Drive a Thanksgiving Turkey!
True Tales of Thanksgiving and Not-So-Thanksgiving Turkey Drives
From the time of the first taste of turkey, the acquiring, cooking and eating of turkey has been a major Thanksgiving task or ordinary mortals. Before the era of bred for the supermarket turkeys, people ate wild turkeys for Thanksgiving and often all year around. Wild turkeys have longer necks and legs and smaller breasts and author G.T. Klein wrote that the true American turkey was “wild and wary to the point of genius.”
Watching a flock of large wild turkeys flying across the sky or roosting in the trees must have been a memorable sight for American pioneers. Catching wild turkeys was one of the challenges of Native American and pioneer life.
In the early part of the 19th century, Indians used snares and blow guns to catch turkeys and white people conducted turkey drives to capture their Thanksgiving turkey. Turkey drives, also called Turkey Trailing were especially popular in the southeastern United States, but they also occurred in New England and the Midwestern states.
The Call of the Wild, Turkey that Is!
Indians were as musical as Bach or Mozart in reproducing the call of the wild turkey to lure them into their cooking pots. Probably the turkey eaten at the Pilgrim and Indian Thanksgiving Day feast were called or caught by being driven into trees or a snare.
A turkey enthusiast named Van der Donk described how the Indians used snares to catch turkeys.
“The Indians take many in snares when the weather changes in winter. Then they lay bulbous roots, which the turkeys are fond of, in the small rills and streams of water, which the birds take up, when they are ensnared and held until the artful Indian takes the turkey as his prize.”
Cherokee Indian children even used blowguns to hunt turkeys, by shooting them in the eye. Alexander Wilson described shooting turkeys with blowguns.
“At Bear Creek I first observed the Indian boys with their blowguns. These are tubes of cane seven feet long and perfectly straight when well made. The arrows are made of slender slips of cane, twisted and straightened before the fire, and covered for several inches at one end with the down of thistles in a spiral form, so as just to enter the tube. By a puff they can send these with such violence as to enter the body of a partridge, 20 yards off..”
The Friendly, Neighborhood Turkey Drive
Friends and neighbors often conducted local turkey drives. Three or more people would gather with their guns and stand from 75 to 100 yards apart across a wooded creek valley or in a semicircle in the open woods. At a signal the drivers would move slowly forward, whistling, tapping the trunks of trees and making other noises.
Most of the town or village population would turn out to choose their galloping gobbler. After a family chose which turkey it wanted, it was up to that family to bring the turkey to terms. Sometimes it took two or three determined turkey lovers, including Papa to do this.
When Papa brought the turkey home to Mama, she had to deal with the pin-feathers, those thousands of little feathers that clung to the turkey with a grip stronger than Super Glue. It usually took a day before Thanksgiving of scalding, picking and chapped hands before the turkey was read for the oven.
When the steaming turkey stuffed with fragrant dressing was finally sat on the table, Papa and Mama both had earned their Thanksgiving dinners.
To Market, to Market to Buy a Fat Turkey
In England during the 1700’s, turkey drovers walked turkeys to market in large herds. Turkey farmers often covered the birds’ feet with little booties to protect them on the long journey to the London market. American turkey dovers didn’t put booties on their turkeys, but they did drive them to distant markets. Turkey ranchers in most parts of the country let their birds roam free to forage on nuts and other good things in the woods. Turkey drovers herded thousands of turkeys to markets or railheads that sometimes were hundreds of miles distant. The birds crossed mountains, rivers, plains and deserts.
Turkey Drives New England Style
Before railroads provided cheap and easy transportation, part of a farmer’s duties included walking Vermont turkeys from Vermont to market in Boston. Farmers either walked the turkeys themselves or hiring someone to walk for them. People from towns in all parts of Vermont would pool their turkeys and gather their wagons with camp supplies and enough feed grain to last for the trip. In the 1820s and 1830s, turkey drives of from three to four thousand birds were common.
