily. There he started in his
trading activities again. In order to contact the territory
to the south, he laid out the trail which bore his name.
However, it did not assume any great importance until the
cattle industry started using it.
He was reported to have a
speaking knowledge of fourteen Indian languages. He died at
his trading camp in what is now Blaine county, Okla., March
4, 1868.
In 1854 John Chisum started
in the cattle business in Lamar county, but three years
later moved to Denton county, where he remained until 1863.
In that year he drove a herd, estimated at 10,000 head, into
Concho county, where he engaged in business with a number of
other men on shares. In the late fall of 1866 he drove a
herd up the Pecos to Bosque Grande, about thirty miles north
of Roswell, N. Mex., and in the following spring disposed of
it to the government contractors for the Navajo and
Mescalero Apache reservations.
He then formed a connection
with Charles Goodnight by which for three years he continued
to drive cattle from Texas to Bosque Grande. His herds
multiplied and estimates of the number of cattle owned by
him vary from 60,000 to 100,000. It seems certain that he
was the largest owner in the United States, and may well
have held the same title for the world.
He died at Eureka Springs,
Ark., leaving an estate valued at $500,000. For many years
he had been known as "the cattle king of America."
--Dictionary of American Biography, v. IV, p. 77.
