CHAPTER I. 



FOX HUNTING. 



If any there are interested in fox hunting 

 who have the idea that it is a sport of compar- 

 atively recent origin in this country, it is well to 

 disabuse their minds of this great error, for it is 

 well authenticated by history that the English and 

 French people who first became settlers in 

 America brought the love of this sport with them 

 from Great Britain and France, where it had been 

 the pastime of English, Irish, and French gentle- 

 men from very early ages. Many of the bravest 

 and most daring of the officers of the Continental 

 army during the American Revolution had been 

 trained in horsemanship and courage by fox 

 hunting. The Quaker settlers of Pennsylvania, 

 no doubt, had a prejudice against it in the earher 

 days, but the farmers among them soon learned 

 to look upon the sport with a friendly submis- 

 sion, as it was taken up by those in the common- 

 wealth who were disposed to follow the hounds, 

 and at an early date there were quite a few of 

 these. Bayard Taylor opens his excellent Story 

 of Kennett with a bag hunt at the old Barton 

 farm near Kennett Square in 1796, and he says: 



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