INVESTIGATION OF DISPUTED PEDIGREES. 425 



Louisville, Kentucky, and we had some conversation on the 

 question of the pedigree of Sally Russell, which had then been in 

 hot controversy for some months. The subject was not a pleas- 

 ant one to him and he either parried or negatived the few ques- 

 tions I asked. A year or two after this I met him at the Gait 

 House in Louisville, and we had a very pleasant conversation. 

 The controversy about Sally Russell had then subsided, and I 

 asked him if he remembered his father's thoroughbred mare 

 Mary Churchill. "Oh, yes," he said, "she was the first horse I 

 ever rode, and my folks were very much afraid I would fall off 

 and get hurt." I then asked him if Mary Churchill was blind of 

 one eye, and he answered he "'could not remember." My next 

 question was, whether he recollected anything about Maria. Rus- 

 sell, and his reply was: "Nothing that is definite." Then fol- 

 lowed the inquiry, "whether there were any traditions in the 

 household going to show that his father ever owned Maria Rus- 

 sell," and he replied: "There are no traditions that are reliable." 

 These replies were a most grateful surprise to me, and if I have 

 not given the precise words used I certainly have given the pre- 

 cise meaning. 



Sixth. Llewellyn Holton was sixty-three years old in 1883 and 

 he was afflicted with physical paralysis, but his mind seems to 

 have been perfectly sound and memory good for a man of his age. 

 Before he had the slightest intimation that a pedigree was being 

 investigated that might call him into controversy, he was asked 

 about Maria Russell by one of the most prominent and distin- 

 guished of all the breeders of Kentucky, and that breeder wrote 

 me as follows: 



"I have seen Mr. L. Holton, the son of Captain Jolm A. Holton, of this 

 county, and be says his father bred and owned Maria Russell; tbat sbe was 

 by Rattler, and out of a mare by Stockholder, and was foaled 1834. He says 

 he thinks a man by the name of William Duvall can give some information 

 about these mares. I will see him to-morrow, and write you." 



As this information about Maria Russell was elicited from Mr. 

 Holton on the spur of the moment, and as he gave her pedigree 

 correctly, and not only this, but gave the year in which she was 

 foaled correctly, his memory, at least so far as this mare is con- 

 cerned seems to ha\3 been remarkably good. 



Seventh. My correspondent wrote a few days later: "I have 

 just learned from William Duvall, who trained for Captain J. A. 



