DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — the story of the man they called the Poet Ranchman. Now, not every poet comes to Texas looking for poetry. Some of them come looking for something else entirely, and the poetry finds them anyway.
That's the thing about this land — it has a way of getting into a person. Larry Chittenden was born on March 23, 1862, way up in New Jersey, and for a good stretch of his life, that's where he figured he belonged. He came to Texas the first time not as a dreamer, not as a rancher, but as a sales agent.
Just a man doing business. But in 1884, he paid a visit to S. M.
Swenson right here at this very site, and something in Jones County must have taken hold of him. Because by 1887, Chittenden was back — this time to develop ten thousand acres of family-owned land, sixteen miles southwest of here. Ten thousand acres.
That's not a visit. That's a commitment. And rough ranch life has a curriculum all its own.
No classroom, no lecture hall — just the work, the weather, the cattle, and the wide open country pressing in on you from every direction. Through all of it, Chittenden caught what the marker calls the spirit of the land. You can't fake that.
You either feel it or you don't. He felt it. And he wrote it down.
In 1893, his collection "Ranch Verses" was published, and fame — as the marker puts it — was assured. Among those verses lived a poem called "Cowboys' Christmas Ball," the piece that would follow his name forever after, cited for literary merit by the National Folklore Society. Not bad for a sales agent from New Jersey.
He lived in Jones County for many years, and he gave back to the place that gave him so much. He donated his own personal library and an endowment to Anson High School. That's a man who understood he owed a debt.
Larry Chittenden died on September 24, 1934, and his burial place is back in New Jersey — where he started. So here's a man who left home, found his voice in the Texas dirt, gave his books and his name to a county that wasn't the one that claimed him in the end. The land made the poet.
The poet made it last.
What the marker says
(March 23, 1862 - Sept. 24, 1934) Author of "Cowboys' Christmas Ball" - cited for literary merit by National Folklore Society. Born in New Jersey, Chittenden first came to Texas as a sales agent. In 1884 he visited S. M. Swenson at this site; in 1887 began developing 10,000 acres of family-owned land 16 miles southwest of here. Through rough ranch life he caught spirit of the land. With publication of his "Ranch Verses" in 1893, fame was assured. He lived in Jones County for many years; gave his own library and an endowment to Anson High School. His burial place is in New Jersey. (1970)