1880's Cowboy Funeral - Primary Source
This primary source about a cowboy funeral from the 1880s can help us empathize with people of the past.
As a history teacher, I feel like one of the biggest things to get across to students is the human side of history. Basically, once you understand that people of the past had feelings, worries, and didn’t know how things would unfold you can begin to appreciate their accomplishments and contributions to a greater extent. People on the American frontier had rough lives compared to our own, but they were the same in terms of the hopes they had, the fears they held, and their basic needs of life. Once you understand these men and women were much more like you than you may realize, you should begin to appreciate their stories all the more. One story that all of us can empathize with comes from Andy Adams’ description of a cowboy funeral in the 1880s.
The year was 1882 when Andy Adams was between hay and grass when he went up the trail. Pushing cattle purchased out of Old Mexico clear to Fort Benton in northern Montana was sure to hold some great adventures for the young man. True there were stories of stampedes, horse races, angry steers, and leg slapping cowboy pranks, but there were also a few near-death experiences. In fact, Adams actually tells a story about when one man drowned in a river crossing.
The river crossing took place on the North Platte near Fort Laramie. Adams and his crew were laying over on the south side discussing how to make the crossing. There was also another herd in the same predicament and the two crews got together to figure out the best way to get across. Adams recalled that the river was swollen but his foreman felt no worries they could swim their 3,000 cattle across. The foreman of the other herd went by the name of Wade Scholar. Scholar had his doubts they could swim the herds with the water roiling the way it was, but Adams’ boss persuaded him to try. Sure enough, it didn’t take but a few hours and they had both the herds grazing contentedly on the north side of the North Platte. Over 5,000 cattle crossed and not so much as a mishap worth recording. All that was left at that point was for the men to swim their horses across and camp for the night.
It was as this point where Adams recalls hearing a startled yell and then some splashing in the water. By the time he turned around at least rider had gone under but there was no telling just where. Several sections of the river were well beyond swimming depth on a horse, and although all hands from both crews searched high and low they could not find the man. After taking a quick count, they determined the unfortunate man was none other than Wade Scholar; the foreman who had hesitated in crossing in the first place.
All the cowboys were melancholy and it wasn’t until the next day they actually found the body. After getting the corpse ashore, one of Scholar’s friends explained how awful it was especially since Scholar’s mother had already lost two other sons to drowning accidents. He prayed that when she heard of Wade’s death it would not break her.
Although according to Adams there “was not a man among us who was hypocrite enough to attempt to conduct a Christian burial service,” they were fortunate that a passing emigrant wagon train had a man who could serve as minister. It is at this point I’ll let Mr. Adams himself tell the story.
Teachers may find this document useful to help their students analyze the primary source.
“In preparing the body for its last resting-place we were badly handicapped, but by tearing a new wagon sheet into strips about a foot in width and wrapping the body, we gave it a humble bier in the shade of our wagon, pending the arrival of the coffin…
“The wagon arriving shortly afterward, we had barely time to lay the corpse in the coffin before the emigrants drove up. The minister was a tall, homely man, with a flowing beard, which the frosts of many a winter had whitened, and as he mingled amongst us in the final preparation, he had a kind word for every one…
“…the old man opened the simple service by singing very impressively the first three verses of the Portuguese Hymn…
“…As the notes of the hymn died away, there was for a few moments profound stillness, and not a move was made by any one…For a time we were silent, while eyes unused to weeping filled with tears. I do not know how long we remained so. It may have been only for a moment, it probably was; but I do know the silence was not broken till the aged minister…began his discourse. We stood with uncovered heads during the service, and when the old minister addressed us he spoke as though he might have been holding family worship and we had been his children. He invoked Heaven to comfort and sustain the mother when the news of her son’s death reached her…
“…He then took up the subject of life, - spoke of its brevity, its many hopes that are never realized, and the disappointments from which no prudence or foresight can shield us. He dwelt at some length on the strange mingling of sunshine and shadow that seemed to belong to every life; on the mystery everywhere, and nowhere more impressively than in ourselves. With his long bony finger, he pointed to the cold, mute form that lay in the coffin before us, and said, ‘But this, my friends, is the mystery of all mysteries. The fact that life terminated in death, he said, only emphasized its reality; that the death of our companion was not an accident, though it was sudden and unexpected; that the difficulties of life are such that it would be worse than folly in us to try to meet them in our own strength…”
As you can easily pick up from this account of a cowboy funeral, people of the past struggled with the mystery of life and death as much as we do today. It is something we have all wrestled with at one time or another, and just because they were wild and wooly cowboys doesn’t mean they were unafraid of that day. It also seems fitting that the words of one wise old whiskered minister can still resound with people who feel the pain of loss today. If that doesn’t help you understand the human side of history, I’m not sure what will.
It also can help teach us how a traditional cowboy song like Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie came to be.
