XXXI 

 THE GALL OF A DISTANT PAST 



It was in the year 1868 that JAMES HARVEY 

 SANDERS then engaged in banking and railway 

 construction work designed to give adequate trans- 

 portation facilities to a comparatively isolated com- 

 munity in Keokuk county in the state of Iowa 

 found himself in a position to indulge his inherited 

 fondness for farming and well-bred domestic animals. 

 Born in central Ohio from Virginia parentage, he 

 had not forgotten the impress made in the Sciota 

 Valley and in the "Darby Plains" country in the 

 Buckeye State by the first stallions of heavy draft 

 brought into those regions from the ancient French 

 province of Normandy. The first cross of these big 

 horses upon the native mares had been so success- 

 ful in increasing the size and selling value of the 

 colts produced, as compared with the ordinary types 

 prevalent in those early days, that he determined 

 to introduce the blood into that part of the newer 

 west in which he had taken up his residence. 



At that date there were but few horses of pure 

 French origin available. Old Louis Napoleon had 

 been brought out from Ohio into Illinois, and had 

 already laid the foundation for the subsequent pop- 

 ularity of the so-called "Norman" horse in the 



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