1938 item about E. B. Gregson from TN to TX
Abilene Reporter News
Abilene, Texas
March 18, 1938
Real Frontiersman
Colorado, March 17: All the things which the term pioneer connotes in these parts—buffalo hunts, Indian friendships, cattle herding on vast open ranges, stage coach service—are to be found in or closely connected with the life history of E. B. GREGSON, who has been manager of the Foster Iatan Ranch in western Mitchell County for more than 30 years.
Gregson was born near Chattanooga, Tennessee on Jan. 1, 1872. That same year, his father, GEORGE W. GREGSON, moved his family to Tarrant County, Texas, settling near Fort Worth.
The Gregson family moved to Cooke County in 1877. During that part of each year when his farm work was laid by, GEORGE GREGSON and 10 or 12 of his neighbors would get together and go on buffalo hunts, staying away from home for weeks at a time.
E. B. GREGSON’S mother died when the eighth of the Gregson children, a little girl, was born in 1882. The Gregson children were scattered among friends and neighbors after her death, 10 year old E. B. being placed with a GRIFFIN family in Montague County. Mr. Griffin was later judge of Montague County. After three years with the Griffin family, E. B. went to live with a man and woman named SHAW who took him to Fannin County.
Meanwhile GEORGE GREGSON had gone up into the Indian Territory and married again. He sent his brother, E. B. GREGSON, for whom the younger E. B. was named, to gather up his children. The oldest daughter, BELLE, just younger than E. B., couldn’t be found. The various families with whom she had lived had moved frequently and their traces were lost. Nothing has been heard of her to this day, Gregson doesn’t know whether she is living.
The home which George Gregson and his second wife established was near what is now Shawnee. The family was living in a large log house built by George Gregson’s own hands. One memory of their farming has stayed with Gregson more than the others. It is of raising wheat and harvesting it with “cradles,” which had a scythe like blade and “fingers” for catching the grain and holding it straight for bundling. They took the grain to a water mil on the Washita River at lower Paul’s Valley which was named after the Paul family. Mrs. Paul was a Chickasaw and the family owned many acres in the fertile valley.
About all the schooling E. B. Gregson received was at the Indian school in Chilocco where he stayed 39 months without ever going home. His sister was there with him, but she died of typhoid fever. They and one other white boy were the only white children in the school, which was maintained by the government for the Indian children primarily. Gregson went to school only six months in addition to this.
After leaving the Indian school, E. B. Gregson hired out to the WHISTLER ranch, headquarters of which was about 50 miles north of the Gregson home, to guard the Whistler cattle from going south of the South Canadian River. He spent two winters at that, being much alone along the river, sleeping in a tarp under the stars at night. He accumulated a few cattle and several horses in those years, and in 1896, he sold his stock and came with his brothers to Cleburne.
In Cleburne, he hired to a man named JOHN HAYNEY, who was getting ready to go to Coleman and Runnesl Counties for some horses that he had bought from the WELCH brothers (one of them was named BILLY). These brothers lived in Brown County at that time. On the way after the horses, GREGSON bought a half interest in them from Hayney.
The horses, all unbroken, were running wild, and it took Gregson and Hayney all oen summer to round up 50 head of them. They traded them out on the way home, mostly at Terrell and Cleburne. Gregson’s next move was to make a crop in Rockwall County. There he met MINNIE STYLES and married her on October 18 about 41 years ago. A year after their marriage, they settled in the Choctaw Nation about 50 miles east of McAlester. And the next year they came back to Texas to a farm in Kaufman County.
It was about 34 years that the Gregsons came to West Texas. Their first home was in Sterling County, Gregson’s first job being foreman for ANDY JONES, who at that time owned ranch land now belonging to W. L. FOSTER on Sterling Creek. After two years with Jones, Gregson quit to drive the mail hack from Sterling City to Colorado. The hack accommodated the mail and 9 passengers. It made the trip up one day and back the next. There were postoffices in those days at both Iolanthe and Spade. There were 14 gates between Iolanthe and the San Angelo road, Mr. Gregson recalls vividly.
Charcoal heaters were used in the hack for the comfort of passengers in winter weather. The going was “awful” in wet weather, Gregson remembers, but he never failed to make his trip.
Gregson’s association with W. L. FOSTER of Sterling City began in 1909. He was then what he is today—manager of the Foster ranch south of Iatan. The ranch includes about 16 sections on which about 400 head of cattle are run. In spite of the traditional scarcity of rain in the Iatan section, the ranch has prospered all these years. Perhaps an indication as to the whys of that prosperity can be found in the fact that the ranch has 16 ground tanks, one for every section of land.
The first Mrs. Gregson died in 1919. Gregson remarried three years ago, his wife being the former Mrs. KATE CARTER of Fort Worth and Iatan. Four of the seven children born to him and his first wife are still living. They are Mrs. CONNER SUTPHEN(?) (EMMA GREGSON), Mrs. IVAN PUELT (MYRTLE GREGSON) of Iatan, EDNA GREGSON of Arilington and E. B. GREGSON Jr. of Monahans