According to historian Charles Morrow Wilson, it took about 1,000 turkeys to make the 150 to 350 mile trip financially worthwhile. The road to Boston teemed with hidden hazards. The turkey flocks could only travel from ten to twelve miles a day and every 100 birds require a drover. Boys walked in front of the turkeys scattering shelled corn so they would walk forward and other boys and men herded them from behind. Turkey flocks were often a mile long and from a few feet to fifty yards wide.
When sunset came, turkeys perched for the night no matter the location. The weight of hundreds of turkeys perched in trees toppled the trees. If trees weren’t available, turkeys chose roofs, which were often in their sights. Often, so many turkeys perched on a farmer’s shed or barn that the building that it collapsed under their weight. A turkey flock bound from Vermont to Boston chose a schoolhouse roof for a roost and so many of them hopped aboard that the roof caved in. The schoolmaster had been working inside and he escape by only a feather length.
Sometimes when turkeys were crossing a covered bridge, they thought that dusk had fallen and they stopped. The drovers would have to go inside the bridge, pick up the turkeys and carry them through the bridge into the sun. As soon as the turkeys saw the sun they would start moving toward Boston again. A flock of Boston bound turkeys reached a covered bridge tollhouse. The toll keeper had been tardy in raising the gate and a solitary turkey flew onto the roof, perhaps scouting the roosting terrain. Turkeys imitate each other, so hundreds of others followed the solitary scout turkey. The turkey covered roof collapsed and most of the drovers from that turkey drive found themselves buying a new roof for the toll bridge.
Vermonters sometimes covered the turkey’s feet with warm tar to protect them from the long November walk over rough ground. The farmers estimated that they lost about ten percent of their turkeys to rivers, fox, hungry farm families along the way, and other perils.
Midwestern and Southern turkey drives were just as eventful as their New England counterparts. Some were even humorous. Sometimes rival flocks raced each other to market and sometimes different species competed against each other, as in the case of the duck and turkey drive from Arkansas to Missouri.
The Fable of the Waddling Ducks and the Roosting Turkeys
A duck farmer in the small town of Denver, Arkansas, decided to match his ducks as walkers against turkeys as walkers. A turkey farmer challenged him to a race to the poultry market located in Springfield, Missouri, about sixty miles away. Ducks have short legs and waddle, while turkeys, once they decided to run, can outrun a pony for a certain distance. The duck farmer accepted the turkey farmer’s challenge, the townspeople bet on the outcome of the race, and the two farmers ironed out the details of their race.
On the day of the race, the starting gun fired and the turkeys soon flew out of sight, leaving the ducks waddling slowly behind. Sunset came and the turkey’s picked their trees for their night’s rest. The ducks didn’t stop for the night. Instead, they kept waddling. The duck drover walked ahead of his waddling flock, a lighted lantern guiding the way. His son walked behind, his lantern lighting his way and providing a lighted path for stragglers. Eyewitnesses to the great race, who may have slightly exaggerated memories, swear that the ducks travelled all night and arrived in Springfield the next morning before the turkey drover had even gotten his birds out of the trees.
Kentucky Turkey Drive Stories
Joe Heinrich, and after him, Thomas Heinrich & Son, poultry dealers from Mt. Sterling Kentucky conducted turkey drives until 1913. Joe Heinrich gathered his turkey knowledge the hard way- by dealing with turkeys on turkey drives. He said that if turkeys decided to bed down at three o’clock in the afternoon, nothing can change their mind and if a turkey drover overslept he would have to hunt over hill and dale to find his lost turkeys.
According to Joe Heinrich, anything could spook turkeys on turkey drives. It didn’t take much to frighten them. Things like howling dogs, rifle shots, white paper fluttering, a steam engine, a dog barking. Sometimes turkeys turned on their drovers. Straight-faced, Joe suggests that they may have been upset because they weren’t chosen to be America’s national bird.
Things unseen often frightened turkey flocks arriving in Mt. Sterling, and they sometimes would fly to the top of the highest buildings for safety. Some would roost there for days, providing targets and temptation for sharpshooters who wagered who would kill the most by shooting them through the head. Joe said that not many turkeys were killed that way because a turkey’s head is not much bigger than a silver dollar.
