Preface

Many great and interesting 20th Century Americans had “15 minutes of fame,” then faded into obscurity. Their lives are too interesting to have them slide into and remain in obscurity.  This post is about one of those people.

“Jack Abernathy”

John Reeves “Catch‘em alive Jack” Abernathy (January 11, 1876 – January 8, 1941) was an American cowpuncher, a U. S. marshal and a southwestern native son from Bosque County, Texas.  A January 1906 story in The Fort Wayne News described him to readers in a short article. A segment of that story stated:

Col. Abernathy can pull a gun as quickly as as any man in the territory.  He is a man of action, such as the president (Teddy Roosevelt) admires. He has long sinewy fingers over which he has admirable control.  He can “tickle the ivories” with the best of them — and accomplishment seldom achieved by an ex-cow puncher and bronco buster, and on occasions those same long fingers can wring the last howl from a prairie wolf’s throat.

Exactly who was Jack Abernathy and how did he achieve his “15 minutes of fame?”

Early Life

John Reeves Abernathy was born to Martin Van Buren Abernathy and Kittie Williams in Bosque County, Texas in 1876.  At age 6, Abernathy’s father moved the family to Nolan County, Texas, to work in the cattle business. As was common in 1887, young Jack, at age 11, took a job as a cowboy for the A-K-X Ranch that drove a large herd of cattle 500 miles to market in Englewood, Kansas. At age 16, Jack was a “full-fledged” cowhand (his words) on the Goodnight Ranch, commonly known as the JA Ranch.

Years after Abernathy became renowned for his skill in catching live wolves, he was interviewed by the editor of Outdoor Life Magazine; “Catch’em alive Jack” spoke about his start as a wolf catcher:

“The dauntless courage displayed by a faithful dog in mortal combat with a ferocious lobo was responsible for my career and took me from the cow camps, never to return.“

“As we were starting on the drive, our range boss came to me and said: ‘Abernathy, I know how well you like to hunt, so I am going to make an exception in your case and let your take you two greyhounds with you on the round-up. You may have a chance to get yourself a wolf’.”

“I greatly appreciated this courtesy, for I preferred wolf-coursing to any other form of outdoor sport. I participated in hundreds of chases before and my dogs had killed many of the small prairie wolves; or coyotes, but they had never caught a lobo, which is a very large animal corresponding to the big time wolf the North; so when I spotted two lobos on the second day out, I started the chase with considerable misgivings.“

It was that cattle drive that “Catch’em alive Jack,” with one badly injured, dying dog and the other in a losing fight with the lobo, impulsive decided to jumped off his horse to join the fight. Jack told the editor, “I threw up my right hand and by accident thrust it directly into the wolf’s mouth and rolled over in the dust. Instantly realizing that if the wolf closed his jaws I would be severely injured, I pressed my right hand as far back into his mouth as possible, grasped his under jaw firmly, and found that he was helpless so far as biting that hand was concerned.”

Abernathy went on to tell the magazine editor he realized he had narrowly escaped serious injury or possibly death. And even though he lost a great dog to the lobo he “had learned how to catch wolves alive,” adding, “I have been doing it ever since.” He also reflected on his inaugural experience, saying, “I shall carry to my grave the scar of my first encounter with a lobo.” (It must be said that the scar was not from a scratch or teeth marks, but a severe bit that severed a tendon, the end of which was hanging from his arm.)

Abernathy’s Career

Decades before daredevils like Evel Knievel and reality TV entered American psyche, Jack Abernathy earned national fame through his real life skill and daring by catching live wolves. Wolves were prolific in Texas and the Plains, threatening livestock throughout the region. That threat to income producing live stock created a demand for Abernathy’s unique skill.

To support his family, Jack Abernathy became a full-time “wolf catcher”; often paid for catching the animal and paid again when he sold the captured animal to zoos, circuses and traveling shows.  His method of capturing the wolves caught the interest of the general public.  Unlike others who captured live animals, “Jack” did not use a “live trap” to corral wild wolves – he used his own bare hands. Outdoor Life Magazine in August 1932 headlined the story about him as “The Legendary Cowboy Who Caught More Than 1,000 Wolves With His Bare Hands.”

Abernathy’s daring attracted the interest of President Teddy Roosevelt, himself an owner of a ranch and admirer of the “rough-and-tumble” lifestyle of the West and people who lived it. The President invited Abernathy to join him on a wolf hunt in the Oklahoma Territory in 1905, an invitation Abernathy anxiously accepted. During the hunt the two men developed a friendship founded on their mutual respect and admiration of toughness, self-reliance and adventure.

The Country was infatuated with “Catch-em alive Jack” Abernathy and President Roosevelt, as shown by these examples of newspaper stories:

From that friendship, and just one month after the joint wolf hunt, President Roosevelt chose Jack Abernathy for the position of U. S. Marshal of the Western District of Oklahoma in 1906. Roosevelt made Abernathy, at age 28, the youngest U. S. Marshal in history. During his years as the District Marshal, his pursuit of “outlaws” throughout the territory changed the national perception of Oklahoma’s being the Wild West.

Personal Life

Jack Abernathy married Jessie Pearl Jordan on March 10, 1894, after the couple eloped because Jordan’s parents disapproved of their relationship. Jack Abernathy fathered six (6) children with Jesse: Kitty Joe; Louis (Bud); Johnnie; Temple; Goldie; and Pearlie.

Based on reports in Frederick Leader and the Fredrick Press newspapers, researched and reported by the Tillman County Chronicles blog, did have a child with special needs. The reports were that Abernathy “took his little daughter, Goldie, to the Deaf Institute in Guthrie last week, where she will receive instruction.” Goldie’s school enrollment occurred on October 19, 1905. The blog also notes, “The Abernathy family moved to Guthrie at this time, although the family also kept the ranch west of Frederick.  Jack Abernathy’s father and sister remained at the ranch.”

Sadly, the public was notified on May 9, 1907 that Jessie (Jordan) Abernathy, “wife of United States Marshal John Abernathy, died Tuesday morning at the family residence in Guthrie.”  The papers said her marriage to John Abernathy in 1894 produced six children, “the oldest twelve years, and the youngest three months.”  Jessie was  30 years old at the time of her death.  The cause of her death was reported as Bright’s disease, a kidney disease known today as glomerulonephritis or nephritis.

The year following Jessie’s death, Jack attended Teddy Roosevelt’s last dinner at the White House.

Abernathy’s next big life event occurred slightly more than a year later. John D. Abernathy, now age 31, met Miss Elmira Perviance, aged 19, a junior at Logan County High School. Unlike his marriage to Jessie, the marriage to Elmira was endorsed by her family; “the couple was married at the home of Mr. Nicholas in Guthrie.”

John “Catch’em alive Jack” Abernathy died in 1941 in Long Beach, California, and he was laid to rest in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Jack Abernathy left a legacy through his six children.  The lives of Jack’s children were summarized in a book “Struggles in a New State” by authored by Larry Lewis, who provided the following account of the six Abernathy children: 

Kittie Joe attended Ursiline Academy in New York City and served as a nun at St. Joseph’s Academy in Guthrie; Golda, who was born deaf, married a deaf bank teller in Wichita Falls; Louie Van (Bud) graduated from the University of Oklahoma Law School and served as prosecuting attorney for several terms in Wichita Falls, Texas; Johnnie Martin married an oil promoter in Longview, Texas; Temple Reeves was also an oil promoter who lived in Fort Worth; and Jessie Pearl married a man in Gainesville, Texas.

There is nothing more to be said about “Catch-em alive Jack” except that he lived a full-life, exemplified the Wild West and epitomized the fiber of 20th century America.