Yeah yeah I know I said I was going to cut the links to all the posts to my blog  except for the  Thankful Thursdays etc.  But after asking a few people their opinion, I have decided to leave them.  Plus when I check out the visitors on my stats page most are coming to view those very pages. Ones like Sunday Historathon – 1800′s, maybe I should continue it?, and create a Saddle series, and continue the Cowboy life.  I have a piece from someone I met on Twitter that I have not posted yet for the Cowboy Life series.  It’s a good one too.  There is a gal who may start posting her Thankful Thursdays on THE PONY EXPRESSION too.

I like how this blog reflects my life history both sad and happy, but also has interesting things outside of me for folks to read.

Lesson learned there are no final decisions.

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RODEO GALS

I thought that looking at women in rodeos during the 1800′s would be a fun research project.  What I discovered was that rodeos as we know them didn’t really exist until around the early 1900′s. Rodeo type events started springing up around the 1880′s or so and became popular thanks to showman like CB Irwin and the Irwin Brothers Wild West Show and Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show where women would perform along side of men.  Women performed daring tricks, bull dogged and rode saddle broncs. Some showed off their fancy fire arm tricks and marks”man”ship as well.  Prior to that small events would be held on ranches where the sponsoring ranch’s hands would pit their abilities against neighboring ranch hands for a day of de-stressing.  Many women participated in these ranch rodeos riding bulls, roping, bull dogging, racing etc.  It seems that up until the 1900′s women did pretty much everything that men did in the early ranch rodeo events.

Before we go too far into rodeos and women I like to share this bit of information about cowboys from Cowboy Way.

The Term “Cowboy”

Up until the late 1800′s, the term “cowboy” was a rotten thing to call someone. During the American Revolution a “cowboy” (or “cow boy” or “cow-boy”) was a Loyalist who stole Patriot cows, often luring the cows into the brush to shoot them. As the new country of America expanded to the west the word “cowboy,” with a growing list of negative connotations, went along with it.

According to authors Joseph G. Rosa and Robin May in their book “Buffalo Bill and His Wild West, A Pictorial Biography” it was Buffalo Bill Cody who rehabilitated the word in the minds of the American public. In Buffalo Bill’s famous Wild West shows a “cowboy” was a man of bravery and honesty, often cast in roles during daring reenactments of wild west adventures as that of a hero. Flamboyantly dressed and displaying extraordinary riding and marksmanship skills, the cowboys of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West soon etched a new, much more positive meaning of the word “cowboy” into the minds of Americans.

The truth about women’s participation in rodeos was neatly tweaked to depict women as gentile rather than rugged tough rough abouts smoking a corn cob pipe while sporting a lariat or mending a fence.  More women than you may expect were of the stronger, capable and competitive nature having emerged out of the 1800′s experience and this showed up in many ranch events across the west.  From Cowgirl Smarts I found this.

Historians would have you believe that women didn’t rope steers or ride broncs until the 1900s, when in fact many women were competing informally against neighbors in local ranch rodeos in the 1800s. Records indicate that by 1887 Buffalo Bill was adding women to his Wild West shows as fast as he could scout the female talent. It seems the public had an appetite for feminine women performing daring western stunts.

From the Wild West shows, dozens of talented cowgirls went into professional rodeo and were frequently allowed to compete against men. Cowgirls excelled at all rodeo events until the late 1940s, when women’s events were cut in order to increase the purse for men.

Next I visited the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and to my disappointment I found nearly all the Honoraries had actually “rodeod” in the early 1900′s  although many were born in the 1800′s. I’m supposing that since rodeo’s were not officially organized until around 1904-06  that historians begin their research there.  I find this very sad as the many women that came before forming the foundation to the rodeo event have been forgotten in time.  The Cowgirl Hall of Fame is still a fascinating place to visit.  Discovered there are women who taught school, managed boarding houses, wrote books and other interesting life’s work while as a pastime and for some to win purses waged themselves against a steer, or a saddle bronc or death defying tricks aboard lightening fast horses upon thundering hooves. What was not documented it seems was the early pioneer women who ranched, broke out stock, and participated along side men in the ranch rodeo events and festivities.
One woman, Ollie Osborn was born into ranch life, performed in Wild West Shows and later rode broncs in the early rodeos.  I found Ollie by going to a source that I met on Twitter.  Shirley Morris of  The Lone Cowgirl blog is writing a book called “Oh You Cowgirl!”  We ended up speaking on the phone and to my delight she is a wealth of information on cowgirl life during the early years. Here Shirley speaks some about her projects…

