History of the Beef Cattle Industry in Illinois

by Frank Webster Farley

Tom Candy Ponting.

August 26, 1824-

"Tom Candy Ponting was born at Heyden farm, Parish of Kilsmeredo, near Bath, Somersetshire, England, August 26, 1824. He was the son of John Ponting and Ruth Sherron Ponting. The Pontings came into England with William the Conqueror, so were descendants of Normandy. The Ponting family were breeders of cattle and Tom Ponting has followed cattle breeding all of his life, both in England and in this country."

Tom Candy Ponting came to the United States in 1847, landing in New York City, and finally making his way to Etna, Ohio. Here he was employed by a Mr. Matthews, to sell mutton from a wagon in the market house in Columbus, where they attended twice a week. Mutton sold for 15 cents to 25 cents per quarter in those days, while beef sold for 2½ cents to 3 cents per pound. After a short time, Mr. Ponting quit his job selling mutton, went to Columbus, bought a horse and saddle, and went into the country to buy cattle. The first cattle that he ever bought in the United States were eight head which he purchased from a Mr. Bishop eight miles northeast of Columbus, Ohio.

In the spring of 1848, Mr. Ponting, in company with a Mr. Vickery, another Englishman, visited Racine, Janesville, Watertown, Madison, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, looking for a location to start a butcher shop. Although there was plenty of need for butcher shops at these places, they did not locate because cattle were so scarce in the country. From Milwaukee, Mr. Ponting came to Chicago to study the situations there. He found no regular markets and only two places where they sold stock. While in Chicago, he met a Mr. Bradley, who had driven some cattle from McLean county, near Leroy. Mr. Bradley had sold all of his cattle except forty cows with calves. He sold these to Mr. Ponting, who drove them to Wisconsin and sold them to immigrants, a few at a time. He sold them for $15 to $25 per head and still made money. He returned to Chicago and again met Mr. Bradley, who had brought a boat load of sides of bacon up from Peoria. He had purchased this bacon from the farmers, hauled it to Peoria, and shipped it up the Illinois river to Chicago, where he sold it to grocery stores. This was the only means to dispose of the bacon put up by the farmers, as there was no hog packing done in Chicago at that time.

Mr. Bradley wanted Mr. Ponting to go with him to McLean county, but as Illinois was known in those days as a very sickly state, Mr. Ponting was afraid to venture.

While in Chicago at this time, he met a Mr. Lewis and Mr. Heyworth who had come up from Vermilion county with a drove of cattle. Mr. Heyworth was taken sick here and Mr. Ponting was employed to assist Mr. Lewis in taking the cattle on to Milwaukee.

In the spring of 1849, Mr. Ponting went to Georgetown, Illinois, and there purchased about 300 head of cattle. He also bought a camping outfit, a yoke of oxen, employed a cook, and drove through with the cattle to Wisconsin. The cattle that got fat on the way were sold to the butchers, while those that were fit for milk cows were sold to the immigrants. During this same spring, when Mr. Ponting was in Vermilion county, he visited Mr. Lewis at Crabapple Grove, which is on the line of Vermilion and Edgar counties. This man and one of his neighbors had bought a drove of geese, drove them to Iowa, and traded them for steers. They drove the steers back to Vermilion county, fattened them, and the next spring built flat boats and shipped them to New Orleans. In the fall of this same year, he made several trips over the line into Illinois, in Stevenson county, buying fat sheep to drive to Milwaukee. There were no regular banks in Milwaukee, therefore all the money that was paid for stock was Mexican dollars and five franc pieces. Very little American silver money was seen at that time. The hotel rates in Milwaukee were very cheap; only $2.00 per week, with bitters before breakfast, free. Whiskey sold for 15 cents a gallon and was used liberally by stock drivers.

In March, 1850, Mr. Ponting rode on horseback from Milwaukee to Leroy, in McLean county, where he met with some men who were buying cattle to take back to California. He went from here to Christian county, where he bought a drove of cattle which cost him from $6 to $11 per head. In the spring, he drove them to Milwaukee. There had been very heavy rains that spring and rivers were very high, which made cattle driving very difficult.

In the spring of 1851, he purchased about 350 head of cattle, buying from Rochester, near Springfield, to the Wabash river. After gathering the cattle together, he pinned them up near the present site of Moweaqua. He bought these cattle very cheap and drove the entire herd to Milwaukee, where they were herded on the prairies near town until sold. He took a few in each week and sold them to the butchers. After finishing the season's work, he returned to Indiana to spend the winter.

In the summer of 1852, the cattle business in Wisconsin was dull. Money matters were very much changed; gold began to come in from California, and get into circulation. Mr. Ponting and his partner decided to go to Texas and buy their feeder cattle. They rode through to Hopkins county, Texas. Here they visited a Mr. Hart, one of the large cattle men in that country. They bought several hundred cattle and drove them back to Illinois, reaching Moweaqua in July of the next year. He put these Texas cattle on pasture until winter, when they were fed out on shocked corn. Mr. Ponting's partner went to Indiana and bought several hundred hogs to follow these cattle. They bought shocked corn, paying about 50 cents a bushel for it. They would go into a piece of corn after it was dry enough and select two of the smallest shocks they could find. The owner would select two of the largest ones. These were shocked out and weighed, the average being taken as an average size shock. He bought about 40 acres from Mr. Dennison Sanders this way. The shocked corn was fed to the cattle in the same place each day, so that when it rained, the accumulation of stalks would keep the steers out of the mud. He drove this bunch of cattle to New York the next summer, where they were sold July 4, 1854.

