An Early Taylor County Vocation
Joe Cruce and his dog Cap
(Herman G. Blanton)
Joe Cruce and his wife Ella (a daughter of David A. Hendry) and their children lived where the old Madison to Perry dirt road crossed the Econfina River at the McMullen Bridge about two miles south of the Madison – Taylor County line.
From my observation, having eaten the noon-day meals with them several times when on cow hunts in the area, the Cruces lived better than most pioneer families. In addition to staple cornbread, sweet potatoes, cane syrup, vegetables in season, milk and butter during cowpen times, chicken and eggs, they would have two kinds of meat at one meal, some form of hog meat plus venison. Two kinds of meat at a meal was unusual, but was not difficult for them with many hogs in the woods, they kept a porker in a pen fattening on corn most all the time for meat when needed. With plenty of deer close by and having a good deer dog, Joe could kill a deer almost any day and be back home for lunch.
Most farmers grew cotton for a money crop, but Mr. Cruce raised hogs for sale to other farmers mostly in the late summer and fall for fattening on peanuts.
When the range was open to any one there was a saying that “all one needed to have a hog claim was one old sow and a good hog dog.” With Mr. Cruce, it was much more than that. He had 25-30 sows in a 16-mile area of flatwoods between his farm and the west side of the San Pedro Bay. In fact many of his hogs ranged in the Bay where there also ranged “wild hogs.”
Joe built several hog pens in strategic locations in the area. These were built of rails or poles cut from trees nearby and were used to herd the hogs into to be caught or the pigs to be marked. Dogs were used to catch the hogs only as a last resort.
In addition to hog-raising and general farming, each spring for some three months he penned 40-50 sucklers of the Tuten and Poppell cow herds. This required 1-2 hours twice daily for two or more persons.
Generally the first thing that anyone visiting the Cruces would see would be their dog “Cap”, barking loudly, but the barking was more of a welcome than a warning. In fact it appeared the Cap actually liked company.
Cap was a good size dog, probably half hound – half cur. His color was dirty white with yellow spots. He had ears of medium length and he was born with a bob tail. Also he had a loud bass voice that really carried, I, myself, have heard him barking for a distance of near two miles. Cap’s barking was his trademark, so much so that people living in the area, many of those traveling the road recognized his bark and upon hearing him baying in the woods would comment that “Joe is hog hunting today.”
Cap was said to be an excellent coon dog, although I know nothing about this trait. He also was one of the best slow-trail deer dogs, but it was as a hog dog that he was most famous. When Joe rode off with a cow whip tied to his saddle, Cap paid no attention to hogs. When Joe carried a gun, Cap would hunt only deer, but when he carried a wallet of corn, then Cap hunted hogs.
It must be said that on any kind of hunt Cap would not pass a deer trail without letting it be known, but one word from Joe and he would immediately return to the job at hand. Speaking of deer trails, one when cow hunting with Joe and others, I saw Cap strike a deer trail and after a little switching around, he began to open up (bark). He trailed to bare place and there had trouble following it, so he kept sniffing around and came to where some bushes were hanging down over a slough. He reared up on his hind legs and smelled where the deer had brushed under them and gave a loud bark. At this point Joe called him and he immediately left the trail.
Joe also had another dog named “Ketch” and he was everything his name implied. Probably ¾ bulldog and ¼ cur – it was said that he would catch anything that Joe told him to. Ketch was taken into the woods only when hogs were to be caught and then only on a leash.
Mr. Cruce went into the woods once a week or sometimes more, carrying a wallet of shelled corn and always a sharp pocket knife, and of course Cap, to find the hogs. Cap found them by trailing and also by winding and when he came upon them he “bayed” with his loud voice until Joe arrived. Although the hogs would gather into a close group and make threatening grunts, they had learned that Cap would not harm them and that Joe would be there shortly to feed them the corn.
Since other parties had hogs in the woods in this same area, the pigs had to be marked before they were weaned. If possible the hogs would be driven or tolled to a pen where the pigs were caught and marked and the males casterated. This is where the sharp knife came into focus. It was not always possible to get all the pigs into the pen and it would fall to Cap to catch them. He was much too smart to bite them. Instead he would expertly knock the pigs over and hold them down with his front paws.