“My project is a book, about halfway completed at this point, “Oh, You Cowgirl!” and an hour long documentary by the same name. At the present time, I’m working on a shorter version about the cowgirls who were important to the early Pendleton Round Up. Mabel Strickland, Ollie Osborn, Bonnie McCarroll, Fox Hastings, Prairie Rose Henderson, Lorena Trickey just to name a few. The shorter version will be premiered at the Pendleton Hall of Fame to honor the cowgirls of Pendleton.”

Shirley sent the following information about Ollie Osborn.

Ollie Osborn
1896 – 1989

After she had long since retired from the fast-paced, wild life of a rodeo and wild west show cowgirl, Ollie Osborn was asked if she thought  she could have beat the men in the saddle bronc contests, given the opportunity to ride by the same rules and for the same prizes. Ollie said,

“Well, I’m not a gonna say to that. I mighta some and some I mighta not but I think I’d hold my own with the best of ‘em.”

Ollie Osborn was born a ranchers daughter, in Union, Oregon in 1896. It was as a child on the ranch, she learned the skills of riding, bulldogging and roping she would later use to perform and compete as the first woman ever to attain the status of professional rodeo cowgirl and compete in rodeo’s across the country. Ollie performed or competed in wild west shows and rodeo from 1913 through 1932. Like many of the women who made the adjustment of rancher to rodeo performer, Ollie rode slick, without tying her stirrups (hobbled). Retiring from that life she returned to her ranch home in Union, Or. where she ranched several more years until poor health forced her retirement.

In 1982 she was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Herford, TX and will be honored this year as one of six cowgirls in a permanent cowgirl display in the Hall of Fame at Pendleton, OR.

Shirley tells us that this photo of Ollie Osborn “was taken in 1913 when she was perfoming with Irwin Bros. Wild West and Frontier Days Show. Ollie was one of the star performers with the show along with Prairie Rose, Florence La Due, Lone Star May, Fox Hastings and the Irwin girls, Pauline, Joella and Francis.”

Look at her (Ollie)!!!  She’s a whisp of a thing!!

Thank you Shirley Morris for your contribution to today’s Sunday Historathon – 1800′s post.

And that folks concludes today’s Sunday Historathon – 1800′s “Rodeo Gals”.  Amazing Cowgirls!   YEEE HAW!

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Draft Horses and Oxen

I am amazed on how many visitors arrive here from searches made on 1800′s information. Women and saddles being among the top search tags.  Well today we broaden our 1800′s Historathon to include agriculture. I began today’s Sunday Historathon – 1800′s  looking for early farming methods in the Colorado area using horses.  I know they exist, however I was unable to satisfy what I was looking for so finally gave up that endeavor to broadening my search to the continental United States.  It appears from what I have read that horses really were not all that popular in the early 1800′s and that the majority of importations of draft breeds for farming came along in the mid to late 1800′s and into the early 1900′s as a transistion from oxen to horses emerged.   More on the introduction of draft breeds to the united states for the use of agriculture in the following links. Draft Horse Breeds, Iowa Pathways, and American Heartland. These site have some good basic information and I am certain that more detailed sites are out there some where regarding the practices used with these animals so I’ll have to dig a bit further later on. I did however find this photo. I had no idea that many horses would be used at one time!

This photo was found at Aigner Graphics with no credits or identifying information. I am thinking this photo was taken in the early 1900′s after the advent of agriculture machinery. 

Amazing!!  Could you imagine controlling that many horses?  The hours it must have taken just to hitch them all up? I would say from a horses trainers point of view that this team of horses had to be highly prized.  The training involved and conditioning involved to get a horse ready for work is astronomical with a two horse team.  Just boggles my mind!  This photo had me off looking for multi-teamed harnesses. I wanted to see one of these contraptions up close and personal and again my attempts were foiled.

Okay I was not getting very far with 1800′s agriculture and horses  and I kept running into notations that oxen were used in the 1700′s and early 1800′s. So I switched gears and off I went searching for oxen, coming across the photo below which I found at  Western Sierra Railroad.

Imagine what it takes to train Oxen and then what it might be like to command a team like this one.

