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

by John Hankins Wallace

After the appearance of this pedigree in the “Register” I was greatly surprised that nobody believed it, and the more a horseman knew of the horse and his history the more positive he was that it was a mistake. Several years passed away, and while I kept insisting it was true, the unbelievers became more persistent than ever in their opposition to the pedigree. The consensus of the opinions of horsemen seemed to be that the horse was part “Canuck,” and this was the view held by his owner, Edmund Seely, as long as he lived. At last the following story came to me from different responsible persons, all of whom were personally cognizant of the facts they related, as follows: On a certain occasion a street contractor had a force at work, grading with shovels and carts, near the foot of Twenty-third Street, I think, New York City. Among the cart horses there was a Canadian stallion and a frisky, high-strung bay mare that wouldn’t work kindly. One day during the noon hour, the “boys” for amusement brought this stallion and mare together and in due time the mare proved to be with foal, and she was sent over to Jersey the next spring. The foal she there dropped was Seely’s American Star. When I asked to whom the mare had been sent to be taken care of, the answer came back quickly naming the same man whom I had represented as the breeder. As the contractor had no use for the colt, as a matter of course, the keeper of the mare would take the colt for the keeping. There is nothing unnatural nor unreasonable in this story, and it bears a pretty strong resemblance to the way the dam of the famous George M. Patchen came into the world.

When the horse was four or five years old he began to show a fine trotting step and he was sold to John Blauvelt, of New York, for a driving horse. His feet not being strong, in the course of a year or two he developed a couple of quarter cracks and he was sent back to the man who raised him to be cured. In the winter of 1844-5 he was sold to Cyrus Dubois, of Ulster County, New York, who kept him in the stud the seasons of 1845, 1846 and 1847. His advertisement for the year 1847 reads as follows:

“American Star is a chestnut sorrel, eight years old on the 11th day of April, 1847, near 16 hands high, etc.... He was sired by the noted trotting horse Mingo, of Long Island, who was got by old Eclipse. American Star’s dam, Lady Clinton, the well-known trotting mare of New Jersey, was sired by Sir Henry.”

Here we have the third pedigree of this horse, and now the question arises, Where did this pedigree come from? Cyrus Dubois is dead, but a living brother of his says this is the pedigree that Cyrus brought with the horse from New Jersey. As this same quasi-breeder was the man who delivered the horse to Dubois, the statement of the living brother comes very near proving that the first and the third of the pedigrees here given were the work of the same man. Again, in 1844, this same quasi-breeder kept this horse at Warwick and New Milford, in Orange County, New York, and nobody in that region seems to have ever heard of either of these pedigrees. And again, this quasi-breeder wrote me that after Edmund Seely had brought the horse to Goshen he went to see him, and after fully identifying him as the same horse he had bred he gave the pedigree to Mr. Seely as he had given it to me. If this be true it is a very strange thing that Mr. Seely never seemed to know anything about it, but persisted in giving the pedigree as by a Canadian horse and out of a mare by Henry. Upon the whole, I long ago concluded that my first and earliest correspondent on the question of American Star’s origin was unfortunate in having a mental organization that placed him “long” on the ideal, and “short” on the real.

His stud services may be summarized as follows: In 1844 he was kept at Warwick and New Milford, Orange County, New York. In 1845, 1846 and 1847 he was in Ulster County, and on the borders of Orange. In 1848 and 1849 he was at Hillsdale, Columbia County, New York. In 1850, 1851, 1852 and 1853 he was at Goshen and other points in Orange County. In 1854 he was at Elmira, New York. In 1855, it is said on good authority, he was kept ten miles below Hudson. Others say he was at Piermont, Rockland County, that year. In 1856 he was at Mendota, Illinois. In 1857, 1859 and 1860 he was again in Goshen. In February, 1861, he died at Goshen, the property of Theodore Dusenbury. In Orange County his service fee ranged from ten to twenty dollars, and at last twenty-five dollars, and he was liberally patronized. An unusually large percentage of his foals were fillies, and he was essentially a brood-mare sire from the start. Opinions differ very widely among horsemen as to his capacity for speed, some maintaining that he could trot in 2:35 while others insisted on placing him ten seconds slower. In trying to harmonize these conflicting views it is probably safe to conclude that, when fit, which seldom occurred in his whole life, his speed was about 2:40. He was always a cripple from defective feet and limbs, and his whole progeny were more or less subject to the same troubles.

