Dyer: Today is the 29th of August and we’re talking with Frank Coleman. Thought we might spend some time talking a little bit about driving freight back in the good ole days.
Dyer: Good ole days, huh. So Frank your father, as you mentioned in previous tapes, had his own (___) train. Did he also have freight wagons?
Coleman: Not until he discontinued the (___) train. Then he went free and he also freighted his first freighting teams was Oxen. He freighted with Oxen but just hauling lumber and logs to the mill. It was located in back of the Smith place and no one is a open mill.
Dyer: Now that’s in Coulterville?
Coleman: That’s in Mariposa County.
Dyer: Mariposa County.
Coleman: Yeah. It’s all pretty close to the border of the Tuolumne end in Mariposa. *unintelligible* (1:22-1:25). It’s about two miles from Smith Station back in there.
Dyer: Now you mentioned using the teams of oxen. Was it common to use the ox thing?
Coleman: Oh yeah it was common to use them.
Dyer: Now when is that? Would that be about 1900 or even before that; wouldn’t it?
Coleman: Before that because I was a small, small youngster. I guess I must’ve been…I had my school when I was six years old I guess when he was freighting with the oxen.
Dyer: Now when you use oxen, you don’t drive them though as you drive a horse, do you?
Coleman: Oh no, no.
Dyer: You have a man on a fort (___) (___).
Coleman: Well he has to be on foot at all times the driver.
Dyer: The driver?
Coleman: Yeah and the rough going like on the road, they had a brakeman. They had to apply the brakes along the ground too. It was the same as freight brake but it had a rocket and you worked along side of the left of the logging truck. That’s what they called them “logging trucks.” The wheels was…these wheels were that of a tar sunk right over a (___) and then they shaped the wheels with a net, see. Made a regular disk out of it; inside and outside disk it was a whole wheel.
Dyer: So that’d be like taking out a section of a trunk of a tree?
Coleman: Yeah and then shape the tire; they’d shape the wheel to the wagons, see. You kind of confused someday you go to Mariposa there used to be one over to Angels. I don’t know whether they ever let it deteriorate out there or not. It stood there on the road to (___) Vallecito and Angels there for a long time right out in the open, but there’s one in Mariposa.
Dyer: The museum in Mariposa?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Yeah I think I’ve seen the one in Mariposa.
Coleman: Oh you did?
Dyer: Uh-huh I was down there a month or so …
Coleman: Then up in the 20s over there. That’s Clarksville.
Dyer: In fact they’re trying to restore that one…
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: …because they had a it wrapped in black plastic and it looked like they were working on it.
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Well it must’ve been a bit slow going with a team of oxen over…
Coleman: Oh it was. He didn’t make over three and a half, four miles an hour; didn’t make that. Then there was certain parts of the day you had to take a siesta because the flies got bad and they wouldn’t work for you.
Dyer: They wouldn’t work?
Coleman: No, no you couldn’t do nothing with them. They just lead (___) shady spot with your wagon load and all.
Dyer: So they had a mind of their own?
Coleman: They had a mind of their own.
Dyer: Were they easy to work with?
Coleman: Oh yeah…oh yeah (___) (___). They were one of the train. They were really better than a team of horses with logging; really any team.
Dyer: Would they respond to horse commands?
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: As a boy, were you brought up to help…
Coleman: No I used to just go with my father. He had a team. They count them in yolks you know. He had eight yolk. That was eight of the cattle and they just count them in yolks you know as they go on.
Dyer: Now would that be two to a yolk?
Coleman: Yeah two to a yolk.
Dyer: That’d be a total of 16 then?
Coleman: Yeah and then they’d courted them some with a stick, some with a whip. The stick they called it a “gorge stick.” It had a nail in the end of it and they used it for a killing going on and they’d get out and they wanted the leaders to come to the left; they’d work the stick a little bit like this and talk to him, see, and he’d moo and the other whip…why they…Jean hauled them. Holler “G” and you’d go right and you holler “holly” he’d come right around to the left. And they use this stick as a hiking stick too wouldn’t they. They use it also to steer them; make them get over and come out where he wanted them.
Dyer: So then you had a man who was…
Coleman: He was brakeman…
Dyer: …steering…
Coleman: …he was just wop her.