 Then at Wikipedia.org I found this…

Oxen (singular ox) are large and heavyset breeds of Bos taurus cattle trained as draft animals. Often they are adult, castrated males. Usually an ox is over four years old due to the need for training and to allow it to grow to full size. Oxen are used for plowing, transport, hauling cargo, grain-grinding by trampling or by powering machines, irrigation by powering pumps, and wagon drawing. Oxen were commonly used to skid logs in forests, and sometimes still are, in low-impact select-cut logging. Oxen are most often used in teams of two, paired, for light work such as carting. In the past, teams might have been larger, with some teams exceeding twenty animals when used for logging.

An ox is nothing more than a mature bovine with an “education.” The education consists of the animal’s learning to respond appropriately to the teamster‘s (ox driver’s) signals. These signals are given by verbal commands or by noise (whip cracks) and many teamsters were known for their voices and language. In North America, the commands are (1) get up, (2) whoa, (3) back up, (4) gee (turn right) and (5) haw (turn left). Oxen must be painstakingly trained from a young age. Their teamster must provide as many as a dozen yokes of different sizes as the animals grow. A wooden yoke is fastened about the neck of each pair so that the force of draft is distributed across their shoulders. From calves, oxen are chosen with horns since the horns hold the yoke in place when the oxen lower their heads, back up, or slow down (particularly with a wheeled vehicle going downhill). Yoked oxen cannot slow a load like harnessed horses can; the load has to be controlled downhill by other means. The gait of the ox is often important to ox trainers, since the speed the animal walks should roughly match the gait of the ox driver who must work with it.

U.S. ox trainers favored larger breeds for their ability to do more work and for their intelligence. Because they are larger animals, the typical ox is the male of a breed, rather than the smaller female. Females are potentially more useful producing calves and milk.

Oxen can pull harder and longer than horses, particularly on obstinate or almost un-movable loads. This is one of the reasons that teams drag logs from forests long after horses had taken over most other draft uses in Europe and North America. Though not as fast as horses, they are less prone to injury because they are more sure-footed and do not try to jerk the load.

An “ox” is not a unique breed of bovine, nor have any “blue” oxen lived outside the folk tales surrounding Paul Bunyan, the mythical American logger. A possible exception and antecedent to this legend is the Belgian Blue breed which is known primarily for its unusual musculature and at times exhibits unusual white/blue, blue roan, or blue coloration. The unusual musculature of the breed is believed to be due to a natural mutation of the gene that codes for the protein Myostatin, which is responsible for normal muscle atrophy.

Many oxen are used worldwide, especially in developing countries.

Ox is also used for various cattle products, irrespective of age, sex or training of the beast – for example, ox-blood, ox-liver, ox-kidney, ox-heart, ox-hide.

It appears that oxen were the primary mode of agriculture during the early 1800′s and lost their popularity to horses about 1840 due to horses being able to farm larger plots of ground faster producing more yields for the growing dependency on American farmers. My curiosity though was not quite satisfied  I still had those harnesses on my mind and upon trying to see in the photo above the yokes that were used my curiosity moved to getting a better look at yokes and Wallah!!!  I found the mother load!

Check out this site: Conner Prairie Interactive Histpric Park  here you may participate in programs that include the Amazing Race Through Time and Historic Baseball…

 White River Base Ball Club & Mystery on the Prairie On Sat & Sun at 1pm, the farmers will challenge the hometown team at the Zimmerman farm for ”The Great Base Ball Match.” Come ready to participate, the farmers may be looking for players!

The Conner Prairie Interactive Historic Park  have other programs and opportunities including viewing historical documents as well as the wonderful agriculture implement’s like this oxen yoke you see below below.

This concludes today’s Sunday Historathon – 1800′s.  Enjoy the journey as you check out the links above to discovery where they may lead you.

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THE SADDLE

The last couple of saddle posts have generated some good questions, so I decided its time for me to produce my Sunday Historathon – 1800′s entry and Arizona Trail Ride research piece on Paisano’s saddle.  I had planned to post it Sunday, however, WordPress thought otherwise.  So it’s up now.  Go ahead and enjoy it.

