CHAPTER XXVII.

THE BLACK HAWK OR MORGAN FAMILY.

Characteristics of the Morgans—History of the original Morgan—The fabled pedigree—The true Briton theory—Justin Morgan’s breeding hopelessly unknown—Sherman Morgan—Black Hawk—His disputed paternity—His dam called a Narragansett—Ethan Allen—His great beauty, speed and popularity—The Flying Morgan claim baseless—His dam of unknown blood—His great race with Dexter—Daniel Lambert, the only successful sire of the Black Hawk line.

Fifty years ago there was no family of horses so popular as the “Morgans.” They were carried into all parts of the country at high prices and they gave their purchasers general satisfaction. They were small, perhaps not averaging over fourteen and a half hands high, but compact, trappy movers and had most excellent dispositions. Many of them were ideal roadsters, where speed was not in great demand, for they were kindly, tractable and always on their courage. Many of them carried themselves in excellent style, and notwithstanding their diminutive size, it is not probable we will ever again see a better tribe of every-day, family horses. In all their outline and in every lineament they were the very opposite of the blood horse, and when bred on any strain outside of their own family, they almost universally failed to impress their own characteristics on their progeny. This failure I observed with deep regret more than forty years ago. The step could be extended and the speed increased by crossing with the long striders, but in securing this we lost the Morgan. In advance of their general distribution they had the misfortune to be heralded as great trotters, and in this respect, at least, they failed of meeting expectations. They went, largely, into the hands of inexperienced men, who knew nothing about how to cultivate speed, and the little, short, quick steps of their new trotters gave them all the sensations of going fast, without the danger incident to rapid traveling. In regard to the matter of speed, through the overzealous and not too conscientious editors and others to say nothing of the advertisements of those who had them for sale, they suffered greatly by too much praise. The result is that the original type has been extinguished, and it is doubtful whether a fair specimen could be found, even among the mountains of New England. Next to the injury which the family sustained from the exaggerated claims of speed put forward by its too sanguine friends, there was another and even greater injury from the absurd and foolish claims made for his blood. It is impossible to make a thinking and sensible man believe that a little hairy-legged “nubbin” of a pony, weighing eight hundred and fifty pounds, hired for fifteen dollars a year to drag logs together in a clearing, at which employment he was a great success, had the blood of the race horse in his veins. This was always a stumbling block to my immature enthusiasm for the Morgan horse. From an experience of a great many years and from the developments of horse history during that time, I find the “stumbling block” no longer worries me, for it has rotted away and disappeared. Although the family has ceased to exist as a factor in current horse history, it had a history in the past; and, as a historian, I must consider its origin as well as the deeds it has accomplished or failed to accomplish.

Mr. Justin Morgan, the central figure in this investigation, was born in West Springfield, 1747, where he married and lived till 1788, when he removed to Randolph, Vermont, where he died, March, 1798. He was a reputable citizen, fairly well educated for his time, and taught school for a living. He owned a house and lot in his native town, where he kept a wayside house of entertainment, and during the early summer he usually had a stallion to keep on the shares. In the spring of 1785 he had charge of the horse True Briton, or Beautiful Bay, and I will here add that three years later, John Morgan, Jr., had charge of the same horse at Springfield, for the seasons of 1788 and 1789. This John Morgan, Jr., removed to Lima, New York, late in 1790 or early in 1791. Justin had sold his place in West Springfield to Abner Morgan, on long payments, and in the summer of 1795 he came back to West Springfield to collect some money that was due him, presumably on the price of his former home, but he failed to get money and took two colts instead. One was a three-year-old gelding and the other was a two-year-old bay colt, entire. He led the three-year-old with a halter and the two-year-old followed. The date of this visit to the old home is the key to the main question to be settled, and it is fixed by Justin Morgan, Jr., then a lad of the right age to remember such things, and by Soloman Steele and Judge Griswold, who fix the date in the late summer of 1795. The horse was sold and resold and sold again, as a foal of 1793, and that date never left him till he died in 1821. I look upon this date as perfectly immovable, and every attempt that has been made to overthrow it has not been based on any reasonable evidence, nor prompted by a desire to get at the truth, but only to make a fictitious sire a possibility. This was the original Morgan Horse, and this date was thoroughly fixed by Linsley, without knowing that it upset the pedigree he had labored so hard to establish. After a lapse of fifty years an attempt was made to fix up a pedigree for the “Original Morgan Horse,” claiming that he was got by True Briton or Beautiful Bay—represented to be a great race horse, stolen from the great race horse man, Colonel De Lancey, in the Revolutionary War. I must, therefore, consider, briefly, this part of the fiction.

First—As a starting point in the pedigree, it is assumed that the race-horse in question was stolen, during the War of the Revolution, from James De Lancey, perhaps the largest and most widely known of all the colonial horsemen of that day. He was the first man to import race horses into this colony, and his name and the fame of his horses were discussed everywhere. He was very rich, in politics a Tory, and on the eve of hostilities he sold out every horse he owned, of whatever description, went back to England and never returned. This disposes of the false assumption that the sire of the original Morgan horse was stolen from him.

Second—There was another James De Lancey, cousin to the preceding, and not a rich man, who was colonel of a body of Tory cavalry operating in Westchester County from 1777 to the close of the war in 1782. It is not known whether he ever owned a race horse in his life, but it is certain he was a dashing fighter, and at the head of the cowboys he was known to the inhabitants of all that region. His name is not to be found anywhere in connection with horses. He bore, in full, the same name as the distinguished horseman, and was mistaken for him, although he was on the other side of the ocean.

Third—It is claimed that “one Smith” stole the horse in question from Colonel De Lancey and sold him to Mr. Ward, of Hartford, Connecticut, who kept him a few years and sold him to Selah Norton, of the same place, and remained his till he died. Who was this “one Smith” and where did he belong? Where is the evidence that this “one Smith” stole a horse from Colonel De Lancey?

