CHAPTER XXIX.

INVESTIGATION OF DISPUTED PEDIGREES.

Tendency to misrepresentation—The Bald Galloway and Darley Arabian— Godolphin Arabian—Early experiences with trotting pedigrees—Mr. Backman’s honest methods—Shanghai Mary—Capt. Rynders and Widow Machree—Woodburn Farm and its pedigree methods—Victimized by “horse sharps” and pedigree makers—Alleged pedigree of Pilot Jr. conclusively overthrown—Pedigrees of Edwin Forrest, Norman, Bay Chief and Black Rose—Maud S.’s pedigree exhaustively considered—Captain John W. Russell never owned the mare Maria Russell—The deadly parallel columns settle it.

A few years more than forty have slipped away since I first began to give serious attention to the subject of horse history and to contribute an occasional article to the press on that subject. Among my very earliest observations, or I might say, experiences, was the realization of the fact that exaggeration as a habit of thought and utterance was practically universal among horsemen. Sometimes I have thought this tendency to the untrue resulted from the ammoniacal exhalations of the stable, but this thought is not a satisfactory solution, for some of the greatest liars about horses have never known anything about stables. Then, again, I have thought that a really skillful metaphysician might write a learned disquisition of the question and satisfy himself as to the cause of this moral delinquency, but nobody would be able to understand him when he had completed it. This wretched vice, so prevalent everywhere, was not restricted to the professional country “hoss jockey,” ready to “swap” with every man he met on the road, but it reached up to men of otherwise excellent character, and these men would “stretch the blanket” tremendously about the blood and other qualities of the horses they were selling. The only way we can account for an otherwise honest and truthful man exaggerating the merits and blood of his horses must be (1) in the fact that he has become attached to him and thinks him better than he is, or it may be (2) that he bought with a false pedigree and without examining it, he assumes it is true and represents it accordingly. But underlying all this, the representation cannot be disproved, and (3) it may add to the market value of the horse.

This weakness of human nature, so pervasive of all interests connected with the horse, did not originate in this country, but came from the old world. We inherit it from our ancestors. “The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Take the case of the little bald-faced, pacing-bred horse known in the old records as “The Bald Galloway” and while it is not probable he had a single drop of Saracenic blood in his veins, he is fitted out with a grand pedigree, full of that blood. Although I have already referred to this horse as an exemplification of the dishonesty of the early records of English pedigrees, I will again look at it in a more specific manner. He was nothing more nor less than a little native horse, belonging to a tribe of noted pacers in the southwestern part of Scotland and in the northern part of England. These Galloways were probably the very last remnant of pacers to be found in Great Britain. He is represented in the books to have been by a horse called “St. Victor’s Barb;” dam by Whynot; grandam a Royal Mare. The Bald Galloway was foaled not later than 1708, and it was probably a few years earlier. His reputed sire, “St. Victor’s Barb,” is not to be found anywhere and was probably fictitious. His dam was represented to be by Whynot, and this horse was not foaled till 1744—thirty-six years _after_ his grandson was foaled. The grandam is given as a “Royal Mare,” which in that day was a convenient way of rounding out a pedigree, just as we now attempt to round them out when we know nothing of the blood by saying “dam thoroughbred.” “The Bald Galloway” was one of the most successful stallions of his day, and yet he was nothing in the world but a good representative of the old pacing Galloways of that portion of Scotland then called Galloway. He was low in stature, but he was esteemed as one of the greatest and most valuable racing sires of his generation. One of his sons—the Carlisle Gelding—was still a race horse when he was eighteen years old.

“The Darley Arabian” was contemporaneous with the Bald Galloway, and they commenced service in England about the same year. It is said he was brought from Aleppo, in Syria, or, perhaps I had better say Asia Minor. Aleppo is but a short distance from the borders of ancient Cappadocia and Cilicia, countries that were famous in history for the great numbers of fine horses that they produced far more than a thousand years before the first horse was taken to Arabia. This horse is called an “Arabian,” and in the brief record of his importation we have the same venerable “chestnut” served up to us that has served so many generations of speculators in “Arabian blood.” The record says that Mr. Darley had a brother who was an agent for merchandise abroad, who “became a member of a hunting club, by which means he acquired interest to procure this horse.” This “gag” has been played too often to give _éclat_ to horses claimed to be brought from Arabia, in the past two hundred years, to have much effect on the minds of people who have any sense. That it required great social or political influence to induce the old Arab sheik to part with him, was intended merely to secure the attention of prospective customers to his superlative excellence in order to obtain their patronage. This horse probably never was within five hundred miles of the nearest part of Arabia, and to call him an Arabian is a misnomer wholly unjustifiable. He came from a country where horses were abundant and cheap on all sides, and of a quality far superior to any Arabian. He was simply a Turk, he was for sale, and it required no influence to buy him except the contents of the purchaser’s purse. This horse has always been classed as one of the two great founders of the English race horse. His progeny from well-bred mares were not numerous, and his greatest distinction is in the fact that he was the sire of Flying Childers. In accordance with the truth, he should be known in the records as “Darley’s Turk.”

The horse bearing the dishonest misnomer of “Godolphin Arabian” was really the greatest regenerator and upbuilder of the running horse that England ever possessed. There seems to be no historical doubt that he was brought from France, and that is all we know about his origin and early history. It may be laid down, therefore, as a safe proposition, that the odds are as a thousand to one that he was a French horse. The only evidence that can ever be furnished as to the strain of blood that he may have possessed must be found and studied in his portrait, which appears in this volume. I believe this portrait to be a correct and true delineation of the horse, and there is not a single lineament in or about it that indicates the blood of either the Arabian or the Barb. His pedigree is in his picture, and, from what is known in history and from what has been preserved in art, instead of “Godolphin Arabian” his true title should be “Godolphin Frenchman.” But this subject has been discussed at greater length in the chapter on the English Race Horse, to which my reader is here referred.

