Mr. Wallace Mistaken.
Editor Trotwood’s:
I have read with much interest your history of that remarkable family of pacers. If the Hal family of pacers can’t produce world’s record-breaking trotters, the theory that extreme trotting speed comes from the pacer, or originated from the pacing gait, must go to the wall.
Mr. Wallace was certainly misinformed when he was told that the dam of Vermont Black Hawk was a pacer. I hunted up the man who had charge of her for upwards of eight years, and he assured me that the dam of Vermont Black Hawk was as square gaited a trotter as he ever saw, and that she never paced a step during all the time she was owned in the Twombly family. This man was Mr. Shadrak Seavey, a grandson of Ezekiel Twombly, and men who knew him personally assured me that no man’s reputation for strict veracity was superior to that of Mr. Seavey. Horsemen who knew this mare agreed unanimously with Mr. Seavey in describing her color, size, conformation and gait.
The man who misled Mr. Wallace got on the track of the wrong mare. He was the same man (Allen W. Thompson, of Woodstock, Vt.) who strenuously contended that Vermont Black Hawk was by Paddy, and Ethan Allen 2:25½ was by Adams’ Flying Morgan, in spite of the fact that the stud book of Sherman Morgan showed that the dam of Vermont Black Hawk was mated with him May 14, 1832, and I learned from Mr. Seavey that Black Hawk was foaled about the middle of April, 1833.
The stud service book of Vermont Black Hawk shows that the Holcomb mare, dam of Ethan Allen, was mated with Black Hawk July 9, 1848. It is a matter of history that Ethan Allen was foaled June 18, 1849. These facts were known to Thompson, but because Ethan Allen was bay in color, Thompson was sure there must have been some mistake. He did not succeed in winning Mr. Wallace on that point, but touched a responsive chord when he hit upon the pacing mare as the dam of Vermont Black Hawk.
I read your Monthly Sundays, when, I suppose, I should be at church. If your publication is as great a success financially as in all other respects, you will have a bank account when you reach my age that will enable you to live comfortably the remainder of your days. That such may be the case is my sincere wish.
Pardon me for the length of this epistle. I won’t do it again. Very truly yours,
S. W. PARLIN.
Boston, Mass.