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Oh I bet you guys thought I had forgotten all about the Sunday Historathon!  No-Sir-ee!  Last week  and the one before it got away form me is all. With company one weekend and moving Theory the next I had several things to get caught up on.  Besides I have been kind of obsessed with canteens and just was not finding any gems out there in cyberspace that were offering any meat to chase.  Well today changed all that.  Check out today’s Sunday Historathon – 1800′s entitled Canteens -1800′s. This entry is part of my Arizona Trail Ride collection at left under “Pages”.

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“In 1858 Maricopa Wells was a key relay station for the famous Butterfield Overland Mail Line, the longest mail line in the world.  Later it became even more important in the growth and development of the southwest when a mail route was established from Maricopa Wells into the Phoenix area.  Anyone traveling from the east to the west and all points north had to travel through Maricopa Wells during these years. This mecca in the desert continued to be one of the most important places in southern Arizona until 1879.”

A 16-mule freight team at Maricopa Wells ca.1870. Courtesy of Casa Grande Historical Society

The Above photo and excerpt were reprinted at   85239.com  from “Reflections of a Desert Town” Edition II, by Patricia Brock.   ”Reflections of  Desert Town” can be purchased at the Maricopa Library, Secondhand Pages Book Store, or the Maricopa Chamber of Commerce for $25 and 100% of proceeds will go to the future Maricopa History Room.

Well when I set out write today’s Sunday Historathon I intended to outline the early travel modes across the American southwest desert.  I was foiled in nearly every attempt to uncover exactly what I was looking for.  However the gems I did run across are quite interesting and fun to explore.

First I ran across this journal covering  The American Southwest – Footsteps of the Ancients Expedition, and found the exhaustive research available on this website fabulous reading.  Since much of the Arizona Trail runs through areas covered in this journal,  and the discussion within the journal are based on historic and archaeological studies, I thought it might help everyone get a better minds eye of the kind of country, and historic experience Arizona Trail ride will offer. 

Then off again I commenced looking for stage coach travel in the Southwest.  The best I could come up with was this website  The Overland Trail  about general stage coach collecting.  It does share a lot of interesting facts about many of the makes and models of stage coaches, their producers and collectors, that were in use during the 1800′s and early 1900′s.  While still engrossed in stage coaches I found this encyclopedia’s account which led me to… 

 Jesse James…   who is again appropriate since one of our Spanish Mustang favorite foundation stallions was the famous Jesse James.  Arizona did have its share of stage coaches which led to its share of stage coach robbers which led to…   more interesting outlaw goings ons where stage coach and other misfortunates are concerned here at  Legends of America.  I’ve been lost on this site all day.  I am amazed at how many outlaws Arizona had in the 1800′s.  You never really hear about them less the OK Corral crowd in Tombstone. But this state had its share of bad guys.

So forcing myself back on track I switched from stage coaches to chuck wagons and found this interesting webpage  Chuck Wagon Central can be found on this website,  Lone Hand Western.  Some great history, good chuck viddles, music, and a chuck wagon registry can be found here.

Photo Courtesy of  Ghost Cowboy.com

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I was visiting with a friend today about the fur trade era, rendezvous, Native American living accouterments, and the like.  During our conversation the following links were shared with me, Smoke & Fire, and Crazy Crow.  Included was a website that sent me on a journey into the 1800′s period women. The website,  Women of The Fur Trade.  introduces you to an organization of women who reenact the life of  women fur traders and the early mountain women as authentically as possible. I began researching for photographs or early artwork of women who lived the mountain woman lifestyle and came upon none so far.  But it did lead me to early marks-women like Calamity Jane and I thought it appropriate to share what I found, as Paisano’s granddam was named after Calamity Jane. I found the photos and information below on the WOA TV wesbite.

CALAMITY JANE

Photo credit Woa TV -Photofest

“Although Calamity Jane (1856–1903) has been mythologized as a rough-and-tumble shooter during the days of the Wild West, historians have revealed that she was an illiterate, hard-drinking, tobacco-chewing “entertainer” who, in twenty-first-century style, became famous for being famous. And her name? It would seem that Martha Jane Canary was dubbed “Calamity” either from rescuing someone during an Indian attack or for her nursing efforts during a deadly epidemic.”

MARTHA MAXWELL

“Considered the founder of modern taxidermy, the 4-foot-11-inch Maxwell (1831–1881) was a dedicated outdoorswoman, hunter and naturalist. She considered hunting to be a skill that blended perfectly with her love for the outdoors and passion for nature. Maxwell was the first to arrange her taxidermy specimens in groupings that resembled their natural habitats, rather than lining them up. Today, many history museums use her method of display. Her discovery that the Rocky Mountain screech owl was a distinct species led to its being named after her.”

