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Friday, July 17, 2015

THE YOUNGEST COWBOYS by Cheryl Pierson




In the summer of 1909, two young brothers under the age of ten set out to make their own “cowboy dreams” come true. They rode across two states on horseback. Alone.

It’s a story that sounds too unbelievable to be true, but it is.

Oklahoma had been a state not quite two years when these young long riders undertook the adventure of a lifetime. The brothers, Bud (Louis), and Temple Abernathy rode from their Tillman County ranch in the southwest corner of the state to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Bud was nine years old, and Temple was five.

They were the sons of a U.S. Marshal, Jack Abernathy, who had the particular talent of catching wolves and coyotes alive, earning him the nickname “Catch ’Em Alive Jack.”

Odd as it seems to us today, Jack Abernathy had unwavering faith in his two young sons’ survival skills. Their mother had died the year before, and, as young boys will, they had developed a wanderlust listening to their father’s stories.

Jack agreed to let them undertake the journey, Bud riding Sam Bass (Jack’s own Arabian that he used chase wolves down with) and Temple riding Geronimo, a half-Shetland pony. There were four rules the boys had to agree to: Never to ride more than fifty miles a day unless seeking food or shelter; never to cross a creek unless they could see the bottom of it or have a guide with them; never to carry more than five dollars at a time; and no riding on Sunday.

The jaunt into New Mexico to visit their father’s friend, governor George Curry, took them six weeks. Along the way, they were escorted by a band of outlaws for many miles to ensure their safe passage. The boys didn’t realize they were outlaws until later, when the men wrote to Abernathy telling him they didn’t respect him because he was a marshal. But, in the letter, they wrote they “liked what those boys were made of.”

One year later, they set out on the trip that made them famous. At ten and six, the boys rode from their Cross Roads Ranch in Frederick, Oklahoma, to New York City to meet their friend, former president Theodore Roosevelt, on his return from an African safari. They set out on April 5, 1910, riding for two months.

Along the way, they were greeted in every major city, being feted at dinners and amusement parks, given automobile rides, and even an aeroplane ride by Wilbur Wright in Dayton, Ohio.

Their trip to New York City went as planned, but they had to buy a new horse to replace Geronimo. While they were there, he had gotten loose in a field of clover and nearly foundered, and had to be shipped home by train.

They traveled on to Washington, D.C., and met with President Taft and other politicians.

It was on this trip that the brothers decided they needed an automobile of their own. They had fallen in love with the new mode of transportation, and they convinced their father to buy a Brush runabout. After practicing for a few hours in New York, they headed for Oklahoma—Bud drove, and Temple was the mechanic.

They arrived safe and sound back in Oklahoma in only 23 days.

But their adventures weren’t over. The next year, they were challenged to ride from New York City to San Francisco. If they could make it in 60 days, they would win $10,000. Due to some bad weather along the 3,619-mile-long trip, they missed the deadline by only two days. Still, they broke a record—and that record of 62 days still stands, nearly one hundred years later.

The boys’ last cross country trip was made in 1913 driving a custom designed, two-seat motorcycle from their Cross Roads Ranch to New York City. They returned to Oklahoma by train.

As adults, Temple became an oilman, and Bud became a lawyer. There is a statue that commemorates the youngest long riders ever in their hometown of Frederick, Oklahoma, on the lawn of the Tillman County Courthouse.

10 comments:

  1. I've always been fond of this story Cheryl. People are more resiliant than we give them credit for. Thank you for sharing it. Doris/Angela

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    1. Doris, this is one of my very favorite true stories. I love to just imagine these boys living their dream, SAFELY, and coming home time and again from these adventures of theirs. Thank goodness, it happened that way. So many things COULD have befallen them. But it's just a fascinating story.
      Cheryl

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  2. Wow! What a neat story...and those kids had a good sense of direction. Three boys in my family had a similar trip about 1905. Their father "took off with another woman" so the three, the oldest about 13, went from Chickasha OK to NM to go find him. Their father left again before they found him, so they went back home. They were gone most of the summer on their round trip.

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    1. Linda, that's amazing. Chickasha is about a 30 minute drive from me. My niece lives there. That's a loooooonnnnnggg trip for boys that age. Wouldn't it be great if your relatives had known the Abernathy boys? I'm sure they would love to have compared notes--and who else would have that in common? GREAT story--and so glad they made it back safely, too!
      Cheryl

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  3. I loved this story. These two boys were just fearless. Can you even imagine a kid doing something like this today? First of all, their parents would greatly oppose it or the law would jail the parents for child endangerment or something of the like, and then you would have to pry those kids away from their video games, endless selfies on their phones, or TV's.

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    1. Sarah, I loved it, too. I've posted it at other blogs before, but I just love it so much I still have to put it out there from time to time in case someone might have missed it! LOL I can't imagine kids doing it today, but the world is so totally different today than it was then, too. There is so much evil in this world now--so much more then there was then. What a great adventure, though. And how lucky for them that they were living when they did and were able to do it!
      Cheryl

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  4. These boys were unique..or maybe all kids have something like this in them, if given the chance...and untoward opportunity. We have helicopter parents who are criticized and we have free-range parents who are criticized. Thank God for the In -Between parents who allow kids to explore. I know it's dangerous in this day and time, yet maybe not so much as we believe. Thanks for sharing this.

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    1. Celia, you're right, too. As a parent, our minds always gravitate quickly to the idea that this or that could happen. My mother was a born worrier, and she passed that on to me, I think, more than my two sisters. Maybe because my oldest sister just didn't have that in her make-up, and my middle sister lived in a small town while she was raising her kids. My kids grew up in Oklahoma City--not like Los Angeles, but not like Podunk, either. I grew up in a small town--learned to drive there, etc. My kids had to learn to drive in OKC traffic. And everything is spread out here, so they had to not get lost in a bad part of town, etc. It's a good thing we have cell phones, or they might still be riding their bicycles. LOL

      Cheryl

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  5. What a fascinating read! Only wants me to dig up more facts about the story, as if I need an excuse to submerge myself into research! I love a good true story - boys setting out on such a grand adventure....I wish I could go along, see what they saw and experienced. What a book this would make!

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    1. Shayna, there is a lot more to this story--too much for a blog post. You'll find it fascinating reading. There has been a kids' book written about it and they made a movie about it--but I never even heard of it until I started doing research on this post.
      Cheryl

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