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Runaway scrapes
by Mike Cox | |
Thousands
of people die every year in traffic crashes, but the horse and buggy era had its
injurious and fatal accidents as well.
“Runaway scrapes” is what Bosque
County newspaper columnist Thomas Theodore Colwick called them back in the 1880s.
Colwick had a store in the small community of Norse
where he sold perfume, toiletries and patent medicines.
Writing under
the pen name of “Ivanhoe,” the Norwegian-born Colwick contributed a local news
column to the weekly Meridian Alliance Sun. Here’s one account of a “runaway scrape”
from the Sept. 26, 1885 edition of the long-defunct weekly:
“A sad and
fatal accident befell Mr. Jorgen Hogensen on last Thursday, while saddling a pony.
The pony ran away, the rope become [sic] entangled in Hogensen’s left leg, dragging
him at a rapid speed for some six hundred yards, when the horse stopped. Life
being then almost extinct, he breathed his last within a few minutes afterwards.
“Mr. Hogensen lived on Neils Creek, and was quite and [sic] industrious
farmer, a good citizen and neighbor. He was about thirty years old. He leaves
a young wife and two small children to mourn his untimely demise.”
As
is the case today with drinking and driving, the consumption of alcohol could
lead to horse trouble.
“G. Nelson had a runaway scrape lately,” Colwick
reported on Oct. 2, 1887, “the result of indulging too freely in liquid Anti-liberty.”
|
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River
Crossing in San Antonio
Postcard
courtesy www.rootsweb.com/%7Etxpstcrd/ |
A
perusal of digitized back issues of the San Antonio Daily Light and the rival
Express show runaways in the later 19th century were almost as common as traffic
mishaps are today.
Two particularly common headlines were “Thrilling Runaway”
and “Exciting Runaway.”
From the June 1, 1885 Light, an account of a “Thrilling
Runaway:” |
San
Antonio Lovers Lane
1916 Postcard courtesy www.rootsweb.com/%7Etxpstcrd/
|
“Hack No. 2, driven
by Henry Thompson, struck a stump last night as it was turning into Lover’s Lane,
near Feat’s Garden, on south Flores street. The tongue broke and this frightened
the horses and they ran away.”
Five passengers in the hack jumped for
their lives, while the driver was thrown from the conveyance and suffered a leg
injury.
A
few years later, on Sept. 1, 1891, the unattended team attached to a produce wagon
ran away on Military Plaza. |
San
Antonio Commerce Street looking West
1907 Postcard courtesy www.rootsweb.com/%7Etxpstcrd/
|
“The marketplace
was crowed with people and vehicles at the time,” the Light reported in a page-one
story, “and as the runaways started west across the plaza, things looked squally.”
Fortunately,
one of San Antonio’s finest, identified
only as Officer Springer, jumped onto the wagon, grabbed the reins and got the
horses under control just as the wagon was about to crash into three other vehicles
“in the narrow part of West Commerce street.”
The officer injured a leg
in the rescue.
“He certainly deserves the highest praise for his prompt
and fearless act,” the newspaper continued.
The owner of the wagon was
arrested for leaving his team unattended, the 19th century version of leaving
your SUV unlocked with the motor running.
Stealing horses could lead to
death by lead poisoning or sudden onset throat trouble at the end of a rope, but
sometimes the perpetrators got away with it. In this case, the thieves had their
own kind of “runaway scrape.”
“Horse-thieves came from the south into
our ‘settlement’ on their way northward and encamped, having stolen horses and
saddles from parties living on Hog Creek,” Colwick reported on May 16, 1887.
A
posse caught up with the thieves and their stolen stock on Meridian Creek where
“refusing arrest, a few shots were exchanged with them, and they succeeded in
getting away in the brush…but two youthful accessories were captured, two horses
and saddles recovered.”
The man-horse relationship also could be dangerous
to horses.
The Light reported on January 21, 1890 that a horse “belonging
to Wagner & Chabot was almost instantly killed yesterday afternoon near…Government
Hill, by being impaled on the tongue of the carriage drawn by a runaway team,
belonging to private parties. The horse was attached to a two-wheeled delivery
wagon and was driven by the firm’s collector. The pole stuck almost through the
animal.”
Three years later, the May 2, 1893 edition of the Light ran this
short item:
“Yesterday some rude boys were throwing stones on Milam square
and one of the rocks struck a horse on a front limb, breaking the leg. Mounted
Officer Coy was sent for and as soon as he arrived, an order was given to kill
the horse, which he did. An endeavor was made to find the boys but the officer
did not succeed.”
© Mike Cox
"Texas
Tales" July
9, 2009 column
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