In the chapter on the American Race Horse, I think sufficient attention has been given to the frauds and impossibilities that are to be found everywhere in the extended pedigrees of our own running horses to satisfy any one that the remote extensions of pedigrees are a great mass of dishonest rubbish, with scarcely a speck of truth to be found. I will, therefore, pass along to the consideration of some of the difficulties, of the same nature, that have been developed in investigating and recording the pedigrees of the American Trotting Horse. In entering the untrodden wilderness of trotting-horse history it became the ambition of my life to reach the truth in every possible instance and to cut off and reject all frauds wherever they showed their heads. This meant war from the beginning with a great many horsemen, but it also meant the enthusiastic support of a great many honest men. The trouble, at this point, was in the fact that a number of prominent, wealthy and influential breeders insisted upon their right to state their pedigrees in their own way and thus compel me to indorse them by inserting them in the Trotting Register. When at work on the early volumes of the Register, especially the first, if a man of unblemished reputation and intelligence sent me a list of his stock to be registered, I assumed that he had too much regard for his reputation and standing as a breeder to print a lot of pedigrees in his catalogue that he did not _know_ to be correct, and hence I accepted many a pedigree that was based upon fiction. In course of time it began to dawn upon my understanding that there were many men in the world of unsullied reputation, as they were known in their business relations, who would stand up boldly for a fiction or a fraud in the pedigrees of their stock. It is but just to say that all the men who uttered fraudulent pedigrees were not equally guilty, for in some cases the owners had been victimized by unscrupulous rogues from whom they had purchased, and in others they had been betrayed by the still more unscrupulous rogues whom they had employed to make up their catalogues on the supposition that they were capable and honest. This state of things soon developed another line of thought and observation in my mind which evolved a rule by which I could determine the difference between the degrees of honesty among horsemen. One man, when a fiction in a pedigree was pointed out, would go to work and carefully investigate it; while another would hang and higgle about it and finally investigate, not to find the truth, but to find how many old rummies, swipes and negroes he could get together, who would support his claim and swear to it for a half-dollar each. The first man investigates to find the truth wherever it may lead; while the second man investigates merely, not to find the truth, but to find some kind of evidence to sustain the untruth. In the everyday affairs of life these two men may stand on the same plane, but, at heart, the one is honest and the other a rogue.

When Mr. Charles Backman founded the great Stonyford breeding farm in Orange County, New York, he was an excellent horseman, in a general sense, although he did not pretend to know much about pedigrees. About 1869 he placed all his pedigrees in my hands with the request that I would give them a careful examination, strike out everything that was wrong and note everything that was doubtful or uncertain, that it might be investigated and the truth fully determined, no difference where it might lead. Many investigations followed which were conducted by his secretary, Mr. Shipman, either by mail or by personal visitation—so many, indeed, that Mr. Shipman became quite an expert in this kind of difficult work. As an illustration of the methods pursued, one instance will serve to show how it was done, and more than this, it is a very interesting history in itself. In the first volume of the Register I had entered Green Mountain Maid, the dam of the famous Electioneer and all that family, as “by Harry Clay, dam said to be by Lexington.” This was the form in which Mr. Backman had received the pedigree, except that it was stated positively and without any “said to be” that the dam was by Lexington, the great running horse. After a time I called Mr. Backman’s attention to this “said to be” and suggested that if the mare was really a daughter of Lexington she could certainly be traced and established. The next day, Mr. Shipman started to Western New York and to Ohio. On his trip he found the mare had been known in Western New York as the “Angelica Mare” and afterward as “Shanghai Mary,” that she was a trotter, well known locally, and that she had trotted a race and won at a State fair, in very fast time for that day. She had been brought from Ohio by some sheep-dealers, who were able to give her exact age, and it was thus found that she was older than her reputed sire. Several expert horsemen, from a picture secured by Mr. Shipman on his trip, have not hesitated to give it as a strong conviction that she belonged to the Cadmus family, in Southern Ohio. In the last two or three years a correspondent of the Chicago _Horse Review_ brings out some local facts that make it almost morally certain that she was bred by Goldsmith Coffein, of Red Lion, Ohio, and that she was got by Iron’s Cadmus, the sire of the great Pocahontas. The final nail has not been clinched in establishing this pedigree, and probably never will be, but the circumstances are so fully detailed as to scarcely leave room for a doubt that she was a half-sister to the famous Pocahontas.

From what has here been said about the methods of Mr. Backman, the leading breeder of that period, in the North, it should not be inferred that all Northern breeders were like him. The first real battle I ever had against fraudulent pedigrees originated in Orange County, New York, with the notorious Captain Rynders, in which the pedigree of the once famous Widow Machree, the dam of Aberdeen, was involved. The pedigree of this mare had been registered as obtained from Mr. James W. Hoyt, who once owned her, and her dam was given as by Durland’s Messenger Duroc. When Aberdeen came before the public for patronage, his owner, Rynders, advertised him as out of Widow Machree and she out of a mare by Abdallah. This was challenged as untrue by Mr. Guy Miller and Mr. Joseph Gavin, of Orange County, and I was called upon to demand the evidence upon which the change had been made from Messenger Duroc to Abdallah. As a matter of course “the fat was in the fire” at once, and out came Rynders with a terrific explosion of anger, abounding in threats and denunciations against anybody and everybody who attempted to interfere with his “business.” The good names of Guy Miller and Joseph Gavin carried too much weight as against that of Isaiah Rynders, and, as his last card, he brought out a duly and formally executed affidavit, sworn to by a man whose name I will not here mention, stating that he bred the Abdallah mare; all of which was the very rankest perjury, which was so easily exposed that it did Rynders far more harm than good. At last the whole truth came out in a form that was complete and conclusive, showing that the mare in question was bred by Garrett Duryea, of Bethel, Sullivan County, New York, and was got by a horse known as Pintler’s Bolivar. Rynders had been a leader in New York politics so long that he knew just how to manage things where the truth must be suppressed. He was a liberal advertiser, the two sporting papers were needy for patronage in that line, and their columns were closed to any and all communications against his side of the question. But all this failed to suppress the truth and uphold a fraud, and I doubt whether there is a man living to-day who does not believe that the fight was fairly and honestly won. This contest taught me a very important lesson, and that was, that if I expected to fight bogus pedigrees I must have a channel of communication of my own. Hence _Wallace’s Monthly_, which, in its day, was not only able to expose bogus pedigrees, but lead intelligent thought and experience on all breeding subjects, till it fell into the hands of an unscrupulous neocracy, where it soon died for want of brains.

