Actually this spot you are leaving in the beautifully tamed Cross-Timbers may be the exact place that Irving camped on October 23. AS you leave, drive around and look at the dwarf forests thoughtfully. As you drive away, take one last look and imagine what the yards of this lovely new neighborhood at Waterloo and Midwest Boulevard would look like to Irving. Think how the horses would appreciate it.
The Tourists and their friends awoke on October 24 with a sense of loss. The loss they were experiencing was to a great extent due to the absence of bread. Not today, would they continue the cacaphony of that long ago morning of October 15 when they arose in Bear’s Glen.
The morning broke bright and clear, but the camp had nothing of its usual gayety. The concert of the farm-yard was at an end; not a cock crew, nor dog barked; nor was there either singing or laughing; everyone pursued his avocations quietly and gravely . . . Some of the young men were getting as way-worn as their horses; and most of them, unaccustomed to the hunter’s life, began to repine at its privations. What they most felt was the want of bread, their rations of flour having been exhausted for several days. WI141 Not only was flour disappearing: homesickness appeared. I have today had my thoughts turned incessantly on home, and become most melancholy in the reflection; that you and the dear children were so far away. HLE 99
Just as the flour gave out, the buffalo appeared. Irving soon gave up the chase through birch, brier, and ravines.
Beatte, . . . called out and made signals . . . Some who were near me cried out that it was a party of Pawnees. . . . We heard a trampling among the brushwood. My horse looked toward the place, snorted and pricked up his ears, when presently a couple of buffalo bulls . . . came crashing through the brake, and making directly toward us. In an instant half a score of rifles cracked off; there was a universal whoop and halloo, and away went half the troop, helter-skelter in pursuit, and myself among the number. WI 142
Irving loved horses and never stopped trying to find the perfect mount. Here near Route 66 he did, parting with $70.00 to sweeten the following exchange.
. . . I had been fortunate enough recently, by a further exchange, to get possession of the best horse in the troop; a full-blooded sorrel of excellent bottom, beautiful form, and most generous qualities. WI 142
Irving loved that horse. A sorrel is a light, bright chestnut horse. A sorrel will often have a white mane and tail. It must have been beautiful.
. . . it almost seems as if a man changes his nature with his horse. I felt quite like another being, now that I had an animal under me, spirited yet gentle, docile to a remarkable degree, and easy, elastic, and rapid in all his movements . . . he became almost as much attached to me as a dog; would follow me when I dismounted, would come to me in the morning to be noticed and caressed; and would put his muzzle between me and my book, as I sat reading at the foot of a tree. WI 142 143
Irving certainly knew the worth of things. Commissioner Ellsworth knew the cost of things. Well, he knew the worth of things too.
M Irving became dissatisfied with his little poney, who was evidently too small for a man of his size, and he made an exchange with Lieutenant Calwell for his horse and gave $70 “to boot” He rode this new horse but a few days when he became tired of him, and exchanged again with M Clements for a fine sorrel horse by paying boot again of $35 - With this last horse he was evidently much pleased, and it was certainly a fine animal and deserving his affections - HLE 98 99
As you pass Peavine Road, think how poetic, that a road named Peavine appears on our 21st Century Tour just as pea-vine was disappearing from Irving’s 19th Century Tour. Now even turkeys were looking good.
Here we at once came to a halt, in a beautiful grove of elms, on the site of an old Osage encampment. Scarcely had we dismounted, when a universal firing of rifles took place upon a large flock of turkeys, scattered about the grove, which proved to be a favorite roosting-place for these simple birds. They flew to the trees, and sat perched upon their branches, stretching out their long necks, and gazing in stupid astonishment, until eighteen of them were shot down. WI 143
Then they really found buffalo.
