ANGORA GOATS IN THE UNITED STATES.
The history of the Angora goat in the United States dates from 1849, when Dr. James B. Davis, of Columbia, South Carolina, was presented with nine choice animals by the Sultan. The Sultan had requested President Polk to send a man to Turkey who understood the culture of cotton. Dr. Davis was appointed, and upon his return to America the Sultan, as a courtesy, presented him with the goats. For many years after their arrival in the United States these goats were considered cashmeres. Early reports about the fleeces and the goats were erroneous, and many were led to believe that the fleeces from these goats were worth $8 per pound, and that the goats would shear from six to eight pounds per year.
Dr. Davis did not do very well with the goats. He crossed his Angora buck onto some of the native common goats, and sold some of the cross-bloods and possibly some of the original importation to various parties, but in 1854, Col. Richard Peters, of Atlanta, Georgia, secured most of the Davis goats. To Col. Peters really belongs the credit of keeping the Angora breed in existence in the United States up to the early sixties. Col. Peters was very fond of his Angoras, and he continued to own and run them up to the time of his death. He made a very creditable exhibit at the New Orleans World's Fair in 1885.
THE CHENERY IMPORTATIONS.
W. W. Chenery of Belmont, near Boston, Massachusetts, is supposed to have made the next two importations in 1861. No one seems to know exactly how many goats Mr. Chenery imported or what became of these lots. Mr. Thompson quotes the Massachusetts Ploughman as saying, "The first of the two lots, consisting of thirty nine animals, was shipped from Constantinople on the 26th of March, 1861, and arrived at Boston on the 15th of May, except two animals which died on the passage. The second lot consisting of forty one head, left Constantinople on the 6th of October, 1861, and arrived at Boston on the 25th of November with the loss of only one on the voyage. In the whole flock, eighty in all, there were about a dozen males, and all the animals wintered well."
It is generally supposed that Mr. Chenery made another importation in 1866, of about twenty head.
ANGORA GOAT.
Brown and Diehl Importation, about 1868 or 1869.