Buck Hamilton Remembers

“I was probably 3 years old when I first fell in love with horses, as that’s how old I was when I began riding,” said George Buchanan “Buck” Hamilton III, son of George Buchanan “Podgie” Hamilton Jr. and Mabel Mestayer of Stowell, TX. “My first horse was Bitterweed, who was a gray colored “grulla” horse, part Shetland because he wasn’t very big. He was real gentle and one of the best small horses we ever had. I also had a stick horse I would ride everywhere, and my brother Bo and I wore the end of the sticks off ‘til they wouldn’t touch the ground. When my cousin  Taylor [White] would come over, we would ride all day on our stick horses. Taylor liked to go behind the pens to stir up dust. Most of the time we would be bare-footed and in our underwear,” laughed Buck. “The house was just across the road from the pens and one time an old mare got in the yard with her colt and I was going to try and run her out. I was probably four or five years old. I ran up behind the colt and he jumped up and kicked me in the head. He cut my head open, and I just remember mom loaded me in the car and she and dad took me to the hospital in Beaumont,” Buck recalled calmly, in true cowboy fashion. 

“Taylor and I would go to the White Ranch and spend the night with Cap Thibodeaux, who lived there. We would go duck hunting sometimes; we’d buy about 100 yards of baling twine and tie our shotguns on our bicycles. We’d find a water hole and sit and wait for ducks. One day we were riding down the road and came upon a white cow along side of the road. She acted upset and started at us, we quickly turned around and Taylor was gone! He hit a big rut in the road and fell, so I scared the cow and she went to her baby calf lying in the grass,” Buck said, revealing the source of the cow’s anger, she was protecting her baby. 

“Dad would pay us to kill rats and opossums, 10 cents per rat and 25 cents for opossums. Daddy had some old muskrat traps in the barn and we set the traps to catch them. One day we were under the cattle barn killing rats by throwing firecrackers in the holes to run the rats out. Taylor was chasing one and I threw a firecracker. It landed in his rubber boot, it exploded and blew his boot up like a balloon,” said Buck becoming lost in laughter. “He kicked off the boot and jumped around for a while and finally got all right.” 

“One day, we were going to work cattle at Seabreeze. Dad and Jamie had some partnership cows. They would get horses from Ken Roberts, a rodeo world champion from Kansas. When he had some bucking horses that wouldn’t buck, he would trade them to daddy for bulls. We had a big crew: Dad, Jamie, Jake, J.P., Elton, Vic, and about six more cowboys. Taylor was riding a new one from him. He and I were riding along the canal and like always, Taylor was about half asleep. I crossed a lateral that had water running through it and the horse Taylor was riding had never seen that before. He got scared on one side, jumped off on the other side of the canal and the water got really smooth and calm, only Taylor’s hat was floating. Then Taylor’s head came up and the horse’s head and they were paddling around out there in the water. That was pretty funny,” exclaimed Buck with a chuckle. 

“Taylor caught a baby raccoon and tied a rope around his neck and placed him in a tree, he was just a little bitty coon. He played around there and finally we built a platform and a cage for him about four foot off the ground until he got too big for the cage. We took him out of the cage and put tin on the tree trunk underneath so he couldn’t reach under there and get down and he just stayed there. He’d go up in the tree and come down to see you. If you put your hand up there, he would reach out and touch you but he wouldn’t let you touch him. Taylor used to give him some of his snuff and the coon would grab the can out of Taylor’s pocket and go up in the tree with it. We never tied him up there, he just stayed. He got down one time when the platform broke and we used a trap to catch him, but the trap was too small and he would go in and keep his butt out to hold the door open. He’d eat the food and back out once he was finished eating. We got a bigger trap and finally caught him and put him back in the tree. Billy York helped us with him,” added Buck. 

“Robert Abshier was the neighbor boy down the road and his mother was scared to death of water. She wouldn’t hardly let Robert get around a bathtub. We always played down at Spindletop Bayou and she told us not to play down there because Robert couldn’t swim, but we did it all the time. One day we decided to cross the bayou at Spindletop and play around in the woods on the other side and we were going to take Robert with us. It wasn’t deep enough to swim, we were just going to wade across it, so we got some apple crate lids and tied Robert’s feet to the lids to make them like snowshoes. He went out there about four or five steps and bogged down and fell and he couldn’t get back up, cause it was deeper than his arms were long. We went over and picked him up and got him out of there and carried him across after that. We took him back to the wash house and Claire, she was a black lady who worked for us, was washing clothes. We asked her if she would wash his clothes. We sent him home that day cleaner than when he came, and we didn’t say a thing about it to his mom,” said Buck with a smile. 

“We would go camping on Spindletop Gulley Bayou. We had a pretty nice camp set up there, we had a tarp and tied it down on all sides. We’d get underneath it with our cots and mosquito bars and it would work pretty good, we’d camp out for a good while. There was Taylor and Nelson Mennard and Don Parnell, Bo and me, there were several of us out there. At first we would be in by 10 or 11, but as we got bigger we would stay for a week. Most of the time, we would go in at dark for supper with mom and dad, but otherwise, ranch style beans and spam were good,” he remarked.

