| The Story of Buster Zachry Many pioneers have left a great legacy in the stories of their lives they have told to their families and friends. It is even better when, by hook or crook, some of these stories are recorded and shared. I had the privilege of listening to Buster Zachry several years ago as he and I sat at the table after lunch at the Petrolia Senior Citizens Center with a little tape recorder going. The following is an abridged account of some of his stories. The full script is in our book, "It Used to Be That Way: Remembered Bits of Clay County History," available at the museum. - Lucille Glasgow "Im Buster Zachry - thats a nickname. My real name is H.C. Zachry - Henry Clement Zachry. I was born March 26, 1906, in Henrietta but we lived over at Benvanue. My parents were H. C. and Dora Lea (Frey) Zachry. "My mothers people - Grandpa Frey - came when he was a boy in about 1872 from Louisiana. He ran away from home and came with a wagon train when he was a boy. The wagon train came through Cambridge on the way west. He got out of it - said this was as far as he was going to come. He went to work for old man Whaley, who grew oats, hauled them to Ft. Sill and sold them to the army." "We lived in Petrolia for a time, where I started to school in 1912. During this time my sister Willie Faye taught school in Petrolia and out southwest at Kempner (just east of the Broday Ranch). "Theres an old rock house out there, still there, where an old bachelor lived. He sold a bunch of steers and had $200,000. Someone robbed him and killed him there by the fireplace. They never did know who did it. Lots of money hunters went there later. Therere big holes around that house. The bachelor had been in the war - Spanish American, I guess - anyway, a way back. He was an old man when he was killed. My grandpa always told to our family that a fellow that lived near where the Lone Star Plant is now went over there and killed him and robbed him. I dont know how he knew it or anything. He never would call any names. "In 1915 my dad and Grandpa went together and bought 2 sections of land up by Happy, Texas, out on the Plains. My dad and another fellow drove a bunch of horses up there. It was all grass land - not much plowed up. They thought it was good ranching country; it had good mesquite grass on it but the winters were too cold. You had to feed the stock all year long. You could ride over a four-wire fence out there in the winter time when the snow drifted up over the fences. "My dad kept the land several years after he moved away from it - got $37.50 an acre that he gave $7.00 for. Made a little money that way. Happy is about 20 miles from Canyon toward Lubbock. After we left there, they found irrigation water and the land is now in irrigated farming. "When we came back, Grandpa bought a place this side of Henrietta on Turkey Creek called the Yellow House Place. We lived there for 2 years before we moved to Petrolia. I believe Katherine, my youngest sister, and Claud and Carl went to Willow Springs School. They drove a mule to a buggy. Elsie was going to school in Henrietta, where she later finished. She stayed in Henrietta with Grandpa and Grandma Frey. "Grandpa and Grandma raised and educated 6 of their grand kids. "They came out on the Plains to visit us one summer. They had a Buick car and let the tops down, had a big seat in the back. They just loaded those kids in and went on that route to Amarillo by way of Claude. Grandpa and Grandma use to stay all night at the Goodnight Ranch with Colonel Goodnight. "When we came off the Plains and moved back down here, we had 2 train carloads of stuff - one of furniture and farm implements and I think Mama had some chickens and geese in there too, and one carload of horses. You are allowed one person to ride with the stock in the boxcar - in the caboose you called it - thats where you rode. Papa was going to pass me - I was going to ride in the furniture car and he in the caboose. Papa fixed me a good place to lie. When I got in it, I got my head bumped because it was right up in the top of the boxcar. "We drove the horses up to the stock pens and loaded them into the boxcars. It was evening when we loaded and I got in there and hid. We got into Amarillo in the night and it was real cold weather, a few days before Christmas. They switched us around there until daylight. We started out on down toward Childress there on the railroad the next morning. "I didnt know it, but a brakie crawled in there when they were running and found me. When I woke up he was shining a light in my face. He wanted to know if was the only one in there and I told him, yeah! He never said any more to me. "When the train pulled aside down at Childress to let a passenger train go by, Papa came up to where I was and told me to get out, that they had caught me. The brakie that had caught me wanted Papa to pay him to let me go on. Papa told him no and told me to go on down to the depot and get a ticket and ride the passenger train. So thats what I did. "I had another experience on the railroad after we came back from the Plains. We lived north of Henrietta on the yellow house place and I had cowboyed with Bud Frey a lot when I was a boy. He and his wife Mamie had a ranch down at Big Lake out by San Angelo. I went out there and worked through the summer. The fall of the