CHAPTER IX. 



COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY NEW YORK. 



Settlement of New Amsterdam Horses from Cura(;oa Prices of Dutch and 

 English horses Van der Donck's description and size of horses Horses- 

 to be branded Stallions under fourteen hands not to run at large 

 Esopus horse Surrender to the English, 1664 First organized racing 

 Dutch horses capable of improvement in speed First advertised Sub- 

 scription Plate First restriction, contestants must "be bred in America " 

 Great racing and heavy betting First importations of English running 

 horses Half-breds to the front True foundation of American pedigrees 

 Half bushel of dollars on a side Resolutions of the Continental Congress 

 against racing Withdrawal of Mr. James De Lancey Pacing and trot- 

 ting contests everywhere Rip Van Dam's horse and his cost. 



FOR several years after Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the 

 employ of the Dutch, discovered the harbor of New York and 

 the great river which took his name, in the year 1609, there is 

 uncertainty and doubt as to the nature of the settlement. For a 

 time it seems to have been merely a trading post, occupied only 

 by those in the employment of the company that owned it, and 

 without many of the elements requisite to make up a permanent 

 colony. At Fort Orange (Albany) and at Esopus (Kingston), 

 the conditions were the same as at New Amsterdam, as New 

 York was then named. The first party of immigrants that seemed 

 to have the elements of permanent colonization about it arrived 

 in 1625, and consisted of six families and several single men, 

 making in all forty-five persons, with furniture, utensils, etc., 

 and one hundred and three head of cattle. Doubtless some of 

 these "cattle" were horses, and the general instead of the specific 

 term was used in enumerating them. Very little is known of the 

 early horse history of the New Netherlands, as the whole region 

 was then named; there can be no doubt, however, that they in- 

 creased and multiplied. Sometime, probably about 1643, a cargo 

 or two of horses were brought up from Curac.oa and Azuba, in 

 the Dutch West Indies, but the climatic change was too great for 

 them, and they did not do well, being specially subject to diseases 



