262 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



Kemington Horse). This was a grey horse, about sixteen hands 

 high, and possessed great strength and substance. When young 

 he was an iron grey and probably pretty dark, but as he advanced 

 in age he became lighter in color. His head was large and bony, 

 with great width between the eyes. He was short in the back, 

 with long hips, and the rise of the withers commenced far back, 

 showing a fine, oblique shoulder. He was a horse of unusually 

 large bone formation; his limbs were large, but flat and clean, 

 with a heavy growth of hair at the fetlocks. He was of docile and 

 kindly disposition and worked well either alone or with another. 

 His gait was open and decided and at a walk his long slinging 

 steps carried him over the ground unusually fast. His speed as 

 a trotter was never developed, but his action at that gait was so 

 free, open and square that those who knew him well have in- 

 sisted that his manner of going indicated the possibility of great 

 improvement, if he had been handled with that view. His oil- 

 spring were slow in maturing, and for many years, indeed till 

 toward the end of his life, he was not appreciated as a stallion. 

 He was in constant competition with the little, plump, trim and 

 trappy Morgans, and at three and four years old his long, lathy, 

 plain colts cut but a sorry figure against the well formed and 

 fully developed Morgans of their own age. With such a rivalry, 

 sustained by the question of profit to the breeder by early sales, 

 it is not remarkable that he should have been neglected, till it 

 was clearly demonstrated that he transmitted the true Messenger 

 trotting instinct in greater strength than any of his competitors. 

 He was bred by Isaac Munson, of Wallingford, Vermont; foaled 

 1823, got by Bishop's Hambletonian, son of Messenger; dam the 

 Munson mare that was brought from Boston, 1813. There never 

 has been any question about the sire of this horse, but up to 

 1869 the representation made by Mr. Harris that his dam was 

 an imported English mare was generally accepted as the truth. 

 I was led to doubt this, and in December of that year I made a 

 thorough search of the records of the custom-house in Boston, 

 and found the claim was without any foundation whatever. 

 Through the kindness of Mr. Henry D. Noble I was enabled to 

 get beyond Mr. Harris, who really knew nothing about the mare, 

 back to the Munson family, and to Mr. Joseph Tucker, the 

 earliest and best authority living in 1870. In order that this evi- 

 dence may be preserved I will here insert Mr. Tucker's letter 

 entire. 



