700 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
said, all other trotting branches, has reached its greatest triumphs 
when blended with that of Hambletonian and his sons and daughters. 
The Champions, a sterling line of less note, are also descended 
from Mambrino, son of Messenger. 
The Clay family of trotters was founded by Andrew Jackson, a 
trotter of high class in his day. He was ason of Young Bashaw, 
son of Grand Bashaw, a Barb imported from Tripoliin 1820. Young 
Bashaw’s dam was by the race-horse First Consul, and his grandam 
was by Messenger. Thedamof Andrew Jackson was a mare of un- 
known blood that, it is said, both trotted and paced. Andrew Jack- 
son was foaled 1827 at Salem, N. Y., and died at Knightstown, Pa., 
in 1843. His most noted sons, as trotting sires, were Henry Clay 
and Long Island Black Hawk, and some of his get were creditable 
performers. From Henry Clay we have the line of sires known 
through several generations by the name of Cassius M. Clay, and 
two other sons of Henry Clay, besides the original Cassius M. Clay, 
are known as sires of trotters. Cassius M. Clay, ist, got George 
M. Patchen, the most famous horse of the Clay line and founder of 
a valued family. 
Other noted sires of the Clay line are Cassius M. Clay (22); his son, 
American Clay; Harry Clay, son of Cassius M. Clay (20); the Moor, 
and his son Sultan, etc. The dam of old Henry Clay was Surrey, a 
Canadian trotting mare of unknown blood. The whole-Clay family 
has been charged with a lack of stamina, a charge unduly pressed 
and exaggerated, and some theorists imagine they find an explana- 
tion in the blood of Surrey. Be this as it may, Clay blood as an aux- 
iliary to Hambletonian strains has produced the grandest results. 
Long Island Black Hawk was a trotter and a sire of trotters of 
some merit. The best line from him is through the great Lowa horse, 
Green’s Bashaw, grandson of Long Island Black Hawk. The dam 
of Green’s Bashaw was a half-sister to Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, she 
being out of the Charles Kent mare by Bellfounder. 
The next noted family of trotters, the Black Hawks, frequently 
called Morgans, properly originated in Vermont Black Hawk, a horse 
whose breeding has never been satisfactorily established and is still 
seriously questioned. The generally accepted version is that he was 
got by Sherman Morgan, son of Justin Morgan, a pony-built horse 
of unknown blood, from whose loins came an excellent class of road 
horses. The descendants of Justin Morgan had the showy, trappy 
gait, conformation, and other characteristics that find their counter- 
part in certain Canadian families, and after duly weighing all the 
facts presented as to his history, I think the most reasonable conclu- 
sion is that he was of Canadian descent. It is of little importance, 
however, as his family (excepting the Black Hawk line, if that line 
really does belong to it), the Morgan family proper, hold no rank as 
a trotting race, albeit they were good, stylish, useful horses for the 
road and every-day uses, without the qualities essential to promi- 
nence on the turf. 
Vermont Black Hawk, the true progenitor of the so-called Mor- 
gan family of trotters, was foaled in 1853, near Durham, N. H., 
and, as I have said, is represented to be by Sherman Morgan, 
out of a mare from New Brunswick, Canada. Whatever his dam 
may have been, and the version just given is of questionable authen- 
ticity, she undoubtedly played the major part in giving to Black 
Hawk the degree of trotting capacity—mediocre, it is true—which he 
possessed. He was able to trot close to 2:40, and his reputed sire, if 
