The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development

by John Hankins Wallace

This, in brief, was the character of the Monthly from its foundation, until it passed out of Mr. Wallace’s hands. To follow its detailed history through the nearly sixteen years of Mr. Wallace’s editorship is not the purpose of this article, but the rather to group the salient factors that made it what it was, and that have secured for it an enduring place in trotting history.

The Monthly was from the first illustrated, and the progress in horse art is well demonstrated by tracing through its pages. Its first drawings were made by James C. Beard, who came of a race of artists, but whose attempts at horse portraits were wretched caricatures, one and all. Still, they seemed to be the best, or rather the least bad, then obtainable. Mr. Wallace, however, was painfully cognizant of the lack of truthful portraits of horses, and was not less delighted than surprised when, one September day in 1878, a young man came into his office, and exhibited drawings that were so obviously truthful portraitures that they were a revelation in horse art. A rapid questioning as to whether he had drawn them, and where he had hidden his light so long, developed that the young genius was Herbert S. Kittredge, of Pennsylvania. He was immediately engaged, and his work in the Monthly was the first reputable horse portraiture in American literature. This gifted, self-educated genius died in May, 1881, long before his prime, and when his powers were daily developing. He was the forerunner of Whitney, Dickey, Morris, and others whose ability to faithfully portray horses is acknowledged to-day. He had not the mechanical aids—notably the camera—or processes which they so freely call into play, but in true artistic ability to draw faithfully, it is doubtful whether this undeveloped master was the inferior of any artist who has yet made horse portraiture a specialty in any country.

From year to year the contributory staff of Wallace’s Monthly increased, and always had in its membership a number of the leading breeders and students. For many years Mr. Wallace did practically all the editorial work himself, as in fact he did the registration work. But this gradually outgrew him, and soon his office staff began to increase. First he removed the office to 212 Broadway, not far from its first location. Then in May, 1887, the final move was made to commodious offices in the Stewart Building, at Broadway and Chambers Street, when the office staff had grown until more than a dozen assistants were employed on all the publications.

Among the earliest editorial assistants on the Monthly was C. T. Harris, later trotting editor of the Spirit of the Times, and still more recently of The Horse Review, a faithful and conscientious worker. Later Gurney O. Gue, a clever writer, and exceptionally well grounded in facts of pedigree and record, occupied a desk with the Monthly, and is now one of Mr. Dana’s “bright young men” on the Sun. In 1886 Leslie E. Macleod became associate editor, and continued in that capacity until 1890. He subsequently became managing editor of The Horseman, and later editorial writer of The Horse Review.

Of contributors, among the best known may be named, in addition to those enumerated as identified with the Monthly at the start, General B. F. Tracy, Allen W. Thompson, Samuel Hough Terry, “Mark Field” (Jas. M. Hiatt), “O. W. C.” (O. W. Cook), Thos. B. Armitage, “Mambrino” (H. D. McKinney), Otto Holstein, “Bill Arp,” “Aurelius” (Rev. T. A. Hendrick), A. B. Allen, “Fidelis,” Harvey W. Peck, Benjamin W. Hunt, “Roland” (Leslie E. Macleod), Major Campbell Brown, F. G. Smith, Judge M. W. Oliver, Prof. Chas. T. Luthy, Colonel F. G. Buford, John P. Ray, “Vision” (W. H. Marrett), H. C. Goodspeed, and others.

The last number of Wallace’s Monthly issued under Mr. Wallace’s editorship was published in July, 1891. It then passed to the American Trotting Register Company, at Chicago, and its degeneration was rapid, and in a few months it died for lack of brains. Robbed of its virility and of its purpose, without editorial direction, and aiming only to lead a harmless existence, and to say or do nothing to offend any one of a score of directors and hundreds of stockholders, it soon began to lead a useless existence, and dropped out of the notice of thinking men. It became the antithesis of all that it had been, and its end was a pitiable one for a publication with a history of sixteen years of fearless, honest, able direction.

“Wallace’s Year Book.”

Early in the history of the Monthly Mr. Wallace decided to drop running summaries, and give exclusive attention to trotting and pacing statistics. These grew so rapidly that they soon became burdensome, and an outlet became inevitable. Furthermore the adoption of the standard, depending as it did on records of performances, necessitated for its application a bureau of statistics, and these considerations and others—not the least of which was the recognition of “a long-felt want”—prompted Mr. Wallace to start “Wallace’s Year Book.” The first volume of this valuable annual was published in May, 1886, covering the performances for 1885, and contained, besides summaries of all races in which a heat was trotted in 2:50 or less, a 2:30 list for the year, and the Great Table of Trotters under their sires. The book contained 273 pages, was bound in flexible cloth, and sold at $1.

An improvement of the greatest value and importance was made in the Great Table in the first volume of the “Year Book.” This was the addition after the list of performers under each sire of the names of his sons that had sired performers, with the number to the credit of each, and of the performers out of his daughters. It furnished at a glance what a horse had done, not only of himself, but through his sons and daughters, and the Great Table thus improved became at once the gauge of trotting blood by which breeders everywhere estimated the comparative values of the different families and different sires. It was the most clear, condensed, yet comprehensive and perfect summing up of all the facts and experiences of trotting history imaginable, and so apparent is this fact that nothing original has ever been attempted to replace it, while all compilers, without exception, imitate it. The Great Table of itself would have carried any book to success.