ANNIE OAKLEY

Annie Oakley Foundation – WOA TV

Woa TV Article about Annie Oakley

I think studying the women of the 1800′s is essential to my 1800′s period project with Paisano. Women were tough, below is another account of pioneering women of the times.

“The Chrisman sisters are shown outside their Nebraska sod house in 1886. Lizzie Chrisman filed the first of the sisters’ homestead claims in 1887. Lutie Chrisman filed the following year. The other two sisters, Jennie Ruth and Hattie, had to wait until they came of age to file, in 1892. They are among the thousands of homesteaders who moved west in the late 1800s and set up housekeeping with the only natural resource the Great Plains had in abundance: sod. (AP file / Courtesy of the Nebraska State Historical Society)”  From the Denver Post.

Enjoy the journey down 1800′s Women lane. It’s a fancinating one.

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Today’s Historathon about 1800′s style saddle blankets is part of my Arizona Trails page collection and can be found here.
Enjoy!

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Today I ran across a very interesting saddle tree while looking for 1800′s horse life.  Visit this site to learn more.

Saddle from the Plains; late 1800s
Wood, sinew, rawhide, brass buttons, buckskin, steel, leather, deer antlers
31 cm (H) x 43.5 cm (L) x 27 cm (W)
Glenbow Museum Collection, Calgary, Canada
AF 5127

I question the horn. If the horn was designed for holding cattle, what use did the Blackfoot put it to?  One thing becomes clear you can strap anything onto a tree and end up with a saddle.  The idea that a saddle has to have layers of leather on it is a very new one and more for esthetics’s than for service.  Having visited with a number of folks who have ridden either McClellan or minimalist saddles, I am finding that if the tree is made correctly and the fit for horse and rider is there very little leather is needed for comfort.

Here is a Frederick Remington version of the Vaquero Hope style saddle.  What really stands out to me is where the stirrups are placed.  Remington must  have been very astute as the vaqueros feet are directly under where the slots would be in the tree which  were placed specifically to place the rider over the center of gravity.  I guess what I am getting at is balanced riding is not new to western riding styles.  We forget sometimes that western riding does not necessarily mean sitting on a horse in the chair seat manner.

Even this cowhand from the PK Ranch Rodeo 1900′s is balanced directly over the horses center of gravity.  Go to Trails End State Historic Site for some fascinating reading and a journey into the way of life around the Kendrick Family.

And then I thought I would add this early 1800′s – 1900′s drawing of a Mexican rider in a western style or vaquero saddle also riding in a balanced seat.  I love the horse! 

This is it for today’s Sunday’s Historathon – 1800′s.

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Okay its Monday… So I’m a day behind.  Yet I fee compelled to get this historathon on its way.  From here on out every Sunday look for a new photo and new information referencing horse life in the 1800′s

We begin this fun pictorial journey through the 1800′s as seen by horseman and horses.  My purpose for this weekly Sunday post is to share some of the research I am doing on the era in regards to riding Paisano in authentic 1800′s equipment.  In preparation for the Arizona Trail ride and for other equine exhibitions I thought it would be fun to hold a Sunday Historathon.  If others choose to pick up the idea and run with their own Sunday Historathon on any era or subject, that would be fun to follow as well.  I got this idea from our Thankful Thursdays, this blog “Old Photo of the Day“  where the author holds Saturday Mystery Photos contest and readers guess who are in them, and Macro Monday, check out Simrat’s entries here.

So here is my first Sunday Historathon – 1800′s entry:

Set of 8 pamphlets written by Professor Jesse Beery These were mail order books designed to help teach folks how to train their own horses and were actually self published in 1908.  By that time Professor Beery was a well established horse trainer who gathered his information from having lived and trained horses through the  1800′s period.

Prof. Jesse Beery was a probably the most famous horse trainer of his time. He used very interesting equipment, techniques, and theory to accomplish his goals with horses he trained.  I use to have this set of books and like a dummy I sold them.  Bad idea.  The books cover everything from horse temperaments and conformation to stopping run-a-way horses, from trick training to performance training. You may find the information within these books here at Horse Training Book.com.

A little on Professor Jesse Beery can be found here at Miami County, Ohio  Geneological Society.

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