Drovers

Friend and fellow poet Linda Kirkpatrick of the great state of Texas sent the above picture to me a while back. It looks, does it not, like a typical old-time photo of a band of cowboys.

But it’s not. The photo is of men from her part of Texas who were “Hog Drovers.”

Well, having had some experience with pigs in my youth (Utah State Junior Livestock Show Fitting and Showmanship Champion in the pig division, 1970) it piqued my curiosity. It makes perfect sense, but it had not occupied much of my mind, that in days gone by, before railroads and trucking came along, hogs—like cattle (and sheep, goats, ducks, geese, turkeys, horses, and mules)—had to be driven to market.

Tennessee and Kentucky were big pig-raising states, and the fattened animals would be driven through the mountains to eastern markets. In 1847 alone, 51,753 hogs passed through a single tollgate in North Carolina. As many as 100,000 hogs were driven from Kentucky to Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other points east in any given year. Hog drives were common throughout the country.

Porkers could move along on their trotters about ten miles a day, led by a horseback drover and herded by other drovers, about one for every 100 hogs in the herd. Herd sizes ranged from a few hundred to a thousand pigs. “Wagon stands” along the way would corral, feed, and water the hogs overnight. 

There’s a better than even chance that the photo Linda sent may inspire a future novel featuring the adventures and antics of our friend Rawhide Robinson. We’ll see if that pig can fly.