John Bunyan Slaughter was born December 15, 1848 in Sabine County, Texas to Rev. George Webb Slaughter and Sarah Mason Slaughter. John was the fifth child and fourth son born to the couple. In their birth order, the children of George Webb and Sarah Jane were Christopher Columbus, Nancy Ann, Peter Eldridge, George Webb Jr., John Bunyan, William Baxter, Francis Ann, Sarah Jennie Mary Permille and Mason Lee, born from 1837 to 1863.
The Slaughter family first settled in Sabine County, on the eastern border of Texas. They were not the only members of the Slaughter clan to live there. George Webb Slaughter’s brother Samuel Moore Slaughter, his wife Louisa Mason (Sara’s sister) and their family also settled there.
The first son born to George W. and Sarah was John’s well known brother, C. C. Slaughter, born in 1837. When John was about nine years old, the family moved to Palo Pinto County where they began a cattle operation. By the time he was a teenager, John was taking part in cattle drives heading to northern markets. Not unusual for the times, he was paid at the rate of $15 per month.
On an early drive, John is said to have taken over the herd three days into the drive when two of their group, the trail boss and another cowboy, were killed in an Indian attack as they passed through Montague County. The account of that incident was written up in John’s obituary and elsewhere during his lifetime. The cattle had stampeded near Victoria Peak during a storm and had gotten scattered, so the cowboys split up to try and recover the animals they had lost. When the men gathered again, two of their number had failed to return. Three days later as they were out searching, John saw vultures circling in the air and headed toward them. Once at the site, he found the two victims; their bodies had been mutilated. The same tribe members were suspected of having stolen horses from a nearby isolated ranch, though there were no fatalities in that incident.
The date is not given, but on another occasion, there was an attack on his own family’s ranch, presumably in Palo Pinto County. John was inspecting a corral holding some horses and discovered a break in the fencing. As he was looking at it, a single tribesman jumped up and fired a shot at John. It hit him in the right breast and exited through his back. He was able to recover and within a couple of months, was back at work.
It would not be John’s last attack to be involved in. On another ride, John and some men had purchased some $2,500 worth of ponies in Weatherford and were taking them to pick up a herd of cattle that George W. had bought from Jim Loving in Jack County. They made camp that night in a valley, only to be later surprised by a band of Indians who had been hiding under blankets. The raiders began to fire on the cowboys and succeeded in scattering the ponies and cattle. All their animals were lost to the raiders.
In some accounts on genealogy websites, and apparently correctly, John is shown as having married a May Burris of Dallas in 1877. May died in childbirth along with their child in 1879. May E. Slaughter died in 1879 and is buried in the old Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas, Texas. Her grave marker affirms that she was the wife of John B. Slaughter. Most genealogy accounts, however, do not mention May and show John as having only been married to Isabella “Belle” Masten May, a former Palo Pinto school teacher, in the summer of 1880. The couple had a daughter Mamie and a son Jay who lived to be adults and one other child who did not survive.
John and his brother Bill had partnered up to raise cattle in the open range near what is now the community of Gail starting in 1874 but there was competition for the unclaimed land, including from their older brother C. C. and others. Around 1877, John and his brother William Baxter “Bill” Slaughter pooled their resources and began a cattle operation in Crosby County in West Texas. John and Belle moved to the ranch house that he and Bill had built. The brothers continued their association until the mid 1880s when John and Bill dissolved their partnership and the property was acquired by the owners of the Spur Ranch. The brothers then went their own separate ways. John then bought a place in Blanco County. They lived there briefly before moving again to Socorro County in southern New Mexico, located roughly between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. After selling that place in the mid 1890s, he briefly moved to Utah on the Green River before returning to Texas to stay. He began a major cattle operation in Glasscock County under the U Lazy S brand. Around 1898, they built a spacious residence in Fort Worth. John was involved in banking in addition to his cattle operation.
Around 1901, John was able to acquire the former Square and Compass Ranch of roughly 90,000 acres that lay in what is now Garza and Lynn counties which he named the U Lazy S ranch. In 1906, railroads were finally reaching this part of West Texas and John sold about half of this ranch to cereal company owner, investor and inventor C. W. Post who was developing the town of Post, Texas in Garza County. Much of their ranch was located south of the new town of Post. The Slaughters had built a nice ranch house about eleven miles south of town. They sold their Fort Worth home and lived on the ranch.
John and his family lived there on the ranch for almost the next thirty years. John died of an apparent heart attack on November 11, 1928. He was 79 years old. He was survived by Belle, their son and daughter and other descendants. After a funeral at the ranch house, his remains were transported to Fort Worth and he was interred at Oakwood Cemetery in the family mausoleum. Belle survived him almost twenty years before her death at age 88. She is also interred at Oakwood as are other members of the John Slaughter family.
The exact origin of the cattle brand is not documented but C. C. Slaughter used what was called the Long S brand and the United States government used a simple U S brand. The above image came from a newspaper article by John M. Hendrix, an excellent researcher who wrote many columns about Texas cattle brands.
The question comes up as to how John Bunyan Slaughter was related to John Horton “Texas John” Slaughter. Texas John Slaughter was a second cousin of John B. Slaughter. His father Benjamin Slaughter was a first cousin of George Webb Slaughter. Their fathers, named John Horton Slaughter and William Webb Slaughter, were brothers.
The Garza County ranch had an outbuilding used as a carriage house, for storing tack and carriages. Around 1970, heirs of John B. Slaughter donated the the building to the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. It was restored, dedicated in 1971 and now is one of the collection of historic buildings on permanent display at the ranch.
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