CHAPTER XVIII.

HISTORY OF MESSENGER.

Messenger’s racing in England—His breeder unknown—Popular uncertainty about the circumstances and date of his importation—The matter settled by his first advertisement—Uncertainty as to his importer—Description of Messenger by David W. Jones, of Long Island—Careful consensus of descriptions by many who had seen Messenger—His great and lasting popularity as a stock horse—Places and prices of his services for twenty years—Death and burial.

Messenger made his first appearance on the turf in October, 1783, then three years old, and ran twice, successfully, that year. He continued on the turf till November, 1785, winning eight races, losing six and receiving forfeits in two. Most of his races were practically matches, and all were single dashes but one, in which he was beaten. Two of his winnings were less than a mile, five at the distance of a mile and a quarter, and one at two miles. These distances are approximate. He was beaten at two and a quarter miles, three, and three and a half miles. He never appeared in any great racing event, but seemed to be managed with a special view to picking up small prizes at short distances. His owner and manager, Mr. Bullock, was a very shrewd “professional” at Newmarket, he had quite a number of horses in the same stable with Messenger and some of them seem to have been selected always to run for the more valuable prizes. Considering the short distances he was able to run and the unimportant character of the contests in which he was engaged, we must conclude that Messenger was a very ordinary race horse.

It is not known by whom Messenger was bred. In his first advertisement in this country it is stated that he was bred by John Pratt, of Newmarket, but in the fourth volume of Pick’s “Turf Register,” continued by Johnson, it is stated explicitly that he “was bred by and the property of Mr. Bullock, of Newmarket.” Mr. John Pratt was a breeder as well as a racing man of some prominence, in his day, and the certificate of pedigree from him and purporting to have been issued by him was probably a fraud, as he died May 8, 1785. This was while Messenger was still on the turf, and owned and controlled by Mr. Bullock for two years previous to this, still no mention is made of the fact, and Mr. Pratt is made to say that he sold him to the Prince of Wales, while all the evidence, which must necessarily be of a negative character, goes to show that the Prince of Wales never owned him. Mr. Pratt was a Yorkshire man, of Askrigg, in the North Riding, and although he died at Newmarket we have no trace of any of the family from which the dam of Messenger was said to have descended ever being in his possession. Besides this, it is not likely that the importer of Messenger got a certificate from him two years after his death.

The different representations that have been made about Messenger’s importation would fill a much larger space than would be profitable. About no horse has there been so much written, and about no horse has there been so little really known. His character and memory have never suffered defamation, for every writer was a eulogist of the most enthusiastic type, whether he knew anything of his hero or not. As a specimen of the admiration which he excited, it has been told a hundred times that when the horse came cavorting down the gangplank from the ship, with a groom hanging on to each side of his head, literally carrying them for some distance before he could be checked, an enthusiastic horseman shouted out, “There, in that horse a million dollars strikes American soil.” This story has been told so often, even in England, that no doubt many people believe the startling prophecy was really uttered. Indeed we have heard the name of the prophet, but as he was a distinguished New Yorker and as debarkation took place at Philadelphia, we never have been able to fully reconcile the actor with the occasion. The reputed prophecy, like the reputed pedigree, seems to have been an afterthought, but unlike the pedigree it proved true, whether uttered or not. Some said he was imported 1785, while others dribble along through the intermediate years till 1800 was fixed upon with great positiveness as the precise year. One of these gentlemen, we remember very well, was entirely confident he returned to England and was brought back again after a number of years. Less than twenty years ago the breeding world was favored with scores upon scores of this kind of teachers, not one of whom knew what he was talking about. The most surprising example of this kind of writing, however, is furnished by Mr. C. W. Van Ranst, himself, who was part owner of the horse a number of years. In a communication published in Skinner’s “Turf Register,” 1831, he says Messenger was imported into New York in 1792, and in the same publication for 1834 he says he was imported into New York 1791. As the sequel will show, Mr. Van Ranst, although his owner, had no definite knowledge of the early history of the horse.

From some slight investigations I became satisfied, years before, that Messenger made his first appearance in this country at Philadelphia, and that he was imported into that city instead of New York. In that view all the writers of the whole country were opposed to me; but, as it became more and more evident that those writers were merely copying from one another and that none of them had ever made an honest search for the truth, I resolved to follow my own convictions and to commence there an investigation that would settle the matter one way or the other. In a few hours after reaching that city I found a file of the old _Pennsylvania Packet_, and in the number dated May 27, 1788, an advertisement of which the following is a true copy:

JUST IMPORTED

The capital, strong, full blooded, English stallion,

MESSENGER.

