CHAPTER XII.

EARLY HORSE HISTORY—CANADA.

Settlement and capture of Port Royal—Early plantations—First French horses brought over 1665—Possibly illicit trading—Sire of “Old Tippoo”—His history—“Scape Goat” and his descendants—Horses of the Maritime Provinces.

Before taking up the two provinces of the Dominion—Quebec and Ontario—to which reference is made in this volume as “Canada,” there is an incident in the history of Nova Scotia, full of sadness, that I cannot pass over without mention. The French made a settlement here in 1602, and named the country New France. The settlement to which I refer was at Port Royal, afterward named Annapolis by the English. This seems to have been a thrifty and flourishing little plantation, far removed from all outside associations, except the savages of the forests, with whom they lived in peace. The first horses brought to North America were owned and bred by the people of Port Royal. In November, 1613, Captain Argall, of Virginia, organized a plundering expedition, and having learned of the defenseless condition of Port Royal from Captain John Smith, he sailed up there with two or three ships, captured the place and carried away horses, cattle, sheep, wheat, farming utensils, and indeed everything their ships would carry, and then sailed away to Virginia. This raid was without authority or orders, but it was winked at by the officials, and forthwith a second raid was made by Argall, and all that had been left in the first was carried away in the second, as well as some of the inhabitants.

The pacer of Canada, generally believed to be of French origin, has long been an object of diligent investigation, without reaching any satisfactory results. Again and again I have gone over the first half-century of the history of the French plantations on the St. Lawrence; examining everything in the English language that held out any hope of throwing light upon the question, but nothing was revealed. The trouble was that my search stopped a little short of the date when the first horses arrived. The management of the affairs of the plantations on the St. Lawrence being in a company located in France, there was a lack of vigor, not much growth, and still less profits to the projectors of the colony. The energies of the people seemed to be directed almost wholly to collecting and trading in peltry instead of building up a commonwealth from the productions of the soil. For half a century these primitive people lived without horses. Their farms, if they could be called farms, all had a frontage on the water, running back in narrow strips to the highlands. They did their plowing with cattle and their canoes supplied the place of the saddle horse, the family carriage and the lumber wagon to carry the scanty surplus of their little farms to market. At last the company in France, holding direction and control, got out of the way, and the king of France assumed direct authority over the affairs of the plantation. On June 30, 1665, the Marquis de Tracy arrived at Quebec, as viceroy, with a numerous suite of retainers and a regiment of French soldiers. Two months later a large fleet arrived bringing many colonists, embracing artisans, farmers, peasants, etc., with their families, and a good number of horses, the first that had ever been seen on the St. Lawrence. There is a tradition that a horse had been sent over to the governor in 1642, but it is probable he was lost on the voyage, as the older people of the colony had no recollection or knowledge of any such animal. These colonists came from the ancient province of Picardy, not now to be found on the modern maps of France, but it lay on the English Channel in the extreme northwest of France. As it is expressly stated that these colonists came from Picardy, it is fair to conclude that the horses came from that portion of the kingdom also. At this period in history there had been no wars between France and England for many years, and commercial as well as social intercourse had long been cultivated between the people on both sides of the channel. We know but little of the early horse history of France, but in our own time we know that France has been largely benefited by the diffusion of the English blood among her horse stock, so we may conclude that if a man in Kent had a horse that a man in Picardy wanted, he very soon got him in the way of legitimate trade. I think, therefore, it is safe to conclude that the horse stock of Northwestern France and the horse stock of England were very much the same in appearance, action and blood. On this basis of reasoning, which involves no improbabilities, we may conclude that the same proportion of the horses from Picardy were natural pacers.

