Giddyup

[Paul Mackin]

On 10/4/2012 12:31 PM, Paul Mac kin wrote:
> On 10/4/2012 12:22 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:
>> Who knew? John Pynchon was America's first cattle baron and imported 
>> Irish cowboys.
>>
>> http://www.lrgaf.org/articles/irish-cowboys.htm
>
> Since it says John Pynchon was a participant in King Philip's War, I 
> looked for his name in the index of Jill Lepore's The Name of of War.  
> There are six references. Guess I'll read them after lunch.
>
> P
>
>
OK, w/r/t Jill Lenore's book on the first Indian War (King Philips War), 
John Pynchon's horseman (indentured servants,  slaves, and freemen, 
termed cowboys in the other account but not by Jill) figured mainly as 
messengers, carrying vital news from village to village, doing  
reconnaissance, etc. Pynchon himself, along with other leaders, wrote 
letters back home to England keeping them apprised of this horrendous 
eight year war in the colonies.   A Pynchon letter also describes the 
destruction of Springfield, in which his own operation was burned to the 
ground.  He was in effect ruined and thereby, says Lenore,  subject to 
loss of identity and social standing in the community. John presumably 
retained the substantial  land holdings his father William had left him. 
William, not mentioned by Lepore,  had had to flee the country after his 
pamphlet was declared heretical.  a  Lepore makes no mention of the 
still undecoded Pynchon account of the war, the one described in the 
online account.

P