Early in the spring of 1864 Mr. John P. Welch, an intelligent man, trained to the profession of civil engineer, reached the blue grass region of Kentucky for the purpose of securing and taking across the plains a band of well-bred horses to California. In this venture he was backed by Mr. John Anderson, a wealthy gentleman of the latter State. Mr. Welch was successful in perfecting his arrangements, and when on the very eve of starting he sent forward a complete inventory of all the animals he had in his band and sent this inventory to the California Spirit of the Times, in which paper it was published May 14, 1864, and is as follows:

From this inventory we must conclude that Mr. Welch was a careful and methodical man. He knew he had twenty-six animals ready to start, and after he had written off the descriptions and pedigrees of these twenty-six animals he verified his work by numbering them from one to twenty-six inclusive, and then he knew he had not omitted any one. This inventory is the basis of the whole truth in this matter, and is the only evidence in the wide world of what animals Mr. Welch started with to California. As this is the vital and only starting point to reach the truth, I trust my readers will examine it again carefully and see whether it includes any filly or mare by Lexington, of any age. When you ask any of these “more-running-blood-in-the-trotter” people who took Waxy, the phantom daughter of Lexington, to California, you will get an evasive answer, and when pressed they will at last say, John P. Welch. Now, as to John P. Welch, “he being dead yet speaketh.” From his unknown grave he tells these people they are trying to establish what is not true, and with his ghostly finger points to the inventory and demands, “Where is the Lexington filly in that list? You are trying to displace the truth with a falsehood,” and he drives this charge home to the heart of each one of them.

Here we might close this case and leave it to the enlightened judgment of all intelligent and honest people, for there is not a scintilla of evidence that any two-year-old daughter of Lexington was taken to California in 1864. Until this evidence is adduced, no attempt to overthrow the contents of John P. Welch’s inventory has a single peg to stand on. But I am not yet done with some of the peculiarities that have been developed in this case, for long ago I learned in this pedigree business,

“That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinee is peculiar.”

At this point the case bifurcates, one fork leading to the Grey Eagle mare as the dam of Waxy, and the other to the Brawner’s Eclipse mare, and I think my language will not be wholly unparliamentary when I pronounce them both frauds. Mr. Levi S. Gould, a worthy business man of Boston, whom I have always esteemed as honest, was the first to dig up this whole matter in the columns of the California Spirit of the Times, and the first to give the above inventory to the public. He traveled thousands of miles and claimed to have traced Waxy to the stable of her breeder, Philip Swigert, of Frankfort, Kentucky. The full account of his laborious trip was published in Wallace’s Monthly for March, 1889, p. 17. In the inventory he found one animal got by Lexington, but this was a bay colt of 1863, and out of the Grey Eagle mare, but he wanted a chestnut filly. After studying the matter over, he concluded that this “bay colt” was a typographical error for “chestnut filly” and that this established the pedigree of Waxy. He interviewed a number of people who had known of, or had been in some way connected with, the Welch venture, and they were all able to confirm his discovery of the typographical error, and could recount to a nicety their distinct recollections of the sorrel filly by Lexington, out of the Grey Eagle mare. These people seemed to possess the most astonishing memories, and the color, breeding and age of a filly they had not seen nor heard of for a quarter of a century all came back to them with as much freshness as though the events had occurred yesterday. Then there was a peculiar element in their memories, for they could recall everything about this one filly and nothing about any of the others. At last Mr. Gould reached Mr. Brodhead, of Kentucky, where the “finishing touches” were put upon the pedigree of Waxy. Mr. Satterwhite did not reach Woodburn till after Mr. Gould had left, but that did not prevent him from making a “statement” that exactly fitted the theory of the pedigree as matured by Mr. Gould and Mr. Brodhead. He had been Mr. Philip Swigert’s foreman in 1864, and had a right to know something of the transfer of some eight or ten head of stock from Mr. Swigert to Mr. Welch in the spring of that year. Satterwhite was quite too good a witness, as he disclosed his cramming frightfully. He remembered “the light chestnut filly, by Lexington and out of the Grey Eagle mare,” with great distinctness and was sure she was foaled in 1863. In no single case was he certain except in the filly by Lexington, and in no single case was he able to give the ages of the other young things correctly. After Satterwhite made his visit to Woodburn, Mr. Brodhead wrote Mr. Gould as follows:

“Satterwhite says Dick Jackson was with Welch. I think, with what you have, the pedigree of Waxy is conclusively proved, and you can get your article ready. The sooner it is published the better. I forwarded some letters to you, and I hope they gave you additional information.”

It will be remembered that Mr. Gould started out on the assumption that, as there was but one animal in the inventory by Lexington and that was a bay colt of 1863, that “colt,” he argued, was a typographical error, and instead of “bay colt” it should read “sorrel filly.” On this very uncertain basis he worked throughout. On this basis he collected all his futile statements. On this basis, and to lend a helping hand, Satterwhite testified; and on this basis Brodhead wrote, “With what you have, the pedigree of Waxy is conclusively proved.” Now that Mr. Brodhead is satisfied and that Mr. Bruce promptly entered Waxy in his Stud Book as by Lexington and out of the Grey Eagle mare, we must drop the whimsical idea of the “typographical error” and consider whether the bay colt of 1863, by Lexington, did really become a sorrel filly of 1862 when he reached California a few months later.