Poultry scientist W.M. Insko, Jr., of the University of Kentucky reminisced that as he boy he would meet turkey herds on his way home from school. He remembered that one time a flock of turkeys reached town at dusk. A small power plant furnished electricity for the town and not knowing that turkeys were waiting, the plant attendant turned on the street lights. Hundreds of turkeys materialized in trees and on rooftops.
Turkey Trailing Travels West
The story of Henry C. Hooker and his Sierra Bonita Ranch in the San Simon Valley of Arizona has a turkey trailing foundation. In its time, the Sierra Bonita Ranch resembled a baron’s castle in a desert oasis. Famous people visited it to ride, enjoy the fresh air, admire the cattle and soak in the western atmosphere. Turkey drives were responsible for all of this splendor.
In the 1860s when he was a young man, Henry Hooker owned a hardware business in Hangtown, California which later would become a gold rush center called Placerville. When his hardware store burned, Henry rescued only a thousand dollars in cash. He had to start over again and he decided to travel to Carson City, Nevada across the High Sierras. Carson City boomed with people, but it had to import food and its people didn’t have much to eat. Since Hangtown farmers raised turkeys, Henry decided that he would walk a flock of turkeys over the High Sierras to Nevada. Purchasing all of the turkeys he could afford, Henry began his journey with a few dogs, a helper, and the turkeys.
At first, the turkeys politely walked to the snow line and beyond, but one day after the flock had passed the summit of the High Sierras, the turkeys stopped at the edge of a steep slope and the dogs nipped at them to move. They did move, but they moved into the air and flew away. The turkeys disappeared in minutes and Henry was certain he would never see them again. Later he said their disappearance gave him “the most indescribable feeling” of his life.
Feeling the weight of the Sierras on his shoulders, Henry made his way down the slope. Then he heard a gobble and then another gobble. Soon he and his helper and the dogs had rounded up almost every turkey. The turkeys seemed to prefer the escorted trip and they stayed close for the rest of the journey. In Carson City, eager buyers grabbed the turkeys at five dollars apiece. Henry Hooker bought his first Texas and New Mexico cattle with his turkey profits and started his Arizona Ranch.
Turkey Driving to Denver
A turkey drive could be a long drawn out journey. A breeding herd took a year to walk from New Mexico to California. In June 1863, George Bruffey and his partner followed the trail along the South Platte in northeastern Colorado on their way to the boom town of Denver. Not far outside of Denver they encountered a man driving a flock of 500 turkeys.
George Bruffey talked to the drover and discovered that the drover had bought the birds in Iowa and Missouri. He and two boy drovers had walked the turkeys 600 miles from Missouri to Denver. His equipment consisted of a wagon loaded with shelled corn, drawn by six horses and mules. The turkey man told George that they could make 25 miles a day with the wind behind them, but when blew against them the turkey situation deteriorated. Mostly of the turkeys lived off the land, eating swarms of grasshoppers. When the land offered nothing to eat, the drover and the boys threw shelled corn to the turkeys from the wagon. George saw the turkey man again after he had sold his flock and the turkey man told George that he had “done well” on the deal.
Turkey vs. Eagle
Benjamin Franklin believed that the North American wild turkey should be the national bird. The wild turkey of Ben Franklin’s day was a brightly plumed, cunning bird of flight, so he thought it deserved national recognition.
Americans settled on the eagle as the national avian symbol and as America itself became more settled most people opted to buy their turkeys from existing markets instead of capturing them on the wing.Some of the turkey drives did continue into the twentieth century and there still lurks a hard core of turkey drovers waiting for the voice of the wild turkey calling to be walked to market again.