Having given a very brief illustration of the methods which governed Mr. Backman in ascertaining and determining the blood elements which entered into the foundation of his great breeding establishment, and the care and promptness with which errors were eliminated, it is now in order to take a glance at the methods pursued at the great Woodburn Farm, founded by R. A. Alexander in Kentucky. These were the two earliest establishments, of any prominence, for breeding the trotter, in the whole country. The one was the northern center of the interest and the other the southern, and they together may be considered as representative of both sections. Mr. Alexander, I think, was reared and educated in Scotland, and there inherited a large estate. Upon coming into this inheritance he determined to transfer his interests to Kentucky, where he bought up a cluster of farms and shaped them for the purpose of building up a mammoth establishment for the breeding of all varieties of domestic animals of the highest type and excellence. I think his fancy ran more to Short Horn cattle than to any other line of breeding, probably because he knew more about the value and merit of the different tribes of that breed than he did of any other variety. The founding of an establishment so immense, and for the grand purpose of the breeding and improving the varieties of domestic animals, was the agricultural sensation of the period, and everybody, from one end of the land to the other, soon knew of and applauded the great enterprise. There had been great enterprises on similar lines before, and there have been even greater ones since, but Mr. Alexander’s Woodburn Farm, of Kentucky, may always be looked upon as the real pioneer in stock breeding on a large and methodical scale, and without limit as to resources. A university education in Scotland, with all its training in the refinements of logical distinctions, did not bring to Mr. Alexander a knowledge of the pedigrees of Kentucky horses, nor did it train him in the detection of the tricks of Kentucky horse dealers, and thus as a purchaser of his breeding stock he was looked upon by the “sharps” as a fat goose, ready to be plucked. After these “sharps” had secured their pluckings, Mr. Alexander called in a professional pedigreeist to put the lines of the blood he had purchased in order and print a catalogue. This “professional” was not a pedigree _tracer_, for he never traced anything in his life, but a pedigree _maker_, and wherever he thought that anything was needed he added it, whether true or not, and it went to the world in that form. This is more conspicuously true in the department of trotting pedigrees, as will appear below. Thus the acts of an incapable and dishonest employee were given the indorsement of an honorable and eminent name; falsehoods were made to appear as truths; counterfeits were put in circulation that are still circulating as genuine coin, with many people. Under the circumstances, Mr. Alexander could hardly be blamed, for, knowing nothing of such matters of his own knowledge, he employed what he supposed was the best authority then to be found. For my own part, when I came to register the Woodburn stock, I was ready to accept as true whatever I found in the catalogue, believing that Mr. Alexander was incapable of publishing to the world a misrepresentation. In this estimate of his character I was right, and I have never changed my opinion on that point, but when I came to examine the structure of his catalogue I found there was rotten wood all through it. A few examples that have been carefully investigated will serve to show the value of the work done by the “pedigree maker” for Mr. Alexander.

Pilot Jr. was a gray horse, foaled 1844, was got by Old Pacing Pilot and attained the distinction of being the head of a well-known family of trotters. He was foaled 1844, bred by Angereau Gray, and owned a number of years by Glasgow & Heinsohn, of Louisville, Kentucky. He was kept a number of years about Lexington, Kentucky, by Dr. Herr, Mr. Bradley, and perhaps others, and always advertised as “by Pilot (the pacer), dam Nancy Pope, grandam Nancy Taylor.” Nobody then ever pretended to know what horse was the sire of either Nancy Pope or Nancy Taylor. He was then owned by the parties who afterward sold him to Mr. Alexander, and it is evident they did not then know anything about the sires of these mares. Mr. Alexander bought him in 1858, and immediately his “pedigree maker” furnished the sires of these two mares; Nancy Pope was given as by Havoc, son of Sir Charles, and Nancy Taylor as by imported Alfred. The controversy about this pedigree was long and sharp, the one side, headed by the modern management at Woodburn, as usual laboring to sustain the infallibility of the Woodburn catalogues, and the other to reach the exact truth, whatever it might be. The Board of Censors of the National Breeders’ Association sent out a call for information on certain abstract points and finally reached a decision as follows: (1) That Havoc, the reputed sire of Nancy Pope, the dam of Pilot Jr., died in 1828. (2) That Nancy Pope was not foaled till 1832. (3) That the breeding of Nancy Taylor, the dam of Nancy Pope, was unknown. These dates were fixed by undoubted evidence, and, as afterward developed, another might have been added with equal authenticity. Imported Alfred, the reputed sire of Nancy Taylor, was not imported till several years after Nancy Taylor was foaled, and thus it was clearly shown by the absolutely insuperable difficulties of dates that both the sires inserted in the pedigree were nothing more than very stupid fictions.

Edwin Forrest seems to have held second place in the list of stallions in the Woodburn Stud at that period, and the remote extensions of his pedigree were also fictitious. His grandam was represented to be by Duroc, the famous son of imported Diomed, and his great-grandam by imported Messenger. The first two crosses were technically inaccurately stated, but the second two, as given here, were purely fictitious.

