THE BLACK HAWK OR MORGAN FAMILY. 373 



have already received more attention than their importance de- 

 mands and I will therefore call this the close of the third chapter. 



There are several incidents connected with the life of the colt 

 of 1793 that fixed his identity and age upon the recollections of 

 the neighbors and friends of Justin Morgan. Solomon Steele, 

 Evans, Rice and others who knew the colt well, all agree that the 

 colt followed his companion and playmate from West Springfield 

 to Randolph in the autumn of 1795 and that he was not then 

 halter broken. They all agree that Evans hired him for fifteen 

 dollars a year to draw logs in his clearing, in the place of a yoke of 

 oxen. They all agree that Justin Morgan died in March, 1798, 

 and that the colt was then sold as a five-year-old. The death was 

 an immovable date fixer around which everything in connection 

 with these events must be determined. And when the horse 

 died in 1821 nobody had ever doubted that he was foaled 1793. 



Justin Morgan, Jr., was in his tenth year when the colt was 

 brought home, and he was twelve years old when his father died. 

 In 1842 Justin Morgan, Jr., in a communication to the Albany 

 Cultivator, says: "One was a three-year-old gelding colt, which 

 he led; and the other a two-year-old stud colt, which followed all 

 the way from Springfield, The said two-year-old colt was the 

 same that has since been known all over New England by the 

 name of the Morgan Horse. I know that my father always, while 

 he lived, called him a Dutch horse. I have a perfect recollection 

 of the horse when my father owned him and afterward, and well 

 remember that my father always spoke of him as of the best 

 blood." 



When he made these clean-cut and emphatic declarations 

 Justin Morgan, Jr., was fifty-six years old, and it has been sug- 

 gested that he was too young, at the time, to have remembered 

 about the colt. This is a grave mistake, for farmer's boys re- 

 member a thousand things better then than they ever do after- 

 ward. I don't think that my own memory is remarkable, but to- 

 day, at over three score and ten, I can, with the utmost distinct- 

 ness, recall the names, color, markings, size, peculiarities and, in 

 some cases, the history of most of the horses that were on the 

 farm when I was eight years old. I can, therefore, have no hesita- 

 tion in accepting Justin Morgan's evidence on account of his 

 youthfulness, at the time of which he speaks. 



Did Justin Morgan know what he was saying when he "always, 

 while he lived, called his horse a Dutch horse?" And did he 



