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

by John Hankins Wallace

After several years of fruitless search for some trace of the early importations of horses into the colony of Rhode Island, I have reached the conclusion that probably no such importations were ever made. The colony of Massachusetts Bay commenced importing horses and other live stock from England in 1629, and continued to do so for several years and until they were fully supplied, as stated above. In 1640 a shipload of horses were exported to the Barbadoes, and it was about this time that Rhode Island began to assume an organized existence. Her people were largely made up of refugees from the religious intolerance of the other New England colonies, and they brought their families and effects, including their horses, with them. The blood of the Narragansett pacer, therefore, was not different from the blood of the pacers of the other colonies, but the development of his speed by the establishment of a pacing course and the offering of valuable prizes, naturally brought the best and the fastest horses to this colony and from the best and fastest they built up a breed that became famous throughout all the inhabited portions of the Western Hemisphere. The race track, with the valuable prizes it offered and the emulation it aroused, was what did it. As the question of origin is thus settled in accordance with what is known of history and the natural order of things, and as the Narragansett is the great tribe representing the lateral action then and since, we must consider such details of history as have come down to us.

The Rev. James McSparran, D.D., was sent out by the London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to take charge of an Episcopal church that had been planted some years before in Rhode Island. He arrived in 1721, and lived till 1759. He was an Irishman, and appears to have been somewhat haughty and irascible in his temperament and was disposed to find fault with the climate, the currency, the people, and pretty much everything he came in contact with. He was a man of observation, and during the thirty-eight years he spent in ministering to the spiritual wants of his flock, he was not unmindful of what was passing around him, and made many notes and reflections on the various phases of life as they presented themselves to his mind, and especially on the products and industries of the colony. These notes and observations he wrote out, and they were published in Dublin in 1753, under the title of “America Dissected.”

His writings do not discover that he was a man of very ardent piety, but he was honored as a good man while he lived, and was buried under the altar he had served so long. His duties sometimes called him away into Virginia, and, in speaking of the great distance of one parish from another, he uses the following language:

“To remedy this (the distance), as the whole province, between the mountains, two hundred miles up, and the sea, is all a champaign, and without stones, they have plenty of a small sort of horses, the best in the world, like the little Scotch Galloways; and ’tis no extraordinary journey to ride from sixty to seventy miles or more in a day. I have often, but upon larger pacing horses, rode fifty, nay, sixty miles a day, even here in New England, where the roads are rough, stony and uneven.”

The reverend gentleman seems to assume that his readers knew the Scotch Galloways were pacers, and with this explanation his observations are very plain. He makes no distinction between the Virginia horse and his congener of Rhode Island except that of size, in which the latter had the advantage. In speaking of the products of Rhode Island he says:

“The produce of this colony is principally butter and cheese, fat cattle, wool, and fine horses, which are exported to all parts of English America. They are remarkable for fleetness and swift pacing; and I have seen some of them pace a mile in a little more than two minutes, and a good deal less than three.”

When I first read this sentence in the reverend doctor’s book I confess I was not prepared to accept it in any other light than that of a wild enthusiast, who knew but little of the force of the language he used. To talk about horses pacing, a hundred and fifty years ago, in a little more than two minutes and a good deal less than three, appeared to be simply monstrous. The language evidently means, according to all fair rules of construction, that the mile was performed nearer two minutes than three, or in other words, considerably below two minutes and thirty seconds. I doubt not my readers will hesitate, and perhaps refuse, to accept such a performance, just as I did myself till I had carefully weighed not only the character of the author of the statement, but the circumstances that seemed to support it. If the learned divine had known no more of the world and its ways than many of his profession, I would have concluded he was not a competent judge of speed; but he was a man of affairs, and knew perfectly well just what he was saying. The question naturally arises here as to what opportunities or facilities the doctor had for timing those pacers of a hundred and fifty years ago. In a note appended to the above extract by Mr. Updike, the editor of the work, I find the following:

“The breed of horses called Narragansett pacers, once so celebrated for fleetness, endurance and speed, has become extinct. These horses were highly valued for the saddle, and transported the rider with great pleasantness and sureness of foot. The pure bloods could not trot at all. Formerly they had pace-races. Little Neck Beach, in South Kingston, of one mile in length, was the race course. A silver tankard was the prize, and high bets were otherwise made on speed. Some of these prize tankards were remaining a few years ago. Traditions respecting the swiftness of these horses are almost incredible.”

The facts stated by Mr. Updike in this note are corroborated from other sources, and may be accepted as true. These were the opportunities and facilities the doctor had for holding his watch, and nobody will doubt they were sufficient to enable him to be a competent witness. In connection with this subject, and as another footnote, Mr. Updike introduces a letter from Mr. I. T. Hazard, which brings out another very curious fact in the history of the pacer. The Hazard family was very eminent in Rhode Island, and many of its members have occupied positions of high honor and responsibility for several generations. The date of the letter is not given, and we may infer it may have been written fifty years ago, or perhaps more. Mr. Hazard says:

“Within ten years one of my aged neighbors, Enoch Lewis, since deceased, informed me he had been to Virginia as one of the riding boys, to return a similar visit of the Virginians in that section, in a contest on the turf; and that such visits were common with the racing sportsmen of Narragansett and Virginia, when he was a boy. Like the old English country gentlemen, from whom they were descended, they were a horse-racing, fox-hunting, feasting generation.”