Norman, the third stallion in the catalogue, had his sire correctly given as the Morse Horse, but his dam was given as by Jersey Highlander and his grandam as by Bishop’s Hambletonian, son of Messenger, both of which were wholly fictitious. His dam was by a horse called Magnum Bonum, a representative of a family of that name, and that is all that is known of his pedigree. A full showing of this pedigree will be found in the “Trotting Register,” Vol. III.

Bay Chief was a bay son of Mambrino Chief, with a bald face, and was often called Bald Chief. He was the sensational trotter of the whole Mambrino Chief family, and I believe it is true that when four years old he showed a half-mile on Mr. Alexander’s track in 1:08 and repeated in 1:08½. In the catalogue he is given as foaled in 1859, got by Mambrino Chief, dam by Keokuk, son of imported Truffle; grandam a thoroughbred mare by Stamboul Arabian. As this was found in Mr. Alexander’s catalogue I took it for granted it must be true, but I never had heard of a running horse called Keokuk before, and I kept hunting for ever so many years without finding hide nor hair of him, until 1885, when the whole mystery was developed. Mr. Richard Johnson, of Scott County, Kentucky, had business interests in Keokuk, Iowa, in the early fifties, probably locating land warrants, and he bought a pair of mares in Keokuk to travel over the prairies, and when he was through with his work he brought the team home with him to Scott County. He knew nothing whatever of the breeding of those mares, but they were a good pair of drivers and one of them was quite a smart roadster that he called “Old Keokuk.” He bred this mare, Keokuk, in 1858 to Mambrino Chief, and in 1859 she produced the colt called Bay Chief. In 1862 he was bred to some sixteen or eighteen mares, and the fall of that year Mr. Alexander bought the colt at public auction, paying one thousand dollars for him. He was taken to Woodburn, put in training and never covered any more mares. In the spring of 1865 he was killed in a raid of Southern troops upon the horse stock at Woodburn. (For further particulars of this little sketch the reader is referred to _Wallace’s Monthly_ for 1885, page 285.) To fix up a pedigree for the maternal side of this colt was no easy matter, but Mr. Alexander’s “pedigree maker” proved himself fully equal to the occasion. There was the nasty name Keokuk fastened to the old mare, and it would stick as tight as wax to the end of her days, coming from a region where there was no drop of running blood; so he made a “thoroughbred” horse, right on the spot, and gave him the name of Keokuk, which would account for the name of the mare, and pronounced him a son of imported Truffle. To supply a “thoroughbred” grandam was comparatively easy, for Mr. Johnson had long been a resident of Scott County, and the horse Stamboul had been kept in that county, hence there could be no doubt that she was a “thoroughbred” daughter of that horse. With this review of the misfortunes of Mr. Alexander in placing the arrangement and, I might say, care of his pedigrees, in dishonest hands, we will pass whatever may remain of his early stallions, and take a glance at some of the pedigrees of his brood mares.

Black Rose proved to be one of the best brood mares ever owned at Woodburn. I am told she was a pacer, and certainly all that is known of her blood was pacing blood. She was sought after and procured by Mr. Alexander because she had produced several trotters, and it can be read all through his purchases for the trotting stud, that he had undoubting confidence in the theory that trotters must come from trotters. When this mare first appeared in the Woodburn catalogue no dam was given to her, but meantime the “pedigree maker” had come around, and the next year she was fitted out with the following, in fine style.

“Black Rose, bl. m., foaled about 1847; got by Tom Teemer; dam by Cannon’s Whip; g. d. by Robin Gray, son of imp. Royalist.”

The pedigree stood in this form a number of years, and probably would still be so standing had it not been that in trying to learn something more about the sire, Tom Teemer, I received some intimations that made me doubtful about the maternal side. On a certain occasion I asked Mr. R. S. Veech, of Kentucky, what he knew about it, and he replied that he had made a trip to Clark County for no other purpose than to trace and investigate the pedigree of Black Rose, and he was not able to get a single syllable of information about her dam, any more than if she never had a dam. Some time afterward I wrote to Mr. Brodhead, manager at Woodburn, inquiring where the pedigree of Black Rose as given and perpetuated in the Woodburn catalogues came from and on what basis it rested. He replied promptly and briefly that Mr. Veech had made a trip to Clark County in search of this pedigree and the result of that search was what appeared in the catalogue. These are the facts, substantially, as given me by these two gentlemen, and this is the first time I have ever given them to the public. I have known Mr. Veech intimately and trustingly for twenty-eight years and I know him to be eminently truthful. I have not known Mr. Brodhead so long, and if he had not published the fraudulent extension of this pedigree in his catalogues every year for more than ten years, before Mr. Veech made his trip to Clark County, I might at least express my sympathy with him in having so bad a memory. Mr. Brodhead had nothing to do with either the original construction or utterance of this fraud, for he was not then connected with the management of Woodburn. My readers can employ their own terms in characterizing, as it deserves, the fraudulent act of manufacturing a pedigree out of whole cloth; and they can also exercise their own ethical discrimination in determining whether the man who executes the fraud is any worse than the man who maintains and supports it after he knows it is fraudulent.