To cover mares this season at Alexander Clay’s, at the sign of the Black Horse, in Market Street, Philadelphia, at the very low price of three guineas each mare, and one dollar to the groom.

Messenger was bred by John Pratt, Esq., of Newmarket, who certifies the following pedigree. The grey horse Messenger was bred by me and sold to the Prince of Wales; he was got by Mambrino (who covered at twenty-five guineas a leap). His dam by Turf, his grandam by Regulus; this Regulus mare was sister to Figerant and was the dam of Leviathan. JOHN PRATT.

The performance of Messenger has been so very great that there need only be a reference to the racing calendar of the years 1783, 1784 and 1785.

Any mare missing this season shall be served the next gratis, provided they continue the same properties, on paying the groom’s fees.

This is a literal copy of the first printed announcement of Messenger in this country, and there are two very striking features connected with it, namely, its bad grammar and the absence of the name of the importer and owner. The former we may attribute to the times, but to the latter I have been disposed to attach no trifling significance. It is a fact that till this day we have no direct information as to who imported this horse. The name “Benger” was developed indirectly as the man, but not till years after the horse was dead, and probably the importer too, did I learn from an advertisement of a son of his that stood in Jersey that the importer’s name was “Thomas Benger.” In 1791 and for two years afterward he was advertised to stand at “Mount Benger, two miles from Bristol, Pennsylvania.” When I visited Bristol for the purpose of identifying “Mount Benger,” which I supposed was the country seat of the owner of Messenger, I was greatly surprised to find that none of the “oldest inhabitants” had ever heard of such a place, and when I was informed that there was no locality within half a dozen miles of Bristol where the ground rose to a hundred feet above the level of the Delaware River, the name “Mount Benger” assumed the character of an absurdity as well as a myth. From a very intelligent man of middle age, who had learned the blacksmith trade with his grandfather, I learned that he had often heard his grandfather speak of Messenger, and as having put the last set of shoes on him when he was taken away to New York the fall the yellow fever was so bad in Philadelphia. The tradition was still preserved in the family that Messenger reared up in crossing the river in a boat, and struck his groom on the head with one of those shoes, from the effects of which he died. As our informant was able to name two other horses, Governor and Babel, brought over by Mr. Benger, we were ready to accept his tradition that he lived at a point known in old times as “China Retreat,” two miles below Bristol on the Delaware. This point has been known later as “White Hall.”

After all traditions were exhausted, without yielding anything tangible or satisfactory, we turned with great confidence to the records of the county of Bucks, in which Mr. “Benger” had lived for a number of years. After a diligent and protracted search, embracing a number of years before and after his known residence in the county, we were not able to discover that any person by the name of “Benger” had ever owned a foot of real estate in the county or had been in any way publicly connected with its affairs or its administration. We had search made in Philadelphia with the same fruitless results. There is a faint tradition that Thomas Benger, if that was his name, was a fox-hunting Irish baronet, and if this was so, it is probable he returned to the old country about the time he sold Messenger in 1793. However this may be, the owner is forgotten, but his horse will live forever.

Among the many eulogies and word-paintings of Messenger, by writers who knew the horse personally, we select the following from the pen of the late David W. Jones, of Long Island, as the most striking and picturesque. He says:

“Having scanned in my boyhood the magnificent form and bearing of this noble old horse, and for more than half a century having drawn reins over his descendants, I have for a length of time felt it incumbent to furnish such facts and impressions, as, when considered with those of others, will give the younger portion of the present generation, as well as posterity, a fair knowledge of the general characteristics of the noblest Roman of them all. The first time I ever saw old Messenger my father sent me to the farm of Townsend Cock, Esq., of the County of Queens, L. I., where the horse was then standing, to receive his services. On my arrival at his harem, I found the groom, whom I knew, and he at once placed me with the mare a short distance from the stable, by the side of a barrier erected for security. Having at home heard frequent and long discussions in relation to the wonder I was now to behold, you may suppose I was all eyes. Presently the stalwart groom, James Lingham, with, at the extreme end of the bridle rein, all the blood of all the Howards, turned the angle of the stable and came in full view. The moment the old horse caught sight of the paragon of beauty I had brought to his embrace, he threw himself into an attitude, with the grandeur of which no other animal can compare, and at the same moment opened his mouth, and distending his nostrils, raised his exultant voice to such a pitch as gave unmistakable evidence of the capacity of his lungs and the size of his windpipe. Indeed, if his nostrils were as much larger than ordinary as my boyish vision pictured them, I can almost suppose that Mr. McMann with his little bay mare (Flora Temple), and sulky, could drive in at one, down the windpipe, turn under his immensely long arching loin and out at the other.... At that early day I was only impressed by those extraordinary developments; but in after years as I sit behind his offspring, they invariably remind me of what was then to my youthful judgment less apparent—the extraordinary strength of his loin, the length and beautiful molding of the buttock, the faultless shape of the crupper bone, giving an elegant set to his fine flowing tail, as well as the remarkable swell of his stifle, altogether forming a most perfect and powerful hind quarter.”

