OklahomaHorses Magazine Sept 2022

22 OklahomaHorses • September / October 2022 Indian Territory Roots Oklahoma Pendleton Family Predates the 1889 Land Run by Carol Mowdy Bond A s part of European exploration par- ties, horses entered today’s Oklaho- ma by at least the sixteenth century. Three centuries later, the 1830 Indian Re- moval Act moved massive numbers of Native Americans into Indian Territory. In 1830, the Choctaw people were the first Native American group removed from their home- lands prior to the Civil War. The Choctaws brought Spanish mustangs on their govern- ment-forced removal to Indian Territory. The Civil War and its 1866 Reconstruc- tion Treaties, railroads, military endeavors, and Indian Wars changed the territory’s population and land ownership. Missions and schools peppered the territory. In addi- tion, after the Civil War, the federal govern- ment forcibly moved 12,000 to 15,000 more native people into Indian Territory. In 1866, drovers on horseback moved more than 250,000 head of cattle from Texas through the territory, as cattle drives began again. On top of it all, a host of outlaws gravitated into the region. Nonnative peo- ple scrambled into Indian Territory. Some acquired legal permits to stay prior to the first land run in 1889 and the formation of Oklahoma Territory. Nonetheless, there were thousands of illegals plus their families. With all this activity, untamed or lost horses merged into the territory’s animal kingdom. Getting Ahead of the Game Amid the swirling mayhem of change, 19-year-old newspaper printer Howard Pendleton rode horseback from Carthage, Missouri, into Indian Territory, arriving in fall 1881. Pendleton initially worked at the Seventy-Two Ranch in Pottawatomie County. At a recent family gathering, Pend- leton’s descendants said, “He rounded up wild horses and sold them. One time, while rounding up horses, he fell and hit his head on a rock, and he woke up in a tepee.” A June 12, 1952, issue of the Yukon Sun newspaper described Pendleton, stating, “For the first few years in the territory, Pendleton rounded up wild and stray horses all over the territory, selling them to ranchers for $10 to $15 a head. Some he broke and trained as cow horses and sold for $40 to $70.” Family members explained, “He sold the wild horses to the cavalry at Fort Reno. That’s how he got caught, and they incar- cerated him. Pendleton was in trouble with the Fort Reno cavalry when they learned he was in Indian Territory illegally.” Family lore includes that Fort Reno’s commander was connected to Isaac Parker, the famous “Hanging Judge” of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Working together, Parker and the Fort Reno commander gave Pendleton a permit to remain in Indian Territory and continue to lasso wild horses. According to the Yukon Sun article, Pendleton, with permit in hand, “went to Fort Reno, where he was employed a cou- Shown in this photo later in life, Howard Pendleton arrived in Indian Territory in 1881. Photo courtesy of the Pendleton family. Howard Pendleton’s barn, built in 1907, was the first round barn in the area. Photo courtesy of the Pendleton family. Left, these photos from the early 1900s show farmhands with Percherons which Howard Pendleton raised on his Locust Grove Farm near Yukon. Photos courtesy of the Pendleton family.