We pass on to Sally Russell, the grandam of Maud S. It is not a pleasant task to review an old controversy, whatever it might bring to light; but a controversy which involves the true lines of descent of so great a family as that of Maud S., Nutwood, Lord Russell, etc., is worth preserving for the enlightenment of future generations. It all turns upon the breeding of Sally Russell and the identity of her breeder. She was a little chestnut mare, represented to have been foaled 1850, got by Boston and out of Maria Russell, by Rattler, and so on, claimed to be thoroughbred. She was bought by Mr. Alexander from the foreman on Captain John W. Russell’s farm, with the pedigree given as above. The name of her breeder was not given to Mr. Alexander, I think, but Bruce has it that her dam, Maria Russell, and this mare Sally Russell were both bred by Benjamin Luckett. In 1863 this mare was offered, with others, to the highest bidder, at Mr. Alexander’s annual sale, being then thirteen years, old according to the records of the establishment, and the auctioneer was not able to coax a bid of ten dollars on her and she was led out unsold. Five years later—1868—I attended the Woodburn sale, and a little scrubby-looking old mare was brought into the ring, represented to have been stinted to imported Australian, and when this was announced a subdued whisper went round the ring, “She’ll never raise another foal.” The auctioneer was eloquent upon the value of the Australian blood on the Boston blood, and the possibilities of the coming foal, but all to no purpose, as the mare was led out of the ring the second time, with no person willing to bid a dollar. I was astonished that such an animal should have been put up at auction, for she had all the appearance of being twenty-eight instead of eighteen. She died that summer, apparently of old age, and I have no shadow of doubt that she sank under the weight of years. On two separate occasions great crowds of practical horsemen had, in this manner, proclaimed that Mr. Alexander had been victimized in the age of the mare, and fifteen years later I determined to settle the question as to whether this judgment was right.

As the supposed age and breeding of Sally Russell has been made to turn and rest upon the ownership of her dam, Maria Russell, it is important that we should have the antecedent circumstances set out in the plainest possible manner. Captain John A. Holton and Captain John W. Russell were farmers in Kentucky, living a few miles apart, and I think they were both river men at one time or another; certainly Russell was in command of a snag boat on the Ohio and Mississippi along about 1836-40. Like many other Kentucky farmers, they both bred a few running horses, but not enough, singly, to justify the expense of separate training establishments, so they united their strings in one stable, sharing the expense and dividing the profits, if any, equally. The partnership did not extend to the joint ownership of any of the horses, but simply to the losses or profits of training and racing, and Major Benjamin Luckett was in their employ as trainer.

Before going to work in earnest on this investigation, I learned that Mr. Llewellyn Holton, a son of Captain John A. Holton, still resided on the old farm and that he was old enough to know all about the origin and history of Maria Russell, as well as the other stock belonging to his father at that time. This was very encouraging, but I wanted to know whether he was a man who could be relied upon to tell the truth. On this point I addressed an inquiry to the late Colonel R. P. Pepper, and his reply is as follows: “Your letter of the 29th received. I regard L. Holton, of this county, as a man of honor, integrity and intelligence, and the peer of any gentleman of my acquaintance. In my opinion any statement he will make upon any subject, as to his own knowledge, will be accepted in this community as readily as that of any gentleman in it. He is a man who sometimes gets on sprees from intoxicating liquors, but I have never heard of it affecting his intelligence, honor or integrity, and, as above stated, his word will be accepted in this community at this time as soon as the word of any gentleman in this county or community.”

With this very high indorsement I did not hesitate to send a commissioner to interview Mr. Holton and get from him the exact facts in the case, without any leading questions and without any shading of the truth or bias on either side. What this commissioner learned will be given further on.

Let us now turn to the other side and see how Mr. Brodhead manages to get Maria Russell into the ownership of Captain John W. Russell. Under date of April 30, 1883, he wrote to the _Turf, Field and Farm_ as follows:

“A Colonel Shepherd, of the South—New Orleans, I think—gave or sold to Captain J. W. Russell and Captain J. A. Holton a Stockholder mare, out of Miranda, by Topgallant, etc. This mare was called Miss Shepherd. They owned and bred this mare in partnership. Among the produce thus owned were Maria Russell by Rattler, Mary Bell by Sea Gull, and Swiss Boy by imported Swiss. Captain Russell sold his half of Swiss Boy to Mr. Taylor, son-in-law of Ben Luckett, for $750. Maria Russell was owned and run as a partnership mare by Holton and Russell, but was trained by Major Ben Luckett.”

Then follows a lot of stuff, without any relevancy whatever, going to show that Ben Luckett trained her at three years old, but had no connection whatever with the family, all of which is known to everybody, and then he again asserts that “in the division of the partnership property, Maria Russell fell to Captain Russell.” The next dash that Mr. Brodhead makes is for a negro seventy-five years old, who had been in the Russell family from his birth, named Jesse Dillon. Jesse was no exception to his race, or indeed to many of the white race, for whenever any information is wanted from them they are always ready to give it, as they expect at least one half-dollar, and if they tell the story “right up to what is wanted” they expect two. Jesse was sharp enough to discover just what his interviewers were after, and he was ready to supply “the long-felt want.” Jesse was able to tell just how the mare got her eye knocked out and just how he took her to Blackburn’s and had her bred to Boston. In all this, including the loss of the eye and the trip to Blackburn’s, Jesse may have had in his mind Captain Russell’s one-eyed mare, Mary Churchill, while his interviewers were thinking about Maria Russell. It is no uncommon thing for white people as well as black, at seventy-five, to get names of forty or fifty years past confused.

This is all of Mr. Brodhead’s case so far as what he presents has any relevancy to the point at issue, namely, the identity and ownership of the mare Maria Russell. The pedigree was not made at Woodburn; Mr. Alexander in this case as in many others was simply the victim of the sharper. The only shadow of evidence that has been presented that the pedigree might be true is the evidence of a superannuated negro, Jesse Dillon. For the Woodburn side of the case the reader is referred to _Wallace’s Monthly_ for June, 1883, page 366. In replying to this case I will try to summarize the different considerations as briefly as possible.

_First._ The case is opened with the assumption that Colonel Shepherd presented the mare Miss Shepherd, by Stockholder, to Captain J. W. Russell and Captain J. A. Holton. We might laugh at this by asking which half he gave to Russell and which half to Holton? This is merely constructing a theory by which the ownership of Russell might be maintained. It is safe to say the mare was given to Holton and to Holton alone, and here is the proof of it. There is a silver cup, now in possession of Mr. Bowen, grandson of J. A. Holton, with this inscription: “J. A. Holton, awarded by Franklyn Agricultural Society, 1836, for filly Maria Russell.” Where is Captain J. W. Russell’s ownership at that date?

