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His
Birthday
His Wedding Date
His sisters
Civil War broke out
Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard
"I will pay
you"
Hauled supplies
Married Mrs. Borroum
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Back to Karnes County Index
Note: This article was sent to me by Archie B. Ammons.
It was shared with him by Dawn Collins 41 Pineridge Rd, Santa Cruz CA 95660 408-426-6069.
Thanks to Archie & Dawn.
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For many years it has seemed to
me that someone should write down the deeds of this great man. Someone
who knew him personally and was associated with him. I have waited
for a more gifted writer than I, and one who possibly knew him better, to undertake
the task. I have waited until all who knew him personally, nearly all have
passed on and the ones left probably don’t feel equal to the problem.
Neither do I, but I am going to make a feeble effort, feeling that it is going to be a miserable failure.
I was a small boy ~ just eleven years old ~
when he died, but I can remember him quite well.
I can well
remember sitting on his lap, from my earliest remembrance until I was too big to sit on laps.
And after that, he would call me to him and put his arm
around me, and make me stand beside his chair until I got tired of standing.
He loved children and it seemed that I was his special pet.
He moved onto his river-bottom farm
below the mouth of the Hondo creek (later known as the Charlie Tate
Farm) when I was too young to remember, and he would come down everyday to see
how things were going. At first he rode a small dun pony, with a black
mane and tail and a stripe down his back, but soon got too feeble to mount a horse
easily and had to change to a buggy. He drove two ponies to this
buggy, but this arrangement wasn’t altogether satisfactory, as the ponies were not
gentle and would not stand still long enough for him to get in
and get seated. One time they started up while he was standing between the
wheels trying to get in, and knocked him down with the rear axle, and
bruised him pretty badly. However, the main disadvantage of the buggy was
that it took too much room to turn it around in the turning row.
He
discarded it and bought a two wheeled gig. This proved to be unsatisfactory also,
as it was too high and as hard to mount as a horse. The pony that he
worked to it was not gentle either and ran away with him one day and turned the gig over
and dragged Mr. Choate a long way. This bruised him up worse
than the other accident and kept him in bed several days. This just about ended
his daily visits to the farm by himself. After this he would get
somebody to take him in the buggy. However he wasn’t able to do this very long
as his strength was failing and it exhausted him too much.
It wasn’t
necessary for him to go every day, as things were going alright, but he did so love to get
out and stir around. He had always been an active outdoor
man and spent very little time in the house, and now things had reversed. It displeased
him very much, but there was nothing he could do about it.
On his daily visits to the farm, he would always
come to our house about midmorning or mid-afternoon and
my mother would always have a fresh pot of coffee made for him. We missed this a
great deal when he got too feeble to come every day. The farm was
nearly two miles from the ranch house and there were two gates to open. I will give a
partial description of the ranch headquarters a little later on,
as best as I remember it.
The record says that James Monroe Choate was born in
Tennessee on April 22, 1822, and was married to
Miss Elizabeth Adkinson on June 2, 1844.
Their first son John Henry was born August 28, 1847 in Mississippi.
Somewhere along the line they moved from
Tennessee to Mississippi, but it is not known whether it was before or after his marriage.
His son Dunk was born February 17, 1851 In Leon County,
Texas. The next date recorded was his move to Karnes County, Texas in 1855, and this is
where he spent the rest of his life.
I do not know how many of his relatives came with him,
but I do know of four brothers-in-law, and know
two of them, Mr. Booth and Mr. Collins, personally. I understand that the wives were
Mr. Choate’s sisters.
I don’t think any of Mr. Choate's
relatives came to Karnes County. The other two brothers-in-law were Mr. Trimble and Jack Scraggins. Judge Lawton's wife was a relative, but only a
cousin, I think. There were other Choates In this county and some of them, Moses and
Crockett were brothers to Monroe , I think. There were others
who were no relation of his.
When Mr. Choate arrived In Karnes County,
he filed on a tract of land lying about midway along the
course of Hondo Greek. He dug a well and built a house and began to raise and traffic in
livestock. He and Mr. Trimble and Mr. Borroum, a neighbor.
There was not much market for livestock any where near, but they sold hides and tallow and
shipped by boat from Powder Horn.
They would load up wagons and haul down there
and bring back supplies for themselves and the neighbors.
His first house was of logs, but he got lumber here to improve it.
Mr. Choate's livestock business grew and
multiplied rapidly, and so did his family, but his boys didn’t
grow and develop fast enough to keep up with his business, so he had to hire outside
help. In just a few years he was operating on a pretty big
scale. Here is where he launched out on a career as a benefactor of the Southwest.
When the Civil War broke
out, every able-bodied man was
called into the service. This left the country in a mighty bad shape. Women
and small children left to rustle for themselves as best they
could. Indians and Mexicans deprecating through the country, stealing, pilfering and terrorizing
the people and no men to defend them. Mexicans
from across the Rio Grande, in great numbers, sweeping through the country driving off all the
horses and cattle that they could round up, and no men
folk to resist them. This left the country devastated, and this is where Mr. Choate proved
himself to be a real benefactor. Several times
he gathered up old men and small boys and gave chase and recovered lots of stolen stock.
