330 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



" The progenitor of the entire family of Clay 



Horses, and the foundation of the 



American Trotting Horse." 



Then follow the names of the two gentlemen who presented 

 the bones to the Museum, but as a kindness to them their names 

 are omitted. The first clause of the inscription is true, but 

 the second is not true, and I very seriously doubt whether they 

 ever authorized the second clause. Henry Clay was not the 

 "foundation" of anything, except the airy fabric of a fortune for 

 our enthusiast. The scheme as an advertising dodge was well 

 worked, and the schemer could well exclaim, "Where now is Bill 

 Kysdyk's bull?" In the nature of things such shams cannot last; 

 this one had its fleeting day, and in the end the sheriff sold its 

 worthless accumulations. 



CASSIUS M. CLAY. This son of Henry Clay was quite a large 

 bay horse, taking his color and much of his shape from 

 his dam. He was foaled 1843, and his dam, Jersey Kate, 

 was the dam of the trotting horse John Anderson. Jersey 

 Kate was a bay, about fifteen hands three inches high, with 

 a clean, bony head, long neck, well set up, and when in driv- 

 ing condition was a little high on her legs. She was used in 

 livery work, and when a good and fast driver was wanted, Jersey 

 Kate was always in demand. In the same stable a pair of 

 "Canuck" ponies were kept that were driven in a delivery wagon. 

 They were duns with white manes and tails and about fourteen 

 and one-half hands high, quick steppers with no speed. One of 

 them slipped his halter one night and got Jersev Kate with foal. 

 While she was carrying this foal she became the property of Mr. 

 Z. B. Van Wyck's father, and when she had dropped her colt and 

 was put to farm work it was found that she was too rapid and 

 spirited for his other horses, and he sold her to Joseph Oliver, of 

 Brooklyn. The colt she dropped was weaned before the sale of 

 the dam and remained in the family till he grew up. He was a 

 grey, a little below fifteen hands, and as the boy, Z. B. Van Wyck, 

 had broken and ridden him he got it into his head that he would 

 make a trotter, so he bought him from his father for eighty dol- 

 lars. He continued to improve and he sold him to Timothy T. 

 Jackson and he to Charles Carman, who trotted him in many 

 races. When Mr. Oliver, then owner of Jersey Kate, saw her 

 "catch" colt by a "Canuck" pony able to beat many of the 

 good ones on the island, he concluded to breed her to Mr. 



