Daily AncestorDrover
A drover was a man who drove herds of cattle, sheep or hogs on foot to market, often over long distances.
Before railroads reached them, farmers moved their animals to city markets on the hoof. Drovers walked the herds along roads for days or weeks; early Pennsylvania drovers, for example, took cattle to Philadelphia, and hogs were driven long distances too.
Some drovers were also dealers who bought animals from farmers and sold them in town. Later the cattle drives of the West continued the same trade on a larger scale.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1880 census
Jno. Bell, 30, Drover, Ky.
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Daily Ancestor. "Drover." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/drover. Last checked 2026-10-01.