A good many years ago I made a special study of all that had been written about Messenger, and I was fortunate in being able to supplement this information by interviews with a few old gentlemen who knew the horse personally. Nearly all that generation of horsemen had passed away before I commenced this personal search for them. But a few then remained with excellent memories and with characters above suspicion or reproach. From these sources I gathered a great many incidents, facts and descriptions which I succeeded in harmonizing, to my own mind at least, and thus was able, to compile a complete description of the horse at every point. That description was written out more than twenty years ago, and in presenting it now I will not change a single word. At the time it was written, as will be seen from its perusal, I had really no doubt the horse was thoroughbred. It will not be charged, therefore, that the coarse traits brought out in the description were influenced in any degree by a theory of his breeding:

“Messenger was a grey, that became lighter and flea-bitten with age. He was fifteen hands three inches high, and for a thoroughbred his appearance was coarse. He did not supply the mind with an idea of beauty, but he impressed upon it a conception of solidity and power. His head was large and bony, with a nose that had a decided Roman tendency, though not to a marked degree. His nostrils were unusually large and flexible, and when distended they were enormous. His eye was large, full, very dark and remarkably brilliant. In this particular he does not appear to have inherited the weakness of his great-grandsire, Sampson. His ear was larger than usual in the blood horse, but thin and tapering and always active and expressive. The windpipe was so unusually large and stood out so much as a distinct feature that it marred what otherwise would have been a gamelike throat-latch and setting on of the head. His neck was very short for a blood horse, but was not coarse and thick like a bull’s; neither did it rise into such an enormous crest as that of his sire. It was not a bad neck in any sense, but like Lexington’s of our own day, it was too short to be handsome. His mane and foretop were thin and light. His withers were low and round, which appears to have been a family characteristic in the male line, back for three generations at least. His shoulders were heavy and altogether too upright for our ideas of a race horse. His barrel was perfection itself, both for depth and rotundity. His loin was well arched, broad and strong. His hips and quarters were ‘incomparably superior to all others.’ The column of the vertebra being of unusual depth and strength, gave the setting on of the tail a distinctive, but elegant character. The tail was carried in fine style; like the mane, it was not in superabundant quantity, but there was no such scantiness as to detract from the beauty and grace of the animal. His stifles were well spread and swelling, but there appears to have been no unusual development at this point. From the stifle to the hock and from the elbow to the knee, no writer that we can now recall has given us any description of either length or strength. We may, therefore, take it for granted that these points had no unusual development of muscle, but were in harmony with the general contour and make-up of a great strong horse. His hocks and knees were unusually large and bony, with all the members strong and clearly defined. The cannon bones were short and flat and the ligaments back of them were very large and braced a good way off, so that the leg was broad and flat. Mr. Jones says this part of the limb was of medium size, but other writers all agree that he had an unusual amount of bone at this point. Considering the whole style and character of the horse, and especially the character of his ancestors in the male line, and of Turf, the [reputed] sire of his dam, all of whom were distinguished for their quantity of bone, we are disposed to think Mr. Jones’ memory has not served him with entire accuracy in this particular. The conviction is reasonable and grows out of evidence that comes from every quarter, and we have no disposition to surrender it, that the bones of Messenger’s limbs were unusually large and strong for those of a thoroughbred. His pasterns and feet were all that could be desired, and as an evidence of the excellence and health of his underpinning several writers have put it on record that whether in the stable or on the show ground he never was known to mopingly rest one leg by standing on the other three, but was always prompt and upright. This is our conception of the form and appearance of the horse as we have reached it after a diligent and careful study of all that has been said by those who saw him while he lived. From this description it is a very easy matter to pick out the features which gave him his coarse and badly bred appearance. His big head, long ears, short neck, low withers, upright shoulders, large bones and, possibly, coarse hair, complete the catalogue. From these features the purity of his blood has been doubted and denounced, just as that of his sire, his grandsire and his great-grandsire had been denounced. The coarseness, the cart-horse appearance was in the family, but it did not seem to prevent some of them from beating some of the best that England produced in successive generations. There are many traditions that have been handed down to us concerning his temper, some of which, no doubt, have accumulated and gathered strength and ferocity in the years through which they have rolled. There have been perhaps half a dozen stories about his killing his keepers, but we are not able to say whether any one of them is true. It is known with certainty, however, that he was willful and vicious and would tolerate no familiarity from strangers.”

