“My Great Grandaddy was a horse trader and trainer He died in 1937, but I knew and lived with my Great Grandmother till she died in 1976. She used to have a photo of him sitting on the white horse in the song. So far I have not been able to locate it. Granddaddy had a lot of Cherokee blood in him. The rest of the story was told to me by a man named Lexie Bush who not only knew him, but was his barber as Grandaddy alway got a haircut and mustache trim every Saturday. The local saloon in those days was across the street from the Barber Shop and after the cut he would get on that white horse and ride him into the saloon and order his drink of choice, a peach brandy, and the horse would kneel thanking the bar keep. Mr. Bush told me that he had that horse trained to do anything he ask him to do. He also said that he remembered the day that granddaddy sat down under that tree for his last time after the horse had to be put down. I have sat under that tree when I was younger. Mr. Bush said that Grandaddy always dressed good and always had 3 twenty dollar gold pieces in one pocket of his vest and an engraved 38 S&W top break pistol in the other.”