The Saga of the Markham Pioneers

Submitted by: Vera Markham Bryant

"Stamp the Texas Dust off your Feet", this was the triumphant cry of the three families as they crossed the Texas border at Bronco and entered into Lea County, New Mexico. Three hundred miles by horse and wagon were behind them. Three hundred slow tedious travel with familes and possessions and trailing livestock.

It was a new beginning for the J. C. Markham family, the J.T. Walls Family and for Mr. Frank Pucket, a bachelor.

Cay and Dora Markham had five children then- Wayne, Vera, Cay Jr., Louise and Charlie.

Jess and May Walls had two children- Truman and Harlen.

New Mexico was the land of promise because it had been opened up for Homesteading.All that was necessary was to file a claim for land, move onto it and occupy it for a certian length of time-and magic! The land became the property of the filer-free and clear.

Cay Markham had filed such a claim, and was ready to move onto it with his family. It developed that his claim was state land so he could not claim it. But he bought a relinquishment from Mr. Henry Floyd for a piece of land eight miles northeast of Tatum. This became the family homestead and remains to this date (June 1978) the family homestead. (The piece of state land is the present Tatum Airport.)

When we arrived at our new home the well had been dug and the windmill tower had been built, but it was not yet raised. There was also a 12' x 16' shack which became our living room and bedroom for the seven of us. A 10' x 12' tent became our kitchen. This arrangement was to be our home until Dad could build a house.

As Spring came Jess Wall, Frank Pucket, Emmet Green and Cay Markham began making adobe bricks on the Frank Pucket place which was near the G. Barnhouse place. It was not clear why that particular place was chosen for erecting a mill to make the bricks.

The mill was a cube shaped box, 6' x 6', lined with tin, and a sliding door at the bottom. Bricks were made of sod and water only, no such luxury as cement! The sod and water were hauled by wagon and poured in the top. Then a horse turned the mill until the men decided that the misture wa just right. Then a sled was filled with the mixture then pulled by horse over to the frames which were spread out on the grass. The adobe was then shovelled by hand into the frames, which were 12" x 16" x 3". By the time another load was ready, the frames could be removed from the proceeding ones and laid out to be refilled. So it was very important that the adobe mixture be of the right consistency to pour yet set quickly. The frames had to be frequently dipped in water to prevent the mixture from sticking to them.

The adobe bricks were laided out for the building, so the walls were 12" thick. This rather explains why the Markham's adobe hacienda has withstood sixty five years of New Mexico wind and weather.

By the fall of 1914, two large adobe rooms had been added to the "shack" and the tent kitchen. These two rooms had a roof, but no floor as of yet. so we made the ground as level as we could by hand packing and repacking to the limit. Then we took canvas cotton sacking and laying it over the dirt, we nailed it down with long spike nails. This was our floor for about a year, until we got money for flooring and were able to make the hundred mile trip to Elida to buy it.

We moved in and were completely delighted with our new house. We expected to add more roms very soon, but the "very soon" stretched into ten years. However, when floors and cielings were added and a fenced yard with trees and flowers, we were pleasantly compensated for delayed plans.

Many things happened in that ten years including hardships and catastrophes.

Daddy freighted for stores in Tatum, Bronco and Warren, hauling goods from Thhoka, Texas to Roswell and Elida.

There were two cars in our community. One belonged to Dink Finn and one to George Barrows. A few cars came through the area also. They all needed gasoline and our lamps needed fuel. kerosene or coal oil or gas. So our Dad freighted all these commodities. On one of these trips his horses drank alkali water and later died from it.

For a period our Dad gave up freighting and tried to make enough of the land to support the family. But a half section of dry land in New Mexico was not sufficient to provide for a family our size.

So he bought a burro team from Mr. Charlie Yaunt and went back to freighting. He would handle as many as sixteen burros in one team with as many as three wagons strung out behind them. No one could know much better than Dad how true the expression "stubborn as a mule". Dad was a patient man, but there were times when the temperment of the burro broke the patience.

In 1918, there came a terrible drouth, there was no grass for our cows to eat, and we harvested cacti and burned the thorns off so the cows could eat them. But eventually they had to have more to eat or they would die. Dad then sent them north into the sand county for grass. By the time we had grass again, the pasture bill had taken most of our cattle. All we had left were a few milk cows.

