cattle brands – Texas History Notebook

John M. Hendrix, Cattle Brands Historian

For about a year and a half, selected Texas newspapers carried short articles written by John McDonald Hendrix of Sweetwater, Texas. Mr. Hendrix was the author of hundreds of articles under the headline “Texas Brands.” Each article would begin with an image of a cattle brand followed by the history that he found. His articles covered ranches of all sizes, small to large. Hendrix was respected as an authority on the old West and Texas.

Spade Ranches

The Spade Ranch (also referred to either as the Spade Renderbrook or the Renderbrook Spade Ranch) takes its name from J. F. “Spade” Evans, who was an early co-owner of the property with Henry Sanborn, who was called the “Father of Amarillo.” Their first property was in Donley County east of Clarendon and amounted to twenty-three sections of land, about 15,000 acres more or less. This property, livestock and Spade brand were all sold to Isaac Leonard Ellwood in 1889.

Reynolds Cattle Co.

The parents of the Reynolds family were Barber Watkins Reynolds (1819 – 1882) and Anne Marie Campbell (1816 – 1909). A daughter, Sallie Reynolds Matthews, has written that her father’s heritage was English and Welsh, and that he was born in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. His family had resided in the United States for several generations and at least one of his ancestors had fought for Virginia in the Revolutionary War. The name Barber was his mother’s maiden name.

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.

Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott was a well known cattleman, banker, cotton oil mill and cotton gin owner and real estate investor in Tarrant County. He was one of at least nine children born to Samuel Haden Scott (1792 – 1873) and Catherine G. De Graffenreid Scott (1811 – 1872) in Kentucky. His year of birth is sometimes shown as 1847 and other times shown as 1849. Like many people his age, one would only need to look back a few generations in his family lineage to find individuals who had served in the American Revolutionary War. His mother’s maiden name may be familiar to Texas people as well. Catherine De Graffenreid is from the same family as was Gaines De Graffenried. Gaines was known as a long time McLennan County resident and collector of Texas history artifacts. Although the spelling of their last name is slightly different, their family trees converge. There is no obvious relationship between this Scott family and that of General Winfield Mason Scott, the well known United States Army officer and presidential candidate.