We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher

E.C. "Teddy Blue" Abbott · Helena Huntington Smith

May 2012 · University of Oklahoma Press

About this ebook

E. C. Abbott was a cowboy in the great days of the 1870's and 1880's. He came up the trail to Montana from Texas with the long-horned herds which were to stock the northern ranges; he punched cows in Montana when there wasn't a fence in the territory; and he married a daughter of Granville Stuart, the famous early-day stockman and Montana pioneer. For more than fifty years he was known to cowmen from Texas to Alberta as "Teddy Blue."

This is his story, as told to Helena Huntington Smith, who says that the book is "all Teddy Blue. My part was to keep out of the way and not mess it up by being literary.... Because the cowboy flourished in the middle of the Victorian age, which is certainly a funny paradox, no realistic picture of him was ever drawn in his own day. Here is a self-portrait by a cowboy which is full and honest." And Teddy Blue himself says, "Other old-timers have told all about stampedes and swimming rivers and what a terrible time we had, but they never put in any of the fun, and fun was at least half of it."

So here it is—the cowboy classic, with the "terrible" times and the "fun" which have entertained readers everywhere. First published in 1939, We Pointed Them North has been brought back into print by the University of Oklahoma Press in completely new format, with drawings by Nick Eggenhofer, and with the full, original text.

Ratings and reviews

Excellent part of history about the Early days of! Montana. I loved every page of it, it was so true to life of the Big Sky cowboy. In my younger days l rode some of the same trials her wrote about. His remarks about Russell and G Sturat were rite on!

About the author

Edward Charles Abbott "Teddy Blue" was born in the County of Norfolk, England, in 1860. He was brought to the United States as a baby by his parents, who eventually settled near Lincoln, Nebraska, which was full of Texas cattle and Texas cowpunchers in the 1870'S, and there he first joined the trail drives.

Helena Huntington Smith, who recorded Teddy Blue's reminiscences so skillfully, is a free-lance writer. Her special interest in Western Americana is reflected by the many articles on Western subjects she has written for The Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, and other magazines.

Renowned western artist Nick Eggenhofer illustrated a number of University of Oklahoma Press books, including Come an’ Get It, Bad Medicine and Good, and The Chisholm Trail.