In the past couple of weeks we highlighted two nineteenth-century individuals who, I think, would have done very well in today’s professional sports. One demonstrated remarkable pitching control and the other had Olympian sprinting speed. And they did it all without training; it was just part of a day’s work.
Now let’s look at a group of eighteenth-century individuals and consider how they might have rated in a strongman competition.
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The three suns/sons of Kansas, according to some who don’t appreciate our history, are sunshine, sunflowers, and sonsabitches.
Falling under the SOB category, and rightfully so, would be the Fleagle Gang from Garden City, Kansas.
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Frontier scout, Luther North, related a story about the Pawnee scout, Big Hawk Chief, who may well have run the mile faster than anyone either then or now. Here’s the story:
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Could the Cheyenne Indian, Strong Left Hand, be the baddest “pitcher” of all times, one that baseball’s major league teams wished they could have signed? He probably would have shut down the entire MLB roster of hitters.
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“The plains Indians rarely ever fought on foot, seldom except against lines of dismounted men.”
The author of this statement was a member of General Ranald Mackenzie’s outstanding 4th U.S. Cavalry.
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“Abraham was young [eight years old] to engage in such labor, but he was large of his age, stalwart, and willing to work. An ax was at once placed in his hands, and from that time until he attained his twenty-third year, when not employed in labor on the farm, he was almost constantly wielding that most useful implement.”
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Several weeks ago a friend offered to give me a book on airguns which I initially began to refuse, but then thought I would add it to my collection of books on firearms. There’s nothing that will turn off a reader of Western history more quickly than misinformation about firearms.
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According to author Judith Dutson the “U.S. cavalry wanted military horses that were bigger than the readily available Mustangs. They brought in some Thoroughbreds and Morgans to develop larger remounts and officer’s horses, and they began a systematic program of shooting Mustang stallions and releasing draft breed stallions to mix with the wild herds. Draft horses were also deliberately allowed to run with Indian herds whenever possible in an effort to slow down the Indians.”
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I was searching for a book in one of my bookcases and noticed Elbert Hubbard’s Scrap Book (one of several works by Hubbard) and discovered his sage collection once again.
Here’s what could be viewed as an epigraph to the above title:
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Stories, myths, and legends are often based on a real-life incidents, and therefore I found this following story very interesting. However, it should be noted that the “cedar” tree is really of the Juniper family as there are no true cedars in the United States.
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