Working Ranch Magazine Summer 2025

looking back Drive ‘em East The longest cattle drive in history ended in Manhattan’s Hundred Street Market.

BY BERT ENTWISTLE

here is very little in the history of the Texas cattle industry that has been written about, filmed, painted, or photographed as ex tensively as the longhorn cattle drives. The story in a nutshell, for that one

Millions of cattle were rounded up and sold to ranches throughout the West. Thousands of cat tle were driven from Texas to places as far away as Wyoming and Montana. As the business got larger, so did the stories of the longest drives to the most remote corners of the West. The cowboys loved to brag about how long they were on the trail, how far they went, and what adventures they had along the way. Many of these stories are still told today. So, in an honest effort to set the record straight, let me introduce you to Mr. Tom Candy Ponting . Born August 26, 1824, at Hayden Farm, Parish of Kilsmeredo, near Bath, England. Tom was the fourth of nine children born to John and Ruth Shearn Ponting, a family of long-time cattle breeders. In 1847, Tom, and his brother John, looking for adventure and new opportunities, took a six-week trip on the clipper ship, London , to New York City. Traveling by wagon, they made their way to Buffalo and Albany, and then on to Cleveland. His brother John decided to try his luck in Knox County. Tom continued west, buying and selling cattle throughout Illinois and Wisconsin to pay his way. single person in the country who may not know it, goes like this: Cattle had been running wild in the southeast part of the country for years. At the end of the Civil War, hundreds of enter prising men, many ex-soldiers from both sides without work, began to collect wild cattle from every thicket, pond, or river they could find. This was a nasty, danger ous job for the ex-soldiers, most of whom were unfamiliar with the work. Once the cattle were gathered, they had to deliver the herd (drive them), to the buyer.

PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN

Tom Candy Ponting

By 1851, Ponting had taken a partner named Washington Malone, a cattle breeder from Indiana. They bought cat tle raised in Illinois and trailed them to Wisconsin, selling to butchers and farmers along the way. While in Illinois, Ponting met a young girl who would become his future bride, Margret Snyder. He told her mother, “ to take good care of her for me, for when she got old enough, I was going to get her for a wife.”

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98 I SUMMER 2025 WORKING RANCH audited readers run 21 million head of beef cattle.