Hattie Cluck: the first white woman on the cattle trail

Hattie Cluck: the first white woman on the cattle trail

Written by Karen R. Thompson Tuesday, 07 August 2007

“There was nothing else to do with me and the babies but to take us with him,” said Harriett (Hattie) Standefer Cluck. “He took all he had in the world with him, and we wanted to be together no matter what happened.”

That is how Hattie Cluck explained her 1871 trip up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, Kansas.

In April of 1871, she packed up her three children, ages 6, 4 and 2. Even though she was expecting her fourth child in October, she met the challenge head on and up the cattle trail she went. They had a big herd of longhorns to sell, and being only five feet tall and one hundred pounds was not going to stop her.

She was only a baby when her parents brought their large family to the Williamson County western prairie to join her grandfather Isreal Standefer who had arrived in 1841. In 1859, at age 13, Hattie attended the inaugural ball of Gov. Sam Houston. The next year she enrolled at the Salado College.

It was about this time that she met her husband, George W. Cluck, at a dance. She often related the story of “how full of fun and how nice he acted about everything at the dance.”

George tried to discourage his wife from making the trip up the cattle trail, but Hattie was determined to join him and his 14 cattle drivers, called drovers.

With proceeds from the sale of the cattle, they were able to purchase 969 acres of land where the City of Cedar Park is now located. They gave land for establishing the Running Brushy School and the Cedar Park Cemetery, where they and a large number of family members are buried.

In December 1874, Hattie was appointed postmistress of the Running Brushy post office. She moved the office to the Cluck home, where it remained until it closed in July 1880. She earned $3 to $4 a month.

Additional income was derived from the unique Italian travertine stone quarried from behind their home. In 1936, the stone was used throughout Texas to build Centennial buildings, as trim on the new Waco Post Office, in hallways of the Malcolm Reed home in Austin, on the old University of Texas library, on the old Austin Post Office and as trim on the Herman Hospital in Houston. One huge piece was cut and taken to make the columns of Gov. Ross Sterling’s home near Houston.

George died in 1920, but Harriett lived to be 92 years old. She died in the arms of her granddaughter Mary Judith (Griffin). She passed away on the 102 anniversary of the Texas Declaration of Independence, appropriate because Harriett was an independent woman way before women even knew what independence could mean.

Timeline for George & Harriett Cluck
George Washington Cluck was born December 18, 1839, in Missouri and died in Cedar Park on August 23, 1920.

Harriett L. Standefer was born April 14, 1846, in Cherokee County, Alabama to James Stuart and Caroline Randal Standefer. She died on March 2, 1938.

George and Harriett married in Williamson County on June 25, 1863. All the children were born in Texas except Euell, who was born in Kansas. In addition, they raised grandson Joseph Mateson Cluck, born Feb. 9, 1878.

Thompson is manager of archives for Williamson County.