Fourth—In the New York _Packet_, then published at Fishkill, under date of October 19, 1780, we find the following: “Last week Lieutenant Wright Carpenter and two others went down to Colonel James De Lancey’s quarters and lay in wait for his appearance. He accordingly came and having tied his horse at the door, went into the house; upon which Carpenter seized the horse and mounted. When De Lancey discovered him, he immediately alarmed his men, who pursued him to White Plains, but in vain,” etc., etc. This Lieutenant Carpenter was a dashing young fellow and was promoted next month to the position of first lieutenant in Captain Lyons’ company, of the Second Regiment of New York Militia, of Westchester County, and still commanded by Colonel Thomas. This is the man who stole the horse, this is the contemporaneous evidence of it, and “one Smith” had nothing to do with it.

In these four points we have what may be considered the first chapter of this investigation and, as will be readily seen, each of them must be fatal to the pretentious claim that has been maintained for about a hundred years. Avoiding all circumlocution, I think it is safe to say that this so-called pedigree did not originate this side of Hartford. The Second Regiment of New York Militia, called “The Skinners,” was made up of Westchester County men, and as Colonel De Lancey had been sheriff of that county, everybody knew him and knew that he was not the race horse James. We must, therefore, look further on for the time when and the person by whom this pedigree was manufactured.

In 1784 this horse was advertised at Lanesboro, Massachusetts, under the name of Beautiful Bay, and no attempt was made to give a pedigree or origin of the horse.

In 1785 he was at West Springfield, Massachusetts, in charge of Justin Morgan, still called Beautiful Bay, and still no pedigree.

In 1788 and 1789 he was in charge of John Morgan, Jr., of Springfield, Massachusetts, and here, for the first time, he is designated as “the famous full-blooded English horse, called True Briton or Beautiful Bay,” but no pedigree is given.

In 1791 he was advertised at East Hartford, Connecticut, by his owner, Selah Norton, and his pedigree is here given for the first time as follows: “True Briton, or Beautiful Bay, got by imported Traveler, dam De Lancey’s racer.” After advertising the horse for seven years without a pedigree, at last Mr. Selah Norton manufactures one and gives it over his own signature.

In 1793 he is again called Beautiful Bay, but no pedigree, at South Hadley, Massachusetts.

In 1794 and 1795 he was kept at Ashfield, Massachusetts, by Mr. Norton himself, and called Traveler, and his pedigree is again given in amended form as follows: “Sired by the famous old Traveler, imported from Ireland, dam Colonel De Lancey’s imported racer.”

This is the last trace we have of the horse Beautiful Bay, for that seems to be his honest name, and now I must ask some questions. These advertisements cover a period of eleven years and they are worthy of careful study. From 1784 to 1791 there is no attempt at giving any pedigree at all. With the exception of three seasons he seems to have been let, probably on shares, to different keepers, in different parts of the country. From first to last Selah Norton seems to have been his owner. If he had received the pedigree, and the romantic story of his theft, from “one Smith,” as claimed, is it conceivable that he would have concealed that story from the public when it would have added so much to the patronage of his horse? How does it come that not a single man having this stallion in charge, except Selah Norton himself, ever gave his pedigree? What prompted Selah Norton to withdraw the horse from public service, in Hartford, immediately after he first gave his pedigree? Was it because everybody there knew it was a fraud? When the horse was taken to South Hadley in 1793, why did his keeper there refuse to accept either the name True Briton or the new pedigree? It will be observed he was advertised there simply as Beautiful Bay and no pedigree given. The next two years we find him at Ashfield, Massachusetts, to which point it would seem his owner had removed from Hartford. For some reason that can be better imagined than explained, the names Beautiful Bay and True Briton are there dropped and he is rechristened as Traveler. To this change of name the old pedigree is attached, with a very important change in that also, as follows: “Sired by famous old Traveler, imported from Ireland, dam Colonel De Lancey’s imported racer.” These three words, “imported from Ireland,” are very important in two particulars, for they not only knock out the “featherheads” who have been always maintaining that the imported Traveler meant Lloyd’s Traveler of New Jersey, son of Morton’s Traveler, that was imported from Yorkshire into Virginia about 1750, but it convicts Selah Norton of inventing this pedigree, for there was no such horse brought from Ireland. It is certainly unnecessary to say another word in illustration of Selah Norton’s character. When we study these advertisements it becomes as clear as the light of day that nobody believed him or the story that “one Smith” stole the horse from Colonel De Lancey. The crimes of horse stealing and desertion were exceedingly common during the period of the revolution and it is quite possible that “one Smith” may have stolen a horse out of somebody’s stable and sold him to Mr. Ward or Mr. Norton as the same horse that Lieutenant Carpenter stole from Colonel De Lancey, but neither “one Smith” nor “one Norton” knew anything more about his pedigree than he did about the man in the moon, and I will here end the second chapter of this investigation.

I am clearly of the opinion that Justin Morgan was an honest man and that he would not tell a lie, even if he knew it might accrue to his present and personal advantage. He was poor, feeble in health, and had hard scuffling to get along. As a means of livelihood, in part at least, it seems to have been his business for a good many years to keep stallions on shares for different owners. As late as 1795 he had a horse from Hartford, Connecticut, called Figure, to which we will refer later on. In 1788 he sold his little place in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and removed to Randolph, Vermont, where he died in March, 1798 In the autumn of 1795 he visited West Springfield again, for the purpose of collecting some money that was still due him there, probably some deferred payments of his former home, and as he was not able to get the money he took two horses in lieu thereof. One was a three-year-old gelding, and the other was a two-year-old bay colt, entire. He led the gelding beside the horse he was riding and the colt followed all the way. The evidence that fixes the date of this trip in the autumn of 1795 and the age of the colt that followed seems to me to be completely bomb-proof. This evidence not only embraces the recollections of Justin Morgan’s neighbors, but when he died the colt, in 1798, was sold by his administrators as a five-year-old. In all the changes of ownership that took place through his life and at his death, in 1821, he was represented as foaled in 1793. He died from the effects of a kick that was neglected, and not from old age.

