Life of Tom Candy Ponting

Cattle driving was a major economic activity in the 19th century American West, particularly between 1856 and 1896.Texas Longhorns were a tough breed of cattle, in a tough place—Texas. And tough were the men that drove them.Two such men, though hardly men at all, had a plan. Young Tom Candy Ponting, the son of a farmer from Somerset, England, and his partner, Washington Malone, had heard stories of the availability of cattle in Texas. The durable, hardy Texas cattle were practically running wild and could be bought for next to nothing.Ponting and Malone would buy, herd and sell cattle, all the time saving their money, so they could ride to Texas and buy Longhorns. They'd drive them all the way to New York—something that had never been done before. The trip would take over a year, so the cattle would winter in the Midwest and fatten on corn. The drive and the corn would turn an "$8 to $12 dollar steer" from Texas, into an "$80 to a $100 dollar steer" in New York.The present volume contains Tom Candy Ponting's recollections of his time as a drover. Written on the urging of his children, Ponting's memoirs were originally published in very limited numbers in 1907, and then again in 1952 in revised format.