Cattle baron. Slaughter spent his childhood riding cow ponies and began trailing cattle up the Chisholm Trail around 1866. A survivor of numerous scrapes with the indians,including one in which he was seriously wounded, Slaughter eventually amassed vast land and cattle holding in several Texas counties.

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SLAUGHTER, JOHN B.
Wherever a Texas steer is bought or sold the name of John B. Slaughter, of Colorado City, is well known. He was born in Sabine County, in 1848, and though young, has had a life of singular success and thrilling experience. His father, G.W. Slaughter, was of German-American ancestry and married Miss Sallie Mason, a young lady of Irish descent. John B. Slaughter is a cattleman by birth and education. born on the frontier of Sabine County, as soon as he could ride a pony he was kept at work on his father's ranch, with occasional intervals devoted to rounding up cattle. This he followed until his seventeenth year, when he went on the trail, driving for his father and brother, C.C. Slaughter, and received $15 a month. This with the little herd of thirty or forty head his father had given him was his start in life. The trail to Kansas and the range of West Texas were his field, and the saddle and "slicker" his home. His father and brother located their ranches in Palo Pinto County in the days when Indian raids and oulawry demanded that every one should be ready and fearless marksman and carry with him at all times sufficient arms to defend his life and interest. Encounters with Indians, who would swoop down like hungry wolves, were neither rare nor novel. Their desire for ponies was never satiated, and a scalp now and then, as a trophy, was always in order. These were the dangers he had been born to and reared in, and the hand to hand battles and running fights he took part in in Palo Pinto, Jack and young Counties only a few years ago, seem almost incredible. Where now nestle quiet little villages and rich farms, with their broad green hedgerows, covering the face of the country, were once scenes of hot pursuit of marauding bands or hasty retreats from overwhelming numbers of savages, in which he always took part.

In the spring of 1871, when preparing for the season's roundup with his father and the other hands, the ponies were placed in a corral, an enclosure made of cedar pickets set close, to prevent Indians from stealing them. Going out to the corral before daylight to look after the ponies, on the morning they were to start, he found a hole in the fence. At the instant he discovered the gap an Indian sprang up from the ground, almost at his feet and fired, the ball entering his right breast and coming out at his back. He did not fall but ran back for his rifle, but the Indian joined his band, which was near by, and escaped in flight. Though shot through the body, in six weeks he was in the saddle again and on the trail to Kansas. The following season he went through on the trail again with cattle for his father and brother, which were in charge of a Mr. Adams. At Victoria Peak, in Montague County, the cattle were stampeded by a storm one night and scattered over the country. The follwoing morning the cowboys set out in twos to gather them up, Mr. Adams and a young man going west. At nightfall all returned except these two. As the Indians had, the day before, raided Bob Stevens' ranch at Victoria Peak, near by, and stolen all his ponies, the men, believing Mr. Adams to be killed, after a short search thought it useless to look further for him, but were prevailed on by John and one of the hands to continue the search. John took charge of the herd, and three days later, attracted by a swarm of vultures, they found the bodies of Adams and his young companion, scalped and mutilated. The breast of one was cut open and his heart drawn out and laid on his stomach; the other had parts of his person cut off and placed in his mouth. They rolled the bodies in their blankets and buried them under the bank of the creek where they had made their stand for life.

They were again attacked near Lookout Mountain in the Indian Territory. Fifteen Comanches stampeded their ponies, which were driven in a separate herd, and ran them off, leaving them with 2,000 head of cattle to handle with one pony each. Yet they did it, arriving at Abilene, Kansas, on foot, where the herd was sold.

Returning the next spring, he went to Weatherford and purchased of Couts & Hughes $2,500 worth of ponies, and went with his men to Jack County to receive a herd of cattle his father had purchased of J.C. Loving. On the night of their arrival, while he and one of his hands were standing guard over the ponies which had been hidden in a valley, they were surprised by a volley of shots, yells and flapping of red blankets. The Indians seemed to come out of the ground, and, like a whirlwind, swept off every horse, leaving them on foot. He was almost in touch with the red brutes, shooting and being shot at. The cattle were scattered also, and while they were being gathered up he returned to Weatherford for a new supply of horses.

In 1877, he and W.B. Slaughter, with a combined capital of $6,000 entered the business together, buying steers and driving them to market, continuing until 1880, when he established a ranch in Blanco Canyon, on Catfish River, on which he placed 2,000 cattle and remained five years. He then moved to Socorro County, New Mexico, and, in 1886, sold to an English syndicate for $124,000 and went to Utah, establishing a ranch on Green River and remained two years. Returning to New Mexico he located near the Texas line and kept this ranch for three years. In 1889 he moved to Glasscock County, Texas, where he now has 160 sections of land and 5,000 to 6,000 cattle and 100 saddle horses. He also has leased 36 sections on the east line of Mitchell County where he runs 1,200 cattle, and is Vice-President of the People's National Bank of Colorado City.

He is one of the best known cattlemen in the State, and his superior judgment and thorough knowledge of the cattle industry has resulted in success for him where others have failed. He is loved by all his men and highly esteemed by all who have his acquaintance. Hew was married in July, 1880 to Miss Belle May, of Dallas. [Source: Historical and Biographical Record of the Cattle Industry and the Cattlemen of Texas, Woodward & Tiernan Printing Co. St. Louis 1895]