The only serious attempt that has been made to controvert the date of 1793 was that made in the name of John Morgan, of Lima, New York, in 1842, he being then eighty years old, in the Albany _Cultivator_. Unfortunately the editor fails to publish the letter he professes to have received from John Morgan and only gives his construction of it, which any child knows is no evidence at all. The editor represents him to say “that the two-year-old stud which he (Justin) took with him to Vermont was sired by a horse owned by Selah Norton, of East Hartford, Connecticut, called True Briton or Beautiful Bay.” Justin Morgan removed to Randolph, Vermont, in the spring of 1788, and this John Morgan removed to Lima, New York, about February, 1790. They were not brothers, but distant relatives. If John means to say that Justin “took with him” when he removed to Vermont a two-year-old son of Beautiful Bay, that colt must have been foaled in 1786, which would make him twelve years old instead of five when he was sold upon the death of his owner, and thirty-six years old instead of twenty-nine when he died from a kick. Now, if we concede that Justin did take with him a two-year-old son of Beautiful Bay, the dates render it impossible that he should have been the founder of the Morgan horse family and we have no trace of him whatever.

Another authority has very recently come to the front, and in order to avoid the difficulty of dates and still retain the possibility of the horse being by Beautiful Bay, insists that he was foaled 1789 and bred by Justin Morgan himself. Under this new light he was foaled in Vermont and didn’t have to travel there at all. He insists further that he named the horse Figure and kept him in the stud till his death in March, 1798, when the horse was sold and his name changed to Justin Morgan. It is true that Justin Morgan, still seeking to make a living, kept a stallion two or three years owned in Hartford, Connecticut, and advertised him as “the famous horse Figure, from Hartford.” Now, if this horse was foaled the property of Justin Morgan and owned by him as long as he lived, why should he advertise him as “from Hartford?” All these efforts to fix dates by shifting about so as to make it possible for the bogus stolen horse to come in as a sire, have already received more attention than their importance demands and I will therefore call this the close of the third chapter.

There are several incidents connected with the life of the colt of 1793 that fixed his identity and age upon the recollections of the neighbors and friends of Justin Morgan. Solomon Steele, Evans, Rice and others who knew the colt well, all agree that the colt followed his companion and playmate from West Springfield to Randolph in the autumn of 1795 and that he was not then halter broken. They all agree that Evans hired him for fifteen dollars a year to draw logs in his clearing, in the place of a yoke of oxen. They all agree that Justin Morgan died in March, 1798, and that the colt was then sold as a five-year-old. The death was an immovable date fixer around which everything in connection with these events must be determined. And when the horse died in 1821 nobody had ever doubted that he was foaled 1793.

Justin Morgan, Jr., was in his tenth year when the colt was brought home, and he was twelve years old when his father died. In 1842 Justin Morgan, Jr., in a communication to the Albany _Cultivator_, says: “One was a three-year-old gelding colt, which he led; and the other a two-year-old stud colt, which followed all the way from Springfield. The said two-year-old colt was the same that has since been known all over New England by the name of the Morgan Horse. I know that my father always, while he lived, called him a Dutch horse. I have a perfect recollection of the horse when my father owned him and afterward, and well remember that my father always spoke of him as of the best blood.”

When he made these clean-cut and emphatic declarations Justin Morgan, Jr., was fifty-six years old, and it has been suggested that he was too young, at the time, to have remembered about the colt. This is a grave mistake, for farmer’s boys remember a thousand things better then than they ever do afterward. I don’t think that my own memory is remarkable, but today, at over three score and ten, I can, with the utmost distinctness, recall the names, color, markings, size, peculiarities and, in some cases, the history of most of the horses that were on the farm when I was eight years old. I can, therefore, have no hesitation in accepting Justin Morgan’s evidence on account of his youthfulness, at the time of which he speaks.

Did Justin Morgan know what he was saying when he “always, while he lived, called his horse a Dutch horse?” And did he understand the historical meaning of his words when “he always spoke of him as of the best blood?” To answer these questions we must make some reference to history. The Dutch horses were a breed wholly distinct from the horses of the other colonies. The colony of New Netherlands (New York) received its supply from Utrecht, in Holland, commencing in 1624 and a few years following. In forty years they had so increased that the colony was well supplied. These horses were about fourteen hands and one inch high, which was about one hand higher than the horses supplied to the English colonies. They were not only higher, but they had more bone and muscle, and, I think, more shapely necks. In every respect they were better, except that they were not so good for the saddle, for the reason, as I think, that they were not pacers. The standard that determined their superiority was the higher prices at which they were bought and sold, over the New England horses, as shown by the official reports of the colony. When the colony passed under British rule, the first governor immediately established a race course on Hempstead Plains, Long Island, and there in 1665 the first organized race in this country took place. This was long before the English race horse had reached the character of a breed, and a round hundred years before the first representative of that breed reached New York. The horses that ran at Hempstead Plains were undoubtedly Dutch horses, for the inhabitants of New York and Long Island attended these annual meetings in great numbers, and as they were nearly all Dutch they would not have gone a stone’s throw to see an English horse run. These annual race meetings were kept up a great many years by the successive governors.

In 1635 two shiploads of Dutch horses, from the same quarter, chiefly mares, reached Salem, Massachusetts, and were sold at prices enormously high as compared with the prices of those sent from England to the same colony. These two shiploads added materially to the average size of the horses of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, as shown by statistics, as well as the other colonies getting their foundation stock from that source. We may safely conclude, I think, that some of the descendants of these shiploads were taken to the valley of the Connecticut when Hartford was planted, for we not infrequently meet with the term “Dutch horse” in the old prints of that valley. Besides this source the valley of the Hudson was full of them. They retained their distinctive appellation till about the beginning of this century.