Dyer: And the brakeman?
Coleman: Just the guy and the brakeman. Two men to the (___) (___).
Dyer: And the brakeman you call a “swamper?”
Coleman: Yeah a “swamper.” Yeah he was a swamper.
Dyer: And they walked the whole distance with…?
Coleman: They walked the whole distance. And she handled the brake and do that other the team.
Dyer: Well did he also…your father also picked up teams of horses or mules?
Coleman: By then?
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: No, no they just…they just traded with the oxen and then they…oxen…they discontinued the oxen and they went to horses.
Dyer: To horses.
Coleman: And then they…after they got that road team, they preferred mules. They didn’t like horses. ‘Course there were a lot of horse teams on the road then too. A lot of guys preferred horses, but a mule was much heartier and he stood the heat better and he never exerted himself like a horse would. You take a team of mules and work them all day and you come on in here in Chinese Camp and they new you wanted to stay here. Bella Vista that *tape goes blank* (7:42-8:04)
Dyer: Ok, Frank, why don’t we take a little bit of time and go through a typical day and let’s get you out of the bunk house and try to go out and get the animals ready and maybe you can give us an idea of what the freight driver has to do as he is preparing for the run say from somewhere down from San Juaquin Valley up to Yosemite. So first thing, what would you do? What would you do?
Coleman: Well you’d inspect your wagons and see they were oiled and properly greased and then you’d look your horse and team over and then there was no bunk house, you know, you slept right in the barn with the mules.
Dyer: Oh with the mules, huh?
Coleman: Got your own bed and just roll out in the hay and anything happened to an animal, you was there, see.
Dyer: Were you personally responsible for the animals?
Coleman: Oh sure.
Dyer: You didn’t have a boy to help you or someone else.
Coleman: Oh no, oh no.
Dyer: What about the swamper?
Coleman: He was waiting…and there’s no such animal as a swamper. You was it.
Dyer: You did it by yourself.
Coleman: Yeah that’s right.
Dyer: That’s a lot of work for one man.
Coleman: You couldn’t say, “Hey go get me this and go get me that;” you’d done it yourself…go yourself.
Dyer: Well say you’re taking a big load up then. How many animals would you have to get ready?
Coleman: Well you had the regular team. You had your load at all times. Your (___) at all times and when you loaded down below, you loaded trailer through, see. And that little wagon, small wagon, they let go into Yosemite. They had two to three wagons. Well the little wagon just packed your own supplies. That was your wagon.
Dyer: Oh.
Coleman: Your bag food, your bed load, and all your grain and your hay, you (___) down the trip; that was food in this little wagon, see.
Dyer: So that must be like a little caboose.
Coleman: Yeah a little caboose on there.
Dyer: I’ll be darn. I never knew that.
Coleman: Yeah. You pull that little wagon in there and…
Dyer: So crack of dawn, what do you do? By that time are you still in the barn sleeping or…?
Coleman: No, no, no you’re up with those animals getting them ready. That…teams you never, never, never had much sleep because he had to water and feed his animals and he’d feed them hay at first when they come in, then harness them. Then he’d go feed himself wherever he was working and he would feed himself, go back to the stable, he’d water all those animals again; feed them two at a time out and water them in a trawl and he’d tie them in place and then he’d give them their grain and then he’d clean them. Give them the (___) out during the night and then he’d go to bed and then he’d get up in the morning and he’d feed them…he’d water them and he’d feed them their grain and then he would start put their clothes on them; their harness.
Dyer: The harness would be the first to go on?
Coleman: Yeah the harness would be the first to go on.
Dyer: And each had their own *simultaneous talking* (11:44-11:46)
Coleman: …inspect each collar as he put it on, so he wouldn’t have the sore shoulders you know; no raw sores on them, and then he’d go to his own breakfast and he’d come out and trail them all out and hopped in the wagon. He had…if he was driving 16 hours, he had 16 haulers there; big (___) haulers and big, heavy chains on them to lug out to his wagon first and each animal, when he was ready for work, why he had a leather strap that was two inches wide and about five and a half feet long. That’s what they called a lead strap or let all their stop…that would fasten right to the battle, and when he was working, he had that strap on him all the time. He got unruly or anything he wouldn’t…wouldn’t mind in some way you could snap him into the other one, you know, and you just had everything there so you could work fast and snap him in the neck. Some of them went to (___) get picky in the road, you know, they found out a little easier travel with the wheel tractors somewhere and they’d…working (___) (___) you know. You just strap him in and maybe give him a little spanking. The sooner you start working (___) (___), why, you didn’t fastened them in with the others.
