CHAPTER XX.

MESSENGER’S DESCENDANTS.

History of Abdallah—Characteristics of his dam, Amazonia—Speculations as to her blood—Description of Abdallah—Almack, progenitor of the Champion line—Mambrino Paymaster, sire of Mambrino Chief—History and pedigree—Mambrino Messenger—Harris’ Hambletonian—Judson’s Hambletonian—Andrus’ Hambletonian, sire of the famous Princess, Happy Medium’s dam.

ABDALLAH.—This grandson of Messenger has been popularly and justly designated as the “king of trotting sires of his generation.” He was bred by John Tredwell, of Queens County, Long Island, and was foaled 1823. His sire was Mambrino, son of Messenger, and his dam was Amazonia, one of the most distinguished trotters of her day. Concerning the breeding and origin of Amazonia there has been great diversity of opinion among horsemen and a great amount of controversy among writers. It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion of the questions raised on this point, but I would hardly be doing justice to history to pass it over unnoticed. I will, therefore, try to give a brief synopsis of the history and the arguments urged, and refer the reader to the first and second volumes of _Wallace’s Monthly_ for a more extended consideration of the questions raised.

The first representation of her pedigree was that she was a daughter of imported Messenger, and the next was that she was by a son of Messenger. On the first claim, that she was by Messenger, no argument was possible, one way or the other, on account of dates; but against the second claim, that she was by a son of Messenger, the arguments were numerous and vehement. All these arguments were based wholly upon her coarse external conformation and the absence of all resemblance to the Messenger family. Among the supporters of this view were many of the most intelligent and trustworthy horsemen of the whole country. Indeed, the preponderance of intelligence as well as numbers seemed to be on that side. That she had “coarse, ragged hips,” that she had a “rat tail,” that she “had hair enough on her legs to stuff a mattress,” that she was “a muddy sorrel,” etc., were all urged to prove that she was not by a son of Messenger. It is true that many entered into this controversy who never saw the mare and who knew nothing about her appearance, but there were others who knew her perfectly, among them my venerable friend David W. Jones, to whom we are all indebted for so many treasures from his storehouse of very valuable memories.

On the other side there were some little scraps of history, that at the vital point may have been history or may have been fiction. In the certificate of sale of Abdallah, April 27, 1830, to Mr. Isaac Snediker, his breeder, Mr. John Tredwell, says: “And believe him to be the very _best bred_ trotting stallion in this country, and be it enough to know that his sire was Mambrino and his dam Amazonia.” It has been argued that it would be very inconsistent for a man of Mr. Tredwell’s standing to certify that Abdallah “was the very best bred trotting stallion in this country,” if he knew nothing of the blood of his dam, drawing the inference that he must have known and believed the representations of his nephew, B. T. Kissam, from whom he got Amazonia. The story of the original purchase of Amazonia by B. T. Kissam and given to me by his brother, Timothy T. Kissam, in 1870, is as follows: Amazonia was purchased by B. T. Kissam, a dry goods merchant of New York, when on an excursion of pleasure in the vicinity of Philadelphia about 1814. She was brought out of a team and was then four years old past, his attention having been called to her as an animal of much promise. He used her for his own driving a short time and sold her to his uncle, John Tredwell. “Amazonia was represented to my brother to have been a get of imported Messenger.”

Now, in considering whether this scrap of history is probably true, the geographical question has been urged with telling effect. Messenger had been kept a number of years on both sides of the Delaware, right on the way to Philadelphia, his fee had been above that of any other stallion, and a large percentage of his colts had been kept entire. In no part of the country, perhaps, were there so many sons of Messenger seeking public patronage. The geography and the chronology of the question, therefore, both sustain the probability of its truthfulness. Whether Mr. Kissam crossed the river at Trenton, or Burlington, or Camden he was right in the hotbed of the sons of Messenger. “If Amazonia” it has been asked, “was as coarse and forbidding as represented in her appearance, what induced Mr. Kissam to buy her?” He wanted a carriage horse and he wanted one that could not only show good action, but one that had a right of inheritance to good action. He knew the Messengers and knew that beauty and style were not family traits in that tribe. Many of them were coarse, and possibly as coarse as Amazonia. Her very coarseness and lack of style is, under the circumstances, a strong argument that in choosing her Mr. Kissam had regard for her Messenger blood.