In the spring of 1855, Mr. Ponting purchased a large drove of cattle, which together with some he had bought a few months before, were driven through to Chicago. Illinois was pretty well settled by this time, and it was unnecessary to take a camping outfit along. He stopped this drove of cattle near Pullman, put them out on the grass and took only a few into Chicago at a time. There had been a great change made in the Chicago market since Mr. Ponting was there two years before. There were two regular stock yards; the Merrick Yards, now known as the Sherman Yards, and the Bullshed Yards. In the fall of this year, he bought another bunch of cattle and drove them to Chicago in October. This time he stopped the cattle near the present site of Kankakee, and rode on into Chicago to learn the prospects for a market. They were then taken on to Chicago and left just outside the city to graze until they could be sold to the cattle dealers. This was the last bunch of cattle Mr. Ponting ever drove over land to Chicago, and it is probable that they were the last bunch ever driven from central Illinois. From this time on, the cattle were sent to market by railroad. The next year, 1856, he shipped 110 head of cattle from Moweaqua, the first cattle ever shipped from that place.

In the early part of 1857, the cattle business was very flourishing and the packers said there would be a big demand for them that fall. Mr. Ponting contracted for 1000 head of cattle and about 1500 hogs before the season was over, but before he got them on the market, a panic came on, money became almost worthless, and he suffered a heavy loss.

In 1866, Mr. Ponting went to Abilene, Kansas, to buy some feeders. He purchased about 700, sold them the next spring, making a good profit. He repeated the Kansas purchase the next year with like success. In 1868, he took the cattle he had bought in Kansas to Albany. They numbered around 800. In 1870, he went back down into Texas and bought cattle as he had done in 1852. He found a herd of about 2500, out of which he bought all of the two and three year olds. These numbered about 850, for which he paid $16 per head. There had been a new railroad, just finished, from St. Louis through Missouri, close to the Indian Territory line to a place called Pierce City. The railroad officers had some agents trying to get a contract to carry these cattle, together with some other cattle belonging to Hall brothers, over the new road. They billed the cars, numbering 80 in all, with a contract to refund $50 per car. They did this to get the contract which made a big showing before some New York magnates, who were there at the time trying to buy stock in the new railroad.

In 1876, Mr. Ponting visited a Shorthorn sale at Springfield and bought several head of cattle with which he started a Shorthorn herd. In the spring of 1880, he attended another Shorthorn sale at Chicago, where he bought a few more Shorthorns to add to his herd. Until his first purchase of Shorthorns, Mr. Ponting's operations had been entirely along the line of buying and feeding and although he did a small pure bred business from this time on, he continued his feeding operations as he had done in previous years, although probably not on as large a scale.

Mr. Ponting had not been in the Shorthorn business very long until he became interested in Herefords. In the fall of 1880, he visited the fair at St. Louis, where he purchased four Herefords. In the spring of the next year, Mr. W. H. Sotham of Guelph, Canada, bought four more Herefords for him. In the fall of 1882, he sold out all of his Shorthorns, thereby severing his relations with this breed.

In 1886, Mr. Ponting made a contract with the Wyoming Hereford Association to sell them 270 head of Hereford cattle, to be delivered in the spring of 1887. The firm paid for a part of them and Mr. Ponting took a note for a few more. About 60 were left on his hands and had to be sold for beef. As a result, he lost about $800 on the deal, which killed all of his profits.

Mr. Ponting continued in the Hereford business until 1903, when he decided to retire from actual business. In the summer, a gentleman came from Iowa and bought his entire Hereford cattle trade. He had at this time about 3700 acres of land, 1500 acres of which were in Christian county. He decided to divide his property among his children, keeping a sufficient amount to support Mrs. Ponting and himself. He bought a home in Moweaqua, where he and Mrs. Ponting have lived happily ever since.

When Mr. Ponting came to Chicago in 1848, there was only one cattle market west of the Allegheny mountains, and that was at St. Louis. At that time, there were a good many cattle sold for the New Orleans market during the spring and winter, but the principal markets were New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia It took ninety days to make the trip to New York with cattle and the drovers had to wait until the roads settled in the spring before they started.

At Fort Worth, Texas, there was nothing but a large fort and force of United States soldiers to subdue the Indians around there. The present six big western markets have all been started since that time.

"While the magnitude of Mr. Ponting's operations was not as great as that of John T. Alexander, and although he probably never accumulated as much wealth as Benjamin F. Harris, he was successful and his operations extended over a greater period of time than any one of the early pioneer cattlemen of the state of Illinois. He operated throughout two of the stages of cattle feeding and has lived to see the beginning of the third."[20]