Wednesday, January 16, 2013

COWBOY DREAMS--THE ADVENTURES OF THE ABERNATHY BROTHERS 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 to 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.

What's the most daring thing you ever did as a child? Come on, everyone--'fess up!

22 comments:

  1. And they think we write unbelievable stories of grit and gumption. Almost always, there's a real story that out grits fiction no matter how you look at it. But those real stories of hang-in-there courage let us have our protagonists keep on going when any other rannie would just give up. I always remember the trapper in Michener's Centennial who made such a long trip with a bullet in his back (as I remember without checking) and a character in a Gordon Sherriffs novel who took an arrow in the back and lived.

    Louis L'Amour had one about a boy and a girl who survived alone, too. Maybe he knew this story.

    Well done, good and faithful blogger.

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  2. This is great. Thank you for sharing the Abernathy brothers with us. I'm afraid I wasn't the adventurous type. The most I was allowed to do as a child was wander around the creek of my grandparents'/dad's 200 acre farm, and I had to have my older brothers with me until I was older than these 2 to do that. Neighbor had killed a man, and there were wild pigs about, so even that probably worried the adults.

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  3. What a fascinating true-life story, Cheryl. I can't even imagine a father allowing -- much less encouraging -- such an adventure for boys so young, but all turned out well in the end. I'm sure their experiences as youngsters helped the Abernathy boys grow into strong, self-reliant men. The part about the outlaw escort had me chuckling. Thanks for sharing this with us!

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  4. Charlie,
    There sure are some great stories out there, true and "exaggerated." When I worked at the National Cowboy Museum here in OK City, they had a temporary exhibit about these boys, and I just couldn't stay out of that gallery. Not a lot of "physical" artifacts, but they had some wonderful old pictures of them blown up and mounted, with part of their story on the pictures. You could walk around the room and read the captions to learn the whole story. It was amazing.
    Cheryl

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  5. Livia,
    I was pretty adventurous growing up, but nothing like this! These must have been some very mature kids for a father to be able to think of letting them set off on such a trip. I would have been worried sick the entire time.
    Cheryl

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  6. Kathleen, I loved the part about the outlaw escort. Someone in the Abernathy family, maybe the daughter of one of the brothers, has written a children's book about their travels, and also there was a movie made several years ago, but it never got much attention. Glad you enjoyed this--I just think it is fascinating.
    Cheryl

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  7. I was such a sickly, mousy child that I never did anything of this sort. I wouldn't even try it today. ☺ I would have loved to have met those boys, wouldn't you? They are the sort of kids I put in my books. Great post!

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  8. Kids were made of stronger stuff back then. They had to be to survive. Great blog.

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  9. What a wonderful true story. Their father sure had faith in his boys. I would have chewed my fingernails off. I think the boys just saw adventure--not danger.
    The only adventure from my childhood that comes even close was when my sister was nine and I was eight and we took a bus from Charlotte, North Carolina to visit our grandmother in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. We had a bus change in Washington, DC. I don't recall ever being afraid. Our parents were raised in a small Pennsylvania town and I don't think either of them realized the danger of our trip. Maybe Jack Abernathy was like that, too.
    I loved that the Abernathy boys got to fly with the Wright brothers. Wow.
    Great blog, Cheryl.

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  10. Caroline, when I think of this I think of Grandpa on that old "Hee Haw" show saying "Fact is stranger than truth..." LOL This whole thing is strange, but it's documented. They still hold the record for the youngest "long riders" in our history.
    Cheryl

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  11. Boy, Charlene, you are right about that! Those were truly some tough kids, weren't they? Thanks for coming by today!
    Cheryl

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  12. Sarah, thanks for coming by and commenting today--we've been having blogger troubles here and I'm sure hoping it's straightened out for everyone and wasn't hard to leave comments. I love it that they got to fly with the Wright Brothers, too. What a fantastic life they both had, really even before they were adults!
    Cheryl

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  13. Dang, I never went more than a couple of miles from home by myself when I was a kid. That's some story.

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  14. Cheryl, I had never read about these boys and I'm so glad you posted this article. What a feat! My grandsons won't even go downstairs to get canned goods--too scary for them (fully finished, well-lighted, and carpeted area) and the oldest is 13! Of course, the 4-year-old is a little more adventuresome. Mostly, the boys just play video games.

    When I was a kid, we pulled a lot of silly (and not all that intelligent) stunts, but nothing daring on any scale compared to the Abernathy brothers. The neighbor girl and I went on day rides up in the hills--saw a few rattlers, bobcats, and badgers. That's about as daring as we got.

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  15. Troy, me neither. I had a mom that worried a LOT. But I did do some daring things I wasn't supposed to--crossed the busy street no one was supposed to cross...ever; rode our bikes out to the edge of town, WAY past where we were all allowed to go, etc. You just have to wonder about a father that caught wolves alive and thought this was okay for the boys to do...I wonder what his raising was like. LOL
    Cheryl

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  16. Wow Cheryl,
    What a feat of endurance for two little boys. Now they are real heroes. I enjoyed reading about their adventures.

    Regards
    Margaret

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  17. Jacquie, I know what you mean--riding my bike places I should not have gone was probably the most daring thing I did growing up. Isn't it amazing, the things these boys did even before they were teenagers? What a life.
    Cheryl

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  18. Hi Margaret,
    I know--I think of them as real heroes too, to have the courage and heart to set out on such an undertaking so many times and complete it each time! I enjoyed learning about them in preparation to blog about them, too. I'm so glad you came by!
    Cheryl

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  19. I can't even imagine letting my children travel across country. What a story!

    Heck, my mother wouldn't let us ride our bikes down the street. Our house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac. We were only allowed to ride our bike in a circle, going no further than two houses down. lol My adventure would be daring to go all the way down to the other end of the street and back before my mother found out what I was doing. lol

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  20. HOLY COWBOYS!!! Driving a car at TEN years old, with a 6-year old mechanic?? INCONCEIVABLE!

    The farthest I ever went from home was riding my bike twelve miles one way to the local beach, when I was 14 or 15. Big whoop now. LOL

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  21. Karen, is this not just unreal? I'm still amazed that anyone would do that. I lived in a very small town, so we could pretty much ride all over, but we knew our boundaries (which didn't stop us from going past them in daring times!) LOL
    Cheryl

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  22. Meg, I'm seeing a common thread here--we all seemed to break the rules on our bicycles--I guess those boys were "rule-breakers" on their horses--with their dad's permission, of course. I wonder what the neighbors thought about him.LOL
    Cheryl

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