There is another theory, giving the Canadian pacer an Anglo-American origin, that commends itself to the unbiased judgment with even greater force than the one just suggested. Various writers have talked about the “French characteristics” of the Canadian pacer, and all that, when probably not one of them ever saw a horse that he _knew_ to be French. The early pacers—the pacing-bred pacers—all have more or less strongly marked resemblances, especially in conformation, and it makes no difference whether they come from Canada or whether their habitat has been south of Mason and Dixon’s line for two hundred and fifty years. When we look at a pacer, therefore, we may as well be honest and say we don’t know whether he resembles the horses that reached the St. Lawrence in 1665, or those that reached Massachusetts Bay in 1629. The theory that the French Canadians got the foundation of their pacing stock from the New England colonies rests upon two well-known facts. First, the colonies had a great abundance of such horses for sale; and second, they were within reach of and purchasable by the Canadians. To these two facts rendering the theory possible, we have others which render it probable. The jealous restrictions sought to be imposed on both the English and French colonists by the home governments of both people strongly indicate that there was no small amount of illicit trading, and this trading, in the very nature of things, must have been between the English and French. Toward the close of the seventeenth century the English colonies, especially Rhode Island, had far more horses than they needed for home use, and they did a thriving business in exporting them to different parts. These were just the kind of horses the Canadians needed for their wild life in the wilderness; they were cheaper than they could be brought from France; the water way of Lake Champlain was convenient; pelts and furs were a desirable commodity of exchange, and there was no cordon of customs officers to keep the willing traders apart. Of these theories we consider the second the more probable of the two, and if we accept it we reach the conclusion that the so-called “French” Canadian pacer is merely a descendant of the old English pacer brought over by the early New England colonists. Objection has been presented to this theory, on the grounds that the powerful confederation of the Six Nations Indians interposed an insurmountable barrier to all trade, whether legitimate or illicit, between the Canadians and the colonists of New England. This objection is certainly conclusive as applied to the different periods of hostilities, but the hostilities were not continuous. During both the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries there were periods of years at a stretch when there were no hostilities, and when there was nothing to prevent the Canadian and the Yankee from coming together and exchanging what they each had that the other wanted. The border abounds in traditions of the incidents connected with this illicit trading, but we need not go to the border in the wilderness to learn that the desire to “beat the customs” is almost universal. We can see it manifested every day at the docks in New York, when a steamer arrives from abroad. The fine lady, with her gloves and lots of other lingerie that she has been contriving all the way across how best to keep from the sight of the officer, is no better and no worse than the “Canuck,” who in a retired place at midnight trades his peltry to the Yankee for his horse. If the Canadian pacer did not have his origin in New England it was not because he could not be carried across the border.

When we enter upon the consideration of the actual performers descended from the original Canadian stock, we find both pacers and trotters of speed and merit, but in attempting to trace them to their particular ancestors we find ourselves in a labyrinth from which there seems to be no deliverance. In the midst of this darkness I am glad to be able to say there is a ray of light that illumines much that has been obscure. The greatest progenitor of trotters and pacers that Canada has produced, “Old Tippoo,” has been fully identified in his true origin, and he has been well named “The Messenger of Canada.” He seemed to be known all over Canada as the greatest of their trotting and pacing sires, and many attempts were made through several years to give his pedigree, but in all these attempts there were elements of weakness and in many of them very bald absurdities.

When the roan gelding Tacony made his record of 2:27, away back in 1853, the performance was looked upon as something that would not be surpassed in a generation at least. Then when Toronto Chief made his saddle record of 2:24½, ten or twelve years later, and it was found that he and Tacony were both descended from a Canadian horse called Tippoo, the inquiry became quite active as to what Tippoo was, and all kinds of imaginable stories were told about him. In the search for the history and breeding of the horse Tippoo, extending through more than twenty years, many curious and some impossible things were developed, and as these old “fads” may come as new discoveries in future generations, I will mention two or three of them here. The first of these untruthful statements to assume tangible form was to the effect that Tippoo was imported from England, and that he was got there by Nesthall’s Messenger. I never could tell how or where this story originated, but it first appeared in the pedigree given to Toronto Chief when he went into the stud on Long Island. This was settled by the facts, expressed in very few words, that the horse was not imported, but bred in Canada, and that there was no such horse in England as “Nesthall’s Messenger.”

The next representation came from an old horseman, Mr. V. Sheldon, of Canton, New York, a very intelligent and careful correspondent, who had given much labor to the question. He had learned from different sources, that were satisfactory to his mind, that a Mr. Howard, a traveling preacher, had ridden a mare from Lowville, New York, over into Canada; that this mare was in foal “by a very noted horse that stood at Lowville;” that when the mare became too heavy for his use under the saddle he sold her to Isaac Morden, and that the foal she dropped was the famous Tippoo. The name of the “very famous horse that stood at Lowville” was not remembered, but as Ogden’s Messenger was there at that time—1816-17—the conclusion followed that he was the horse. This representation was far from complete, but as there was nothing unreasonable about it, and nothing known to be untrue, I accepted it for a time, awaiting further light.

