BLACKHAWK. 609 



representatives, that I am as ready to accept of that version as any 

 other. That her sire or dam came from England is a matter that I 

 can readily accept, in view of the many similar elements which we 

 have in this country, derived from Messenger, Hooton, Trustee, Sar- 

 pedon. Contract, Ainderby, Britannia, Mambrina and Melrose — all 

 displaying precisely the same traits, in greater or less degree, and all 

 tracing for the origin of those traits to the Black horse of mixed Lin- 

 colnshire and Arab blood, from which have descended the most posi- 

 tive and valuable trotting or roadster elements the world has yet 

 furnished. The blood in this mare may have been diluted and dis- 

 tant, but it was there, and the gait and manner of going of all the 

 descendants to this day declare it. She may not have been a Mam- 

 brino or a Messenger; she does not display in her descendants the 

 coarseness, the solid character, which follows that family. She was a 

 blood-like mare, and the Blackhawks are as handsome and blood-like 

 as if the Darley Arabian had been a close and near connection of 

 their famous progenitor. 



I have said that the dam of Blackhawk may not have been a Mam- 

 brino or any descendant of Messenger. I hardly believe she was. 

 If she was, she was so near to the original stock, that in addition to 

 the more positive traits of the family or blood of which I have spoken, 

 the strong and rough points of character which marked all the early 

 lines close to Messenger, Blackhawk would most likely have dis- 

 played in himself, and his immediate offspring, more of the real and 

 positive trotting quality of the Messenger family. It can not be said 

 that he did show this in strong degree. While he was a very hand- 

 some trotter, and produced some good trotters, had he stopped there 

 he could not have been accounted a great sire; he had, however, the 

 germ or elements, but not in strong degree. He could trot a mile in 

 2:42, two miles in 5:43, and he trotted five miles in sixteen minutes. 

 He was a roadster, and had some elements of a trotter. It was 

 beginning in him, and was to develop in his progeny; and it must be 

 said that it did increase very rapidly; but it is also apparent that his 

 trotting blood received reinforcements at every stage, and the success 

 of the family is largely due to that fact. 



Blackhawk — or as he is generally called, Vermont Blackhawk — 

 was foaled in 1833; a jet black, a little under fifteen hands high; bred 

 by Wingate Twombly, of Greenland, New Hampshire. When four 

 years old he was purchased by Benjamin Thurston, of Lowell, Mass., 

 for a family driving horse, and kept for that purpose until 1844, when 

 JJ3 