Another argument, resting on “the internal evidences,” has been urged with considerable force and it is very hard to answer it. Amazonia was a mare of tested and known speed. She was in a number of races to saddle and had won several of them in less than three minutes along about 1816-18, and when Major William Jones, in 1820, accepted the challenge to produce a horse that could trot a mile in three minutes for one thousand dollars, he knew very well what he was doing, for he had seen Amazonia do it a number of times. Her best time was about 2:54, which in that day was considered phenomenally fast. If we were to meet a running horse out on the plains that could run away from all others, we would naturally and justly conclude that he had some of the blood of the race horse in his veins. If we have a pacer and we learn he came from a section of the country where a certain tribe of pacers abounded, we would naturally conclude that he belonged to that tribe, especially if we knew there were no other pacers in that section. If we have a trotter that can go away from all other trotters, and we know that this trotter came from a section abounding in a family of trotters, and in nothing else that can trot, we naturally and justly conclude that this trotter came from some member of that family of trotters. This argument from the “internal evidences” seems almost axiomatic, and when taken in connection with the historical argument, unsatisfactory though it be, they together lay the foundation for a very strong probability that Amazonia was by a son of Messenger.

Abdallah was in color a beautiful bay, about fifteen and a half hands high, and there was a measure of coarseness about him that he could not well escape, as both his sire and dam were endowed with that undesirable quality. The one exception to this was in the character of his coat, which was very fine and glossy when in healthy condition. His reputation as a great trotting sire was very widely extended during his lifetime, but his lack of symmetry and his “rat tail,” which he inherited from his dam, so impaired his acceptability with the public that he never was very largely patronized. Besides this he had an unconquerable will of his own, which he transmitted to his offspring very generally. This willfulness was not a desirable quality in a horse for drudgery, and hence most of his patrons were such as were seeking for gameness and speed. When he was four years old he was not in the stud, and it is understood that Mr. Tredwell undertook to break him thoroughly and train him that year. It is also understood that when put in harness he kicked everything to pieces within his reach and that all thoughts of training were soon abandoned. He never was in harness again until, in extreme old age, he was sold for five dollars to a fish peddler, and the peddler’s wagon was soon reduced to kindling wood.

He was kept at different points on Long Island, and one season in New Jersey, till the fall of 1839, when he, with Commodore, another son of Mambrino, was sold to Mr. John W. Hunt, of Lexington, Kentucky, where they made the season of 1840. Commodore was much the more attractive horse of the two, and did a large business, while Abdallah was almost wholly neglected, leaving only about half a dozen colts. Meantime his progeny on the island began to show their speed and their racing qualities; a company was formed and he was brought back from Kentucky and made the seasons of 1841 and 1842 at the Union Course, Long Island. He was at Goshen, New York, 1843, at Freehold, New Jersey, 1844 and 1845, at Chester, New York, 1846-47-48, at Bull’s Head, New York, 1849, and did nothing, then at the Union Course and Patchogue, Long Island, and was not off the island again. After the period of his usefulness was past his inhuman owners turned him out on a bleak, sandy beach on the Long Island shore, and there he starved to death in the piercing November winds, without a shelter or a friend.

Abdallah was the sire of Hambletonian, 10, the greatest of all trotting progenitors and greater than all others combined. This fact alone has made his name imperishable in the annals of the trotting horse. A number of his other sons were kept for stallions and some of them lived to old age, but they were all failures in the stud. His daughters, generally, proved to be most valuable brood mares, producing speed to almost any and every cross. A pedigree tracing to an “Abdallah mare” has always enhanced the value of a family.