The third representation came from Mr. Lewis T. Leavens, of Bloomfield, Ontario, who was born 1792, and was, therefore, old enough to have had some personal knowledge of the horse. But whether his knowledge was personal or only traditional cannot now be made to appear. He says that Tippoo was got by a horse called Escape, and I will ask the reader to note this name “Escape” as we progress. He says that “when Escape was on the ocean, the vessel encountered a severe gale, and the horse had to be thrown overboard, and he was picked up the ninth day off the coast of Newfoundland, on a bar, eating rushes.” This silly and ridiculous story had been told and possibly believed by some fools more than a hundred years before the dates here implied by Mr. Leavens. It is probable it was first told as a joke, by some wag in Rhode Island, when asked about the origin of the Narragansett pacers. He replied that the original Narragansett “was caught swimming in mid-ocean, when a ship came along, lassoed him, pulled him on board, and landed him safely in Narragansett Bay.” The vitality of the joke probably had its origin in the experience of Rip Van Dam, when in 1711 he went up to Narragansett for a flying pacer, which is related in another part of this volume. Mr. Leavens speaks of the Rev. Erastus as the owner of the dam, and the breeder of the horse; but he says the horse did not come into possession of Isaac Morden till he was six or eight years old. The date of his death is fixed by Mr. Leavens in 1835, and while he is more definite than our information from other sources, all agree he died from a kick about that year.

The next representation that seems to be worthy of noticing is a communication that appeared in the New York _Sportsman_, written by somebody who signs himself “Dick.” Whether “Dick” is in earnest and believes what he writes, or whether he is merely trying to “sell” somebody, we will leave for him to decide. He seems to depend upon Mr. Morden, at one time the owner of the horse, as the source of his information. “Dick” says the sire of Tippoo was imported into New York in 1811, and was called Fleetwood. Why did he not tell us by whom the horse Fleetwood was imported? If there was a man in New York in 1811 so big a fool as to import an English stallion at great expense, and then send him up to the wilderness of Canada where there was neither money nor mares, his name should be handed down as a historical curiosity. The whole story is a “fake.”

In January, 1883, I received from the Hon. J. P. Wiser, of Prescott, Ontario, the following letter, which he had just received from the writer:

WELLINGTON, December 27, 1882.

As the origin of the Tippoo horses seems to be a mystery to you I will tell you. Erastus Howard was a traveling preacher in those days, and he traveled on horseback. He bought in Kingston a dark chestnut mare and bred her to a horse called “The Scape Goat,” brought from Narragansett Bay, in Rhode Island. The horse was a large brown horse, and could rack (pace) faster than he could run. The colt was coal black and large, and was sold to Mr. Wilcox, who named him Tippoo Sultan. His gait was like the “Scape” some, but soon squared off to a trot, and the way he could go was dreadful. In June, 1836, he broke his leg and was lost.

WILSON SERLS.

This short letter was a great surprise, for never before had I heard of Mr. Serls. Through the kindness of Mr. Wiser he had entered the discussion, evidently without knowing anything about what representations had been made by others. His short, crisp sentences seemed to be an epitome of a history of this horse, which he might be able to give. It will be observed that the traveling preacher, Erastus Howard, is still in the foreground, and that Mr. Leavens’ “Escape” and Mr. Serls’ “Scape Goat” are evidently one and the same horse, and thus these two men practically confirm each other, so far as the identity of the horse is concerned. No time was lost in preparing a series of questions to be submitted to Mr. Serls, embracing the sources of his information, for although well advanced in years he certainly could not have had personal knowledge of what he testified. These questions not only covered the minute points in the history of the matter, but they were so framed as to test the accuracy and honesty of his memory. In due time they came back fully and satisfactorily answered, and as these answers embrace many things that my readers care nothing about I will condense them into narrative form.

Mr. Serls derived his information from his uncle, Stephen Niles, the brother of his mother. In 1798 Stephen Niles took a band of horses to Prince Edward County, and stopped with an uncle of his who was then a member of the provincial parliament, living on the Bay of Quinte. His uncle prevailed upon him to settle there. In 1800 he was married, and bought a farm of two hundred acres four miles west of Wellington, where he lived many years, and the place is still known as Niles’ Corners. He was an orthodox Quaker in his religious belief, and for a number of years he was one of the bench of magistrates for Prince Edward County. When the War of 1812 broke out he was employed by the British forces in procuring hay and grain for the mounted troops. In 1858 he died, leaving an honorable name behind him.