Mr. O. W. Cook, of Springfield, Massachusetts, did a great deal of fundamental investigation on the origin of this family, away back in 1878-9, etc., and I am under special obligations to him for being the first man to open my eyes to the great confidence game that has been played for a hundred years, and all originating in the fabulous story of “one Smith.” Among other important things he unearths an advertisement of Young Bulrock that was advertised to stand at Springfield, 1792, as follows: “Young Bulrock is a horse of the Dutch breed, of a large size, and a bright bay color, etc.” In speaking of his pedigree, Mr. Cook most pithily remarks: “In view of the three-fold concurrence of time and place and breed, it fits into the vacuum in the Morgan’s lineage as a fragment of pottery fits into its complement.” There was another horse advertised in Springfield that year, but he had neither name nor breed and in color he was gray. The advertisement of Young Bulrock fits in time, fits in color and fits in breed; and thus removes all reasonable doubt that he was the sire of the original Morgan horse. This is the reason why Justin Morgan “always, while he lived, called him a Dutch horse;” and the little scrap of history given above will show why he always spoke of him as “of the best blood.” He was right in the former and he was right in the latter declaration. It is not possible, at this day, to prove, technically, these matters of a hundred years ago, but after considering all the facts in the case, we must conclude that they are satisfying to the human understanding, and that Justin Morgan told the truth.

For the past fifty or sixty years the breeding of the original Morgan horse has been a subject of apparently unending controversy. The real facts concerning his origin, however, have never been brought to light and fully developed until within the last few years, and it is probable that nothing of material value will ever be added to the foregoing tracing. We have found from contemporaneous history that Lieutenant Wright Carpenter stole a horse from Colonel James De Lancey and was successful in carrying him into the camp of the patriots at Fishkill, and that is all we know about that particular horse. After the war was over it is stated that “one Smith” sold a horse to Mr. Ward, of Hartford, and represented that he had stolen the horse from Colonel De Lancey, and Mr. Ward sold that horse to Selah Norton, who seems to have owned him as long as he lived. It must be accepted as true that Lieutenant Carpenter captured a horse from Colonel De Lancey, but we cannot accept it as true that this was the same horse owned by Norton. We must first know how and where “one Smith” got him. Norton had this horse and advertised him in different parts of the country for public service seven or eight years before the romance of his history and pedigree was given to the world. As this romance would have been a grand feature in an advertisement of a stallion, Mr. Norton was too slow in evolving it, and when he did bring it out nobody believed it. At that period many portions of New England abounded in stallions with bogus pedigrees and histories, and if we judge Norton by his acts in giving his horse three different names at different times and places, we must conclude he was ready to conceal or invent anything that would add to his horse’s popularity and patronage.

SHERMAN MORGAN.—In his history of the Morgan Horse, Mr. Linsley names this and three or four other sons of the original, that were kept for stock purposes, but none of them seems to have attained any eminence, except Sherman. As he never made any pretensions to being a trotter, he would have been forgotten long ago, had it not been for the lucky circumstances that he was the sire of Black Hawk, and thus his name has been preserved. He was scant fourteen hands high, with heavy body on short legs, and carried his head well up. He was a chestnut and foaled about 1809. There has always been a doubt in the minds of many as to whether he was the sire of Black Hawk, but that question will be considered when we reach that horse. His dam was a very handsome mare, brought from Narragansett, a pacer, and a very desirable saddle mare. In the trotting “Register,” three representations are given as to the breeding of this mare, namely, that she was of the Spanish breed; that she was an imported English mare; and that she was brought from Virginia on account of her beauty and speed. The first claim seemed to have the best historical support, and besides this she was brought from Providence, Rhode Island, and was a very fine pacer. The theory was then prevalent that the Narragansett pacers were of the “Spanish breed.” The elimination of that foolish notion from the history of the pacers does not affect the plain statement that she was a Narragansett pacer. It is not known that this mare ever produced anything else, either by the original Morgan or by any other horse.

BLACK HAWK.—As his name indicates, this horse was a jet black, and was something over fifteen hands high. He was foaled 1833, was got by Sherman Morgan, and was bred by Benjamin Kelly, of Durham, New Hampshire. As the question of his paternity has been the subject of a great deal of bitter controversy, continued through many years, and participated in by men of intelligence, on both sides, I must give the history, as I understand it. Mr. Kelly kept a tavern at Durham and Mr. Bellows, the owner of Sherman Morgan, made this house one of his points of stopping as he traveled his horse, in his circuit of the season. Along with Sherman he had another horse called Paddy, black as a raven, that did some service at seven dollars, while the price for Sherman was fourteen dollars. On one of his visits, Mr. Kelly’s black mare, called “Old Narragansett” was bred to Sherman and proved to be in foal. Not long after this Mr. Kelly sold the mare to Mr. Shade Twombly, living about two miles from Durham, and a part of the agreement was that if the mare should prove to be with foal, Mr. Twombly was to pay for the services of the horse. The next spring the mare dropped a fine black horse colt, and Mr. Twombly claimed the colt was by Paddy and not by Sherman, hence, he refused to pay fourteen dollars for the services of Sherman, but was willing to pay seven dollars for the services of Paddy. This resulted in a lawsuit in which it was proved that Sherman was the sire of the colt, and Mr. Twombly’s estate had to pay the money. The colt was kept by Mr. Twombly’s heirs, at pasture in Greenland, New Hampshire, till he was about two years old, when he was sold at auction to Albert Mathes, of Durham, for seventy dollars and from him he passed to Benjamin Thurston, of Lowell, for two hundred dollars. In Thurston’s hands he became quite noted, locally, as a trotter, and in 1844 he became the property of David Hill, of Bridport, Vermont, where he became altogether the most popular stallion in the United States, and died there November, 1856. He was the first horse to command one hundred dollars for his services; and many of the great mares of the country were sent to his embrace, among them the world-renowned Lady Suffolk, but unfortunately she failed to produce.

