The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945 Page: 107
617 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Collection
While on the subject of horses, may I ask another query, which has
interested me for a long time: While it has long been known that imported
live stock was brought into Texas for breeding purposes at an early
date, and that Texans sought to improve racing stock in Texas and
had race tracks in almost every town of importance in early Texas,7
I have been able to find only one reference regarding the importation
of horses. William Martin Lubbock and Henry Saltus Lubbock in 1860
are reported (American Stock Journal, II (1860), p. 16) to have
imported from Bridport, Vt., purebred Devon cattle, and a filly sired
by Edgar Hill's "Black Hawk Chief." A careful running of the files
of livestock journals some years ago in the library of the U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture in Washington netted this one item for horse-
stock importation. Who were the other breeders that brought into
early Texas fine equine stock? (We have, of course, numerous records
of importations of purebred cattle and sheep before the Civil War.)
Again, any information, no matter how slight or fragmentary, will be
most welcome.
Professor Geiser has also contributed the following note on
the Bethel Coopwood herd of camels in Bastrop County, 1876-78.
The death, at the age of 88, of Mrs. John Wesley Lanfear of Austin
(January 31, 1944) recalls to me an editorial read some years ago
(National Live Stock Journal, IX (1878), p. 299). This editorial relates
Lanfear's part in an interesting camel-breeding experiment in
Bastrop County. It reads, in part, ". . . [The camels] feed on cactus
and brush, eschewing all grasses that cattle and horses eat, if the
favorite cactus can be had. . ... [Results] seem to indicate that camel
raising is a profitable business in Texas. Mr. [E. L.] Lanfear says
there is one camel in the herd that has traveled 150 miles between sun
and sun, and that almost any well-broken camel is good for more
than 100 miles in a day. .. ."
John Wesley Lanfear (1856-1919) was born in Pasadena, California,
and died in Elgin, Bastrop County. His father, Enon L. Lanfear, was a
native of New York State who moved to California at the time of the
Gold Rush, taking his family. After a few years the family moved
back East to Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois, where J. W. Lanfear
received an elementary education. In 1876 Enon L. Lanfear, his wife,
and two sons, John Wesley and Eugene, came to Bastrop County, and
settled at about the place where the location of the town of Elgin was
planned. The survey of the H. & T. C. railroad building to Austin was
changed, and missed the Lanfear place by about four miles.
The herd of camels belonged to Bethel Coopwood, a lawyer and former
resident of California. They numbered about forty; and in the year or
two that the Lanfears cared for the camels, before the herd was sold,
one or more calves were born. The camels were herded by day and
penned at night to prevent straying. About once a week they were driven
7Cf. Rupert Norval Richardson, Texas: The Lone Star State (1943), 211,
227,107
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945, periodical, 1945; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146055/m1/111/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.