References
Baily, Wayne. 50 Years Hunting Wild Turkeys. Penn’s Woods, 1983
Bland, Dwain. Some Turkey Scratchings. Penn’s Woods, 1983
Everitt, Simon W. Tales of Wild Turkey Hunting. Old Master’s Publishing, 1984
From the time of the first taste of turkey, the acquiring, cooking and eating of turkey has been a major Thanksgiving task or ordinary mortals. Before the era of bred for the supermarket turkeys, people ate wild turkeys for Thanksgiving and often all year around. Wild turkeys have longer necks and legs and smaller breasts and author G.T. Klein wrote that the true American turkey was “wild and wary to the point of genius.”
Watching a flock of large wild turkeys flying across the sky or roosting in the trees must have been a memorable sight for American pioneers. Catching wild turkeys was one of the challenges of Native American and pioneer life.
In the early part of the 19th century, Indians used snares and blow guns to catch turkeys and white people conducted turkey drives to capture their Thanksgiving turkey. Turkey drives, also called Turkey Trailing were especially popular in the southeastern United States, but they also occurred in New England and the Midwestern states.
The Call of the Wild, Turkey that Is!
Indians were as musical as Bach or Mozart in reproducing the call of the wild turkey to lure them into their cooking pots. Probably the turkey eaten at the Pilgrim and Indian Thanksgiving Day feast were called or caught by being driven into trees or a snare.
A turkey enthusiast named Van der Donk described how the Indians used snares to catch turkeys.
“The Indians take many in snares when the weather changes in winter. Then they lay bulbous roots, which the turkeys are fond of, in the small rills and streams of water, which the birds take up, when they are ensnared and held until the artful Indian takes the turkey as his prize.”
Cherokee Indian children even used blowguns to hunt turkeys, by shooting them in the eye. Alexander Wilson described shooting turkeys with blowguns.
“At Bear Creek I first observed the Indian boys with their blowguns. These are tubes of cane seven feet long and perfectly straight when well made. The arrows are made of slender slips of cane, twisted and straightened before the fire, and covered for several inches at one end with the down of thistles in a spiral form, so as just to enter the tube. By a puff they can send these with such violence as to enter the body of a partridge, 20 yards off..”
The Friendly, Neighborhood Turkey Drive
Friends and neighbors often conducted local turkey drives. Three or more people would gather with their guns and stand from 75 to 100 yards apart across a wooded creek valley or in a semicircle in the open woods. At a signal the drivers would move slowly forward, whistling, tapping the trunks of trees and making other noises.
Most of the town or village population would turn out to choose their galloping gobbler. After a family chose which turkey it wanted, it was up to that family to bring the turkey to terms. Sometimes it took two or three determined turkey lovers, including Papa to do this.
When Papa brought the turkey home to Mama, she had to deal with the pin-feathers, those thousands of little feathers that clung to the turkey with a grip stronger than Super Glue. It usually took a day before Thanksgiving of scalding, picking and chapped hands before the turkey was read for the oven.
When the steaming turkey stuffed with fragrant dressing was finally sat on the table, Papa and Mama both had earned their Thanksgiving dinners.
To Market, to Market to Buy a Fat Turkey
In England during the 1700’s, turkey drovers walked turkeys to market in large herds. Turkey farmers often covered the birds’ feet with little booties to protect them on the long journey to the London market. American turkey dovers didn’t put booties on their turkeys, but they did drive them to distant markets. Turkey ranchers in most parts of the country let their birds roam free to forage on nuts and other good things in the woods. Turkey drovers herded thousands of turkeys to markets or railheads that sometimes were hundreds of miles distant. The birds crossed mountains, rivers, plains and deserts.
Turkey Drives New England Style
Before railroads provided cheap and easy transportation, part of a farmer’s duties included walking Vermont turkeys from Vermont to market in Boston. Farmers either walked the turkeys themselves or hiring someone to walk for them. People from towns in all parts of Vermont would pool their turkeys and gather their wagons with camp supplies and enough feed grain to last for the trip. In the 1820s and 1830s, turkey drives of from three to four thousand birds were common.
According to historian Charles Morrow Wilson, it took about 1,000 turkeys to make the 150 to 350 mile trip financially worthwhile. The road to Boston teemed with hidden hazards. The turkey flocks could only travel from ten to twelve miles a day and every 100 birds require a drover. Boys walked in front of the turkeys scattering shelled corn so they would walk forward and other boys and men herded them from behind. Turkey flocks were often a mile long and from a few feet to fifty yards wide.
When sunset came, turkeys perched for the night no matter the location. The weight of hundreds of turkeys perched in trees toppled the trees. If trees weren’t available, turkeys chose roofs, which were often in their sights. Often, so many turkeys perched on a farmer’s shed or barn that the building that it collapsed under their weight. A turkey flock bound from Vermont to Boston chose a schoolhouse roof for a roost and so many of them hopped aboard that the roof caved in. The schoolmaster had been working inside and he escape by only a feather length.
Sometimes when turkeys were crossing a covered bridge, they thought that dusk had fallen and they stopped. The drovers would have to go inside the bridge, pick up the turkeys and carry them through the bridge into the sun. As soon as the turkeys saw the sun they would start moving toward Boston again. A flock of Boston bound turkeys reached a covered bridge tollhouse. The toll keeper had been tardy in raising the gate and a solitary turkey flew onto the roof, perhaps scouting the roosting terrain. Turkeys imitate each other, so hundreds of others followed the solitary scout turkey. The turkey covered roof collapsed and most of the drovers from that turkey drive found themselves buying a new roof for the toll bridge.
Vermonters sometimes covered the turkey’s feet with warm tar to protect them from the long November walk over rough ground. The farmers estimated that they lost about ten percent of their turkeys to rivers, fox, hungry farm families along the way, and other perils.
Midwestern and Southern turkey drives were just as eventful as their New England counterparts. Some were even humorous. Sometimes rival flocks raced each other to market and sometimes different species competed against each other, as in the case of the duck and turkey drive from Arkansas to Missouri.
The Fable of the Waddling Ducks and the Roosting Turkeys
A duck farmer in the small town of Denver, Arkansas, decided to match his ducks as walkers against turkeys as walkers. A turkey farmer challenged him to a race to the poultry market located in Springfield, Missouri, about sixty miles away. Ducks have short legs and waddle, while turkeys, once they decided to run, can outrun a pony for a certain distance. The duck farmer accepted the turkey farmer’s challenge, the townspeople bet on the outcome of the race, and the two farmers ironed out the details of their race.
On the day of the race, the starting gun fired and the turkeys soon flew out of sight, leaving the ducks waddling slowly behind. Sunset came and the turkey’s picked their trees for their night’s rest. The ducks didn’t stop for the night. Instead, they kept waddling. The duck drover walked ahead of his waddling flock, a lighted lantern guiding the way. His son walked behind, his lantern lighting his way and providing a lighted path for stragglers. Eyewitnesses to the great race, who may have slightly exaggerated memories, swear that the ducks travelled all night and arrived in Springfield the next morning before the turkey drover had even gotten his birds out of the trees.
Kentucky Turkey Drive Stories
Joe Heinrich, and after him, Thomas Heinrich & Son, poultry dealers from Mt. Sterling Kentucky conducted turkey drives until 1913. Joe Heinrich gathered his turkey knowledge the hard way- by dealing with turkeys on turkey drives. He said that if turkeys decided to bed down at three o’clock in the afternoon, nothing can change their mind and if a turkey drover overslept he would have to hunt over hill and dale to find his lost turkeys.
According to Joe Heinrich, anything could spook turkeys on turkey drives. It didn’t take much to frighten them. Things like howling dogs, rifle shots, white paper fluttering, a steam engine, a dog barking. Sometimes turkeys turned on their drovers. Straight-faced, Joe suggests that they may have been upset because they weren’t chosen to be America’s national bird.
Things unseen often frightened turkey flocks arriving in Mt. Sterling, and they sometimes would fly to the top of the highest buildings for safety. Some would roost there for days, providing targets and temptation for sharpshooters who wagered who would kill the most by shooting them through the head. Joe said that not many turkeys were killed that way because a turkey’s head is not much bigger than a silver dollar.