Dyer: Where about sunup, you have them in their harness and…
Coleman: Oh yeah…oh usually you was on the road by the time sunup.
Dyer: And you’ve had your breakfast and so you’re on the road?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: What would happen if one of the animals got sick? Were you also the (___) doctor too?
Coleman: Yeah, yeah. You was a vet. Didn’t have no vets in those days, you know.
Dyer: But there wasn’t a substitute?
Coleman: No, no, no substitute.
Dyer: So would the team work together?
Coleman: Yeah they were broke together and they worked together ‘til their retirement. Then never retired. The only way they retired is best and land beyond that’s when they retired.
Dyer: What would be the working age of a good horse?
Coleman: Oh about 22 or 23.
Dyer: That’s pretty good.
Coleman: Yeah. (___) (___) (___) and worked the year round, you know, they’re always (___). They don’t get a rundown condition like horses out here on the range, they usually get a rundown condition because (___) (___) and they don’t get a lot of it. But that’s quite the norm, you gotta eat it. And one thing they get hurt or they pull a tendon or something then you have to destroy them. They couldn’t…it was Toms they were pulling in the wet weather, they’d strain a tendon in their hind leg. They call that a “strain holler” when he go long, he’d throw his leg like that, you know, like a guy with a…
Dyer: Like he’s prancing? You mean up high?
Coleman: Yeah but it was a catch in his legs, you know. And then pulling heavy…why they always got (___) up, you know, very stiff the joints cracking; and some of the horses used to get (___) and walk right on their toes their hind toes like that, the hind (___) be right on their toe because all the tendons they were straining and he wouldn’t come down like them; he just digging all the time and that…sometimes you had to get rid of them on the count of that, destroy them or get them all to somebody with like a worker or something.
Dyer: Did you own your own teams or did…?
Coleman: No my father all owned his own teams.
Dyer: Did most of the freighters (___)…
Coleman: Most of them…most of them had their own teams.
Dyer: So you got to know them pretty well then?
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: Almost like a member of the family.
Coleman: Yeah you knew them. They knew you too.
Dyer: They knew your good days and your bad days.
Coleman: It was a (___) hard row team. They haul 18 years Johnny Smoker a great, big man and he…in fact he broke all team when he started driving. You could…like he was sick or something and they hire a new driver (___) (___) (___) because they were used to him and when he sat down to hook in them, you know, take them to the stable; he’d start in the left and he’d just go across and when he get around that thing, he come right around off and run on them just like that see. A lot of guys were used to going out the right and coming across the left like that and you couldn’t come to those mules on the right. They’d kick the hell out of you if you got off on the right hand side, you had to work on the left all the time.
Dyer: So you better know what you’re doing?
Coleman: Yeah, yeah.
Dyer: Well let’s line them up. Now we’ve got them in their harness, we got them on the wagon now. As you start moving up from, say the driver’s seat, what do you call the first pair?
Coleman: The first pair?
Dyer: Right.
Coleman: That lead the way?
Dyer: Yeah.
Coleman: Just leaders.
Dyer: Right next to the wheel there?
Coleman: Oh those are the point horses.
Dyer: The point horses?
Coleman: Yeah, see, they steered the wagon.
Dyer: They steer, ok.
Coleman: See this…this…that goes here, there’s a horse here and at the end of the pole, see, there’s a tunnel. They’re hooked directly to the tunnel.
Dyer: And the others aren’t hooked to the…
Coleman: No, no they have…what do they call a “pull-rod.” It’s a 5/8th rod. There’s some tied to the inch rod and it runs under the tunnel and it’s got loose chains on it here, see, and that there they pull right from the front axle. They’re all independent from the steer in to the wagon on the…it makes no difference if they all just leaning and pulling for all they’re worth. They don’t have any effect of the steering of the wagon. The four animals steer the wagon. You’re turning to the right, the horse on the right (the wheel horse), he pulls. He pulls all he can pull and sometimes more than he can pull.
