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

by John Hankins Wallace

It is hardly possible to be mistaken in assuming that Rip Van Dam’s letter was written to some person in Philadelphia, and that Mr. Watson saw it there. I would give a great deal for the sight of it; and if it has been preserved in any of the public libraries of that city, either in type or in manuscript form, I have good hopes of yet inspecting it. In one point of view, it is of exceeding value, and that is its date. It is fully established by this letter that, as early as 1711, the Narragansetts were not only established as a breed or family, but that their fame was already widespread. This, of necessity, carries us back into the latter part of the seventeenth century, when their exceptional characteristics were first developed, or began to manifest themselves. In reaching that period we are so near the first importations of horses to the colonies that it is no violence to either history or good sense to conclude that the original Narragansett was one among the very earliest importations. This plays havoc with some Rhode Island traditions, as will be seen below; but with 1711 fixed as a point when the breed was famous, traditions must stand aside.

While on this matter of dates, it may not be unprofitable to compare the advent of the Narragansett with the well-known epochs in horse history. Every schoolboy knows that the Darley Arabian and the Godolphin Arabian, say twenty years after, were the great founders of the English race horse. The Narragansetts had reached the very highest pinnacle of fame before the Darley Arabian was foaled. Darley Arabian reached England about the same year that Rip Van Dam’s Narragansett jumped over the side of the sloop and swam ashore, and this was eighty years before there was an attempt at publishing an English stud book. When Janus and Othello, and Traveller, and Fearnaught, the great founders of the American race horse, first reached Virginia, they found the Narragansett pacer had been there more than a generation before. On the point of antiquity, therefore, the Narragansett is older than what we designate as the thoroughbred race horse, and if he has a lineal descendant living to-day the pacer has a longer line of speed inheritance, at his gait, than the galloper.

The only attempt at a description of this breed that I have met with is that given by Cooper, the novelist, in a footnote to “The Last of the Mohicans.” This note may be accepted as history, so far as it goes, and pretends to be history; but I am not prepared to admit that all the breed were sorrels. This color, no doubt, prevailed in those specimens that Mr. Cooper had seen or heard of, but I think all colors prevailed, as in other breeds. He says:

“In the State of Rhode Island there is a bay called Narragansett, so named for a strong tribe of Indians that formerly dwelt on its banks. Accident, or one of those unaccountable freaks which nature sometimes plays in the animal world, gave rise to a breed of horses which were once well known in America by the name of Narragansetts. They were small, commonly of the color called sorrel in America, and distinguished by their habit of pacing. Horses of this race were, and still are, in much request as saddle-horses, on account of their hardiness, and the ease of their movements. As they were also sure of foot, the Narragansetts were much sought for by females who were obliged to travel over the roots and holes in the new countries.”

Without having a minute description of so much as a single individual of the race, I can only infer, from general descriptions, as to what their family peculiarities of form and shape may have been. It is fully established that they were very compact and hardy horses, and that they were not large; perhaps averaging about fourteen and a quarter hands in height. I have met with no intimation that they were stylish or handsome, and we think it is safe to conclude that they were plain in their form, and low in their carriage. From my conceptions of the horse I think one of the better-shaped Canadian pacers, of fifteen hands or thereabouts, might be accepted as a fair representative of the Narragansett of a hundred and fifty years ago. He was fleet, hardy, docile, and sure-footed, but not beautiful, and it is reasonable to suppose that the lack of style and beauty was one of the leading causes of his becoming extinct in the land of his nativity.

In considering the causes which resulted in what we may call the dispersal of the Narragansett pacers, and their extinction in the seat of their early fame, we must be governed by what is reasonable and philosophical in the industrial interests of the people, rather than look for some great overwhelming disaster, like an earthquake, that ingulfed them in a night. In speaking of this dispersal, and the causes which led to it, Mr. Hazard says:

“One of the causes of the loss of that famous breed here was the great demand for them in Cuba, when that island began to cultivate sugar extensively. The planters became suddenly rich, and wanted the pacing-horse for themselves and their wives and daughters to ride, faster than we could supply them, and sent an agent to this country to purchase them on such terms as he could, but to purchase them at all events. I have heard my father say he knew the agent very well, and he made his home at the Rowland Brown House, at Tower Hill, where he commenced purchasing and shipping until all the good ones were sent off. He never let a good one escape him. This, and the fact that they were not so well adapted to draught as other horses, was the cause of their being neglected, and I believe the breed is now extinct in this section. My father described the motion of this horse as differing from others in that his backbone moved through the air in a straight line, without inclining the rider from side to side, as the common racker or pacer of the present day. Hence it was very easy; and being of great power of endurance, they would perform a journey of a hundred miles in a day, without injury to themselves or rider.”

We can understand very well how an enormous and unexpected demand from Cuba without restriction as to price, should reduce the numbers of the breed very materially. But it is a poor compliment to the intelligence and thrift of the good people of Narragansett to say that, because there was a lively demand, they killed the goose that laid the golden egg every day. It is a slander upon that Yankee smartness which is proverbial to conclude that they deprived themselves of the means of supplying a market that was making them all rich. We must, therefore, look for other causes that were more potent in producing, so marked a result.