This week has seemed to drag along, at least for me anyhow, but the end is in sight and Friday is finally here. Which means another Friday Find from Stockmen's Memorial Foundation on deck and ready to be read.
I go back to another brand selection this week. The brand belonging to Mr. Walter Hutchinson.
Walter Hutchinson was born in England but would soon be whisked away by his parents at a young age to Rissington, New Zealand. He spent his earlier days familiarizing himself with sheep raising. This eventually became a bore to Hutchinson and he would ultimately develop an interest in cattle. With the idea fresh in his mind, he would go to Argentina with the hopes of starting a ranch. However, the political situation in the country wasn't very stable and the idea of investing in such a place soon became an afterthought. Following a trip to England to visit family, Hutchinson would decide to embark for Canada, a place where land was accessible and cattle plentiful.
In June of 1906, after seeing an ad for Oxyoke, Hutchinson rented a horse - like we rent cars now-a-days, minus the never-ending paperwork - and rode out to the R.W. Cowan ranch on Big Hill Creek. He spent a couple days looking over the property before he purchased it on the third day from Robert Cowan for a whopping $7,040. In the years to come, Hutchinson would continue to purchase land but never if it exceeded $5 per acre, a price unimaginable today.
Lena Newman and her brother Lud arrived from New Zealand in the spring of 1907. Shortly after her arrival, Hutchinson and Lena would wed and go on to have four children, three boys and one girl.
There was a time when Hutchinson was a horse rancher with around 200 broodmares. He sold most of the horses when the prices were high and bought shorthorn cattle that were lower in value at the time. As winter approached, the growing, hungry herd of cattle needed to be fed. Hutchinson would use a technique called "jerknecking" to lay out the hay. It would consist of taking two or even three teams and racks with the team pulling the second rack being tied to the third and so on and so forth.
Hutchinson took over the ownership of Cowan's brand that was registered in 1888. The brand is read double yoke and would be placed on the left rib of cattle either vertical or horizontally.
Check in next week when I steer my direction toward yet another hat selection.