. . . word was brought that there were four buffaloes in a neighboring meadow. The turkeys were now abandoned for nobler game . . . My horse, who, under his former rider, had hunted the buffalo, seemed as much excited as myself, and endeavored to force his way through the bushes . . . There was a mixture of the grand and the comic, in beholding this tremendous animal . . . The buffalo stood with his shaggy front always presented to his foe; his mouth open, his tongue parched, his eyes like coals of fire, and his tail erect with rage . . . WI 144
Latrobe mentions the Arcadians when he described the life of the Indians before 1492. Today Route 66 travels through Arcadia. What visions of America this Main Street of America evokes. You have already moved with Route 66 for a city block in Tulsa when you were traveling north toward Owen Park, the Three Nations Marker, and Gilcrease Museum. Route 66 carried hundreds of thousands of travelers. It is Interstate 40 that carries the majority of travelers now. You will stay on Route 66 from Midwest Boulevard to Hiwassee.
Route 66
Main Street of America
The Mother Road
1832 Tourists traveled Route 66.
1889 The Unassigned Lands were opened by first Oklahoma Run.
1890 The Arcadia Post Office was opened.
1916 Congress passed the Federal Aid Road Act.
1926 Route 66 was named and its path decided. It would go just north
of Oklahoma City. In 1926, Route 66 was as motley as that early group of Oklahomans:
concrete, gravel, asphalt over brick, dirt, and wooden planks.
1937 The last small fraction of Route 66 was paved.
1956 The Federal Aid Highway Act spelled out the guidelines for an
Interstate Highway System.
1984 The final bit of Route 66 was replaced in Oklahoma by Interstate
44, between Oklahoma City and Tulsa by the Turner Turnpike.
1990 Michael Wallis wrote Route 66 The Mother Road.
Arcadia is famous for its lovely barn and Irving’s Buffalo Camp. The Tourists were nearly 100 miles to the west of Fort Gibson before they saw signs of buffalo. Once buffalo were everywhere around Fort Gibson. Latrobe spoke about the movement of the buffalo away from the rush of pioneers to the west.
Anciently, they were known to have roamed over the western part of the state of New York . . . sixty years ago, the rich forests and cane-brakes of Kentucky and Tennessee swarmed with them. Now there is not one to be found east of the Mississippi: as man as penetrated, year by year, hundred of miles to the westward, so the Bison has fled his presence, and yearly interposes a good hundred miles between its pathway and the nearest settlements . . . CJL 54 55
A marker states that the Buffalo Camp was just east of Arcadia.
The party had been yearning for buffalo. They had seen tracks, dung, and bones. They tasted buffalo at this camp, old and stringy, but it was buffalo. Irving camped in a gentle valley here or near here on October 24.
After riding a few miles further, we came to a fine meadow with a broad clear stream winding through it, on the banks of which there was excellent pasturage. Here we at once came to a halt, in a beautiful grove of elms, on the site of an old Osage encampment. WI 143
The death of a buffalo at this camp was trauma for Irving. A buffalo took a number of shots, yet none proved fatal.
(the buffalo) made a slow and grand retreat into the shallow river, turning upon his assailants whenever the pressed upon him; and when in the water, took his stand there as if prepared to sustain a siege. A rifle ball, however, more fatally lodged, sent a tremor through his frame. He turned and attempted to wade across the stream, but after tottering a few paces, slowly fell upon his side and expired. It was the fall of a hero, and we felt somewhat ashamed of the butchery that had effected it; but, after the first shot or two, we had reconciled it to our feelings, by the old plea of putting the poor animal out of his misery. Two more buffaloes were killed this evening, but they were all bulls, the flesh of which is meagre and hard, at this season of the year. A fat buck yielded us more savory meat for our evening’s repast. WI 145
And so to dinner and so to bed, they had no bread, but plenty of meat on October 24, 1832 at the Buffalo Camp. Time and again, our Tourists have talked about their excellent health, about a doctor being superfluous. Our Commissioner gave the straight truth about bowels and blue pills.
I took two blue pills, hoping they would regulate internal matters - I have taken but little medicine during my journey - I think travellers err on this point - For the least irregularity, they take a corrective, when the very irregularity, is an effort, of nature to relieve herself, and in nine times out of ten, will work out best her own cure -- HLE 106