SILVEllTAIL AND ONE EYE. 155 



I do not know tliat I can give you any more information that -would interest 

 you in relation to the origin of the Hambletonian stock. I never saw old 

 Messenger, although I heard much of him from those who knew him well. 



Respectfully yours, T. Seely. 



I also insert a part of a letter, at one time written by the well- 

 known compiler of the Trotting Register, as follows: 



In the summer of 1807, Mr. John Seely, of Sugar Loaf, Orange county, was 

 down at New York with a drove of cattle. He was riding an eight-year-old 

 brown mare, by old Messenger. This mare had white hairs in her tail, hence 

 he called her Silvertail. His son Jonas, a lad nine or ten years old, was along 

 helping to drive the cattle and see the city. Having disposed of his drove, he 

 was exceedingly anxious to get home, but did not like to leave the lad ; so he 

 took him up behind him on old Silvertail, and galloped home that day — sev- 

 enty-five miles. The date of the circumstance was fixed in the boy's mind by 

 a remarkable eclipse of the sun that day. The old mare frequently carried 

 Mr. Seely alone to Albany— one hundred miles— in a day. Her trotting action 

 was not much developed, but she would gallop all day long. Mr. Seely bred 

 this mare to Hambletonian, the in-bred son of old Messenger, and the produce 

 was a brown filly, rather hard to manage when they came to break her; and 

 one day, in a fight to make her do as they wanted, she got one eye knocked 

 out — hence they called her One Eye. 



This mare, One Eye, was bred to imported Bellfounder, and the produce 

 was a handsome dark bay mare that showed a fine step as a trotter ; and as 

 that way of going was then becoming fashionable, she was sold to New York 

 for a good price. She eventually passed into the hands of Mr. Charles Kent, 

 and was queen of the road for a number of years. 



Meantime, Mr. Seely, Sr., had died, and the present Mr. Seely— the lad of 

 1807— succeeded to the name and the estate. On a certain occasion he saw the 

 Charles Kent mare, as she was then called. She had been hardly used— one 

 hip knocked down, and dilapidated generally. Knowing the wonderful 

 merit of the family, he bought her again for a trifle, and took her home to 

 breed from. She produced several foals. In 1849 she brought a nice bay 

 colt, by old Abdallah, and in the autumn of that year he sold the old mare, with 

 this colt at her foot, to Wm. M. Eysdyk, for |125, and that colt is Rysdyk's 

 Hambletonian. 



These facts I had from the lips of Mr. Jonas Seely himself, than whom 

 there is no more reliable gentleman in the great State in which he lives. 



As it has been a matter of great controversy, on which much has 

 been spoken and written, concerning the relative merit of the two great 

 sires from which Hambletonian came — Abdallah and Bellfounder — I 

 will, of course, be expected to give the question some consideration. 

 I give it as my opinion, in advance, that it is a matter concerning 

 which much error has been taught, and much been said, without any 

 adequate understanding of the subject. 



