376 TUE BASHAWS AND CLAYS. 



the collateral, evidences of locality, date and ])l()<)d (qualities come in 

 to supjilement other known proofs, and in many cases, establish a 

 pedigree with a tolerable degree of certainty. In the case before us, 

 but little beyond surmise can be indulged in support of the pedigree, 

 beyond the one fact, which seems to be certain, that no one can posi- 

 tively contradict the assumed facts on which it rests. According to 

 the recent version of this pedigree, it is claimed that the dam of 

 George M. Patchen was a chance foal — begotten by a two-year-old 

 stallion that jumped into the pasture where the grandam was kept. 

 This two-year-old stallion is svipposed to have been a colt called 

 Head'em, by imp. Trustee, out of Itaska by American Eclipse, and 

 was a thoroughbred, and exceeding well bred if that be the pedigree. 



The above is the recently found pedigree for the sire of Patchen's 

 dam. The one that has been long current and generally given by those 

 acquainted with the horse while living, is, that the young stallion was a 

 full brother to Trustee, the twenty-mile trotter, whose dam was the 

 famous mare Fanny Pullen, and that he was castrated and driven as a 

 road horse afterward. If such was the horse, he was a good one, and the 

 very excellent quality of the blood ought to have been visible in the 

 immediate and other descendants of George M. Patchen. For in 

 trotting qiiality, the blood of American Eclipse, whose dam was the 

 racing mare Miller's Damsel, by Messenger, did not equal that of the 

 part bred horse Winthrop Messenger, the sire of Fanny Pullen. But 

 either version of the pedigree must be regarded as equally doubtful, 

 as the man who owned the dam of Patchen when one year old, and 

 whose brother raised her, says she was foaled in 1838, and he owned 

 her until she came to full age, and sold her to Richard Carman, the 

 breeder of Patchen. Trustee's oldest son in this country was foaled 

 in 1838 — same age as the filly. If she was by such son, she was not 

 foaled until 1841. • 



The grandam of George M. Patchen was a coarse sorrel mare of no 

 mentionable merit, used in a dirt wagon in the city of New York* 

 but the produce of this union, whatever may have been the sire, was 

 a light chestnut filly that proved to be an unusuall}^ good one. She 

 was driven as a match for a mare that cost fifteen hundred dollars, and 

 over matched into the bargain. She produced Geo. M. Patchen in 

 184-9, and he attained great eminence on the trotting turf, and reached 

 a record of 2:23^. His competitors were Gen. Butler, Flora Temple, 

 Lancet, Henry Clay, and many of the greatest trotters of the period. 

 He died in 1854, aged fifteen years, and left some very superior pro- 

 duce, but not in such great numbers as his distinguished sire. 