This kept up all during the war and for several years
afterwards. The stockmen complained to
Mexico through diplomatic channels. But Mexico insisted that the thieves were not from Mexico,
but were Texas Mexicans and they were therefore
not responsible for their deeds. Finally the ranchers got the proof on them that they needed,
and the Mexican government asked that the ranchers
file claims against the Mexican government. This they did and it was batted around between
the two governments until the spring of 1873, when a
commission of representatives of the two governments was appointed to meet In Helena to check
and verify these claims. This commission was
composed of high ranking army officers of both sides. And the Mexicans agreed to pay all
claims filed prior to 1872 with interest. These
claims totaled several hundred thousands of dollars, and to date about half these claims have been
paid in full. The others are pending proof of
heir ship of claimants. Mr. Choate helped many to get their claims filed, and his testimony
against the Mexicans was effective as he had chased
many bunches trying to get away with stock.
During the war, Mr. Choate gathered cattle and drove
them East to supply the Confederate armless.
In 1862 he and Mr. Borroum drove two herds of beeves east of the Mississippi River and delivered
them to the army, dealing directly with Gen. P. G. T.
Beauregard, whose headquarters were in New Orleans. These herds were either bought
outright by Messrs. Choate and Borroum or were composed of
steers sent along by neighbors, usually widows with children and women whose husbands were in the
army, who agreed to take whatever Mr. Choate could
get for them. Most of the time, this is what was done as money was scarce and besides
"whose money was legal tender?" Mr.
Choate took several herds each year during the war and delivered these to the Confederates,
but the last herd was delivered to the Yankees, or rather
they took it and Mr. Choate and his men were lucky to get out alive.
After the war was over, there was no market for
beef cattle and the range soon got over stocked, even
with the Mexicans driving them off. But it wasn’t so easy now for them, as some of the
men returned from the war and others began to drift in,
getting away from the "sassy negroes" in the East. Some of course had
other reasons for coming West. Texas had the cattle, but
no market; the North and the East had the market but no cattle. Then the big drives
began. Mr. Choate again proved himself the benefactor of the
Southwest. He had the equipment, the experience and the confidence of the people.
In those days, having the equipment to move a herd very
far was no small item. Each outfit had to have a fully equipped chuck-wagon, complete with
team, harness, cooking utensils, sheet and bows,
chuck-box and other necessary things and a good supply of food. Besides he had to have a
sufficient supply of saddle horses for his hands, usually
about 10 men. Some of the experienced trail-hands liked to furnish their own mounts.
They didn’t like to have to take the kinks out of
"a ladino's back" every morning. Their own horses were well broken and gentle.
Each hand needed about six horses, and for ten
men, this would be sixty horses, no small item itself.
Mr. Choate had gained the confidence of his neighbors by
being fair and honest with them, and this
established for him an almost unlimited credit with business firms and individuals from the Rio Grande to
the ends of the cattle trails in all
directions. He could got anything he wanted anywhere along the trail. All that was necessary
was for him to say was "I will pay
you" and that was good as cash.
In the spring, before the round-up, he would got a pretty
good idea of how many herd he was going to
send up, and would begin to got things ready. If he needed new harness and camp supplies, he
would go to Cuero and get them. He would get
just about all the things that he needed, while there, for the entire trip for all the outfits. This was a
lot of groceries. Think of feeding
100 men for several months! Of course, sometimes he wouldn’t be able to get everything he
needed for his outfits and would have to get those
along the way. This method of his buying in such large quantities won him the nickname of "
Sack Choate." He always called for
everything by the sack full. This name distinguished him from Moses Choate, who bought
everything by the dollar, and was called "Dollar
Choate."
Here again Mr. Choate proved himself benefactor.
He usually sent three or four wagons at a time,
about once a month, to Cuero and about two or three times a year he would send several wagons to
Powder Horn and Indianola for things he couldn’t
get in Cuero. The neighbors were always notified so they could send along their lists and he usually
hauled back more stuff for the neighbors
than he did for himself. Sometimes these neighbors wouldn’t have the money to send along and Mr.
Choate would buy it with his money and they
would pay him back either with money or work. He employed lots of men at times and this provided
likelihood for many families. He always
had a pretty big bunch of cowhands at the ranch house, just stragglers who had no families. These he
had to board and bed. The bed was usually
any place he could find to spread the blanket, inside or outside the house.
This brings up an amusing incident that happened along the way
somewhere. The Choates always kept
a big bunch of hounds around, and they raised most of them. There were always several puppies of
various ages and sizes and they were playful and
mischievous and dragged off everything that wasn’t tied down. The hands that lived there were always
complaining about the puppies carrying
off their boots, hats, trousers, or anything else left lying around. Bob Barefield, a neighbor, spent the
night there and got up the next
morning and was dressing when Mr. Choate noticed he didn’t have any socks, and asked him where they were.
Bob said that he didn’t own any.
Mr. Choate said "Bob, you are the damnedest fool I ever saw. Why didn’t you get up raising hell
about the puppies carrying off your socks
and the boys would have given you a pair?" At that time several of the boys were engaged in looking
around the puppies playhouse for
various articles carried off by them during the night.
Soon after the war, Mr. Borroum died, and shortly before or after Mrs.
Choate died. And Mr. Choate and
Mrs. Borroum married. To this union was born one son and they named him Charlie.
To shorten the story a little bit I will state that Mr.
and Mrs. Choate lived together some fifteen or twenty years and separated. She went back to her
people at her old home in Sweet Home in Lavaca
County. This separation took place before I can remember, but I remember her very well nevertheless.
She came back on a visit and stayed
several days and nights at our house. This was about four years before Mr. Choate died.
One thing I remember about her so clearly, was
that she couldn’t drink coffee, and at breakfast she would have a cup of hot water with a little sugar in it.
I thought this the most peculiar
beverage I ever saw anyone drink.
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