ALMACK.—Mr. John Tredwell bred his famous team of driving mares, Amazonia and Sophonisba, to Mambrino in the spring of 1822, and the next year they each produced a bay horse colt that he named Abdallah and Almack. Sophonisba, the dam of Almack, was a superior mare, but she was not fast enough for her mate. Almack, however, was a good horse and left some trotters. I have no particular description of him at hand and nothing can now be given of his history further than that some of his daughters produced well and that he seems to have been kept all his life on Long Island. His dam Sophonisba was got by a grandson of imported Baronet, as represented, but this is so indefinite as to be unsatisfactory and suspicious. As none of the Baronets could ever trot, even “a little bit,” it is evident that whatever trotting inheritance Almack possessed came to him from his sire. Aside from a number of his descendants that were recognized trotters of merit there was one in particular that established Almack as a progenitor of a great family of trotters. A son of his bred by George Raynor, of Huntington, Long Island, in 1842, and known as the “Raynor Colt,” out of Spirit by Engineer II., sire of Lady Suffolk, was led behind a sulky at a fair at Huntington, when he was eighteen months old, and he went so fast and showed such a magnificent way of doing it, that he was named “Champion” by William T. Porter, editor of the _Spirit of the Times_. At three years old he was driven a full mile in 3:05 and this was a “world’s record” for colts of that age at that time. In 1846 he was purchased by William R. Grinnell for two thousand six hundred dollars and taken to Cayuga County, where he founded a great tribe of trotters that is now known everywhere as the “Champion Family.” A fuller account of this horse will be found at another place in this volume.

MAMBRINO PAYMASTER (widely known in later years as Blind Paymaster).—This was a large, strong-boned, dark-bay horse, sixteen hands and an inch high. When young he was somewhat light and leggy, but with age he spread out and became a horse of substance. He was bred by Azariah Arnold, of the town of Washington, in Dutchess County, New York. There is some uncertainty about the year this horse was foaled, but it was somewhere between 1822 and 1826. He was got by Mambrino, son of Messenger, and his dam was represented to be by imported Paymaster. The late Mr. Edwin Thorne made a statement a few years ago that in an interview with Azariah Arnold he said that he did not know or remember the horse that was the sire of the dam. At that time Mr. Arnold was very old, and doubtless his mental faculties very much impaired, so it would not be remarkable that he should have forgotten all about it. On the other hand, Nelson Haight, Daniel B. Haight, Seth P. Hopson, and others of like high character, maintain that Mr. Arnold, in his younger days, always represented the mare to be by Paymaster, and the name of the horse itself is very strong evidence that he did so represent it, and is a standing proclamation to that effect. There can be no possible doubt that in earlier life Mr. Arnold constantly represented this mare to be by Paymaster; neither can there be any reasonable doubt that when his faculties were impaired with age he told Mr. Thorne that he did not remember her pedigree. Mr. Arnold’s neighbors all agree that he was a man of unblemished character and incapable of a willful misrepresentation, when in possession of his faculties. Again, that this Paymaster cross was not only possible, but probable, is shown by the fact that imported Paymaster was kept by Ebenezer Haight, in the year 1807, in the same township with Azariah Arnold, and the years 1808 and 1809 in the same part of the county. Therefore, Mr. Thorne to the contrary notwithstanding, I have but little doubt that the Paymaster cross is correct.

He had a small star in his forehead and a little white on one hind foot. His back, loin and hips were altogether superior, and those who knew him best say they never saw his equal at these points. His head was large and bony, with an ear after the Mambrino model. His neck was of medium length and his shoulder good. His hind legs were quite crooked and too much cut in below the hock in front, giving the legs at that point a narrow and weak appearance; his hocks were large and at the curb place showed a fullness. His cannon bones, all round, were short for a horse of his size, and his feet were excellent. He was slow in maturing, but when he filled out he lost all that narrow, weedy appearance which characterized his colthood. He was not beautiful, but powerful.