To understand why the fight against the Sherman Morgan paternity of this horse should have been so bitter and so persistent, we must consider the condition of the horse interests in New England at that time. When Black Hawk came to the front the Morgans of the real Morgan type had already attained some degree of popularity and here came a horse overtopping them all, with no trace of the Morgan type about him. He and his family attracted the attention of purchasers and threw a shadow of doubt over the little punchy, hairy-legged fellows that knocked out many a sale. Besides this, it was a serious and real question in the minds of a great many honest and intelligent men, as to whether Sherman Morgan, so typical of his family, could possibly have been the sire of a horse so completely outside of the family, not only in appearance and formation, but in his ability to trot. In 1847 Black Hawk was pitted against the Morse Horse, mile heats, best two in three, at the Saratoga State Fair. He won the first heat in 2:50½ and the second in 2:43½. He was then fourteen years old and this was very fast, for a stallion of that period. It is but justice to say that the Morse Horse contingent claimed that Black Hawk was set back in the first heat for running and that the heat was given to the Morse Horse in 2:52½ and that the second and third heats were won by Black Hawk in 2:54½ and 2:56. Just what the truth is in this disagreement I am not able to determine. As we look at this horse, so distinct from all his tribe; and as we consider the very indistinct knowledge of the laws of generation as held by the masses in that day, we cannot wonder that the paternity was so vehemently disputed. Neither can we wonder, as his descendants pass in review before us, that this dispute has never been settled to the satisfaction of the contending parties. The old Morgan type never reappears in the descendants of this family.

But, we must not forget that we have considered only half of the inheritance of this horse. He had a dam as well as a sire. To that half of his pedigree we must now give some attention. The story of the “half-bred English mare, brought from New Brunswick” has had its day and we may as well lay it aside as a humbug. Mr. Allen W. Thomson, of Woodstock, Vermont, has brought out the facts with regard to this mare in a form that is very clear and satisfactory. In 1876 Mr. Thomson visited Albany for the purpose of examining everything that had been said in _The Country Gentleman_ newspaper touching on the paternity of Black Hawk. In this search for the sire he would necessarily find many references to the dam and among these references he was greatly surprised to find she had been described as “a pacing mare.” He goes on to say: “In our visit the same fall to Durham, Dover, Portsmouth and Greenland to learn more of her, we found a number that knew her when owned in Durham, and they said she was then known as the ‘Old Narragansett Mare.’ They said that Benjamin Kelly, deceased, brought the mare into Durham, that he had a son John L. living in Manchester, New Hampshire, and that he would know more about her, etc.” After learning that Mr. John L. Kelly was a very intelligent and responsible man, having been city marshal and mayor of Manchester, and known as “Honest John,” he wrote him and received the following reply:

“In answer to your inquiries about the dam of Black Hawk, I will give you my best recollections, aided somewhat by a diary which I kept at that time. I returned to Durham from a sea voyage in the fall of 1830. In the following spring I went to Boston with my father with a lot of horses. We stopped over night at Brown’s Hotel, at Haverhill, Mass., where we met a teamster from Portsmouth, N. H., with a team of four horses. In the hind span was a large gray horse and a dark bay mare. Among father’s horses was one which was a good match for the gray horse. The man noticed it and told father that the mare was too fast for the horse, was worth two of him for speed and bottom, yet he would trade with father for his gray horse. After a good deal of talk, with the aid of Mr. Brown, the trade was made and we drove the mare in the carriage to Boston, leading the others. We found her to be a splendid roadster, and as she was not in good condition to sell, we took her back to Durham. At this time she was chafed and bruised up very badly with the heavy harness, yet in a few months she came out of it, with no traces of it, except a few white spots on her back and breast. The teamster said she was a Narragansett mare. She would weigh 1,000 pounds. Father kept her as one of his stable horses. She was found to have great speed as a trotter, and father was always bragging about her. One day, late in the season, Israel Esty, of Dover, drove up to Durham with a trotter, and bantered father for a trot, mile heats on Madbury Plains, between Durham and Dover. I had great faith in the mare and pleaded with father to accept his offer, and he did, and fifty dollars was staked on the race. John Speed was father’s hostler at the time, and he commenced getting the mare ready for the race. He had only three weeks to do it in. At the time specified, a large collection of people from Dover and Durham collected to witness the race. Dr. Reuben Steele was one of the judges. The Esty horse won the first heat, the Kelly mare won the next two, distancing the horse in the last one. In the spring of 1832 John Bellows came to Durham with the old Sherman Morgan, and I persuaded father to have the mare bred to him. He did, as I saw the horse cover her. I was 21 in 1832; went to sea again that fall. My recollection of the dam of Black Hawk is she was a very fine pointed dark mare, with a nostril so large, when excited, that one could put his fist into it.

JOHN L. KELLY.

“Manchester, N. H., August 25, 1876.”

The only “trip” in this letter is where Mr. Kelly speaks of the mare as “a dark bay,” but as the identity of the mare is fully maintained by other witnesses, this shade of color is not material and is, doubtless a slip of the pen. We don’t know she was a Narragansett mare, but we do know that she was called a Narragansett. It is wholly possible she may have been a bastard Narragansett, or she may have been called a Narragansett merely because she was a pacer. At that date there were still many descendants of the old Narragansetts to be found, of greater or less degree of purity in their breeding. Among Mr. Thomson’s gleanings from persons who knew the mare there are some bearing upon her color and gait that are in order at this point of our inquisition. Mr. John Bellows, the owner of Sherman Morgan, says: “She was a good-sized black mare, a fast trotter, with a swinging gait, and resembled in appearance the Messenger stock of horses.” The following description was gathered from several persons who knew the mare well and among them Mr. Wingate Twombly, son of her former owner. “She was a large, rangy mare, a little coarse and brawny, did not carry much flesh, might have weighed some over one thousand pounds and was a trifle over fifteen and one-half hands high. Head and ears rather large, neck long and straight, withers low and thin, medium mane and tail, had more hair on the fetlocks than her son, was called black a little way off, but close to one could see her grey hairs mingled with her coat and close to she was called a steel mixed. She had a white strip in her face and some say a little white on one hind foot. She was smart to go, but her gait was not a smooth, square trot. Some called it a sort of a pace, others that she single-footed. She went with her head low when trotting fast. One person said it was about a straight line from her back to her head when she was going fast.” She was called the Narragansett Mare when Mr. Kelly owned her. From other sources and from men who personally knew the mare and had ridden beside her, we have undoubted evidence that she was very fast, but all through there is some confusion about the character of her gait. Mr. Bellows, who ought to know something about the gait of a horse, says: “She was a fast trotter, with a _swinging gait_.” Now just what he means by the phrase “swinging gait” is hard to determine. Putting all these bits of evidence together, the reasonable conclusion seems to be that she was double-gaited, and when speeded she would go from the trot to the pace or from the pace to the trot as the case might be.

