The Story · Chronology
A life on the move
Fifty-one years from the pine country of Harrison County to a sheriff’s star in central Texas.
1836
Born in Harrison County
Raised among half-wild East Texas cattle in the pine-country brakes and bottoms.
1861–65
War west of the Mississippi
Rides with a Harrison County cavalry company in the Trans-Mississippi theater.
Late 1860s
West to Lampasas
Gathers brush cattle and begins taking herds north on the Kansas trails.
1874–76
Frontier Battalion
Serves with Company D of the newly rebuilt Texas Rangers.
1877
Lampasas feud
Refuses work from either side of the Horrell–Higgins feud and watches the peace take hold.
1878
The name sticks
Turns a stampeding herd at the Platte crossing and comes home known as Bison Jay.
1881
His own iron
Builds a ranch in the Big Valley bottoms on the Colorado, one cow at a time.
1887
First county sheriff
Elected sheriff as a new central Texas county forms around Goldthwaite.