Poultry scientist W.M. Insko, Jr., of the University of Kentucky reminisced that as he boy he would meet turkey herds on his way home from school. He remembered that one time a flock of turkeys reached town at dusk. A small power plant furnished electricity for the town and not knowing that turkeys were waiting, the plant attendant turned on the street lights. Hundreds of turkeys materialized in trees and on rooftops.
Turkey Trailing Travels West
The story of Henry C. Hooker and his Sierra Bonita Ranch in the San Simon Valley of Arizona has a turkey trailing foundation. In its time, the Sierra Bonita Ranch resembled a baron’s castle in a desert oasis. Famous people visited it to ride, enjoy the fresh air, admire the cattle and soak in the western atmosphere. Turkey drives were responsible for all of this splendor.
In the 1860s when he was a young man, Henry Hooker owned a hardware business in Hangtown, California which later would become a gold rush center called Placerville. When his hardware store burned, Henry rescued only a thousand dollars in cash. He had to start over again and he decided to travel to Carson City, Nevada across the High Sierras. Carson City boomed with people, but it had to import food and its people didn’t have much to eat. Since Hangtown farmers raised turkeys, Henry decided that he would walk a flock of turkeys over the High Sierras to Nevada. Purchasing all of the turkeys he could afford, Henry began his journey with a few dogs, a helper, and the turkeys.
At first, the turkeys politely walked to the snow line and beyond, but one day after the flock had passed the summit of the High Sierras, the turkeys stopped at the edge of a steep slope and the dogs nipped at them to move. They did move, but they moved into the air and flew away. The turkeys disappeared in minutes and Henry was certain he would never see them again. Later he said their disappearance gave him “the most indescribable feeling” of his life.
Feeling the weight of the Sierras on his shoulders, Henry made his way down the slope. Then he heard a gobble and then another gobble. Soon he and his helper and the dogs had rounded up almost every turkey. The turkeys seemed to prefer the escorted trip and they stayed close for the rest of the journey. In Carson City, eager buyers grabbed the turkeys at five dollars apiece. Henry Hooker bought his first Texas and New Mexico cattle with his turkey profits and started his Arizona Ranch.
Turkey Driving to Denver
A turkey drive could be a long drawn out journey. A breeding herd took a year to walk from New Mexico to California. In June 1863, George Bruffey and his partner followed the trail along the South Platte in northeastern Colorado on their way to the boom town of Denver. Not far outside of Denver they encountered a man driving a flock of 500 turkeys.
George Bruffey talked to the drover and discovered that the drover had bought the birds in Iowa and Missouri. He and two boy drovers had walked the turkeys 600 miles from Missouri to Denver. His equipment consisted of a wagon loaded with shelled corn, drawn by six horses and mules. The turkey man told George that they could make 25 miles a day with the wind behind them, but when blew against them the turkey situation deteriorated. Mostly of the turkeys lived off the land, eating swarms of grasshoppers. When the land offered nothing to eat, the drover and the boys threw shelled corn to the turkeys from the wagon. George saw the turkey man again after he had sold his flock and the turkey man told George that he had “done well” on the deal.
Turkey vs. Eagle
Benjamin Franklin believed that the North American wild turkey should be the national bird. The wild turkey of Ben Franklin’s day was a brightly plumed, cunning bird of flight, so he thought it deserved national recognition.
Americans settled on the eagle as the national avian symbol and as America itself became more settled most people opted to buy their turkeys from existing markets instead of capturing them on the wing.Some of the turkey drives did continue into the twentieth century and there still lurks a hard core of turkey drovers waiting for the voice of the wild turkey calling to be walked to market again.
References
Baily, Wayne. 50 Years Hunting Wild Turkeys. Penn’s Woods, 1983
Bland, Dwain. Some Turkey Scratchings. Penn’s Woods, 1983
Everitt, Simon W. Tales of Wild Turkey Hunting. Old Master’s Publishing, 1984