From this synopsis of all that has been developed in the blood lines of Black Hawk, there can be no longer any mystery about where he got the characteristics making him so intensely different from the representatives of the typical Morgan. His sire was out of a high-class Narragansett pacer, and his dam was probably a fast Narragansett pacer, thus giving him presumably seventy-five per cent. of Narragansett blood and twenty-five per cent. of Morgan blood. The fight that was made against him all his life, as not being a genuine Morgan, had its foundation in justice and truth. He was not a Morgan in either blood or character. He founded a very valuable line of trotters, something that no other branch of the Morgan family has ever accomplished, and of right his descendants should be designated as “the Black Hawk Family,” and not jumbled up with the heterogeneous mass of nondescripts still called “the Morgan Family.” Black Hawk’s gait was spluttery and uneven, rather than square and mechanical. A few of his progeny were very perfectly gaited, but a great many of them manifested their evil inheritance, which, together with unskillful handling, destroyed all possible value as trotters. He placed three in the 2:30 list; fourteen of his sons were sires of 2:30 performers, six of them with two or more, and two daughters produced 2:30 performers. He died November, 1856.

ETHAN ALLEN, 43.—This was a handsome, bright bay horse, less than fifteen hands high, with three white feet and a star. He was foaled 1849, got by Black Hawk, 5; dam, a fast trotting grey mare of unknown pedigree. With a list of all the celebrated American horses before him, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the best informed horseman to select an animal that has been so great a favorite with the American people, and for so long a time, as the famous Ethan Allen. When four years old he gave the world a sensation by eclipsing everything that had appeared before him at that age; and again when he was eighteen years old he renewed and intensified the sensation by trotting in 2:15 with a running mate. These sensations of his youth and his old age, did much to give him a standing with the people; but his wonderful beauty and remarkable docility and kindness, with the elegance and ease of his action, made him the favorite of everybody. His trotting gait was recognized by the best judges and experts as probably more perfect than that of any horse of his day. Others have gone faster singly, but no one has done it in greater perfection of motion. In his great flights of speed he was not bounding in the air, but down close to the ground, with a gliding motion that steals from quarter-pole to quarter-pole with inconceivable rapidity. He was bred by Joel W. Holcomb, of Ticonderoga, New York, and as the result of a practical joke he played, for the purpose of annoying his uncle, David Hill, the owner of Black Hawk, against whom he had some pique just at that time, many well-meaning and no doubt honest people once believed, and possibly still believe, that Ethan Allen was by Flying Morgan and not by Black Hawk. The fact that Ethan Allen was the same color as Flying Morgan and that there was some resemblance in size and style of action of the two horses, lent a strong suggestion to the joke as a truth. I am indebted to Mr. I. V. Baker, Jr., of Comstock’s Landing, S. B. Woodward, then of Ticonderoga, and B. H. Baldwin, of Whitehall, New York, for the details of the way the Flying Morgan story started, and need only say the narrator was an eye-witness to the whole affair. In the spring of 1852, in the barroom of S. B. Woodward’s hotel, at Ticonderoga, quite a number of the villagers being present, Mr. Joel W. Holcomb came in and said he was going to write a letter to R. M. Adams, of Burlington, Vermont, the owner of Flying Morgan, and he was going to have some fun with him; and, going to the desk in the room, he wrote, substantially as follows: “I don’t know but I have made all the reputation for David Hill and old Black Hawk that I care to. I am willing to have the credit go where it belongs, and desire to let yourself and the public know that my colt Ethan Allen is got by your horse Flying Morgan.”

“There,” he said, “you will see this in all the Vermont papers next week. Won’t Uncle David be mad?”

“What!” exclaimed some of his neighbors, after hearing it read, “you won’t put your name to such a falsehood as that? It’s a shame.”

“Well, well,” said Holcomb, “I’ll add a postscript.” And going to the desk he wrote below his signature, leaving a good wide space between his signature and the following words:

“Flying Morgan never covered the dam of Ethan Allen, never smelt of her and never saw her, consequently Ethan Allen was not by Flying Morgan, but he can beat Flying Morgan or any other stallion in the State of Vermont.”

The next fall Mr. Adams visited many of the fairs with his horse and showed Holcomb’s letter, and, it is said, with the postscript torn off. Every man in Ticonderoga knew as well as Mr. Holcomb how Ethan Allen was bred, and this letter created much indignation. But Holcomb was a reckless man and cared for nothing more than what he called a good joke, and the more it hurt any one’s feelings the better it suited him.

This account of the “joke” was written down by Mr. Baker, at the dictation of Mr. Woodward, April 22, 1875, and I have implicit confidence in its substantial accuracy. It has been said that the reason Holcomb did this was out of ill feeling toward Mr. David Hill, the owner of Black Hawk, and Holcomb’s uncle, because he dunned him for payment of the horse’s services in getting Ethan Allen. One day at the Fashion Course, in the spring of 1867, as I was looking at Ethan while he was taking his daily exercise, either Mr. Holcomb or Mr. Roe, his partner—I knew them both by sight as the owners of Ethan Allen, but not well enough to distinguish one from the other, but I think it was Mr. Holcomb—came up to me and expressed a good deal of solicitude to know how I was registering the horse. He appeared gratified when I assured him I had no doubt he was a son of old Black Hawk and would so enter him. He remarked “that was right,” and said the Flying Morgan story originated in a practical joke and should not be permitted to go into history as a fact. This is the full history of the basis of the controversy, and certainly, to a reasonable man, it does not leave a single peg on which to hang a hope for the Flying Morgan story.