Many other people were having problems too, as there were settlers on every half or quarted section. Many of them, like us, hoped to make a home. But others filed claims, expecting to live out and then sell for a profit.

We attended the Warren School, walking two miles each way. Some pupils walked as far as five miles. And a few lucky ones came by horseback or horse and buggy. It was a one room school and had one teacher. She taught grades one through eight, regardless of how many students there were enrolled. Sometimes there were nearly a hundred.

By the 1920's many of the homesteaders had sold their land and had moved away, the land was being converted from Open Range county to ranches. Homesteaders had to fence their claims for protection from the range cattle.

The first winter, while we were living in the shack and the tent, poor cows roamed where they pleased. Once when some came near our tent, our dogs charged them, One old, poor, cow fought back. Mrs. Walls was afraid the dogs would hurt her or cause her to fall because she was so thin and weak. So she ran out to call off the dogs,. But the cow did not recognize her kindness, but instead charged Mrs. Walls. So our friend threw her coat over the cow's horns, blindfolding the animal so that she became helpless.

Dad had to fence before we could plant a crop, but the average fence did not keep hungry cattle out very well. Cattle did sometimes get into our fields at night. So we formed the habit of driving them away from our fields in the evnings.

On one of these occasions Wayne and I had driven the cattle away and were playing hide-and-seek in the cornfield on our way home. I came upon a big rattlesnake and he got me on the leg. I ran home and ther began frantic calls for help from neighbors and plans for the quickest way to get a doctor from Tatum. A series of homemade remedies was begun immediately. A neighbor was milking a cow when she got the news, she snatched up her bucket of fresh milk and took of on a horse and buggy. The warm milk was forced on me as much as I could get down. Another remedy was melted lard and after three cups of that, I could toleate no more. My leg was wrapped in a salt pack and immersed in a bucket of kerosene.

A neighbor coming by in his jalopy went for the doctor. He wsa not about to be slowed down by opening the many gates, so he barged right through them. After the doctor treated me and there was a consultation as to how he ws to return home, he vowed, " Well I don't  know just how I'm going home, but I do know that I'll not go by the same means as I came!"

There were some very critical days before I was out of danger. Which rememdy did the job, I do not really know!

Prairie dogs thrived all over the country, they dug holes and destroyed  much grass as well as making homes for snakes. Many homesteaders worked faithfully to eradicate these pests. My Dad, Cay Markham, wa one of them. He never stopped until every prairie dog was gone and every hole was filled. I remember Mr. Whitley as another untiring prairie dog fighter. He also never stopped until the place was free of them.

The range cattle which were such a problem in breaking down our fences were a boon in another way, for we used the cow chips as fuel, cow chips were the manure piles dried out in the sun. They made very good fuel and we gathered them by hand. The best chips were produced when the pasture was mature. Young green grass did not make good fuel chips. We had to gather enough before school in the fall to last us through winter, as we had no time to gather after school started.

In those days mail was brought out by horse and buggy from Plains, Texas, thirty miles away. We had our box by the gate so the mail could be out in while the driver was out to open the gate. We got good service, too. A Sears & Roebuck order took five days from the day we mailed it to Dallas, Texas until the goods were in hand. Faster than in these times..(1978). mail service was changed, supposedly for the better when trucks were put to use. But then the mail was dumped at Tatum, we had to go eight miles to get it.

Time was fast moving along and our house was still two large rooms after ten years. During that time five more children had arrived: Ray, Hugh, Moira, Cotton and Carl. Later there was Evelyn. These, with the first five who came into New Mexico that day from Texas, added up to eleven. Fourteen in all were born, but three died in infancy: Alpione, Weldon and J.N.

We still had no money to buiild more house, so we all embarked in a covered wagon to the cotton patches of Texas. Some cotton was grown in New Mexico, but there was a school attendance law which prohibited children missing school attendance to work. Texas had no such law, so it was off to Texas for the little matter of self preservation.

 It was Christmas that year when we left the cotton fields and arrived back to our homestead. We had made enough money to make it through the next year and and to buy windows, doors, roof and floors for two more adobe rooms.

