38 THE AMERICAN FOXHOUND 



heavy coats, which helped them greatly in the dense cover they 

 often had to go through in the races. 



Among a number of hunters who had raised descendants of 

 old Mountain can be noted such families as the Brookes and 

 Griffiths of Montgomery county, the Hardeys and Linthicums of 

 Howard county, the Crawfords of Carroll county, and Nimrod 

 Gosnell; in later days Redmond C. Stewart, M. F. H. of Green 

 Spring Valley Hunt Club, Dorsey Williams of Patapsco Hunt 

 Club, the Sandy Spring Hunt Club of Montgomery county, and 

 William Griff ee of Carroll county. Frank Hobbs, a grandson of 

 the great Nimrod Gosnell, has a small pack of pure Maryland 

 hounds in Howard county. 



Probably the oldest native strain of Maryland hounds was 

 owned by the Brookes and Griffiths of Montgomery county. 

 The Brookes had bred and raised a pack of foxliounds from an 

 importation by their ancestor. Sir Robert Brooke, who was a 

 younger son of the Earl of Warwick. He came to this country 

 with Lord Baltimore and settled at the mouth of the Patuxent 

 River, and brought his pack of English hounds with him. 



Hounds have been kept in the Brooke family nearly up to the 

 present time. Roger Brookes' hounds in 1827 had a national 

 reputation, as can be proved by the following, taken from the 

 "Maryland Farmer" of that year. 



"A most extraordinary run was made by a red fox last week in 

 Montgomery county before a pack of high repute from Virginia 

 and Maryland. He is estimated to have run eighty miles, and 

 was not killed until late in the afternoon. This was trying to 

 the mettle of the dogs, and it is reported that the two leading 

 dogs throughout the chase belonged to Friend Roger Brooke. 

 As they ran with ambition and performed with success, in the 

 service for wliicli Providence obviously designed them, they de- 

 serve to have their names recorded and to be more honored than 

 the most successful butcher of the human species in unprinci- 

 pled wars. John S. Skinner." 



The Brooke pack produced some magnificent hounds, probably 

 the most noted was a hound known as "Brookes' Barney." This 

 dog was the result of a cross between Roger Brookes' "Sport" (a 

 hound with the conformation of a race-horse) and Thomas 

 Griffith, Jr's "Belle." He was heavily coated with steel gray 

 hair, immense in size, twenty-six inches at shoulder, powerful 

 bone and back, and a carriage of head and tail never excelled. 