The ownership of Messenger, after he was transferred from Philadelphia to New York, like his earlier history, seems to be very much muddled. Henry Astor, a New York butcher, certainly bought him in the fall of 1793, and located him at Philip Platt’s, four miles from Jamaica, on Long Island. In the spring of 1796 Mr. Cornelius W. Van Ranst bought one-third interest in him and removed him to Pine Plains in Dutchess County, New York, and, without specifying the time, he says he afterward purchased the remaining two-thirds, for which he paid two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. There appears to have been some mistake about this, for in 1802 we find Henry Astor, of New York, conveying one-third interest in the horse to Benjamin B. Cooper, of Camden, New Jersey. Some other parties also claim to have owned an interest in the horse, and I heard that there was a lawsuit about him between Astor and Van Ranst. The latter claims to have owned an interest in him till the time of his death, in 1808. It is not known how much Mr. Astor paid for him when he bought him, nor have I any data from which to determine the probable market value of the horse except that Mr. Van Ranst says he paid two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars for two-thirds of him. If we accept this as a basis, he must have been valued at about four thousand one hundred and twenty-five dollars. It is true, beyond doubt, that for several years he brought to his owners a net annual rental of one thousand dollars. This would indicate a very large patronage at very high prices for those times. For the twenty years of his stud services in this country, we find him located as follows:

1788, at Alexander Clay’s, Market Street, Philadelphia, at $15 the season and $1 to the groom, privilege of returning.

1789, at Thomas Clayton’s, Lombard Street, Philadelphia, at $10 the season and $1 to the groom.

1790, at Noah Hunt’s, in the Jersies, near Pennington, at $8.

1791, at “Mount Benger,” two miles from Bristol, Bucks Co., Pa., at $16.

1792, at the same place and the same price.

1793, at the same place and the same price.

1794, at Philip Platt’s, fifteen miles from New York and four from Jamaica, Long Island, at $25 the season.

1795, at the same place and the same price, when, as Mr. Van Ranst expressed it, “he took with our horsemen.”

1796, at Pine Plains, Dutchess County, N. Y., where he covered 106 mares at $30 the season.

1797, I have no advertisement for this year, but it is probable he was at the same place at the same price.

1798, at Pine Plains, as before, and the terms $30 for the season and $40 to insure.

1799, I have no definite trace of him this year, but there are some indications he was in West Jersey.

1800, for the spring season he is not located, but he made a fall season at John Stevens’ in Maidenhead, Hunterdon Co., N. J.

1801, at Goshen, Orange Co., N. Y., and I have seen the book account of expenses, etc., while he was there.

1802, at Cooper’s Ferry, opposite Philadelphia, Pa., but the price of services is not mentioned.

1803, at Townsend Cock’s, near Oyster Bay, Long Island, at $20 the season.

1804, at the same place and the same price.

1805, at Bishop Underhill’s, in Westchester Co., N. Y., fifteen miles from Harlem Bridge. Price reduced to $15.

1806, back again at Townsend Cock’s, and the terms fixed at $15 for the season, and $25 to insure.

1807, again at Bishop Underhill’s on the same terms as before, and this was the last of his twenty years’ stud services. It will be observed that the horse is located every year except two, and these locations are determined, not by tradition or hearsay, but by copies of his advertisements for each year. In giving the prices charged for his services I have given the value of the guinea or the pound as five dollars.

Messenger died January 28, 1808, in the stable of Townsend Cock, on Long Island, in his twenty-eighth year. This date has been as familiar to all intelligent horsemen for the last forty years as any prominent event in the history of the nation. The news of the death of the old patriarch spread with great rapidity, and soon the whole countryside was gathered to see the last of the king of horses and to assist at his burial. His grave was prepared at the foot of a chestnut-tree some distance in front of the house, and there he was deposited in his holiday clothing. In response to the consciousness that a hero was there laid away forever a military organization was extemporized, and volley after volley by platoons was fired over his grave. Some of the young men and boys who witnessed and participated in the ceremonies of the occasion were still living twenty years ago, and as they related the incidents of the occasion to me, their recollections seemed to be as clear and bright as though the occurrence had been of yesterday.