At the close of the war the military authorities sold off a large number of horses to the highest bidder, and Mr. Niles was present when the traveling preacher, Erastus Howard, bid off a dark chestnut mare for ninety-three dollars, at Kingston. This mare afterward became the dam of the famous Tippoo, and as a matter of course nothing can ever be known of her breeding. In 1816 a man from Rhode Island, whose name is not definitely remembered, but believed to be Williams, traveled the horse Scape Goat through Prince Edward County, and he stopped one day and night in each week at the house of Stephen Niles, and during that season Mr. Howard bred his chestnut mare to this horse, and, as already said, the produce was Tippoo. This black colt passed into the hands of Mr. Wilcox, who gave him his name, and he afterward passed through several other hands before he reached Mr. Morden about 1826, and he died ten years later from the effects of a kick. As the horse Scape Goat was brought from Narragansett Bay, and as he was a remarkably fast pacer, there can be no mistake in calling him a “Narragansett Pacer.” He was considerably larger than the average of that tribe, but this does not vitiate his title to a place in that family. It seems he was only kept in Prince Edward County the one season, and his owner, not being satisfied with the extent of his earnings, took him back to Rhode Island. Thus, the horse that has been proudly designated as “Canada’s Messenger,” was the son of a Narragansett pacer. In his younger days, Tippoo paced like his sire, but as he grew older the trotting gait was more fully developed.

It is safe to say that the immediate progeny of Tippoo were numerous, and it is safe to say that some of them, either as trotters or pacers, were fast for their day, but it must be confessed that we know very little about the way they were bred. One son was called Sportsman, but nothing is known of his dam and very little of the horse himself beyond the fact that he was the sire of the roan gelding Tacony, that trotted some great races about 1853, and made a record of 2:27. This horse had a son called Young Sportsman, that was more widely known as “the Sager Horse,” and his horse became the sire of the trotting mare Clara, or Crazy Jane, as she was at one time called, that made a record of 2:27 in 1867. Beyond these two representatives of the Sportsman line, I have not been able to go. It has been claimed that another son of Tippoo, called Wild Deer, was the sire of the Sager Horse, but it does not seem to be well sustained. There was a son called Wild Deer, and several others that have been mentioned by turf writers, but no particulars of any value have been given.

Warrior, or Black Warrior, as he is sometimes called, was a brown horse and not a black, as his latter name would imply. He was a son of old Tippoo and his dam was a black mare owned and ridden by an officer in an English regiment, known as the First Royals. She was a black mare and after she was sold out of the service she was called “Black Warrior,” and this name was transmitted to her son. This mare was for a long time represented as the dam of Royal George, but she was the dam of his sire. This horse was bred at Belleville, Ontario, and about 1840 a certain Mr. Johnston was moving from Belleville to Michigan. He had this horse with him, which, becoming lame on the way, he traded to a Mr. Barnes, living about twenty miles south of London, Ontario. He was a valuable horse and left many very useful animals. Many of his get were pacers, and he was kept by Mr. Barnes till he died.

Royal George was a brown-bay horse, foaled about 1842, and was got by Warrior, son of Tippoo. His dam was the off one of a pair of bay mares taken to that vicinity from Middlebury, Vermont, by a Mr. Billington. This mare got her foot in a log bridge and the injury made her a comparative cripple for life. Being thus unfitted for road work, Mr. Billington sold or traded her to Mr. Barnes. She was bred to Warrior and produced Royal George. It is said by those who knew both animals, that this mare was a better trotter than Warrior, and from this springs the argument that Royal George had a trotting inheritance from his dam as well as from his sire. To learn whence this inheritance came, I have labored assiduously for years without being able to technically determine it. The single fact that her sire in Vermont was known as “the Bristol Horse,” is beyond all doubt, but as Mr. Billington was not living when this search was commenced, it has not been possible to determine just what horse is meant by “Bristol Horse.” At one time Harris’ Hambletonian was known very widely as “Bristol Grey” or “Bristol Horse,” and this is the only horse in the records so designated. It may, therefore, be assumed as more than a probability that this was the sire of the dam of Royal George.

When three or four years old he was sold by Mr. Barnes to James Forshee, and he was known as “the Forshee Horse” for several years. He was sixteen hands high, not very handsome, but well formed, with plenty of substance and stamina, good action, and a first class “business” horse for anything that was wanted of him. In the stud, at low prices, he was largely patronized, and during the other months of the year he was employed in all kinds of drudgery. From Forshee he passed to Frank Munger, and from Munger to Mr. Doherty, of St. Catherines, for four hundred dollars, and he gave him the name of Royal George, and kept him many years. In 1858 W. H. Ashford, of Lewiston, New York, bought him and kept him two or three years there and at Buffalo. He seems to have passed into Doherty’s hands again, and died at St. Catherine’s, December, 1862. It is not known that he ever had any training as a trotter except what he got from his owner on the road, and there is no tradition of his ever having been in a race but once, and that was on the ice at Hamilton, about 1852, against the famous State of Maine, for a considerable wager. In this contest he was the winner. His highest rate of speed was about 2:50 under the saddle. He was strongly disposed to pace, but when he got down to his work his gait was a square, mechanical trot. He left a numerous progeny with a heavy sprinkling of pacers among them; they were generally of fine size and very useful animals. Many of his sons were kept entire and that whole region of Ontario was filled up with Royal Georges, to say nothing of the large numbers that were brought across the border. He left one representative in the 2:30 list, and five sons that became sires of performers.