_Second._ When S. D. Bruce was compiling his Stud Book, Captain John W. Russell had his thoroughbred stock entered there. There were several brood mares with their produce under them, but where were Maria Russell and her daughter Sally Russell? They appear as the property of Ben Luckett, when everybody knows he had nothing to do with them. As Captain Russell did not have them entered when he was entering his other stock, I must take it as _prima facie_ evidence that he did not own them at that time.

_Third._ It is now in imperishable evidence that John W. Russell did not own Maria Russell in 1836, and that he did not own her at the time Bruce was compiling his Stud Book, and now the question is, was there ever a time when he did own her? To answer this question we must turn to Llewellyn Holton, the only man then living who knew and had a right to know all about the history of this mare. His statement is as follows:

“FORKS OF ELKHORN. May 24, 1883.

“This is to certify that my father, Captain John A. Holton, was, for a number of years, interested with Captain John W. Russell in a number of thoroughbreds, and they raced them in partnership. When they dissolved and divided the stock, I am positively certain that my father retained all the descendants of the Stockholder mare—among them Maria Russell, and all her produce—and I know to my certain knowledge that Captain Russell never owned or had in his possession the mare Maria Russell, or any of her produce; and I further know to my certain knowledge that said mare, Maria Russell, had two good eyes from the time of her foaling until the day of her death. If my father bred a mare to Boston in 1848, I incline to the opinion that it was a bay mare called Limber, for the reason that she, Limber, was very uncertain, having missed several seasons. There is one point, however, that I feel very certain upon, and that is that neither my father nor Captain Russell, during their racing or breeding career, ever owned a Boston filly. As Boston was the most famous horse of his time, it is not at all possible that there could have been a Boston colt or filly on my father’s farm and I not knowing of the fact. I was born in the old homestead the 15th of November, 1820, and have resided either there or adjoining all my life; therefore I had constant opportunity to know all about my father’s stock of horses.

L. HOLTON.

“I hereby attest that the above is my father’s signature.—J. A. HOLTON, son of Llewellyn Holton.”

_Fourth._ With the foregoing clear and decisive statement before us, it is not necessary to determine whether the partnership between Holton and Russell embraced the joint ownership of the racing stock or whether the running colts of the two farms were brought together from year to year, and as a matter of economy and profit, trained and raced as one stable. This latter view of the question seems to be made plain. In his interview with Mr. Holton my commissioner reported as follows: “The horses were always trained by Captain Holton at his private track at the Forks of Elkhorn. That he, Llewellyn Holton, always went after the colts that were on the Russell farm when the training season commenced, and at the close of the racing campaign of the year he always took those back that came from the Russell stock, while those from Captain Holton’s stock were kept on the home farm. When the partnership between Captain Holton and Captain Russell was dissolved, Mr. Llewellyn Holton is positively certain that Captain Russell retained his own stock and Captain Holton his own, the latter consisting of the produce of the Stockholder mare, among them Maria Russell, and all her produce. And he is still more positively certain that neither the mare, Maria Russell, nor any of her produce was ever in the hands of Captain Russell.” At the close of each season the owners, respectively, took their own stock home till the next spring, and after a series of years each owner took his own stock home, and that was the end of the arrangement.

_Fifth._ In the summer of 1883 I met Mr. John W. Russell, son of Captain Russell, at the house of Mr. R. S. Veech, near Louisville, Kentucky, and we had some conversation on the question of the pedigree of Sally Russell, which had then been in hot controversy for some months. The subject was not a pleasant one to him and he either parried or negatived the few questions I asked. A year or two after this I met him at the Galt House in Louisville, and we had a very pleasant conversation. The controversy about Sally Russell had then subsided, and I asked him if he remembered his father’s thoroughbred mare Mary Churchill. “Oh, yes,” he said, “she was the first horse I ever rode, and my folks were very much afraid I would fall off and get hurt.” I then asked him if Mary Churchill was blind of one eye, and he answered he “could not remember.” My next question was, whether he recollected anything about Maria Russell, and his reply was: “Nothing that is definite.” Then followed the inquiry, “whether there were any traditions in the household going to show that his father ever owned Maria Russell,” and he replied: “There are no traditions that are reliable.” These replies were a most grateful surprise to me, and if I have not given the precise words used I certainly have given the precise meaning.

_Sixth._ Llewellyn Holton was sixty-three years old in 1883 and he was afflicted with physical paralysis, but his mind seems to have been perfectly sound and memory good for a man of his age. Before he had the slightest intimation that a pedigree was being investigated that might call him into controversy, he was asked about Maria Russell by one of the most prominent and distinguished of all the breeders of Kentucky, and that breeder wrote me as follows:

“I have seen Mr. L. Holton, the son of Captain John A. Holton, of this county, and he says his father bred and owned Maria Russell; that she was by Rattler, and out of a mare by Stockholder, and was foaled 1834. He says he thinks a man by the name of William Duvall can give some information about these mares. I will see him to-morrow, and write you.”

As this information about Maria Russell was elicited from Mr. Holton on the spur of the moment, and as he gave her pedigree correctly, and not only this, but gave the year in which she was foaled correctly, his memory, at least so far as this mare is concerned seems to have been remarkably good.

_Seventh._ My correspondent wrote a few days later: “I have just learned from William Duvall, who trained for Captain J. A. Holton in 1842, that he remembers the mare Maria Russell, and he thinks she was by Seagull, and out of Limber, by Whipster; he also remembers a mare owned by Holton that was by Rattler, but cannot remember any more about her.” This confirms Mr. Holton’s recollections in a very striking and satisfactory manner. As a trainer Mr. Duvall did not handle the brood mares, but only their produce. He recalled a Seagull mare and a Rattler mare, that Captain Holton owned, but he attached the name “Maria Russell” to the wrong one. This kind of impromptu inaccuracy is almost always an element of strength, for it goes to prove that the witness has not been “coached.” He remembered there was a mare by Rattler in the field, and as there was no other Rattler mare owned by either Holton or Russell, the identity of Maria Russell is clearly established as the property of Captain Holton in 1842.