But, the paternity of Ethan Allen is not left to the uncertainties of recollection nor to be trifled with by practical jokers. The books of Black Hawk’s services show that the dam of Ethan Allen was bred to him on a certain day or days of the season of 1848, and was taken away believed to be in foal. This fact is conceded on all hands as wholly indisputable, but it is claimed that Flying Morgan was kept in Holcomb’s stable one night, after the mare returned from Bridport, and the two were there surreptitiously coupled. I have studied this claim in all its details, I have examined every detail minutely, and I do not hesitate to say there is not a single shadow of evidence to support the claim. In Vermont, as in Kentucky, there are many people who can remember things that never occurred, but in the former State these people are at a great disadvantage, for they are not able to get so many to agree with and support their remarkable memories. The Vermonters are very far from being all honest, but they are very much disposed to make up their own minds, whether right or wrong.

In searching for the breeding of the little flea-bitten grey mare, “called a Messenger,” that produced Ethan Allen, I have not been sparing of either time or labor. I have assiduously followed every clew that presented itself, and waded through “sloppy” correspondence “knee deep,” but I never have been able to reach a single point that was relevant and tangible. From the first that is known of her at Hague, New York, her identity has been maintained by a spavin on one leg and one hip knocked down, and thus she has been traced through the hands of many owners till she reaches Mr. Holcomb, of Ticonderoga, New York. A pretence has been set up that she was by some Morgan horse, but this was only a wish of the originator, and not a fact founded on reasonable evidence. It is said she was quite a fast trotter, in her younger days, and that she could beat all the farmers’ horses against which she was started. That she had a trotting inheritance, and probably from Messenger, there can be no reasonable doubt.

Ethan Allen made his first appearance as a trotter at the Clinton County Fair, as a three-year-old, and made a record, over a very bad track, of 3:20-3:21. In May following, then four years old, at the Union Course, he beat Rose of Washington in 2:36-2:39-2:42. This was then the fastest time ever made by a four-year-old. He then retired to the stud and did not again appear till October, 1855, when, over the Cambridge Park Course, he beat Columbus, Sherman Black Hawk, and Stockbridge Chief for the stallion purse in 2:34½-2:37. Three of the contestants here were sons of Black Hawk. The next season he defeated Hiram Drew twice, to wagon, making a record of 2:32¾. October 15, 1858, at Boston, he beat Columbus Jr., and Hiram Drew, 2:37-2:35-2:33. The same month, on the Union Course, he beat George M. Patchen, to wagons, distancing him the first heat in 2:28. At the Union Course, Long Island, July 12, 1860, he beat Princess, distancing her the second heat in 2:29½-2:25½. This is his fastest record. He was frequently beaten by George M. Patchen, Flora Temple, etc., and it was thought by many that he could not take up the weight and “hold the clip” for the full mile out. His most famous performance was made in 1867, and as I had the pleasure of witnessing it, from a very eligible position, I will here repeat the description as then made:

“On the 21st of June, 1867, on the Fashion Course, it was my good fortune to witness the crowning event of his life. Some three weeks before, with running mate, he had beaten Brown George and running mate, in very fast time, scoring one heat in 2:19. This made horsemen open their eyes, and there at once arose a difference of opinion, about the advantage to the trotter of having a runner hitched with him, to pull the weight. This resulted in a match for two thousand five hundred dollars to trot Ethan Allen and running mate against Dexter, who was then considered invincible. As the day approached the betting was about even; but the evening before the race, word came from the course that Ethan’s running mate had fallen lame and could not go, but they would try to get Brown George’s running mate, then in Connecticut, to take the place of the lame runner. As the horses were strangers to each other, it was justly concluded that the change gave Dexter a great advantage and the betting at once changed from even to two to one on Dexter. Long before noon the crowd began to assemble; the sporting men everywhere were shaking rolls of greenbacks over their heads, shouting “two to one on Dexter.” I met a friend from Chicago, who sometimes speculated a little, and when he told me he was betting two to one on Dexter, I took the liberty of advising him to be cautious, for I thought the team would win the race, and that its backers knew what they were doing. Before the hour arrived I secured a seat on the ladies’ stand, from which every foot of the course, and the countless multitudes of people, could be taken in at a glance. The vehicles in numbers were simply incalculable, and the multitudes were estimated at forty thousand people. Upon the arrival of the hour, the judges ascended the stand and rang up the horses, when the backers of the team came forward, explained the mishap that had befallen the runner, that they had Brown George’s mate on the ground, but, as he and Ethan had never been hitched together, they were unwilling to risk so large a sum, and closed the race by paying one thousand two hundred and fifty forfeit. When this announcement was made there was a general murmur that spread, step by step, through all that vast multitude. The betting fraternity were just where they started and every spectator realized a feeling of disgust at the whole management. As soon as this had time to exert its intended effect upon the crowd, the backers of the team came forward again and expressed their unwillingness to have the people go away dissatisfied, and proposed a little match of two hundred and fifty a side, which was promptly accepted by the Dexter party; and when it was known there would be a race after all the shout of the multitudes was like the voice of many waters.

“This being a new race, the betting men had to commence _de novo_. The surroundings of the pool stands were packed with an eager and excited crowd, anxious to get on their money at two, and rather than miss, at three to one on Dexter. The work of the auctioneers was short, sharp and decisive, and the tickets were away up in the hundreds and oftentimes thousands. But the pool-stands did not seem to accommodate more than a small fraction of those anxious to invest, and in all directions in the surging crowd, hands were in the air, filled with rolls of greenbacks, and shouting “two to one on Dexter.” I was curious to note what became of these noisy offers, and I soon observed that a quiet-looking man came along, took all the party had to invest and then went quietly to another of the shouters, and then another and so on, till I think that every one who had money to invest, at that rate, was accommodated. The amount of money bet was enormous, no doubt aggregating a quarter of a million, in a few minutes.

“When the horses appeared on the track to warm up for the race, Dexter, driven by the accomplished reinsman Budd Doble, was greeted with a shout of applause. Soon the team appeared, and behind it sat the great master of trotting tactics, Dan Mace. His face, which has so often been a puzzle to thousands, had no mask over it on this occasion. It spoke only that intense earnestness that indicates the near approach of a supreme moment. The team was hitched to a light skeleton wagon; Ethan wore breeching, and beside him was a great strong race horse, fit to run for a man’s life. His traces were long enough to allow him to fully extend himself, but they were so much shorter than Ethan’s that he had to take the weight. Dexter drew the inside, and on the first trial they got the send off without either one having six inches the advantage. When they got the word, the flight of speed was absolutely terrific, so far beyond anything I had ever witnessed in a trotting horse, that I felt the hair rising on my head. The running horse was next to me, and notwithstanding my elevation, Ethan was stretched out so near the ground that I could see nothing of him but his ears. I fully believed that, for several rods at this point, they were going at a two-minute gait.