It is now August and Joe received an order by mail – no telephone – from Mr. Bailey for twenty-five (25) good clean hogs weighing about 100 pounds each at a proposed price of $3.00 for barrows and $2.50 for unsprayed guilts delivered to his farm near Mosely Hall. The price seemed low but Joe had dealt with Mr. Bailey before and knew that he could not resist buying good hogs and so Joe figured that he could get $.25 per head more, and also, he knew Mr. Bailey always had the cash money to pay.
Some farmers would grow a large acreage of peanuts and get someone to furnish hogs on a 50-50 basis but it was always the cash customer got the choice hogs.
Joe gets his two-mule wagon from the shed, puts side-boards on front and sides, a sliding tail-gate in the back, and puts on a flat top to keep the hogs from jumping out. This day, Joe will need help and he takes his boys, Rufus and J. D. along, as well as an ax, a hammer and nails. Of course Cap will go along as usual to find the hogs. Today the hogs will need to be caught and for this they will need old “Ketch”. He is tied to the wagon with a plow line and at daybreak they off down through the woods with only a blazed trail to follow.
Cap finds a bunch near Horse Hammock and they are tolled to a pen and eight are caught and loaded. The next pen was called the “Goat Pen” so named because in the early days live goats would be put in the pen with steel traps all around to catch the wolves attracted to the area by the goats. Here more hogs were caught and loaded. Now they head north hard by the west side of the Bay where there are some wild hogs that sometimes got mixed in with Joe’s. In fact he has occasionally seen a big wild boar in the area.
As they draw near a particularly rough area called the Palmetto Patches. Cap begins to open up shortly and locates another bunch, and as Joe was hoping, there was this big wild unmarked boar. As they approached, the boar ran into a clump of palmettos with Cap in hot pursuit. Now with the boys along to help and old ketch along – they had not needed him until now – there would likely never be a better time to try catching him. He was unmarked and therefore belonged to anyone who could catch and mark him. Ketch was untied and Joe motioned to the thicket where Cap was baying and tells Ketch to get him. Now Ketch didn’t bark much, just a few short yelps as he was about to make contact. After some barking and a lot of commotion, the boar began to squeal and they knew that Ketch had him. Joe and the boys worked their way in carrying the ax and hammer. When they got to where they could see, it appeared that as Ketch approached the boar had charged directly at him and that he caught the boar by the end of his nose; and what do you know, Cap seeing the danger that Ketch was in, grabbed the boar by the ham string and was pulling back with all his might. This prevented the boar from jamming Ketch into the big palmetto roots and possibly cutting him badly. Now Joe and the boys moved in and managed to mark and castrate him and with the ax and hammer broke the tusks off. And now in a year or so the boar smell will be gone and hopefully they would find and catch him again to be fattened and butchered for meat.
Now the other hogs being accustomed to Cap’s barking stayed nearby expecting to be fed and were easily tolled into the pen and the load was completed.
This had been a very pleasant and successful hunt. Both dogs were in good shape with only a couple of minor gashes on one of Ketsh’s hind legs, and they had a load of twenty-six hogs without a scratch and Joe felt sure that Mr. Bailey would give the extra $.25 per head.
Postscript
It was intended to close this story with the last paragraph above, but upon going to Shady Grove to check some of the facts with members of the Cruce family, it was learned that the surviving children are:
Mrs. Maggie Tuten, Shady Grove
Mrs. Virgie Knight, Shady Grove
Mrs. Annie Mae Tuten, Shady Grove
Mrs. Leona Faircloth, Shady Grove
Mr. Elmer Cruce, Keaton Beach Rd Perry
Also they told me of the sadness that permeated the entire family the day Cap died. All were present and crying as though a member of the family died as Cap was buried in the field near the barn.
Cap had lived to a ripe old age and had done everything possible to be useful and helpful and there is no doubt that he has gone to the place reserved for all good dogs.