About 1828 he was sold and taken to Binghamton, New York. Meantime his colts came forward and proved to be so valuable that Nelson and Daniel B. Haight and Gilbert Jones purchased and brought him back to Dutchess County about the year 1840. He was not a sure foal-getter, but his stock proved to be of great value. When brought back from Broome County he was blind. He made one season on Long Island in charge of George Tappan; the other seasons till 1847 he was kept in Dutchess County in the neighborhood of his owners. In 1847 he was sold to Mr. Gilbert Holmes and taken to Vermont, where he died after getting one colt. Many of his sons were kept as stallions, but the most famous of his get were the mares Iola and Lady Moore, and last but not least, his famous son Mambrino Chief, the founder of a great family of trotters in Kentucky. His stock were probably more noted and more highly prized than that of any of the sons of Mambrino that stood in Dutchess County. As Abdallah was the link by which the greatest of all trotting families are connected with Messenger, so Mambrino Paymaster is the link through which the family easily entitled to second place reaches the same illustrious original.

MAMBRINO JR. (BONE SWINGER) was a beautiful bay horse, foaled 182-, got by Mambrino, son of Messenger; dam not traced. He was bred on Long Island and was owned by George Tappan, near Jericho, Long Island. About 1833-4 he made some seasons at Washington Hollow, Dutchess County. He was about fifteen hands three inches high and was considered more blood-like and handsome than most of his family. He was a strong breeder, giving most of his colts his own elegant color.

MAMBRINO MESSENGER (commonly known as the Burton Horse) was foaled about 1821. He was got by Mambrino, son of Messenger; dam by Coffin’s Messenger, son of Messenger; grandam by Black and All Black; great-grandam by Feather. He was bred by Abram Burton, of Washington Hollow, New York. He was a beautiful bay, about fifteen hands three inches high, and was the same age as Mambrino Paymaster, and they were rivals for a number of years, each having his friends and adherents. He was finer in the bone, having more finish and beauty than his rival, and what was still more effective with the public, he could out-trot him. Many of his offspring proved to be most excellent roadsters and some of them were fast. He was probably taken to Western New York, but I have not found any trace of his location or history. This name, Mambrino Messenger, was borne by several other horses of different degrees of affinity to the originals.

HAMBLETONIAN (HARRIS’) (also known as Bristol Grey and Remington Horse).—This was a grey horse, about sixteen hands high, and possessed great strength and substance. When young he was an iron grey and probably pretty dark, but as he advanced in age he became lighter in color. His head was large and bony, with great width between the eyes. He was short in the back, with long hips, and the rise of the withers commenced far back, showing a fine, oblique shoulder. He was a horse of unusually large bone formation; his limbs were large, but flat and clean, with a heavy growth of hair at the fetlocks. He was of docile and kindly disposition and worked well either alone or with another. His gait was open and decided and at a walk his long slinging steps carried him over the ground unusually fast. His speed as a trotter was never developed, but his action at that gait was so free, open and square that those who knew him well have insisted that his manner of going indicated the possibility of great improvement, if he had been handled with that view. His offspring were slow in maturing, and for many years, indeed till toward the end of his life, he was not appreciated as a stallion. He was in constant competition with the little, plump, trim and trappy Morgans, and at three and four years old his long, lathy, plain colts cut but a sorry figure against the well formed and fully developed Morgans of their own age. With such a rivalry, sustained by the question of profit to the breeder by early sales, it is not remarkable that he should have been neglected, till it was clearly demonstrated that he transmitted the true Messenger trotting instinct in greater strength than any of his competitors.

He was bred by Isaac Munson, of Wallingford, Vermont; foaled 1823, got by Bishop’s Hambletonian, son of Messenger; dam the Munson mare that was brought from Boston, 1813. There never has been any question about the sire of this horse, but up to 1869 the representation made by Mr. Harris that his dam was an imported English mare was generally accepted as the truth. I was led to doubt this, and in December of that year I made a thorough search of the records of the custom-house in Boston, and found the claim was without any foundation whatever. Through the kindness of Mr. Henry D. Noble I was enabled to get beyond Mr. Harris, who really knew nothing about the mare, back to the Munson family, and to Mr. Joseph Tucker, the earliest and best authority living in 1870. In order that this evidence may be preserved I will here insert Mr. Tucker’s letter entire.

