On or near the old Boston Post Road, of which Bowery Lane and the Kingsbridge Road formed a part, there were taverns that gradually became rendezvous for those who drove out on the road for pleasure or diversion. While the old-fashioned chaise and gig were in use, the driver’s seat in a box directly over the axle, there was little desire or demand for a fast road horse. The great popularity of the trotter began with the introduction of the light wagon or buggy with elliptic steel springs. Before this period practically the only fast trotting was done under the saddle.
As early as 1818, the first trotting match against time of which we have any knowledge, took place on the Jamaica turnpike and was won by Boston Blue, or, as some say, by the Boston Pony, on a wager of one thousand dollars that no horse could be produced that could trot a mile in three minutes. The first race between trotters of which we have definite record took place in 1823 between Topgallant, owned by M. D. Green, and Dragon, owned by T. Carter. The course was from Brooklyn to Jamaica, a distance of twelve miles, and the race was won by Topgallant in thirty-nine minutes. The next year Topgallant, fourteen years old, won a three-mile race for stakes of two thousand dollars on the turnpike against Washington Costar’s Betsy Baker, doing the distance in eight minutes and forty-two seconds.
The advent of the light wagon created a great desire in those who drove out on the road to own a fast trotting horse. There was great rivalry and excitement and many of the wayside inns, formerly very quiet places, blossomed into profitable notoriety. The meeting of congenial spirits at these places, the gossiping of groups where the talk was all of the horse, the stories of the speed and stamina of the rival trotters produced much entertainment; matches were made at these places and decided on the road nearby.
CATO’S HOUSE
For nearly half a century Cato Alexander kept a house of entertainment on the old Boston Post Road about four miles from the city. Cato had a great reputation for his “incomparable” dinners and suppers which brought to his house everybody who owned a rig or could occasionally hire one to drive out to his place. After Third Avenue was laid out and macadamized a bend in the old Post Road extending from Forty-fifth Street to Sixty-fifth Street was for some time kept open and in use. On this bend of the old road Cato’s house was situated and it became known as Cato’s Lane. It was about a mile long and was a great spurting place for drivers of fast horses. Among the reminiscences of those who used to go to Cato’s in these days is the fact that Cato sold cigars—real cigars and good ones, too—at the rate of five for a shilling (12½ cents) and pure brandy, such as can not now be obtained on the road at any price, at six pence (6¼ cents) per glass. When the trotting horse became popular Cato’s became one of the noted halting places. Cato was black, but his modest, unpretending dignity of manner “secured for his humble house such a widespread reputation that for years it was one of the prominent resorts of our citizens and attracted many of the prominent sightseers who made pilgrimages to the island of Manhattan.”[7]
THE OLD HAZZARD HOUSE
On Yorkville Hill at Eighty-second Street was the Hazzard House, famous in its day as being the resort of those who delighted in speed and loved to indulge in the talk of the horse to be heard at such places. Its stables were generally filled with horses awaiting purchasers, whose merits and good points were told of in a manner so truthful, so confidential, so convincing that purchases were numerous. In 1835, and until a much later period, Third Avenue was a magnificent drive, being macadamized from Twenty-eighth Street to the Harlem River, and was much used by our sporting citizens of that period. Races were of almost daily occurrence and the Hazzard House was the center of much activity in that line.