Toronto Chief was the best son of Royal George, according to the records. He was a brown horse, foaled 1850, and was bred by George Larue, of Middlesex County, Ontario. His dam was a small bay mare by a horse called Blackwood, and his grandam was by Prospect. The horse Blackwood “was bought of a Frenchman below Montreal in 1837,” and that is all that can be said of his blood. He was a horse of fine size and went with great courage. Toronto Chief passed through several hands before he reached his owner, A. Bathgate, of New York. He was a horse of great speed for his day, having a record of 2:31 in harness and 2:24¼ under saddle. He left three representatives in the 2:30 list, and among them the famous Thomas Jefferson, 2:23, with thirty-nine heats to his credit. Six of his sons became sires of trotters, and five of his daughters producers. Like all the other minor families, the Royal George family is surely being absorbed or submerged in trotting strains of more positive and uniform prepotency.

It is probably true that Old Columbus and Old St. Lawrence were both descended from the Tippoo family, as they were both bred in Canada and seemed to possess and transmit the same characteristics as the Royal Georges possessed, in conformation and gait. Their descendants were not numerous, but so many of them were able to show such a rate of speed, either at the lateral or diagonal gait, that they left a distinct trace on the trotting stock of the United States. Old Pacing Pilot has always been classed as a Canadian, but no trace of his origin has ever been secured, and it is impossible at this day to give any definite information as to whether he was brought from Canada or not. Some forty or fifty years ago the “Canadian pacers” were so highly esteemed for their speed that very many horses were called “Canadians” that never saw Canada. The original Tom Hal was purchased in Philadelphia as early as 1828, and was always called a Canadian. He was the progenitor of the great pacing family still bearing his name, that is doubtless the most noted pacing family now in existence. Sam Hazzard, it is said, was brought from Canada about 1844, and left some noted descendants. Many others might be named, but as they never gained great celebrity, and as their origin is not fully established, I will leave the Canadians for future investigators.

The rich province of Ontario has always been, in all its ways, the most English section of the Canadian Confederation, and in nothing more than in horsemanship. True, it is now a great trotting region, but running is and always has been the sport of the rich and fashionable, and almost all the English horses imported in Canada have gone to Western Ontario. On the other hand, in the Maritime Provinces—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island—running races have never been popular, except at Halifax, which is a great military station and socially and otherwise much influenced by its English army and navy residents. It is the only point in the provinces where running meetings are given or where the running horse is at all cherished. For generations the principal sport of the people of these provinces has been trotting and pacing races, winter and summer, for ice racing is very general and very popular, through Maritime as well as Western Canada, the numbers of great bays and wide rivers affording ample courses, everywhere, throughout the long winters. Though there is, through these provinces, a generous sprinkling of horses called French Canadian, it is a fact that when we write the horse history of Maine we have written that of the Maritime Canadian provinces. The best of the early trotting stock of these provinces came from Maine, and the most and the best of the old-time trotters of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were of tribes loosely described as Maine Messengers. For this there are ample geographical and natural reasons. That part of Quebec nearest them has never been rich in horses nor in anything else which the Provincials want, or in which they trade. The people of eastern New England are their natural trading neighbors, and the city of St. John, New Brunswick, especially in the past, the common market place; and almost all the earlier Maritime trotting sires trace through St. John to Maine, or some of the other New England States. It is a fact, too, that for generations enterprising horsemen, in the lower provinces, have been importing American trotting stallions for service, and to-day the trotting stock of these provinces is very thoroughly Americanized. While the exportation of horses, principally to Boston and Bangor, is one of the industries of Nova Scotia and of Prince Edward Island especially, almost without exception trotting and pacing stallions in use there are imported American horses, or the descendants of American trotting sires; while, as we have noted, the foundation stock came chiefly from Maine, and in very small degree from Ontario or Quebec. In either of the Maritime provinces it is a rarity to find a trotting horse that has not more or less of American blood.