The Clifton Record (Clifton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, June 23, 2006 Page: 108 of 110
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THE CLIFTON RECORD — BOSQUE COUNTY, U.S.A.
FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2006
Bosque County’s Own John A. Lomax, ‘Ballad Hunter,’
Caught The Essence Of Life On The Chisholm Trail
By Joe Marchman
CHISHOLM TRAIL HISTORIAN
MERIDIAN — John A. Lomax eulo-
gized himself — his epitaph: “Ballad
Hunter."
The proof of his life chronicled the lore
of America’s most romantic era.
The Lomax Collection of
“folksy” literature and song
stand alone as the water-
mark in the area of folklore
and legend.
Affectionately,
John A. Lomax will
forever be
knighted as the
“Balladeer of the
Bosque here in
Central Texas,”
a confederate to ^
the nostalgia of a
childhood which
is preserved in
memory like a de- * £
lightful dream. The <C. r
marvelous discover-
ies of his youth served
him well. To be a child in a garden of the
Bosque is to understand.
Imagine, if you will, a glistening spring
morning in Bosque County — the year,
1871 — the aura of a new day had be-
gun. The fresh fragrances of inspiration
filled the air.
On the big road north of Meridian trav-
eled many new settlers in covered wag-
ons, men on horseback, and vast herd
of longhorn cattle.
After the Civil War, longhorn cattle
were plentiful in Texas. The railhead at
Abilene, Kan., was a primary market.
The Chisholm TVail through the lush tall
grasses of Bosque County provided a
natural passage.
Alongside the famous beef cattle trail,
just north of Meridian, capital of the
Texas frontier, the Lomax family had
settled in 1869.
Ed Nichols recounts in his book Ed
Nichols Rode A Horse of seeing the
Lomax children walking to school to-
gether.
You can still see them even now, com-
ing down the road in the morning...two
by two ...Richard and the redheaded
Molly Lomax usually led ...sometimes,
their little brother ‘Johnnie’ came along
to spend the day. He was a pretty, fat little
fellow, four or five years old. I can see him
now as he ran along by their side ...some-
times holding his sister’s hand or some-
times holding to Richard’s.”
Ed Nichols de-
scribed Johnnie
as a little rascal,
full of mischief
Ed went on to
say, “It didn’t oc-
cur to me that
Johnnie would
make the most
collector in
folk
at night,
_ __1T_____ Lomax
would often be awakened by the cowboys
singing ballads to their cows, “bedded
down” near the Lomax home.
As a youngster, he was fascinated by
the “cowboy character” that passed his
way. The early Texas cowboy “diaried”
his life by making up and singing the in-
cidents of his day’s work.
To be able to sing was as important as
riding a horse in a cowboy’s life on the
Chisholm TYail.
As a youth, Lomax lived a mile north
of town on the Bosque River, next to the
famous Chisholm Trail. Lomax displayed
a considerable interest in ballads cow-
boys sang to their high-headed longhorns
as they moved north past his home, songs
that chronicled the events of cowboy life
on the romantic but rough frontier of Texas.
In 1910, Lomax published his first book,
Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Bal-
John A. Lomax
lads. In doing so, he committed to poster-
ity such captivating old-time favorites as
Home on the Range, Red River Valley, The
Strawberry Roan, The Old Chisholm
Trail, and many others.
Lomax became interested in the
cowboy’s plaintive tunes, and began to
collect them. When he set off for college,
at the bottom of his trunk, tied with a cot-
ton string, he included a small roll of these
cowboy ballads. Thus, his meager cowboy
songs, written out on scratch pads and
pieces of cardboard, were the beginnings
of a living American folk song collection
that was to gain for him the fame of uni-
versally being considered the foremost au-
thority on American folk culture.
At college, Lomax showed the “battered
manuscripts” to his English professor at
the University of Texas. He was in-
formed that these tall tales of Texas
were of little value when compared to
the “classic sagas” and tall tales of
Beowulf. That, in fact, frontier litera-
ture was tawdry, cheap, and unworthy
of his efforts.
It was not until he entered Harvard,
while working on his Masters degree
that he received the enthusiastic reas-
surances of Professors George Lyman
Kittridge and Barrett Wendell. At last,
armed with the support of his Harvard
English professors, he sent 1,000 letters
to newspapers in America’s south and
west seeking folk ballad material. The
response was overwhelming.
Now began the exciting, and often
precarious, career of this dauntless bal-
lad hunter. With an ancient Ediphone
strapped to his saddle, he travelled
from Texas to Wyoming, writing down
the songs of the cowboys around the
campfires, along the cattle trails, and
in frontier saloons.
Lomax received a Sheldon Fellowship
from Harvard. The fellowship was fol-
lowed by grants from the Guggenheim
Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation,
and the Library of Congress.
This financial encouragement ex-
panded his adventures into the dimly-
lit alleys of New Orleans’ Negro
section...into the dining halls of peniten-
tiaries filled with stripe-suited colored
inmates who sang wonderful spirituals,
and “sinful” work songs...into the fields
of cotton plantations, mining towns, and
the lumber camps of the northwest.
John Lomax searched America’s
nooks and crannies for new songs. He
believed that much of modem music is
based on themes heard in cowboy, Ne-
gro, and other folk ballads. He was in-
tense, and determined to leave no
source uncovered.
Times have changed, but the heritage
of life on the Texas frontier will always
have a sentimental place in our hearts.
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Smith, W. Leon. The Clifton Record (Clifton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, June 23, 2006, newspaper, June 23, 2006; Clifton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth790015/m1/108/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nellie Pederson Civic Library.