Monday reading a treat for visitors at Wynne Home

May 9—The audience at the Wynne House on Thursday, April 27, were treated to an escape to the 1800s South Texas where the Kenedy and King Ranches grew and became empires thanks to the dedication of the Mexican and Mexican American cowboys known as the Vaqueros. Jane Clements Monday, a former school teacher and mayor of Huntsville, co-authored Tales of the Wild Horse Desert with Betty Bailey Colley.

The King Ranch had its beginning in 1852, when Richard King and Gideon K. Lewis set up a cattle camp on Santa Gertrudis Creek in South Texas. Formal purchase began in 1853, when they bought a Spanish land grant, Rincón de Santa Gertrudis, of 15,500 acres on Santa Gertrudis Creek in Nueces County.

A short time later they purchased the Mexican land grant, Santa Gertrudis de la Garza grant, of 53,000 acres. During the mid-1850s, as partners, King and Lewis acquired more landholdings around the area of the creek. After Lewis died in April 1855, King acquired Lewis's half interest in the Rincón grant at a public sale.

The ranch is located in South Texas between Corpus Christi and Brownsville adjacent to Kingsville. The ranch includes portions of six Texas counties,most of Kleberg and much of Kenedy, with portions extending into Brooks, Jim Wells, Nueces, and Willacy counties.

Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy, friends and business partners who had served together in the U.S.-Mexico War and saw business opportunities.

Together and separately, they began to acquire huge swaths of South Texas acreage in the 1850s and '60s, which would become the venerable King and Kenedy ranches, December 5, 1860, Mifflin Kenedy, with whom King had been associated in a steam boating business, bought an interest in the Ranch. At that time all titles were put under the business name R. King and Company. King and Kenedy dissolved their partnership in 1868, and King retained Santa Gertrudis.

Born in New York City on July 10, 1824, into a poor Irish family, King was indentured as an apprentice to a jeweler in Manhattan at the age of 9. In 1835, he ran away from his indenture, stowing away on a ship bound for Mobile, Alabama.

Upon discovery, he was adopted into the crew and trained in navigation, becoming a steamboat pilot by the age of sixteen. While serving in the end of the Second Seminole War in 1842, he met Mifflin Kenedy, who would later become his partner.

"Life in the 1800s was hard on everyone, especially the vaqueros and their families who spent most their day working and doing chores," said Monday. "The Mexican Cowboys were the essential workers who were the key to the success in the farming, cattle management and all aspects of ranch work and life." The first cattle drive was in 1869.

The Mexican vaqueros taught King and Kenedy everything, how to work cattle and train horses, how to cull and keep the best stock and how to build a ranch. King and Kenedy trusted the vaqueros implicitly and took paternalistic responsibility for their well-being, and the vaqueros rewarded that trust with their loyalty.

King's domesticated longhorns were some of the very first hoof stock to comprise the early northward Texas cattle drives.

King registered a brand that has since taken on mythic significance in the taming of the West — the famous "Running W".

Getting these cattle to market was a real challenge, through some thousand miles of dangerous wilderness stretched out between Captain King's cattle and the midwestern railheads where they could be sold, was the job of the vaqueros.

"We interviewed over 60 individuals, ages 20 to 93 , whose Vaqueros families lived and worked on these ranches for many generations. The women and men of these families worked on the ranches from sun up to sun down," said Monday, "while also raising children."

Kenedy began acquiring land for Kenedy Ranch, by establishing the La Parra Ranch and the Kenedy Pasture Company in 1882. It became a large and successful ranch of 400,000 acres by 1895 when Mifflin Kenedy died. At its largest, it was 500,000 acres when Mifflin's son John G. Kenedy consolidated the ranch with other land purchases.

Shortly after Captain King's death on April 14, 1885, his wife, Henrietta, retained the Ranch's legal adviser and her future son-in-law, Robert Justus Kleberg, Sr., as manager.

Kleberg married the Kings' youngest daughter, Alice, the next year. Thanks to the dedication of the vaqueros, today the King Ranch is a major agribusiness with interests in cattle ranching, farming (citrus, cotton, grain, sugar cane, and turf-grass), luxury retail goods, and recreational hunting.

"The best experience was get to know these exceptional vaqueros and their families. I am honored to share their stories and the contributions they have made to Texas history," Monday said.

The book targets 4-8 graders, who will learn all aspects of past and present life on a ranch. They will learn about the different ropes, and how to do a round-up. Teacher and parents will appreciate all the supplemental material in the appendix, a glossary, hands-on learning activities and recipes. The young reader is challenged to pick your favorite job on the ranch and describe how you would do it and write about a day on a cattle drive.

"This was such a wonderful experience to hear Jane share her experience of writing this book. I plan to purchase two copies of the book, one for me and one for my adult son," said retired teacher and friend Zenna Mattingly Smith.

Monday also provided the audience with copies of some of the recipes, which were the staple for the vaqueros while out on the vast land rounding up cows and their families, including beans, camp bread, flour tortillas, spanish rice, and carne guisada (beef stew).

This event was part of the Wynne House Speaker Series.

For information on upcoming events, log on to www.huntsvilletx.gov or TheWynneHouse.com, or call 936-291-5424.