“MILFORD, N. H., May 4th, 1870.

“MR. J. H. WALLACE, Muscatine, Iowa.

“DEAR SIR: Yours of 22d of April is duly received and contents noted. I was 24 years old when first acquainted with the dam of the ‘Harris Horse,’ so called, in the fall of 1813. Was then carrying on a farm, now owned by Wm. Randall, Esq., in this town, for Mr. Israel Munson, a commission merchant then doing business on India Street, and afterward on Central Wharf, Boston. I was in Boston in the fall of 1813, as above, and found the dam (of Hambletonian) and mate in Mr. Munson’s possession. He said they had been ‘leaders’ in a stage team, and they acted as if green about holding back, etc. He never said she was imported from England, neither did I hear such a story till two or three years ago. The dam was called ‘a Messenger.’ All the description I can give of her is that she was a strong, well-built, light dapple grey, and would weigh ten hundred, certain. The span was well matched. The nigh one (the dam) was more serviceable than the other. Led them all the way from Boston behind an ox team; kept them till the middle of April and then returned the pair to Boston. Mr. Munson drove them up, only stopping to dinner, when on his way to Vermont in August, 1814, and I didn’t see them again until December. I then drove them from Boston to Vermont, and used them a year on the Munson farm, on Otter Creek, in Wallingford. In June, 1815, I took them to Phœnix Horse (bay, black mane and tail, good looking and smart) in Clarendon Flats. Both stood and had foals the spring after I left Mr. Munson’s employ. The off mare was occasionally a little lame, I think in the off fore foot, when hard drove, but the nigh one was perfectly free from lameness or limping. I left Mr. Munson in the spring of 1816, and know nothing of mares afterward.

“Yours truly,

JOSEPH TUCKER,

“(By Geo. W. Fox).”

I have given this letter entire, with the exception of a few closing sentences, that the public may be able to judge of its authenticity. That these mares were leaders in a stage team when Mr. Munson bought them is confirmed by members of the Munson family, and that the nigh mare was represented to be a Messenger at the time of the purchase I have not the least doubt. But whether she was really a Messenger is quite another question. All I can say is, it was possible in the nature of things; and the employment and qualities of the mare, together with the representations of Mr. Munson, appear to make it probable. During the mare’s lifetime I find she was spoken of in the Munson family and about Wallingford as “the imported Messenger mare” and in this phrase, no doubt, was the origin of the story that she was herself imported. When this phrase, through her son, reached the next outer circle, “imported Messenger mare” no longer meant a mare by imported Messenger, but an imported mare by Messenger.

At the point where Mr. Tucker’s knowledge of this mare ceases, fortunately Mr. Isaac B. Munson, of Wallingford, takes up the history and carries it forward, with great particularity, to the time of her death about 1826. She produced several foals by different horses, and while they were all valuable animals, the only one that is known to history is the subject of this sketch. When Hambletonian of Vermont was two years old Mr. Munson sold him to Samuel Edgerton and others, of Wallingford, and they kept him in the stud till about 1828, when they sold him to Mr. Eddy, of Bristol, Vermont, and in the hands of the Eddy family he was kept at Bristol, New Haven, and other points in and about Addison County till about 1835, when he was kept one or two years again in Wallingford and adjacent towns. About 1837 he was sold to Joshua Remington, of Huntington, Vermont, and was taken there. He stood in various parts of Chittenden County, and became well known as the “Remington Horse.” Unfortunately there is no guide to dates in these transfers and it is not known just how long Mr. Remington owned him. He next passed into the hands of Mr. Russell Harris, New Haven, Connecticut, and remained his till he died late in the year 1847.

