Author: [Cowboy Poetry / Western Americana]. Crawford, J[ohn] "Captain Jack" Wallace [1847 - 1917]
Title: JUST An IMPROMPTU THOUGHT Or TWO. For William & Mrs. I. Schaffer. Midnight July 24th. or 25th. 1916
Description: [Napanoch, NY]: , 1916. Pale blue laid linen paper, with watermark. Printed blue Yama Farms letterhead, typed poem. Broadside. Printing/type to recto only. 10-15/16" x 8-7-16". Fold lines, few pin holes to upper corner. VG+. Typed poem with "Copy" noted in manuscript beneath the letterhead, though nevertheless presumed original to the occasion. The poem is addressed to William and Mrs. I. Schaffer from "Your Broncho Friend of the Camp and the Trail, J.W. Crawford 'Capt. Jack.'" Crawford and the Schaffers apparently met and spent time together at Yama Farms. The poem consists of two octaves, and begins, "To a pair of Happy Lovers, / Whom I met at Yama Farms / Who are dead in love with Lovers, / Of Old Mother Nature's charms . " We presume that the author is "Poet Scout" John Wallace "Captain Jack" Crawford. Crawford was a soldier and ranger in the West during the Civil War, a failed miner, a showman in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (until 1877, when he accidentally shot himself in the groin), and an eventual lecturer and cowboy poet at events around the country; he died in New York in 1917. Yama Farms was a popular Japanese-inspired resort in Ulster County, New York, from 1903 to 1938. It hosted, among others, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, John Burroughs, Harvey Firestone, Rabindranath Tagore, and many other industrialists, financiers, influential members of New York society, literati, etc.

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