THE HEREFORD 



205 



The introduction of the Hereford to America first occurred, so 

 far as records show, in 1817, when Henry Clay brought four 

 head to his home at Lexington, Kentucky, one bull dying in 

 transit. About 1825 Admiral Coffin of the British navy sent the 

 bull Sir Isaac and a cow as a gift to the Massachusetts Society 



FIG. 83. Fire King (22135), first-prize and champion Hereford bull at the 

 Royal Agricultural Society of England Show, 1904. Exhibited by King 

 Edward. Photograph from the National Stockman and Farmer 



for Promoting Agriculture. Later other importations followed in 

 a small way. In 1840 W. H. Sotham, a native of Herefordshire, 

 England, who had previously emigrated to America, imported to 

 Albany, New York, in partnership with Erastus Corning, Jr., 

 twenty-one cows and heifers and a two-year-old bull. This 

 importation was followed by others in 1840, 1843, 1852-1853, and 

 1861-1862. Sotham worked hard to promote the breed, but nei- 

 ther the Kentucky, Massachusetts, nor New York importations 

 awoke enthusiasm. Burleigh and Bodwell of Maine also imported 

 some about 1840, and in 1851 John Humphries and Thomas 

 Aston of Ohio did the same. In 1860 F. W. Stone of Guelph, 



