(WEST COLORADO) Aaron N Paxson Letter describing his advent

Sale 2675 - Lot 298

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(WEST--COLORADO.) Aaron N. Paxson. Letter describing his adventures as a buffalo hunter, with a manuscript "Song of the Buffalo Range." Autograph Letter Signed to sister. 2 pages, 12½ x 7½ inches, on one folding sheet; full separation at fold. With accompanying poem in his hand, 4 pages, 9½ x 7½ inches, on one folding sheet; with envelope bearing a Julesburg postmark of a different date with pre-printed postage addressed to N. Paxson of Solon, IA (Aaron's father Nelson). With typed transcripts. Near Julesburg, CO, 13 November 1874

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Aaron Nelson Paxson (1852-1936) was born in Indiana, and spent most of his life in Iowa. This letter describes his youthful sojourn as a buffalo hunter in Colorado. In part: "Ves and his partner is both hunting now. They let a man have their cattle to take care of, a man that has a big heard of cattle on the Frenchman, and now they will hunt all winter. We intend to follow the buffalo wherever they go. . . . Ves and his partner killed twenty-seven buffalo yesterday. I think we can send some meat in about a month. . . . I got after a buffalo calf and it turned on me, and I run like a whitehead, but it caught me and bunted me. . . . It diden't hurt me much, till I killed it with revolver. It got too close for a gun. . . . We sleep right out on the ground all the time, but we have plenty of buffalo hides to wrap up in. There is nine of us together now. Some of the boys is a going to Julesburg in a few days with a load of hides."

Enclosed with the letter is a song which was then popular on the range, here titled "Song of the Buffalo Range." Some sources credit the author as Whiskey Parker, who owned a tavern near Spearfish, Dakota Territory. Here the song the author is credited as "W.W. Parker." It was first published in 1910 in John Lomax's "Cowboy Songs" under the title "The Buffalo Hunter."