The location of this horse was unfavorable either to a large or to a numerous progeny of trotters. He was surrounded with Morgan blood, trappy and stylish and fast growing in popularity on the supposition that they were trotters—a most valuable tribe as family horses, but none of them were able to trot fast without the introduction of trotting blood from the outside. He lived in a period antedating the real development of the trotter and the keeping of records of performances, and hence we must not judge of his merits as a trotting sire by comparing the list of his performers with lists of later generations. Green Mountain Maid was one of the best of her day and made a record of 2:28½ in 1853, and the same year the famous pacing gelding Hero made a record of 2:20½. Probably the best trotter from his loins was Sontag, with a wagon record in 1855 of 2:31. This mare was originally a pacer, and whether his dam was by imported Messenger or not we must conclude that the tendency to the lateral action was strong in his progeny. Lady Shannon, Trouble, Vermont, Modesty, and True John were all famous performers in their day. The last named was kept in the stud a few years and was known as the Hanchett Horse. He fell into the hands of Sim D. Hoagland, of this vicinity, became ugly and was made a gelding. As a weight puller he had no equal in his day. His daughters became the dams of many noted producers and performers, and through the doubling of his blood and its predominating influence we have the famous General Knox and his tribe. But few of his sons were kept as stallions; among them the best known is Hambletonian, 814, known as the Parris Horse and the sire of the stout campaigner, Joker, 2:22½. Vermont Hambletonian (known as the Noble or Harrington Horse) was one of his best and best-bred sons. He died in 1865, leaving a valuable progeny.

HAMBLETONIAN (JUDSON’S) was a brown horse and resembled his sire very much in both size and form. He was foaled 1821, got by Bishop’s Hambletonian, son of Messenger; dam by Wells’ Magnum Bonum. This Magnum Bonum family abounded in that region, and it was a very good one, whatever the blood may have been. This horse was bred by Judge Underhill, of Dorset, Vermont, and sold, 1829, to Dr. Nathan Judson, of Pawlet, Vermont. He was kept in that region till he died about 1841. His progeny were very numerous and valuable.

HAMBLETONIAN (ANDRUS’) was a brown horse nearly sixteen hands high. He was a well formed and evenly balanced horse, all over, with an objectionable lack of bone just below the fore-knee. His head and ear were strongly after the Messenger model. I have never been able to determine just who bred him, and consequently his blood on the side of the dam is not fully established. He was foaled about 1840, got by Judson’s Hambletonian, and out of a mare which Mr. B. B. Sherman says was by old Magnum Bonum. He seems to have known this mare well and speaks of her as a very superior animal. This would indicate inbreeding to the Magnum Bonums, and as they were a light-limbed family we may account for this horse’s defects in that respect. He was owned a number of years by Mr. Andrus, of Pawlet, and passed into the hands of G. A. Austin, of Orwell, Vermont. In 1853-4 Mr. Austin sent him to Illinois, along with Drury’s Ethan Allen, Black Hawk Prophet, Morgan Tiger and some other stallions, in charge of Mr. Wetherbee, for sale. In 1854 they were removed to Muscatine, Iowa, and several of them sold there, among them the Andrus Horse. He was then stiff in his limbs, showing the effects of previous neglect and abuse. He died at Muscatine in 1857. His progeny there were defective in bone. I am told several of his daughters in Vermont have left good stock there and thus perpetuated his name in the second and third generations. But his chief title to fame has been secured to him by his renowned daughter Princess, the dam of the great Happy Medium. In 1851 Mr. L. B. Adams, who then owned her, bred the Isaiah Wilcox mare, by Burdick’s Engineer, son of Engineer by Messenger, to Andrus’ Hambletonian, and, in a nutshell, the union of this great-grandson of Messenger with this great-granddaughter of Messenger produced Princess. This pedigree of Princess is incontrovertibly established and will be given in fuller detail in the history of her son, Happy Medium.