This time Dad and the boys made the adobe bricks on our own place and built the two more badly needed rooms. And now the children were growing out of their trundel beds and folding beds and we needed still more bed rooms. To accomoplish this a stair case was built up into the attic.

I have many happy hours in spite of the hardships of these childhood days. Church was an inportant part of our lives, and our faith in God was buiilt up and sustained by our church life. A circuit-rider preacher, whom I remember was Brother Toby from the Jal country far south of Tatum. After church on Sunday, dad always played games with us. In good weather it was outside games such as "Stealing sticks:, Dare base; baseball (with all) a homemande ball and bat.) and stick ball. In later years we added croquet, jump rope, Antie over and others. But always our dad was in the midst of it.

If the weather was bad the games were inside with checkers, dominoes, or Forty-two. But always, it was dad in there with us whether it was just the family or the neighbor children included. These were such good times - no fussing, quarrelling and everyone was taught to play fair, and they did so.

There was much work to be done for a family the size of ours, Dad saw to it that everyone did their share. There were always cows to milk; chickens, hogs and calves to be tended; crops and gardens to care for. And there was sharing in the canning; cooking; washing and ironing; along with growing flowers and trees.

Whenever there was an oppertunity, Dad and the boys worked outside the family to bring in much needed cash. Sometimes it was helping build fences, helping in a round-up on a ranch and branding. Again it might be irrigating in the Pecos Valley or haying in Texas.

Mother made most of our clothes, including the boy's overalls. There was not enough money to buy ready-made one, even from Sears & Roebuck. Once she even made a pair of shoes for Louise because we had no money to buy a pair. Using the ever available cotton sacking, she cut many layers of soil and interlaid them with cardboard. Then she built the uppers to fit and they fit and were better than no shoes.

Wind was an everlasting resource in Lea ounty. We constructed a large earthen tank for a reservoir, and our big old windmill pumped an abundant suplpy into it, enough to water stock and a large vegetable garden.

Rocks were another natural resource. We used them to build our milk house, which was a place near the windmill. Cold water pumped by the windmill ran through a trough in the milk house to keep the milk products cool. Later, when a milk house was no longer needed, the trough was removed, more rocks used to build more needed rooms.Our milk house was converted into a cottage where diffeent onesw lived in later years when a temporary home was needed. It is currently serving as a very unique "guest house."

Rabbits were also a natural resource. Cotton-tails, especially, were good meat. We ate the big Jack-rabbits, too. We steaked the meaty hid quartes and fed the remainder of the animal to the chickens and dogs.

Dora Alice Markham's luxury and her source of great pleasure was the glassed in flower garden. Her son, Hugh, built for her in later years, after most of the family had married and left. But it was a haven and a joy, and a special place to take her paints and pallette an create beautiful paintings.

After our father died, Mother continued to live on the place sustaining her needs by oil leases and by raising a few cattle.

But there was no one to regularly keep things in repair, so detertioration was the result. We children especially regretted this. We would reminisce back to that little band of seven when we stamped the dust of Texas from our feet and preservered to carve an estate out of half a section on New Mexico plain in Lea County.

The band of seven was the beginning of a genealogy which now numbers one hundred and thirty one blood descendants. In addition there are sixty two who are related by marriage and adoption,etc.

Mother never considered that the homestead should ever belong to anyone except a Markham, and she made certain that this should be so by selling the place to our brother Charlie in 1973. The agreement was that she would have possession as long as she lived, which she did, and she lived there as long as she was able to do so.

Charlie had some plans in mind of building a new house, but somehow the tug of memories of the sturdy adobe seemed to impel him in a different dream.

And so he has preserved the adobe part intact and only remodelled and improved and modernized the inside of the house. The Markham adobe, eight miles northeast of Lovington in Lea County, is the only remaining true adobe which is still standing and in use.

Also the original windmill stands intact and is still operating - harnessing the perpetual winds of the New Mexico plains.

These two enduring elements of the old homestead are sort of reminder monuments to our family that would not be conquered by any hardship or deprivation.

By sheer will and determination and hard work - and with an unshakeable faith in God, we prevailed.

We feel rightly proud of our parents Cay and Dora Markham, who had the stamina and faith to hold on through extreme  hardships and trouble. And they brought us up as to be honest and delligent and instilled a strong faith in God.