Dyer: Now that would be away from the driver’s side?
Coleman: Yeah, yeah and then you turn to the right. Why they…the pointers here, they’re working to the left, see. You’re team is going down there and you pull; pointers is head to drive out of here and they’re handling that tunnel right on their own, see. And this pull-rod is pulling out there, he don’t have any effect on that tunnel at all. It’s just these four animals handling that tunnel to steer it, see.
Dyer: So the…you have the wheeler then as you’re sitting there as a…
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: …freighter get out on your right?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Your wheeler? And what’s the one on the right in front of the freight driver? Is he a wheeler too?
Coleman: The one up in front?
Dyer: Uh…on the left side? The first one to the left.
Coleman: That’s your saddle wheeler.
Dyer: Saddle wheeler?
Coleman: You’re on him.
Dyer: And you’re on him?
Coleman: Yeah, yeah.
Dyer: And then just in front of these two animals? Then what do you call the other two?
Coleman: Then there’s sixes and eights, tens, twelves, fourteen, sixteen, but after you get above the…beyond the pointers, the rest of the team is nothing, only to your leaders. They’re just slaves up there.
Dyer: They got a lot of work.
Coleman: They don’t have to have any (___) at all. They just work.
Dyer: Alright then the first…at the end…
Coleman: Yep.
Dyer: …(___) (___).
Coleman: You’ve got six there that’s the main part of the key.
Dyer: Then you have the leaders?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Now is there one animal that usually the leader of the whole team.
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Now where do you have him?
Coleman: You have him there with your little stream line…the telegraph line.
Dyer: Oh.
Coleman: The trick lines.
Dyer: So you can…you can…
Coleman: He’s the only one you can master up there.
Dyer: And then he leads the others?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Which side would he be on?
Coleman: He’s on the left.
Dyer: On the left?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: In front of the freighter then as you’re sitting on the…
Coleman: No he’s right of the whole stream.
Dyer: Yeah but he’d be out in the (___)?
Coleman: Yeah. He’s right at the head of the class; he’s way out there.
Dyer: Now he must be pretty valuable animal though?
Coleman: He is.
Dyer: Would he be the most valuable in the string?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: What would something like that sell for back…
Coleman: Really no different than anything else.
Dyer: Huh?
Coleman: No different than any other animal.
Dyer: Huh what would the cost be? If you’re going down to buy one back in say 19…
Coleman: Well we used to buy them in pairs. As near as they could pair the mules, see. Horses is the same, size…when you went by size, see. The horses is a good (___) (___) leader.
Dyer: Did you ever mix horses and mules?
Coleman: Yeah but they don’t work good together. Ones like an ambitious man and slow poke…the mules slow and the horse is very fiery, you know, to get there. They don’t work good together, but they work. Got nothing else, they work together.
Dyer: Takes a good driver though, huh?
Coleman: Oh no, no (___) work.
Dyer: Ok we’re on our way now. You’re making your run from the valley with the load. Now do you usually have anything to do in loading the gear that went into the wagon?
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: You had to do that too?
Coleman: We had to do that too.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Yeah you had to do your own loading and same as a truck driver, you gotta find his own load, see. You gotta tie your load down. You had to do that when you’re driving a team you had to load your load.
Dyer: Was it because…
Coleman: They wouldn’t trust a helper to bind down the load. They wanted that load tied on there and he wanted it on there. Some other guy all (___), you’d be doing. If he don’t see that his load is bound down right, he much of a truck driver.
Dyer: Yeah.
Coleman: He’s gonna get into trouble before long.
Dyer: Were you responsible if anything happened to the load itself? If you’re carrying perishable items, for example, and some of them spoiled, was that you’re responsibility?
Coleman: No, no none of that for sure.
Dyer: What about things that broke in riding?
Coleman: No they…bad ordered. ‘Course they broke that leg when I was a kid driving that perishable wagon, I used to break the chocolates open and I’d done that the (___) of the guy who gave me the bill (___) and but a damage on it. He knew I was breaking them, but he knew I had to have some chocolate going on the road.
Dyer: Good energy.