“It was impossible that this terrible pace could be maintained long, and just before reaching the first turn Dexter’s head began to swim and the team passed him and took the track, reaching the first quarter-pole in thirty-two seconds, with Dexter three or four lengths behind. The same lightning speed was kept up through the second quarter, reaching the half-mile pole in 1:04, with Dexter still farther in the rear. Mace then took a pull on his team, and came home a winner by six or eight lengths, in 2:15. When this time was put on the blackboard, the response of the multitude was like the roar of the ocean. Although some distance away, through the second quarter of this heat I had a fair, unobstructed side view of the stallion and of his action, when going at the lightning rate of 2:08 to the mile. I could not observe that he received the slightest degree of propulsion from the running horse; and my conviction was then, and is now, that any such propulsion would have interfered with his own unapproachable action, and would have retarded rather than helped him. The most noticeable feature in his style of movement was the remarkable lowness to which he dropped his body and the straight, gliding line it maintained at that elevation.

“The team now had the inside, and in the first attempt they were started for the second heat, but they did not appear to me to be going so fast as in the first heat. Before they had gone many rods Ethan lost his stride and Dexter took the track at the very spot where he had lost it in the first heat. The team soon got to work, and near the beginning of the second quarter collared Dexter, but the stallion broke soon after and fell back, not yards, nor lengths, but rods before he caught. Incredible as it may seem, when he again got his feet, he put on such a burst of speed as to overhaul Dexter in the third quarter, when he broke again and Mace had to pull him nearly to a standstill before he recovered. Dexter was now a full distance ahead and the heat appeared to be his beyond all peradventure. I was watching the team in its troubles very closely and my idea of the distance lost was the result of a deliberate and careful estimate at the moment; and the query in my mind then was whether the team could save its distance. At last the old horse struck his gait, and it was like a dart out of a catapult, or a ball from a rifle. The team not only saved its distance, but beat Dexter home five or six lengths in 2:16.

“In the third heat Mace had it all his own way throughout, coming home the winner of the race in 2:19. The backers of Dexter, up to the very last, placed great reliance on his well-known staying qualities; but the last heat showed that the terrible struggle told upon him more distressingly than upon the team. It is said by those who timed Dexter privately that he trotted the three heats in 2:17, 2:18, and 2:21. As an opinion, I will say that if ever there was an honest race trotted this was one, but there was such an exhibition of sharp diplomacy, of the “diamond cut diamond” order, as is seldom witnessed, even among the sharp practices of the turf. It is not probable that Ethan’s running mate fell amiss at all, the evening before, as represented; and if she did, it was not possible to send to Connecticut for another horse and have him there early in the morning as was pretended. This was a mere ruse put out to get the advantage of the long odds. The managers of the team knew just how the horses would work and knew they had speed enough to beat any horse on earth. When the race was called and they came forward and paid forfeit, it was merely to give the ‘two to one on Dexter’ money encouragement to come out. It did come out most vociferously and was all quietly taken. It was said John Morrissey was the manager in chief, and that his share of the winnings amounted to about forty thousand dollars.”

I have here given my personal impressions of this race, not because the performance was of any special value, as a test of speed, but because the time was then phenomenal, even with this kind of hitch, and as an illustration of what certain horses can do when relieved of all weight. This was among the first of the contests of this kind, and although some effort was made to introduce this plan by which a poor horse could beat a good one, it never has received much encouragement. With all his perfection of gait and wide popularity, extending from early life to old age, Ethan Allen was not a success as a progenitor of speed. He placed but six in the 2:30 list, and the best—Billy Barr—with a record of 2:23¾. He left but one son equal to himself as a sire, and several daughters that became the producers of single performers. He was kept several seasons in Kansas and died there September, 1876.

DANIEL LAMBERT, 102, was a chestnut horse, foaled 1858; got by Ethan Allen, 43; dam Fanny Cook, by Abdallah; grandam by Stockholm’s American Star, etc. His color was a light chestnut, and his mane and tail were of the yellow, flaxen shade. He was about fifteen hands high and long and light in the body, with no indications of Morgan blood about him unless it was in the kinkiness of his mane and tail. But why should he not resemble almost anything else than the little nondescript Morgan, when he had only one-sixteenth of his blood in his veins? He had more Messenger than Morgan blood, and according to the rules of arithmetic it is a misnomer to call him a Morgan. More than this, his dam was a daughter of the great Abdallah, far and away the greatest trotting sire of his generation. When we consider that he had four times as much of the blood of Abdallah as he had of the original Morgan, we can see the absurdity of sticking to the right male line after that line has been wiped out by other lines far more potential. Lambert was bred by Mr. John Porter of Ticonderoga, New York, and as a colt he showed great promise on the ice, and was thought to be the fastest and best of the get of Ethan Allen. He was known far and wide as the “Porter Colt,” and he was the popular heir to very great expectations. To have created so much enthusiasm he must have shown great speed for a youngster, and he is credited with a record of 2:42 as a three-year-old. As a sire of trotters he stood very high at one time and was even with Blue Bull in his number of representatives in the 2:30 list, but in the end the little “plebeian” pacer outstripped him a long way. Lambert put thirty-seven trotters into the 2:30 list, but when we come to study this list we are not very favorably impressed, for about one-third of the animals have but a single heat inside of the mark, with only five or six reputable campaigners and a single one—Comee—that ranked among the real good ones. Comee had seventy-one heats to his credit and a record of 2:21¼. Thirty-three of Daniel Lambert’s sons have put one hundred and thirty-six in the list, and forty-four of his daughters have produced seventy-four performers.