trails in every season, these men of the Cowpens were the kings
of the old frontier.

An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of
these people*:

* "Extracts of Letters from an Officer" (London, 1755).


"From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the
Cow-pens; the Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of
Fellows, they drive up their Herds on Horseback, and they had
need do so, for their Cattle are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen
generally consists of a very large Cottage or House in the Woods,
with about four-score or one hundred Acres, inclosed with high
Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep for Corn, for the
family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep their calves;
but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever saw; they
may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand
Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they please
in the Great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them.
In the Month of March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then
the Cow-pen Master, with all his Men, rides out to see and drive
up the Cows with all their new fallen Calves; they being weak
cannot run away so as to escape, therefore are easily drove up,
and the Bulls and other Cattle follow them; and they put these
Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and Evening suffer the
Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the Cows out
into the great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they can;
whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the