Coleman: Yeah. We had a lot of stuff like that.
Dyer: After leaving the valley then when you started out, did you move the animals pretty fast, worked them pretty hard?
Coleman: You never moved them fast, but they had plenty to do. With a horse that weighed 2,000 pounds and 2,300 pounds or anything, he had to haul 2,000 pounds. That sounds like a big load, but it isn’t because when you figure those 2,000 pounds as a horse he had to pull, he couldn’t pull 2,000 pounds on all conditions of the roads, but he’d done that in two wagons, see. He had a lead wagon; he had a trailer wagon, and he had a hill like coming up this here, you’d drop your one wagon down there; just drop it and then you’d come pull up here and then you’d reach right into the tunnel and you’d unhook, they had a clevis there, and you’d unhook and take your lead team, the pointers, and go on back down. You had 16 or you had 14 on the next wagon, see. And you’d pull it up and then you’d connect them together again and then you’d pull them as far as you could, put the two together again and you got two (___) (___), why you just got off the side of the road as much as you could, so the stages could pass light rigs and other freight team, you know, and you pull along passable and then you’d drop it.
Dyer: That could be slow going on a grade there.
Coleman: Yeah, yeah.
Dyer: Priest Grade or something…
Coleman: Yeah, yeah.
Dyer: …like that.
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: You’d be back and forth all the time.
Coleman: You know and when they used to freight them in the road right from Oxen Creek there at the stores it’d be at Moccasin at the old Cavanero house.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: That’s where the freight teams used to stay. They used to be there in the break of day and pull to the top of the hill right there where you go into Oak Flat where that cemetery is, you know, up the side of the park after, you know, just where you just break going down the hill.
Dyer: Ok
Coleman: You’d pull one wagon up there, and you’d leave that and you go back to Moccasin Creek and get the other wagon. And by the time you got to Groveland, you didn’t have much time to unload because the stars are shining by the time you got there.
Dyer: (___).
Coleman: That was…that was one-day’s work from there, see.
Dyer: Well did most of the freighters have two wagons that they…
Coleman: Oh yeah, yeah. All big teams had two wagons.
Dyer: And the big team would be as many as 16…
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: …mules or horses?
Coleman: Yeah 16.
Dyer: Did you usually handle that many?
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: Uh-huh…I hear that a good freight seldom would mark his animals with a whip.
Coleman: Oh no.
Dyer: But the animal knew when they were supposed to work…when he was supposed to work?
Coleman: Oh yeah. No you never hit an animal on the body or rump. Oh some of them used to beat the hell out of them, but a good teamster never hit them. If anything, they’d whip them on the feet.
Dyer: On the feet?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: How’d you get the feet if you’re trying to get that lead mule? How could you get the…
Coleman: He worked, he got a full-proof team, he never got a whipping. He could whip the rest of them all around and he wouldn’t move because he’d never been whipped.
Dyer: Huh.
Coleman: Yeah you could whip the rest of them all up on a pile on him and he’d never move because he’d never been whipped, see. That’s one thing they didn’t want the lead horse afraid of them.
Dyer: I see.
Coleman: The mule either.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: The tell that jerk-riding mule to come here, why, he’d come right to you. He wasn’t scared of you, see. That’s where a lot teamsters had a lot of trouble. They whipped the lead mule, see.
Dyer: And when he was afraid of them, then he…
Coleman: Yeah he…
Dyer: …he would not follow them…
Coleman: …he’d stand right on your toe, but the main (___) keep that guy very calm and he’d listen to you because that’s the one you needed.
Dyer: Well how many miles would you usually take them before or you would stop or you would change animals? How many did they really work, say, rather than the Priest Grade, but like going from Merced; how far was it to the next station before you changed animals?
Coleman: Oh there used to be about 20 miles a freight team.
Dyer: Twenty miles?
Coleman: Including (___) you know.
Dyer: You’d be going maybe two miles an hour or so then?
Coleman: Yeah two to three miles an hour. If you made good time, you made three miles an hour. Unloaded, you know.
Dyer: Then you’d be over at the next station, take care of the animals, and be ready the next day?
Coleman: Oh you took your…about a good ten hours all the time *tape goes blank* (28:39-end)