_Eighth._ With the high indorsement of Mr. Llewellyn Holton as a man of truth and honor, given on page 421 of this chapter; and with the evidence before me of his clear and unclouded memory in giving correctly not only the pedigrees but the year in which Maria Russell was foaled, and all this before there was any pressure or suspicion on his part as to where his disclosure might lead, I cannot, as an honest man, fail to believe that he told the truth. Thus, after leaving out all the minor evidences, we have the three major points fully and clearly established, namely, (1) the inscription on the silver cup that Captain Holton owned her in 1836; (2) the evidence of William Duvall that he owned her in 1842; and (3) the statement of Llewellyn Holton that he owned her always and that she died his.

_Ninth._ At the Woodburn sale of 1863 and 1868 there were certainly at least two hundred experienced horsemen and breeders present who were able to discriminate concerning a mare represented to be thirteen years old when she looked ten years more; or concerning a mare represented to be eighteen years old when she looked as if she were twenty-eight. Hence, no man was willing to bid five dollars on her. This I take it, was the personal judgment of every man who thought anything about it, and when she died a few weeks after the last sale, nobody could doubt that she died of old age, and nobody could doubt that Mr. Alexander represented her to the public just as she had been represented to him, both in age and breeding, by the rogue who victimized him.

The mare Sally Russell, the grandam of Maud S., had been sold to Mr. Alexander by the foreman of Captain Russell’s farm, and it does not appear that he represented her as having been bred by Captain Russell. Indeed, it was not claimed at Woodburn that Captain Russell bred her until a representative of that establishment called at my office to examine the service books of Boston and there found that “John Russell’s one-eyed mare” had been bred in 1849. If a fraud, therefore, was established the Russell family must bear the odium. Hence all evidence from that source must be considered in the light of the fact that every member of the family is deeply interested. But notwithstanding the efforts of the Russell family to preserve the father’s name from obloquy, and notwithstanding the trip in search of some superannuated darkey who could remember anything and everything in consideration of the _pour-boire_ that would be forthcoming, there stood that terrible statement of Llewellyn Holton that could not be met by evidence. The whole matter was against him, and Mr. Brodhead was not happy. He knew he could not prove him wrong, and the only course left open was to get him to take back certain things that he had said on the ground that his memory had failed and that the fight was between “Old Kaintuck” and outside parties who had no business to interfere with Kentucky affairs. On an appointed day, therefore, all who were supposed to have any influence with Mr. Holton, in the whole countryside, met Mr. Brodhead, and they came down on “the poor old paralytic” hammer and tongs. They asked him what he remembered about all the horses, each in his turn, in the whole neighborhood, whether he had ever heard of them before or not. This was kept up a long time, but they could not prevail on him to take back a single specific statement he had made. He had said Captain Russell had never owned Maria Russell or any of her produce, and he would not take it back. He had said Maria Russell had two good eyes when she died, and he would not take it back. At last when the poor old invalid was worn out they sprung the patriotic dodge of “Kentucky against the world” upon him and this had some effect, but not enough to save the anxious “bulldozers” from a feeling of great depression. At last Mr. Brodhead seized a pen and indited a letter for him to sign, addressed to me, with the request that I would publish it. I am not able to say how many attempts were made to get such a letter as he would be willing to sign, but several different drafts were made, and sick and worried, and in order to get rid of his tormentors, he signed, and the letter came to me, and I published it as follows:

“FORKS OF ELKHORN, June 12, 1883.

“Mr. J. H. WALLACE.

“DEAR SIR: In answer to your letter to my son, of May 21, 1883, there are three points suggested. First, in regard to her produce (Maria Russell’s). I have no recollection any further. I have no data from which I could find out concerning them. Second, I have no remembrance of her death nor the manner of it. Now, in regard to the statement I made to Mr. John K. Stringfield. I think he has made it too strong, for I told him my statement was from memory only, and that I could not nor would not swear to it. Since that time I have had sufficient proof to overbalance my memory, and circumstances called to mind that have convinced me I was in error. I simply stated what I believed to be true at that time. I have no interest in the matter whatever—only want to be understood. I trust that you will oblige me by publishing the above letter.

Yours truly,

“L. HOLTON.”

It must have been a most pitiful sight to see six or eight able-bodied men, headed by the stalwart Brodhead, acting as chief inquisitor, circling round the reclining form of a poor old invalid, trying to convince him that he had no memory and that he was a liar, prodding him with questions about horses that he never had heard of, and when he failed to tell them, torturing him with remarks that if he couldn’t answer that question how could he know so well about Maria Russell? But with all their tortures they couldn’t force him to say his father did not own Maria Russell all her life and that she did not die with two good eyes. It was simply a little Spanish Inquisition on the waters of the Elkhorn from which came the cry, “Recant, Recant,” dinged into the ears of the helpless paralytic. Still, helpless as he was against so many, he obeyed his conscience and maintained his integrity, notwithstanding all the satanic arts of Torquemada. When all else had failed the war-cry was shouted in his ear: “New York is trying to destroy the breeding interests of Kentucky, and all true Kentuckians must stand by each other or we all go under.” The old man brightened up and said: “I’m a Kentuckian, but you mustn’t try to make me a self-convicted liar.” The piece of patchwork given above, in the shape of a letter, was then shaped up by his tormentors, for the old man was not able to write a line, and dispatched to the office of _Wallace’s Monthly_, where it was printed just as it was received. Each one of the tormentors made a copy of it, and no one of them was satisfied with it; even the inquisitor-general said it fell far short of what they wanted, but that by industriously speaking of it as a recantation, the public would soon come to treat it as a recantation.