year came and Bud wanted to buy some cattle from a woman out there who had a bunch to sell - about 30 miles you had to drive them to town. He wanted us to bring them back here to the yellow house place - 3 carloads of them. "We loaded up out there; I went out with my saddle and horse and drove these cattle about 40 miles. I was just one of the bunch helping. We loaded them at Big Lake on a car to ship them out. Mamie was going on back to the house and I told her to bring my suitcase, that I was going home. "I got on that train and went into San Angelo that night. The next morning I had to get off somewhere to get breakfast. I got with this old brakie. Wed walk cars - the train running at the time. We walked the tops of the cars to the engine. You see, you rode in the caboose and if youd got off there, youd never catch the train again or youd have to walk a long way. They had a caf in the railroad yard. We ate breakfast and got back on the train. I went on in to Quanah, I believe it was, or Chillicothe, to get this Ft. Worth and Denver Railroad. It was in the night. The depots were plumb across town from each other even if the town wasnt very big. They were about one- half to a mile apart. I had to carry my suitcase and go afoot across from one depot to another to catch the train. They switched my cattle on to the other railroad. "When I got over to the Ft. Worth and Denver Railroad, the train was pulling out and had up pretty good speed. I was on the side of the railroad when the caboose came by. I threw my suitcase in and grabbed the hand rail on the side. When I got in I was mad, I guess, because I didnt like the way they had done me. Anyway I said something about it to that brakie and he said, Oh, youre mad-it was about midnight - get up here and unroll my bed roll and go to sleep. "I got to Wichita Falls up there on 7th Street, where you cross all those railroads. I got off and the old brakie said, Just stand right here between tracks. The trainll be in in just a few minutes. "I was standing there and these trains got to running, one one way and one the other way. I could have touched them with my arms. I couldnt stand up because I was getting dizzy - I always was a dizzy headed fellow. I had to sit down there by my suitcase. Of course, that leveled me up and we got into Henrietta that coming morning. I had had one meal from the time I left San Angelo on Friday until Monday morning. What you were supposed to do was get a lunch or carry some fruit or something. If it had not been for that brakie carrying me up to that caf, I wouldnt have had any. "We didnt change lines in Wichita but they kept wanting me to sign a release to unload the cattle in Wichita. They had to unload the cattle ever so often for feed and water. I wouldnt let them unload the cattle in Wichita since it was only 18 miles to Henrietta. There would have been a big bill for feed, water and time. I was about 16 or 17 at that time. "I had another experience on the railroad after we came back from the Plains. We lived north of Henrietta on the yellow house place and I had cowboyed with Bud Frey a lot when I was a boy. He and his wife Mamie had a ranch down at Big Lake out by San Angelo. I went out there and worked through the summer. The fall of the year came and Bud wanted to buy some cattle from a woman out there who had a bunch to sell - about 30 miles you had to drive them to town. He wanted us to bring them back here to the yellow house place - 3 carloads of them. "We loaded up out there; I went out with my saddle and horse and drove these cattle about 40 miles. I was just one of the bunch helping. We loaded them at Big Lake on a car to ship them out. Mamie was going on back to the house and I told her to bring my suitcase, that I was going home. "I got on that train and went into San Angelo that night. The next morning I had to get off somewhere to get breakfast. I got with this old brakie. Wed walk cars - the train running at the time. We walked the tops of the cars to the engine. You see, you rode in the caboose and if youd got off there, youd never catch the train again or youd have to walk a long way. They had a caf in the railroad yard. We ate breakfast and got back on the train. I went on in to Quanah, I believe it was, or Chillicothe, to get this Ft. Worth and Denver Railroad. It was in the night. The depots were plumb across town from each other even if the town wasnt very big. They were about one- half to a mile apart. I had to carry my suitcase and go afoot across from one depot to another to catch the train. They switched my cattle on to the other railroad. "When I got over to the Ft. Worth and Denver Railroad, the train was pulling out and had up pretty good speed. I was on the side of the railroad when the caboose came by. I threw my suitcase in and grabbed the hand rail on the side. When I got in I was mad, I guess, because I didnt like the way they had done me. Anyway I said something about it to that brakie and he said, Oh, youre mad-it was about midnight - get up here and unroll my bed roll and go to sleep. "I got to Wichita Falls up there on 7th Street, where you cross all those railroads. I got off and the old brakie said, Just stand right here between tracks. The trainll be in in just a few minutes. "I was standing there and these trains got to running, one one way and one the