“One year, around 1957, was very dry and we were building fences in the winter and we found some ducks on Spindletop Bayou. The rice fields didn’t have any water in there due to the drought, so they landed at Spindletop. Pete, Bo and I got our shotguns and we creeped up on the ducks. We got pretty close and Pete said, ‘let’s take ‘em.’ He shot and the ducks jumped up and there was a line of them about half a mile. We didn’t know there was that many in there.  We shot 52 ducks, we started out getting six or even, then they would fly overhead in a group and when we shot we’d get two or three with one shot, they were so thick, there were ducks everywhere. Lincoln Thomas, a black hand that worked for us, helped us gather them up and then he stayed most of the night. He got quite a few more after we quit. We cleaned ducks and cleaned ducks until midnight. Everyone’s freezer was full.”   

Pete & Re-Pete

“Pete was my hero; I followed him everywhere. They called me Re-Pete, because we would feed, fix fence, put up hay and roll our own smokes. He could roll a smoke on his horse at a lope, he’d wrap the reins around the saddle horn and roll the smoke while he was loping along,” Buck added with obvious admiration for his old mentor. Dad would ride pastures every week and sometimes I would go with him if it was a weekend or there was no school. One day, Pete and I went to ride the pastures at Seabreeze. I was riding a young colt and following Pete on a canal bank when my horse tripped and fell in the canal with his feet up on the canal bank. We were in the water up to our necks, he couldn’t get up and I was penned under him, I was getting nervous. Pete came down, he wasn’t in a hurry, he came slowly and grabbed the reins and spun the horse around in the mud and pulled the horse off me. It didn’t seem to bother Pete much, but I was excited about it,” said Buck with a smile. “I don’t think I would have made it without Pete,” sighed Buck, grateful for the rescue. 

“My best friend was Bob Kahla.  Bob’s daddy, Bill Kahla, was a rodeo producer and he had bulls and horses over there.  Bob and I would go over there in the afternoons after school or during the summer.  If he had a young bull he wanted to try to see if he’d buck, I’d get on him and ride him or Bob would.  We spent a lot of time over there.  We’d go to Bill’s house and fool with the bulls or fool with the horses.  That’s how I got into riding saddle broncs and bulls in the rodeo, by going over to his house and he taught me how. When I was in Vietnam there was a soldier there from Australia. I showed him a rodeo magazine photo of me riding and he hollered at his buddies, ‘Hey mates, he used to ride buck-jumpers!’  That’s what they called bronc riders in Australia,” laughed Buck.  

“One day we were going out to work cattle at the White Ranch and off to the west Dad saw three or four wolves walking across the prairie following a trail over there.  They were about 300-400 yards away and never saw us.  There were about eight cowboys with us, Jake was there and Jamie and Taylor and Daddy, I don’t remember who else, some of the other cowboys.  We saw the wolves trotting off towards the marsh, that was pretty neat.  Another time, Daddy and I were riding pasture at Seabreeze and we rode up upon a hole in the levee where a mamma wolf and three pups were.  I had my rifle with me so daddy told me to see if I could shoot her.  My old horse was jumping around and I didn’t get a good shot, and missed and mamma ran off, so we went back to the house and got more guns and got Pete and John.  When we got back out there she had already moved them and they were all gone.” 

“When we were working cattle down in the marsh near High Island I was working between the herds.  Jamie cut an old cow out and she tried to come back.  I spurred up to try and get ahead of her and turn her back and my young horse started bucking.  My head went all the way down to where the horse’s shoulder was and my feet came up and hung in the horse’s flank and he bucked me off.  I guess it scared the horse and he stopped bucking and I got back on.  Jamie came over there laughing and said, ‘Get ready son, I’m getting ready to run a wild one by you,’” said Buck, laughing as he recalled the memory. 

“When you head down to High Island from White Ranch there was Elm Bayou,” noted Buck.  “We had some cattle on both sides of that bayou and we used to swim them across it and the cowboys would swim with them.  We’d drive them up and push them off in there and they’d swim across.  Daddy never would swim, he’d take his horse back, load him in the trailer and drive around to the other side.  He wouldn’t let us swim it for a long time, but he finally started letting us swim across with the rest of the cowboys.  I really enjoyed that,” exclaimed Buck.  “In the marsh you would see clouds of mosquitoes, yeah boy!  One time we were at the beach house down there and Uncle Jack came by and wanted to show us something.  The sun was just going down and there were just clouds of mosquitoes.  They were moving like the blackbirds do when they fly together, it was just like a cloud of mosquitoes.” 

“We would spend most of our summers baling hay every year.  We rode our bikes to the Simon’s filling station in Stowell, located across from Jim and Alice White’s place.  William Simon owned the filling station and that’s where all us young guys met.  We’d ride our bicycles up there and drink our soda pop and talk.  The older guys would ride their motorcycles up there.  There’s a butane company there now.” 

