Lambshead Ranch

Usually the names of three people are mentioned in the early history of the land that later became the Lambshead Ranch. They are Randolph Marcy, Jesse Stem and Thomas Lambshead. Marcy (1812 – 1887) well might be the better known of the three. He was an 1832 West Point graduate who served extensively in the American West during his thirty year Army career. His service included the Mexican-American War, Texas, the Pacific Northwest and the territories that later became the states of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. Marcy retired in from the United States Army in 1881. One of his daughters had married General George C. McClellan. Marcy was the author of “The Prairie Traveler” published in 1859, which became widely known and used for its maps, illustrations and itineraries of the West. Marcy had mapped and described the area where the ranch is now located. Fort Marcy in New Mexico was named for him and was active from the time of the Mexican-American War until it was decommissioned in 1890.

Jesse Stemm (about 1820 – 1854) was an Indian agent. Stemm later bought land in north central Texas. Stemm was killed in an attack by two Kickapoo tribesmen after a wagon broke down in the general vicinity of Fort Belknap. His property was later acquired by Judge J. A. Matthews. Thomas Lambshead (1805 – 1867) was born in England in 1805 and is believed to have come to Texas in the 1840s. He was listed with this wife Eliza and unnamed daughter in Navarro County in the 1850 census and acquired land in north central Texas in the 1850s. The ranch takes its name from him. Thomas Lambshead is thought to have returned to his homeland in Devon, England where he died in 1867.

The property which is now the Lambshead Ranch was assembled by John Alexander Matthews. J. A. Matthews was born March 2, 1853 in Union Parish, Louisiana to Joseph Beck Matthews and Carolyn Spears Matthews. The couple was married in 1850 in Louisiana, but soon after J. A. was born, they relocated to Texas. In the 1860 census, they were living in Palo Pinto County, Texas and in the 1870 census, J. A. was about 17 years old, single and still living with the family in Stephens County. J. A. grew up on the family cattle ranch and learned the cattle business. He and Sallie Reynolds, the daughter of a neighboring family of early settlers and long time friends, were married on Christmas Day, 1876 at the Reynolds family ranch house.

Sarah Anne “Sallie” Reynolds was one of the youngest children of Barber Watkins Reynolds and Anne Marie Campbell Reynolds. Sallie was born on a ranch in Texas in 1861. She was known as the first Anglo child born in Stephens County, then part of Buchanan County. Her father Barber Watkins Reynolds was originally from Georgia. Both he and his wife were a slightly older than the parents of J. A. Matthews and were married in 1841 in Alabama. They also had relocated to Texas by 1850 and lived there the rest of their lives. The Reynolds are quite well known cattle ranchers in Texas. Their family is associated with the Long X Ranch and several others.

Also interesting is that in addition to Sallie Reynolds marrying John Alexander Matthews, at least four of her siblings including brothers George Thomas, William David, Benjamin Franklin and Phineas Watkins all married members of the Joseph Beck Matthews family. Two brothers of Sallie Reynolds married sisters of J. A. George married Lucinda Matthews and William David married Susan Alice Matthews. Benjamin Franklin married a daughter of J. A.’s late brother Andrew (who died in Arkansas near the end of the Civil War) named Florence Rebecca and Phineas Watkins married another daughter of Andrew named Roseannah Marion Matthews. The families are forever united.

John and Sallie began to raise their family and acquire property of their own through a series of transactions, including acquisition of the former property of Jesse Stemm. Their combined area was named Lambshead Ranch after the early area resident Lambshead and is located on the north end of what is now Shackleford County and the south end of what is now Throckmorton County. Their primary water source was the Clear Fork of the Brazos River.

Like many other ranches of the period, Lambshead began with a herd of native Longhorn cattle. Hereford cattle were later introduced in the mid to late 1880s. Other breeds were tried or introduced over the years, but Hereford remains the core breed of the cattle raised on the ranch.

The ranch is also part of other Texas stories. The Reynolds and Matthews families were contemporaries of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. Goodnight and Loving are said to have bought some of the Matthews and Reynolds cattle as part of the herds they drove up the Goodnight-Loving Trail. After Loving’s death in 1867, W. D. Reynolds, then a single man and twenty-one years old, is noted as having been one of the cowboys who accompanied Loving’s body back to Texas from Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

J. A. and Sallie Matthews had nine children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. A daughter died in 1881 at three and a half years old and a son died while a young teenager. John’s title of “judge” arose after he served at least one term as a Shackleford County judge back in the 1890s. In 1936, a book written by Sallie was released. It was called “Interwoven – A Pioneer Chronicle” and recounts the two families’ experiences living in the area. It features original drawings by Texas artist “Buck” Schiwetz. This volume is still available in print. The boundaries of the ranch are just a few miles from the historic site of Fort Griffin and the little community that once existed near it.

Each year for over six decades the town of Albany has produced an event called the Fort Griffin Fandangle. The story was built around the memories of two characters, long time residents of the area. The original script for the event was adapted from Mrs. Matthews’ book. Its first performance was held in 1937. Some of the original music was composed by Alice Reynolds, then a local music teacher in Albany. Alice was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin Reynolds and Florence Rebecca Matthews.

In their later years, the Matthews moved to Albany. Sallie died at the age of seventy-seven on September 14, 1938. John Alexander Matthews followed her in death at the age of ninety-two on April 25, 1941. Both are buried in Albany Cemetery along with many members of their two families.

The ranch is still intact and is one of the oldest properties in Texas still owned by the descendants of its original founders.

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