When, after years of fruitless effort, Mr. Brodhead, manager at Woodburn Farm, got control of registration, he made an early move to have the cloud removed from the pedigree of the stallion Lord Russell, and brought the matter before the neocracy of his own creation, of which he was himself the head and brains, and the action thereon was published in _Wallace’s Monthly_ for February, 1893. The presentation is imposing in length and abounds in many things that have no possible bearing on the question at issue. Unfortunately I have no means of determining the extent to which the crime of the interpolation or excision has been made manifest except in two of the exhibits which I will give. In Exhibit 1 (Holton’s letter above) the following words are interpolated: “and in justice to all I correct my statement.” These words are not very important to the meaning, but they are very important as indicating the accuracy, and hence reliability, of a witness. In the same exhibit Mr. Brodhead says: “I insist that you will oblige me,” etc., while the original uses the word “trust” instead of “insist.” Again, Mr. Brodhead has his letter dated June 11, 1893, instead of June 12, 1883, as it is in the original. The variation of the dates here seems to have had a purpose, whatever it may have been. This letter must have been a great trouble, for I have seen three or four copies of it, so called, and no two of them alike.

I was duly notified that the question of Sally Russell’s pedigree would be brought up at that meeting, and requested to be there to sustain my view of that question. The court and the jury were made up of Brodhead’s creatures, and organized simply to register his edicts. The wise man said, “Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.” The bird looked on, from a safe distance, and saw the fowler impaled in his own snare, by his own act, and his true character revealed to the world. It is very difficult to understand just why it should have been deemed necessary to cut out the very pith and heart of Mr. Holton’s letter, when he knew that it would make no difference with his court whether there was any evidence at all. Under the law of retribution, a man’s character may be determined by his own acts.

HOLTON’S TRUE STATEMENT.

“FORKS OF ELKHORN, May 24, 1883.

“This is to certify that my father, Captain John A. Holton, was for a number of years interested with Captain John Russell in a number of thoroughbreds, and they raced them in partnership. When they dissolved and divided the stock, I am positively certain that my father retained all the descendants of the Stockholder mare—among them Maria Russell and all of her produce AND I KNOW TO MY CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE THAT CAPTAIN RUSSELL NEVER OWNED OR HAD IN HIS POSSESSION THE MARE MARIA RUSSELL, OR ANY OF HER PRODUCE. And I further know to my certain knowledge that said mare, Maria Russell, had two good eyes from the time of her foaling until the day of her death. If my father bred a mare to Boston in 1848, I incline to the opinion that it was a bay mare we owned called Limber, for the reason that she, Limber, was very uncertain, having missed several seasons. There is one point, however, that I feel very certain upon, and that is, that neither my father nor Captain Russell, during their racing or breeding career, ever owned a Boston filly. As Boston was the most famous horse of his time, it is not at all possible that there could have been a Boston colt or filly on my father’s farm and I not knowing of the fact. I was born in the old homestead the 15th of November, 1820, and have resided either there or adjoining all my life; therefore I had constant opportunity to know all about my father’s stock of horses.

L. HOLTON.

“I hereby attest that the above is my father’s signature.—J. A. HOLTON, son of Llewellyn Holton.”

BRODHEAD’S REPRESENTATION OF IT.

“FORKS, ELKHORN, May 24, 1883.

“This is to certify that my father, Captain John A. Holton, was for a number of years interested with Captain John Russell in a number of thoroughbreds, and they raced them in partnership. When they dissolved, and divided the stock, I am positively certain that my father retained all the descendants of the Stockholder mare, among them Maria Russell and all her produce, and I know to my certain knowledge that said Maria Russell had two good eyes from the time of her foaling until the day of her death. If my father bred a mare to Boston in 1848, I incline to the opinion that it was a bay mare he owned called Limber, for the reason that she, Limber, was very uncertain, having missed several seasons. There is one point, however, that I feel very certain upon, and that is that neither my father nor Captain Russell during their racing or breeding career ever owned a Boston filly. As Boston was the most famous horse of his time, it is not at all possible that there could have been a Boston colt or filly on my father’s farm and I not knowing of the fact. I was born in the old homestead the 15th of November, 1820, and have resided either there or adjoining all my life; therefore I had constant opportunity to know all about my father’s stock of horses.

L. HOLTON.

“I hereby attest that the above is my father’s signature.—J. A. HOLTON, son of L. Holton.”

The deadly parallel columns tell the whole story. The central and most important fact in Mr. Holton’s statement has been deliberately and carefully cut out by Mr. Brodhead, and the evidence that he did so cannot be wiped out either by money or by the torture of invalids. The testimony of cold type remains forever. Has Mr. Brodhead, it is asked, professed to have given the whole of Mr. Holton’s statement, and suppressed a vital part of it? He has given every word and letter of the statement, from the date line to the signature, except the one sentence that is the life and soul of the whole statement, and that sentence I have printed above in capital letters, so that it may be easily distinguished and compared. For years I have known that Mr. Brodhead possessed most remarkable visual powers. When he wanted to see a thing he could see it through a stone wall and without any assistance from the “X-rays,” and when he didn’t want to see a thing he couldn’t see it even when held up to his very nose under an arc light. The deception practiced here might justly be designated by a harder name, for it was deliberately planned and carried out in order to gain an end by suppressing the truth. Why did he not free himself from his marvelous powers of vision, and looking out of the natural eyes of his mind, see the imminent danger of a terrible exposure? In keeping back part of the truth with the pretension that he had given it all, how could he avoid recalling the fate of Annanias and Sapphira for keeping back part of the price with the pretension that they had given it all?

As an exercise in ethical athletics I will submit the following abstract question to the debating clubs, especially in Kentucky, viz., “Is the man who suppresses the truth in order to sustain a fraudulent pedigree any more worthy of belief than the man who made the pedigree and sold the horse upon it?”