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

by John Hankins Wallace

CHAPTER X.
COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY—NEW ENGLAND.

First importations to Boston and to Salem—Importations from Holland brought high prices—They were not pacers and not over fourteen hands—In 1640 horses were exported to the West Indies—First American newspaper and first horse advertisement—Average sizes—The different gaits—Connecticut, first plantation, 1636—Post horses provided for by law—All horses branded—Sizes and Gaits—An Englishman’s experience with pacers—Lindsay’s Arabian—Rhode Island, Founded by Roger Williams, 1636—No direct importations ever made—Horses largely exported to other colonies 1690—Possibly some to Canada—Pacing races a common amusement—Prohibited 1749—Size of the Narragansetts compared with the Virginians.

In 1629 the London founders of the plantation of Massachusetts Bay sent out six vessels laden with emigrants, horses, cattle, goats, etc. These vessels brought some twenty-five head of mares and stallions, that were valued at six pounds each and all owned by the company in London, except three mares from Leicester, that were owned by private parties. At that time there seems to have been some rivalry between Boston and Salem as a shipping point, but this fleet came to Boston harbor. This same year (1629) Salem seems to have had six or seven mares and one stallion, besides forty cows, and forty goats. From this it might be safely inferred that a part of this fleet put into Salem harbor, or that there may have been another and somewhat earlier shipment of which we have no details. Salem was really founded in 1626, and the settlement at Charlestown, Boston, dates from the same year. The next year about sixty head were shipped to the plantation, but many were lost during the voyage, of both horses and cattle. Several other shipments followed, but nothing worthy of special note, till 1635, when two Dutch ships arrived at Salem with twenty-seven mares, valued at thirty-four pounds each, and three stallions. Some writers have spoken of these mares as “Flanders mares,” but I have not been able to find any evidence or even indication that this might have been the fact. The records show they were Dutch ships, and that on a given day they sailed out of the Texel, a Dutch port, far away from Flanders. I think, therefore, we are safe in concluding they were “Dutch mares,” and they should be so designated. Just about this period they were bringing Dutch horses from Utrecht, in Holland, to the Dutch colony at New Amsterdam, and it was well known in Holland as well as in New England that the Dutch horses brought much better prices in New England than the English importations. It is probable, further, that these Dutch traders were looking out for a choice of markets, as between New England and New Netherlands. These mares were valued at thirty-five pounds each, the record says, but we are not informed as to the price that was really paid for them. There is a very wide discrepancy between the figure at which these mares were “valued” and the cost of the mares that were brought from England. The English company charged the colony six pounds each for the horses sent from there, and ten pounds freight.

I have labored assiduously to get at such data as would afford a safe basis upon which to determine the size and other qualities of these Dutch horses. They were larger than the English horses of that period and they were more muscular, with greater weight of bone. They were, doubtless, better adapted to the various offices of the “general purpose” horse than their English contemporaries, in every respect, except the saddle. There is no distinctive evidence that they were pacers or could go any of the saddle gaits, in their own right. It is probably safe to conclude that the original importations would not average more than fourteen and a half hands high, and very likely the exact truth, if it could be reached, would place them below that figure rather than above it. The process of reducing the size commenced as soon as they arrived: for the English horses had saddle qualities which the Dutch did not possess, and everybody wanted a saddle horse. Still the Dutch blood was highly prized, and a hundred and fifty years afterward it was no uncommon thing, especially in the valley of the Connecticut, to meet with the advertisements of stallions seeking patronage on the strength of “Dutch blood.” This, for a time, was a puzzle to me, but as we consider the horse interests of the region of the Hudson and the Mohawk Valley extending eastward and that of eastern Massachusetts extending westward along with the current of emigration, it is not difficult to understand how the blood of the Dutch horse should have become so generally diffused. On the one hand we had the much-desired saddle qualities, and on the other we had the much-desired increase of size without deterioration in appearance. Thus owners were accommodated and the horse stock of the country was improved by the interbreeding of the two nationalities. It is not necessary to further particularize different importations. It is sufficient to say that they were very numerous, and the multiplying of the stock was carried forward with vigor and success. Five years later—1640—the colonists not only had all the horses they needed, but they shipped a cargo of eighty head to Barbadoes. From the colony of Massachusetts Bay all the plantations of New England secured their foundation stock of horses, hence they are here considered collectively.