other way. I could have touched them with my arms. I couldnt stand up because I was getting dizzy - I always was a dizzy headed fellow. I had to sit down there by my suitcase. Of course, that leveled me up and we got into Henrietta that coming morning. I had had one meal from the time I left San Angelo on Friday until Monday morning. What you were supposed to do was get a lunch or carry some fruit or something. If it had not been for that brakie carrying me up to that caf, I wouldnt have had any. "We didnt change lines in Wichita but they kept wanting me to sign a release to unload the cattle in Wichita. They had to unload the cattle ever so often for feed and water. I wouldnt let them unload the cattle in Wichita since it was only 18 miles to Henrietta. There would have been a big bill for feed, water and time. I was about 16 or 17 at that time. "One experience I had with a team was a close call. My brother and I were hauling some posts off that Stanfield place - about 1930, I guess. We were back over there and got some posts off the Mexicans and loaded the wagon down. We had to drive the wagon winding through the post oaks about a mile. The team got scared and got to running. I slid off the posts onto the ground but I still had the lines in my hands. I jumped off with my lines in my hand and ran alongside as long as I could keep up with them. I turned them loose and tried to jump back on the wagon and get hold with my arms. I missed the wagon - really the wagon beam, or the brake beam. I missed it and when I did my foot went down in there and when it did it threw me to the ground. The mules were running about as fast as they could and they were dragging me. They were running by those big old oak trees with me just barely missing them. They dragged me about 1/8 th of a mile. I kept twisting my body to get my foot loose. It finally did and then the wagon wheel ran over me. "Of course, Everett was trying to do something for me. I was hollering. The team came out where about 100 Mexicans were grubbing. They saw what was happening and all gathered around and stopped the mules. That was a pretty close call. This was at Stanfield. When they settled it up down there, my dad bought a place there in 1930. "Out on the Plains one time I helped a fellow drive 900 steers from Vigo Park to Happy. It was 12 miles down to our place and they strung out for 12 miles. It took 4 or 5 cowboys to handle that size herd. "One time when I was working for Bowman when we lived out where I live now (south of Petrolia), he bought 700 calves at Crowell, cut them off the cows up there, put them into boxcars and shipped them down here. They unloaded them at Dean and 15 cowboys drove them down to the other place - the rock house that Freys own now. When we turned them out of the pens at Dean, we milled them in a circle for about an hour, then headed them this way. I remember Claudie was along and Mutt Haney...(He was killed in a car wreck; he was the oldest one of the Haney boys.) "Homer Lyde and I worked for Bud Frey up there at Kamay. We were driving a bunch of horses, about 75, on that Beaver Creek Bridge. About of them missed the bridge - went off the bridge and down the creek. I went off to get them and my horse fell down in a big briar thicket. This horse I was riding was crazy. The other horses were running and nickering. He was down on my leg. He started to get up. I saw my leg was caught in the stirrup with a bunch of briars around it. I had to take my two hands and pull the briars loose before I could get loose and pull my foot out of the stirrup. This bloodied my hands since I didnt have gloves on. The horse got loose and I started walking toward the bridge. I couldnt see 100 yards with the briars and things so thick. Homer came to me after the empty horse went to him. We were bringing these horses from Burnett off the Triangle Ranch up at Iowa Park. Bud had this leased. He was the only man that ever leased any land from Burnett - 8 or 9000 acres. "I had this old horse that you just could hardly break. We were getting the cattle off that Burnett Ranch. I rode that old horse 16 days without changing horses - from sun till sun. I broke him. Bud kept telling me to turn him loose and catch another one. I told him no, I was going to break this one. Id wash his back off and pet him around - he had a back sore. This was in the 40's. "My father was born in East Texas, down there at Tyler. Their farm in later years was the rose garden down there. Dad and his brothers came to Clay County in a covered wagon in the summers to pick cotton for several years before they moved up here about 1875. "When my dad married in 1902, he worked for the Byers Brothers Ranch. He rode the Wichita River all the time in the spring. The cattle would bog down. There were 31 miles of the river, counting the bends. Hed pull the cattle out of the bogs in the heel fly time. "I had an uncle, Gene Zachry, a single fellow, who cooked for the Byers Ranch. When Suggs Brothers had the land across the river in Oklahoma, in spring round up the Byers Brothers would send him and Dad over there to work with them, maybe a month or two. He cooked and Dad rode. They went to round up some horses starting at Lawton and drove them to the round-up grounds at Waurika, where the sale barn is today, on that high hill. One time they were after this bunch of horses - 5,000 of them; little colts would be so young they would fall out and die. "Theres a little town of Sugden between Ryan and Waurika. I remember my dad saying he and another fellow spent a winter there in a half dugout. They were cutting wood to run the gin. "When they had the drawing at Lawton for land, my dad got 160 acres. O course, he had to prove up on it. This meant he had to build something on it and live there a year or two. Right south of the fish place by Waurika (Bills), he built a half dugout on a high hill. He kept it 2 or 3 years and sold it to his brother, because he didnt like living over there in Oklahoma. The property was later sold to the man who owned the picture show in Waurika. "Grandpa and Great Uncle Mallis lived up at Benvanue on the old Fort Sill Road that ran from Jacksboro to Henrietta out through Hurnville past Grandpas place, up by the Benvanue Cemetery and then across Red River, where there was a ferry. This ferry was run by different people - Mr. Jim Dunn was the last one to run it "Grandpa and Uncle Mallis died fairly close together and were buried in Benvanue Cemetery without tombstones until 95 years later when I put them up in 1986. "Grandpa Zachry had bought this place from this fellow Eustis at Henrietta, who had contracted with the government for 100,000 acres to sell to settlers. You did this instead of filing as was the custom in New Mexico and other places west of here. They paid $1 per acre. Grandpa Zachry had to build a house on it. I think the Byers Ranch was bought for $1 per acre. It first belonged to a fellow named Acres. Then he lost it. He was the same person who had lived in the log cabin and owned the land that Grandpa Frey later bought from him. Two of Mr. Acres children are buried somewhere out on the place on land that has been plowed up. This is the place a mile east of my house now, also east of the Frey rock house on the Petrolia-Henrietta Highway that has the old round barn on it. "At the present time (1987), Dale Burrus and Ralph Coburn own part of the old Zachry place that my grandpa had. My dad used to work for the Burrus family to help with the kids when Loma (Mrs. Fred McNeeley) and Dale were little. My dad made the remark that Dale was the best man he ever knew but he was the meanest kid he ever saw when he was little. "Petrolia used to have a bank where the grocery store is now - someone earlier than Herbert Perkins. When Mr. Perkins was here, his brother was with him. There were 2 lumber yards, a picture show, a butcher shop here when I was a kid around town. The milk cows and horses all ran out then; wagons and buggies were on the streets. "Doctors and lawyers - in other words, the rich people - had the cars. Also some ranchers had them. Grandpa Frey bought a big old gray Michigan. One day he drove it over to Petrolia, where we lived at the time. I was just a kid and he wanted to carry us over to Byers. He drove it up to old Doc Cates drugstore, where we were sitting out on the sidewalk. He said hed drive us to Byers, to get in. We drove over there and back to Petrolia. That was about 1912 when I was about 6. It was a big thrill. "Out on the road the horses would be scared as the cars passed them. The roads were just old dirt roads which each landowner had to work a portion of or be fined. The roads went through pastures and every which way. "To go to Henrietta, you went on the old Ft. Sill Road by way of Hurnville. The Charlie road went through Kempner and crossed the Wichita River on a rocky bottom about where the Charlie bridge is now. "I have this clipping about a robbery that happened over at Geronimo, Oklahoma. These fellows robbed a stage of $20,000. It was said they buried the money over at Charlie before they were caught and sentenced to the penitentiary. When they got out, a big hole was found in these peoples yard. Everybody thought the robbers had come back and dug up the money while the family was gone from home. "A Mr. Whaley was one of the first settlers along Red River. He had 4 or 5 fellows that lived up where Wichita is now on that creek. They were shocking oats when the Indians came in on them and killed several of the white men. The rest of them crossed Red River and came back in at the ranch closer to where Byers now is. "Back before they had barbed wire, they used to dig a ditch around their fields to keep the buffalo, deer and antelope from getting their crops. They could do it with pick and shovel because they had more time than anything else. "My mother said she went on many an antelope hunt on this hill over between here (his home southeast of Petrolia) and Byers. That was when we lived in the log house down on the Frey place. "Mama said whenever there was an Indian scare, Grandma Frey would take her 2 little kids and hide down in the creek. This was when she was living on the Frey place east of my present place. Aunt Verdie Frey Hill told me about Quanah Parker riding up to see Grandpa one day, that they were good friends. He was on a little old gray horse. Grandpa wasnt home. "The Indians were always friendly with Donley Suddath. Every time they came over to Henrietta hed take them out and feed them a big meal because they were always hungry. "Grandpa Frey told me one time he was out on the Plains somewhere by himself. It was raining so he got down under