My family arrived in Polk County, settling in Big Sandy, in the late 1800s when they received a small land grant from the U.S. government. According to Cannon Pritchard, a former member of the Polk County Historical Commission, Big Sandy was named after a creek by the same name in the late 1860s and was later also referred to as Dallardsville – a farming community founded around 1880, named after John J. Dallard, a doctor and a teacher. The current U.S. post office functions under the Dallardsville name, while the local school district uses the “Big Sandy” name. Most people who live in the area today refer to it as “Big Sandy.”
My grandmother’s maiden name was Sanders, she later married a Griffin, which is the name my family carries today. The Sanders family acquired their homestead in the Big Sandy area under the authority of the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave U.S. citizens and immigrants the opportunity to claim 160 acres of land from the government. The National Archives indicates the act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. This law turned over vast amounts of the public domain to private citizens. Two hundred seventy million acres, or 10% of the area of the United States, was claimed and settled under this act. Much of Polk County was settled via the Homestead Act.
The original 160-acre homestead, located in the Big Sandy area, initially supported one family with six children. The land was later divided into smaller parcels as each child grew to adulthood. My grandmother owned a portion, along with her siblings. My father, B.L. Griffin, bought out some of the property from his various cousins, eventually owning the largest portion of the original 160 acres. He was also able to purchase other property within a five-mile radius of the original homestead. His vision was to become a rancher, which he did, but only in the context of an East Texas ranch – not the large spreads most of us envision when we watch Yellowstone on TV.
Sustaining an East Texas ranch often required the rancher to have more than one job – which my father did. But this story is not about my father – it is about my mother – a Polk County rancher. Women are rarely viewed as ranchers, although almost every ranch has one or more women working it. And the emphasis here is on “working” – as it was hard work, but for those who loved being outdoors, animals and hard work, it was a way of life. My mother, Dorothy Griffin, loved that way of life.
My mother kept the house and cooked the meals for our family, and often fed others who frequented her kitchen – such as the local game wardens who patrolled the heavily hunted surroundings. But it was the outdoors she loved – she cut hay, fed cows and hogs, mowed pastures and cleared land as their acreage grew. She helped with “working” the cattle – which meant branding, neutering steers and pulling calves when necessary. More than one time she suffered broken bones while working cattle. And she was an avid hunter and trapper.
Operating a ranch in Polk County also meant that the ranching family most likely leased land from the lumber companies who owned most of the land. This resulted in large acreage being part of the ranch. My family at one time leased about 8,000 acres from the lumber companies – which expanded their own acreage slightly closer to the TV version of large West Texas or Wyoming ranches. But running cattle on an East Texas ranch – back in the days when the lumber companies allowed you to do so – was much different than running cattle on the open plains. After all, East Texas is known as the Big Thicket! And so it was back before all the clear cutting began by the lumber companies. Anyone who knows ranching, knows that keeping cattle within a fenced area, especially in the Big Thicket, is no easy task.
So much of my mother’s work involved walking the fence lines to assure no fence was down or cow hung up in the fence. In the Big Thicket you could not ride a horse to work the fence lines, you had to put on your rubber boots, carry all your equipment (fence posts, wire, stretchers, etc.) and walk the fences to repair them. Walking often involved “wading” as there are plenty of “bay galls” in East Texas. As a girl, I often joined my mother on her rounds, and later when I moved away from home, I would return to help her with this important ranching task. My mother was strong, she could drag fence posts, carry wire and a post hole digger, while navigating miles around the fences. She also carried a gun to shoot water moccasins or other venomous East Texas snakes which she often encountered.
Speaking of snakes – for some reason large, extraordinarily long rattlesnakes live throughout the woods in that area of Big Sandy. We called them timber rattlers, though they have a more scientific name and they are huge. My mother encountered many of them while hunting and walking those fences. One she killed was able to be draped across the tailgate of their pickup truck and touched the ground on both sides! So, walking those fence lines was also to patrol for rattlesnakes. Fortunately, my mother or other members of our family were never bit – but several dogs were lost to rattlesnake bites.
My mother’s greatest joy was hunting and trapping. She was an avid deer hunter, killing her last buck when she climbed into a deer stand at age 93 with the help of her grandson. And her shot was perfect – one shot into the forward shoulder near the heart, dropping the buck where he stood. Most Polk Countians do not know that trapping, up until a few years ago, was a semi-lucrative side job for many. Fur buyers would come into Livingston one weekend a month, purchasing the various hides that local trappers provided – coons, fox, bobcats, coyotes and other varmints. My mother loved trapping! My dad did not like the actual trapping part – but he would assist my mother when it came to “skinning” and preparing the hide for sale. When my mother first started trapping she used steel traps which required the animal caught to be killed to remove it from the trap. But later, she advanced to “live traps,” which allowed the trapper – my mother – to bring the animal home alive, until my father could kill and skin it.
On the topic of trapping, all East Texas ranchers did and still do trap hogs. Feral hogs are a nuisance to all ranchers. My family has and continues to trap hogs. Before the laws changed, hunting hogs was common – often using “hog dogs.” My mother was also a hog hunter. Hog hunting with dogs required more than one hunter for success. When my brother and I were old enough to “tag along,” we would accompany my parents on hog hunts. Hog hunting with dogs can be a fast-paced and intense experience, with the dogs leading the way and the hogs running and then fighting when cornered. The hunt involves a strong partnership between the hunters and their dogs, with the dogs relying on their instincts and training to locate and control the hogs. The four of us would move through the woods as fast as possible toward the “baying dogs” when they found hogs. Once we arrived at the surrounded hogs, my mother would often lift me and my brother up into a tree to “hang on” during the final stages of the hunt when the hogs were surrounded by the dogs and one or more selected hogs shot. The hogs would often turn on the hunters and try to rip them apart. It was a dangerous ordeal.
The hunters were challenged with killing a hog without shooting one of the baying dogs or without one of the dogs getting ripped up by an angry, cornered boar. It was quite an experience! Then after the hog was shot (this was often my mother’s job) and the dogs controlled (my father’s role) – the next task was dragging the hog out of the woods to a road where it could be loaded in the truck and taken home for butchering. My mother would get one hind leg, and my father the other and they would drag the hog, often for over a mile to a close road for transport home. Once home, then the butchering and packing the meat for the freezer or the sausage-making began – my dad did most of the butchering, while my mother handled the rest.
My mother lived a long life. She died in February 2024 at the age of 94. She raised my brother and I, and two grandchildren while assisting with the upbringing of six great-grandchildren. My mother was empowered by the courage, hard work and personal fortitude it took to be a “rancher.” Her legacy of the love of ranching, hunting and the outdoors lives on in her two grandsons who now own and operate the Griffin family ranch. My father was recognized many years ago as Polk County Rancher of the Year by then-Judge Wayne Baker. I can’t recall the exact year, but I always thought my mother should have also received that award along with my father, as she worked equally hard to build and sustain the ranch. The Griffin Ranch continues to prosper and grow into the vision she and my father had for it when they bought their first land from family heirs in 1948.
