OklahomaHorses Magazine November 2022

26 OklahomaHorses • November / December 2022 Making Their Marks Ranchers’ Brands Link to the Past by Rowena Mills Illustrations courtesy of the University of Tulsa, McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives Y ou are a rancher in Indian Territory in the 1880s. You have numerous horses and a large herd of cattle. Although fencing and the extension of rail- road lines have started to change ranching in the area, you still have livestock on the open range. How do you keep track of your animals to be sure they have not dis- appeared into other herds or been stolen? The answer is that you brand your live- stock and collaborate with other ranchers to make your brand known. One way of doing that is to register your brand in a book published by an organization of ranchers. HowTo Protect and Detect One such book was the Brand Book of the Cherokee National Stockmen’s Protective and Detective Association, first pub- lished by the Indian Chieftain Publishing Company in Vinita, Indian Territory, in about 1884. (The Indian Chieftain was a newspaper in Vinita.) The pocket-sized 58-page booklet contains the constitution and bylaws of the stockmen’s association, advertisements, a listing of members with illustrations of their brands, and an index. Members paid five dollars each and were required to report to the association secretary twice a year on the number of head of stock on hand at that time. Every member was required to register his mark and brand, post office address, and general boundary of the range where his stock grazed or were kept. The association would expend its money for the pursuit and prosecution of thieves and for the reclamation of stolen or strayed property belonging to the members. A reward of $100 would be paid to anyone who caused the arrest and conviction of any person who stole, took, or disposed of stock bearing the brand or mark of a member of the association or who drove stock out of the range where they had been placed or usually grazed. The association agreed to have 1,000 copies of the register printed and distrib- uted in the community, and each member would be entitled to one copy. One of those 1,000 copies of the first edition found its way to John W. Shleppey Rare Books in Seattle, Washington, which issued a facsimile reprint (with the exact appearance of the original booklet) in Sep- tember 1973. And one of those reprints ended up in Oklahoma, where it resides at the University of Tulsa. When the Cherokee brand book was issued in about 1884, Clement Vann Rogers was using two types of cattle brands at his ranch on the west side of the Verdigris River in Coowee- scoowee District of the Cherokee Nation. In about 1884, W. E. Halsell used brands shaped like horseshoes and circles on his cattle and horses (but presumably not on rabbits!) on his ranch on Bird Creek north of Tulsa.