Sandy Edwards called me one day and asked if we didn’t have a crock at our house.  We did, as a matter of fact we had two of them.  They used to make pickled pigs feet in them and pickled beef for cabbage.   He said, let’s make some beer and I said okay.  He came over and he had everything we needed and all the ingredients.  We set it all up on the back porch and took off for town to Charlie’s beer joint and got three or four cases of bottles from Charlie.  We got ‘em back to the house and washed them getting all the roaches and cigarettes out of the bottom of them and then boiled them in the wash shed.  We got everything out to the porch and got ready to make the beer.  Mamma had gone to town to pick up my grandmother, Mestayer was her name.  Mamma got back to the house and went to the bedroom and Grandma came out on the back porch and asked what we were doing.  Well, we didn’t really want her to know what we were doing, but we said, well, we’re making us some beer.  She said, ‘Well, you’ve got too much of that and you need more of this and you need to mix this up and do more of that.’ and she sat there and told us how to make it.  She had made beer during prohibition and I didn’t realize it,” laughed Buck.  “She knew all about making beer!”   

“Uncle Jack and Daddy both had a boat and they used to go fishing a lot.  They had shrimp nets added on to the back of it.  We’d troll with the boat for shrimp and get them up on the shrimp deck.  We’d get all the shrimp out and pull out the crabs.  We’d keep some crabs and throw the rest back and throw the fish back.  We’d do that all day long and I hated it!”  Buck exclaimed.  “We used to go out there fishing sometimes too.  Ann and mamma used to stay out at the beach a lot.  Uncle Jack would go down there every day.  He would drop me off at the walkway going to the road that led from High Island to Port Arthur.  I would take my lunch and my gun and shoot snakes and nutria.  He’d stay at his fishing camp for a bit, eat lunch and fish a little, then pick me up on his way back to town.  After peeling shrimp and picking them out you’d go to bed smelling like shrimp and wake up smelling like them.  I just got to where I couldn’t stand the smell of those things anymore, I don’t eat ‘em,” he added emphatically.  

“Grady Gaulding used to line up cattle working jobs and Bo, Taylor, Hoof Deton and I would go help them work cattle.  Mrs. DeBellevue had wild cattle and her pasture was up on I-10.  We used to go down every year and help her work cattle, and she would feed us.  They were really wild.  Most of the time we would get them up but this particular year we didn’t have good luck.  We were getting around them and had them all rounded up, then they got away from us and went through the fence onto Interstate ten.  We were hooting and hollerin’ trying to get ahead of them.  Some fool on a motorcycle, with his girlfriend, got right in the middle of them.  We finally got them turned over into Ike Prejean’s pasture. We got them settled down and loaded up and back to Mrs. DeBellevue’s property and worked them.  That was some deal that day!” Buck exclaimed.  “Grady Gaulding was there and some of the Clubb’s.” 

“My dad, Podgie Hamilton and Jamie White told me that during 1835-1836, at the time of the Texas Revolution, when Santa Ana was moving East, the Whites and cowboys gathered 3,600 head of cattle, 240 horses and eighty slaves and moved them to Louisiana until the war with Santa Ana was over.  GaGa was from Louisiana, and she said she could remember when the Confederate troops came in. She clearly remembered the uniform they wore. The Karankawa Indians had a camp on Bolivar peninsula below Rollover Pass and we used to graze cattle down there.  Dad explained to me where they lived and said he went over there one time and picked up some pottery.  Daddy said Big Daddy (Monroe White) used to see them at their camp when they came through this way.  He said you could smell them before you could see them,” laughed Buck.  “They would put fish oil all over their bodies to keep the mosquitoes off.  That was before the Intra Coastal canal was built and their camp was right where they built it.” 

“Dad said you used to go down to Whites Ranch and there would be cowboys getting off the train with their saddle and guitar to work on the ranch.   He said you would also see them getting back on the train with their saddle and guitar because they didn’t like working down here, so they’d go someplace else,” Buck said with a smile.  

"The Monroe White family was going to build a house on Elm Bayou, but a storm came through and washed all the lumber away.  They gathered up all the lumber and hauled it up to Stowell and built their home there.  That home still stands today."

After completing his tour of duty in Vietnam, Buck returned to Texas, packed up his belongings and set out to forge his own legacy in South Texas. He purchased ranches in the towns of Bruni, Tilden, Marathon and Balmorhea. It was there he raised his children, his sons Cade and Lane continue to help him with the ranch to this day.  

Unlike the lush green salt grass of the Texas Gulf Coast pastures, South Texas, with its brushy landscape and subtropical climate, has always presented challenges for ranchers. Drought is always a problem they have to deal with every couple of years. Because cowboys are getting harder to find to work the ranches, Buck began using a helicopter to drive the cattle into the traps. A helicopter can do the work of seven cowboys when it comes to rounding them up. Buck and sons Cade and Lane are all accomplished helicopter pilots.