The people of the Plymouth plantation were very slow in providing themselves with horses, and it was not till after 1632 that they had any. It is hard to conceive of a colony like that of Massachusetts Bay living and flourishing for a period of, say, eighty years without a newspaper, and yet such is the fact. The Boston News-Letter, the first newspaper, so called, in this country, was established May 29, 1704, and it lived many years. The early colonial newspapers, from one end of the land to the other, were anything and everything but newspapers, as we understand the meaning of the title in our day. If a boy fell off a building in London and broke his leg, six weeks before, it was liable to appear as an item of “news” in the local American newspaper, but if the same accident happened the week before, in a neighboring town, it was never mentioned. The name “newspaper” attached to such publications was a fraud.

The following is a copy of the first horse advertisement ever published in this country, and for that reason it is worthy of preservation. It was taken from the Boston News-Letter of November 19, 1705:

“Strayed from Mr. John Wilson of Braintree, at Mr. Havens’ in Kingston, in Narragansett, about a fortnight ago, a sorrel mare, low stature, four white feet, a white face, shod all round, her near ear tore, has a long white tail and mane. Whoever will give any intelligence of her ... will be sufficiently rewarded.”

As this was in the period when the Narragansett pacers had reached their greatest fame, we might argue that this mare had been sent down to Kingston from Braintree, Massachusetts, to be wintered and to be bred in the spring to some famous horse in Kingston, the very center of the horse-breeding interests of that day.

Under the date of June 17, 1706, I find a bay horse advertised as “strayed or stolen: fourteen hands high, hardly possible to make him gallop,” and October 28, 1706, a black gelding “fourteen hands high, paces, trots, and gallops.” Then in the years 1731 and 1732 I find a “black mare fourteen and three-quarter hands, trots and paces;” a “black horse twelve hands,” no gait given; “black gelding, fourteen hands, races, trots, and gallops;” “bay horse large, good pacer;” “roan mare, fourteen hands, paces and trots.” But the field which I specially gleaned was for the years 1756-59, where I found the average height was fourteen hands one inch, the data including eight pacers and two trotters. This, I think, may be taken as fairly representative of the size and habit of action of Massachusetts horses in the first half of the eighteenth century.

In 1636 the first plantation was made in Connecticut at Hartford by the Rev. Thomas Hooker and over a hundred of his congregation with him. They left nothing behind, but brought all their domestic animals to their new home. I have not been able to discover just how many horses they brought with them, but in a few decades they had a great abundance and to spare. In 1653 the General Court at New Haven made provision for keeping public saddle horses for hire and fixed the rate of charges for their use. It also prohibited the sale of horses outside of the colony. In 1658 all horses, young and old, had to be branded by an officer appointed for that purpose, and it required several years of legislation before the system of branding, selling and recording could be so perfected as to prevent dishonesty and frauds. In 1674 an act was passed providing and enjoining that all colts entire and stallions running at large, under thirteen hands high, should be gelded. This law also required a good deal of amending before it could be made to work smoothly. The size of the Connecticut horses about the time of the Revolution was an average of thirteen hands three inches, thus ranging below the other New England colonies. In 1778 horse racing was prohibited under the penalty of forfeiture of the horse and a fine of forty shillings. In 1776 a careful compilation of the gaits of the horses of that period, embracing nineteen individuals, taken as they came, showed that fifteen were pacers, or pacers and trotters, and four were trotters only. As an evidence of the quality of the Connecticut pacers, take the following passage from a little volume published 1769, in England, entitled “A Voyage to North America,” by G. Taylor, Sheffield, England, 1768-69: