J. VERL SILVESTER was born on the east bank of the Snake River and raised in the ranch country of southeastern Idaho and northern Utah when freedom allowed honesty, good manners, and hard work as a way of life. Old-timers recognize the Code of the West from days gone by, but they don’t hear much about it anymore. Youngsters have never heard about it, and need to. Foreigners should know why Americans are different than people in other parts of the world. Our citizens and leaders ought to be reminded what it was to be an American when cowboys still had freedoms.
The was still important to the majority of people as J. worked the farms and ranches in the area – learning about his roots and the history of mountain men and cowboys. He graduated from Weber State College in Ogden, Utah with a Bachelors degree in geography and taught school for a short time. But his favorite times were traveling horseback, leading a pack horse, wearing buckskins, following the old trappers’ trails. From that came a film opportunity, Frontier Fremont. He joined the Utah Stuntmen Association and Screen Actors Guild before moving to Los Angeles.
This book has been an on-going project for many years as he has expanded from cowboy to western historian, Hollywood actor and stuntman. He is past president of Chuck Wagon Trailers, an organization founded by cowboys who worked in the early Western movies. He has performed many live shows portraying Wild Bill Hickok, John Muir, Jim Bridger and Brigham Young. He also did stunt shows as well as cowboy poetry, all of which he has written himself. But it seems that everything he writes has one theme: The good ethics of the American Cowboy.
He is also a long-time friend of Martine Colette, founder of the Wildlife Waystation.