The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959 Page: 342
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342
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
they charge in Ill. There are three dentists here, none of them got
enough instruments to do any thing with and 3 or 4 silversmiths with
two or three screw drivers etc-none of them know anything about it.
I will watch Newton and tell you all about it. We go back by the
way of Baxter Springs & will start about Wens-.11 I must close
good bye I will write soon & If you want to write direct to Baxter
Springs Kans, & have Billy tell the boys to do same, I could have
traded my watch for a pony to day but I dont need it
Good Bye
HOD
Tell Wag & Sib that they have pet buffaloes & Antelope and deer
& Jack rabbits here and be good children cause I say so12
Good Bye
FT GIBSON
INDIAN TY Nov 25 [1871]
DEAR MA
Arrived here today a week out from Baxter Spr & we will have to
wait a day for the steamer to take us across the Ark, there are so
many wagons ahead of us that we have to wait for our turn, so I
thought I would improve my time & drop a line or so. We have for
the last week we have been passing through a beautiful, country
even where the grass is brown and trees are bare though I do not
think the soil is as good as Ills. People say that in a year or so that
this country will be sectionized and then is when I want to buy land,13
11The "Johnson boys" and their hands were taking the Texas Road or East
Shawnee Trail. The Texas Road followed the Neosho River from near its head-
waters to the vicinity of Baxter Springs, Kansas, then proceeded along the Grand
River to a ferry crossing of the Arkansas River at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory.
From there the trail led to a ferry on the Red River, near Sherman, Texas, and
then on to central and southern Texas. In his first letter from Texas, five months
later, Horace mentions that Will Denman wrote a letter home from Anderson
County, possibly on the trip south.
For the various routes and trails, see map in Gard, The Chisholm Trail, 77; also,
Grant Foreman, A History of Oklahoma (Norman, 1942), 178-179, and the map
opposite 370; and Everett Dick, "The Long Drive," Collections of the Kansas State
Historical Society, XVII (1926-1928), 69-70.
Around Baxter Springs there was fine pasture land. This town became quite
active in bidding for cattle in 1870o and "quickly took on the aspects of a boom
town," though most of the big herds "were pointed up the Chisholm Trail toward
Abilene."-Gard, The Chisholm Trail, 142.
12Sib was Horace's sister, Sylvia, who later, as Mrs. Sylvia Hall Perry, became a
concert singer.
13Foreman, A History of Oklahoma, 183, tells of the belief that Indian Territory
would be opened for white settlement and describes early white encroachments
upon Indian lands. Rumors of the opening of the lands for settlement were appar-
ently deliberately spread by the railroad.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959, periodical, 1959; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101173/m1/407/?rotate=90: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.