454 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



T have no doubt about this, as there was such a horse in that section about 

 that time. When I go to Buffalo, where Gilbert now lives, I may be able to- 

 get at more facts in regard to your inquiry, and if I can get hold of anything 

 that will give more light on the subject before I am down in New York, I will 

 drop into your office to see you. Very truly yours, etc. 



" J. S. LEWIS." 



The receipt of this letter, so straightforward and clean-cut in 

 its statements, developed a mystery that was incomprehensible 

 to me. Dates, names, places, circumstances, all stand out as evi- 

 dences of the truth of the representations, and also as evidences, 

 that Mr. Lewis had fully investigated the matter, and given the 

 results of his investigations to his friends in this city; still, those 

 friends had never heard the facts, or had entirely forgotten them. 

 As there was a strong prejudice against Clay blood in certain 

 quarters, it occurred to me that possibly that cross had been left 

 in abeyance so long that it really had been forgotten. This did 

 not clear up the mystery, however, and I determined to have the 

 whole matter investigated from a different starting point. I 

 submitted the matter to Mr. John P. Eay, a very capable and 

 very honest man, and he kindly and without reward undertook 

 the investigation. The Philips family lived in the vicinity of 

 Bristol, and the first of the family met by Mr. Ray was Mr. E. V. 

 Philips, nephew and adopted son of Joshua Philips (not Josiah, 

 as Mr. Lewis had it), and he enumerated several head of Clays 

 that had been owned by his uncle Joshua, among them a mare 

 that was bred by Mr. Clark Philips, bought of him when a year- 

 ling by E. V. Philips, sold as a four-year-old to his uncle Joshua,, 

 and by him the next year to "some man from the eastern part 

 of the country." He next met Mr. Clark Philips, who fully 

 confirmed E. V. Philips about the Clay filly already referred to- 

 and said she was got when old Henry Clay was owned by Kent 

 and Bailey of Bristol, and that her dam was "Old Telegraph" by 

 Highlander, etc. In his original report to me of his investiga- 

 tion Mr. Eay uses the following language: 



" When Henry Clay was being brou ht from the East to his home in West- 

 ern New York, he stopped one night at the hotel then kept in Bristol by Dr. 

 Durgan, deceased (the breeder of Castle Boy), and made a season at this place 

 the following year, when he became the property of Kent & Bailey. He wa& 

 kept in that town for several years, etc." 



Now, as between the original and voluntary statement of Cap- 

 tain Lewis and the investigation carried through by Mr. Eay,. 