He left four trotters that barely managed to get inside the 2:30 list and eight sons that put sixteen inside of the list. But his strong point was in the producing character of his daughters. Thirty-six of these daughters left forty-five of their produce inside of 2:30. The disparity in the producing power of the sexes in this family is very remarkable and, in a breeding sense, very instructive. In the light of what has been developed in this family in the past fifty years, we are certainly ready to form a safe estimate of its value as a factor in the combination that goes to make up a breed of trotters. Star mares gave us a Dexter and a Nettie, and all the world thought that was the blood that was to live on and on in the new breed. But, while Hambletonian was able to get great trotters from Star mares, he was not able to get, through their attenuated trotting inheritance, sons that would be as great as himself. To his cover Star mares produced no such great sires as George Wilkes, Electioneer, Egbert, Happy Medium, and Strathmore. In the instances of Dictator and Aberdeen there was a reasonable measure of success, but all the others—and there were many of them—proved comparative failures. There is a lesson taught here that any one can interpret.

American Star (Conklin’s) was a chestnut horse, foaled 1851, and got by Seely’s American Star, and his dam has been variously represented, with nothing established as to her blood. He was bred by a Mr. Randall, of Orange County, and was among the first from his sire to attract attention. He came into the hands of E. K. Conklin when young, and was taken by him to Philadelphia, and was owned by him during his lifetime. He gave early promise of making a trotter, and from 1865 to 1868 he was on the turf, more or less, and left a record of 2:33. His stud services were confined to the region of Philadelphia till the year 1872, when he was taken back to Orange County and died there. Three of his get entered the 2:30 list; two of his sons got one trotter each and four or five of his daughters produced one each.

At one time the name “American Star” was very popular, and quite a number of stallions were so named that were bogus; but his son Magnolia put two in the 2:30 list; one son got three trotters, and three daughters produced five performers. His son Star of Catskill got two performers, and his son King Pharaoh got four pacers and all of them fast. The family has not grown strong either in numbers or in merit. It has been carried, so far, by the influences of stronger blood, and it seems destined to complete absorption and extinction in more potent strains.

Pilot, the head of the Pilot family, was a black pacing horse, and of later years he has been generally designated as “Old Pacing Pilot.” He was foaled about 1826, and nothing is known of his origin or his blood. From his make-up and appearance he was generally considered a Canadian, as was the custom at that time, and I think I have used this term myself in referring to the horse, but there is really no foundation for crediting him to that source. The earliest information we have of him is from an unpublished source, to the effect that he was well known to certain sporting men about Covington, Kentucky. He next appears in New Orleans, hitched to a peddler’s cart, but really looking for a match as a green pacer. To promote this object, Major Dubois, a sporting man, was taken into the confidence of his owner, and it is said the horse showed him a mile in 2:26 with one hundred and sixty-five pounds on his back, and the major bought him for one thousand dollars. In 1832 Dubois sold him to Glasgow & Heinsohn, a livery stable firm of Louisville, Kentucky, and he remained the property of that firm till he died, about 1855. It has been asserted with some semblance of authority that he could trot as well as pace, but this seems to be wholly apocryphal, and on this point I am prepared to speak without hesitation or doubt. A large breeder in the vicinity of Louisville, whom I have learned to trust implicitly, through the intercourse of many years, has assured me repeatedly that he knew the horse and his master well, and that he had seen him very often, for years, that he would not trot, and that his master could not make him trot a step. On the occasion of a very deep fall of snow he was taken out to see whether that would not compel him to trot, and he went rolling and tumbling about with no more gait than a hobbled hog.

He left a numerous progeny, most of them pacers, with some trotters. We know but little of their merits, as at that period pacing and trotting races were carried on, generally, on guerrilla principles, and no records kept, except at a few of the more prominent occasions. His fastest pacer, probably, was Bear Grass, and there is a little history here that will be interesting further on. My late friend, Edmund Pearce, had always, from childhood, been a great admirer of the grand old saddle mare, Nancy Taylor. She had been bred to Old Pilot and produced a colt foal, which Mr. Pearce bought when young and named him Bear Grass. This was the first piece of horseflesh he ever owned, and he didn’t think he had ever owned a better one. He was amazingly fast, and could go away from all competitors, but unfortunately an accident befell him that ended his career before he reached maturity. Bear Grass had a half-sister called Nancy Pope, being the daughter of Nancy Taylor, that was afterward bred to Old Pilot, and she produced the famous Pilot Jr., that was the fastest trotter from the loins of the old pacer. Pilot Jr. took the diagonal form of the trot from his dam and never paced. It is worthy of noting that Nancy Taylor and Nancy Pope—mother and daughter—produced old Pilot’s fastest pacer and fastest trotter.