this rock cliff. He could hear a panther hollering up the creek and one answering down the creek all night long. "In 1925, Grandpa Frey and I went to Wichita to get a bunch of cattle - about 2 carloads - that were going to be shipped in from Buds ranch in Big Lake. We had to stay up there 2 or 3 days to wait on them. We were riding around in Wichita when Grandpa said, Lets go over here where I used to cross the river when I was hauling buffalo hides from out on the Plains before there was ever a house up there, just a crossing on the Wichita River out there north of town. The crossing was about where Wiley Wolf had an elevator by the old Ohio Street Bridge. We got the cattle in and started to drive them out. My horse got scared from the whistle of the trains and started running in front of a grocery store and knocked a man down and almost ran over him. We brought the cattle on over to Henrietta. "One time I was working on the ranch out by Dundee. I rode from 6 miles south of Dundee from the Woodrum Ranch that Freys had leased out there through Wichita out here to Petrolia - 65 miles from sun to sun on horseback. I came down the Seymour Highway and 7th Street out by the ball park. I was by myself on one horse and leading another. Elsie, my sister, was in the old clinic hospital at the time. Out front were a bare lot and some sign boards. I tied my horses out there and went in to see her for about 30 minutes. I was about 17 or 18 then. "I was with Grandpa Frey when he was fatally injured in 1925. We were driving a registered bull from the Billy Myers Ranch at Bluegrove to the Frey Ranch north of Henrietta. We got over there to Henrietta to the feed lots by the oil mill. We were trying to drive him away from the fence. Grandpa loped his horse up and he stumbled and fell on Grandpa. He crawled up the fence when he got up. He said he wasnt hurt, but he sat down on the ground and I went for help. There were 2 fellows sitting in a car up by the oil mill. We carried him up to the house to Grandma. He lived about 2 days and then died. "Jesse James was supposed to be over at Henrietta to speak at the school house. This was right after Clara and I married. We heard him speak and later asked Joe Douthitt, at whose house he had spent the night, if it really was Jesse James. Mr. Douthitt said if it wasnt Jesse James, he certainly knew a lot about him. Jesse told that hed come across Red River lots of nights and had drunk cold buttermilk out of the spring over at Whaleys ranch. Charlie Dawson, the old blacksmith over at Henrietta - he was kin to my mothers folks - said hed shod Jesse Jamess horses many a time. He said Jesse would come to Wichita Falls to see his sister, a Mrs. Palmer, and then come to Henrietta to get his horses shod. There is supposed to be some kin of his buried up at the old Riverside Cemetery and every Memorial Day someone puts flowers on the grave. Ive never been to the grave but Ive had someone tell me that. "In the early days of ranching, to ship cattle, you just drove the calves and the cows to a railroad. Then youd drive the cows back home. The cows would bawl around several days, find out the calves werent there and then go back to the railroad unless you put them into a lot. You drove across country through peoples pastures. Sometimes you ran into trouble and sometimes you didnt. Winter feed was cotton seed and hay that had been stacked loose, not baled as it is today. "Sometimes the ranchers - the Douthitts, Burruses, and the Freys - would get together and move their cattle across the river into Oklahoma in the summer time to graze on Indian lands. In a museum up at Lawton, there is a picture of Chief White Horse, and it quotes him as saying he burned Henrietta down at a certain date. I remember Grandma saying Henrietta had been burned and no one came back until after the Civil War. A fellow by the name of Koosier was killed during the raid. "There used to be an old rock out on this side of the cemetery at Henrietta up on that mound - somebody has rolled it off with a bulldozer now. Grandma told how they took this horse thief out to this rock and hanged him - how he sat on his coffin on the wagon on the way out there and smoked a cigar." The following was copied from a paper in the possession of Buster Zachry when he narrated the above. It was written by Arthur Slagle in 1961 as Henry Zachry told it to him. "Henry Zachry states that he was in the Oklahoma drawing for land during the summer of 1901 at the Fort Sill government post north of the present town of Lawton. Two drawings were held, one for land to the north of about 60,00 acres, the other south for about that number of acres. He went to Fort Sill and registered. Each man was allowed 160 acres, provided he owned no other land. Zachry drew 160 acres just north of Red River near the present highway bridge to Waurika, straight east of the old Stine house in Texas. "He and several others camped near Fort Sill. The party consisted of Harry Brandt, Albert Butler, Whaley, Hugh Callaway, Arthur Thompson. Two out of the bunch drew land. Henry Zachry had number 5360 and Hugh Callawy drew 160 acres. Zachry filed in September and then went on to the land. He had to live there 14 months. He lived in a half-dugout for the allotted time. He finally sold the 160 acres after five years to his brother, J.S. Zachry." |