Harsh Country, Hard Times: Clayton Wheat Williams and the Transfsormation of the Trans-Pecos

Notes

Chapter 1 1. Robert H. Schmidt, “Trans-Pecos,” Handbook of Texas Online, http://www.tsha online.org/. 2. “Midland-Odessa Combined Statistical Area,” Wikipedia, last modified July 26, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/. 3. “Fort Stockton, Texas,” City-Data, accessed August 26, 2010, http://www.city-data .com/city/Fort-Stockton-Texas.html. 4. There is no single source for this popular expression, which has been used to describe Texas (and other states), the cattle business, and the hard life of women living on ranches. 5. O. W. Williams’s writings are collected in Pioneer Surveyor, Frontier Lawyer: The Personal Narrative of O. W. Williams, 1877–1902, ed. S. D. Myres, with an introduction by C. L. Sonnischen (El Paso: Texas Western College Press, 1966). Clayton Williams assisted in editing this book. It collects O. W.’s writings about his experiences in Texas and New Mexico as a surveyor and silver miner over a twenty-five-year period that encompassed most of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. O. W. published the stories as pamphlets primarily to teach his children and grandchildren about the early history of this part of the Southwest.Unless otherwise noted,our understanding of O. W. Williams’s early life and career is taken from this book. However, many of the stories describing the lives of O. W.’s ancestors have been compiled and, for the most part, documented by O. W.’s sister, Jesse Williams Hart of Los Angeles. See Mrs. A. E. (Jesse Williams) Hart,“The Callaway Family of Virginia”(unpublished manuscript, 1929), and “Col. Richard Callaway and Allied Families,” 2 vols. (unpublished manuscript, 1934–35), both in the authors’ possession. 6. O. W. Williams to J. C. Williams, June 16, 1918, Oscar Waldo Williams Papers, Haley Memorial Library and History Center, Midland, Texas (hereafter cited as Haley Library). Included among the Haley Library papers are twelve volumes of letters written from 1894 to 1936 that were transcribed from the handwritten original letters,duplicated, and given by Clayton Williams to the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin,where they were examined by Louis Gwin.Hereafter,letters to and from O. W.Williams will be designated by the initials “O. W. W.”and letters to and from J. C. Williams and Clayton W. Williams will be designated “J. C. W.” and “C. W. W.” 7. Adam Pollard, e-mail message to Louis Gwin, September 7, 2009. Notes 210 Notes to Pages 3–5 8. Clayton Williams’s published books are Never Again, 3 vols. (San Antonio: Naylor, 1969); Animal Tales of the West (San Antonio: Naylor, 1974); and Texas’ Last Frontier: Fort Stockton and the Trans-Pecos, 1861–1895 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1982). 9. C. L. Sonnischen, intro., Pioneer Surveyor, Frontier Lawyer, 3–4. 10. Mike Cochran, Claytie: The Roller-Coaster Life of a Texas Wildcatter (College Station :Texas A&M University Press,2007).Clayton W.Williams Jr.,known as Claytie,has periodically appeared on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans.In addition to oil and natural gas exploration, his business interests have included gas pipeline operations, ranching, real estate development and management, banking, and telecommunications. He is chairman of the board, president, chief executive officer, and a director of Clayton Williams Energy, Inc., with corporate offices in Midland, Texas. He ran unsuccessfully in 1990 as the Republication candidate for governor of Texas. 11. Scott Pollard, e-mail message to Louis Gwin, August 2, 2009. 12. Ibid. 13. Sonnischen, intro., Pioneer Surveyor, Frontier Lawyer, 5. 14. According to Hart, the Colyer name was also spelled Colyar and Collier. 15. Hart, “Col. Richard Callaway,” 2:553. 16. Ibid. As documentation, Hart reproduces the original letter dated July 29, 1926, from the War Department, stating that its records “showed one John Collier served as a private in Captain Thomas Hill’s Company, 5th Virginia, known also as the 5th and 11th Virginia regiment, commanded by Colonel Wm. Russell, and in Captain Thomas Hill’s Company, 7th Virginia regiment of foot, commanded by Colonel McClenahan, Revolutionary War”from February 13,1777,to November 1779.The War Department also said that “a man named John Collier served in the Revolutionary War in Captain James Knox’s company, 8th Virginia regiment” from May 25, 1776, to April 30, 1777. 17.Ibid.,560–61; and an unfinished autobiography by Clayton Williams,in the authors’ possession. This is a manuscript that Clayton began after Texas’ Last Frontier was published in...