320 HOUSE PORTRAITURE. 



of blood in trotters, I have been met with, what they con- 

 sidered convincing proof, that until late years there never 

 was a thoroughbred horse in the New England States. 

 They would ridicule the idea that there ever were any 

 "running races" in Boston, unless of the scrub kind, and, 

 when proven, would only admit a fact they could not 

 longer dispute, but qualify it with the assertion that the 

 horses that ran in them were carried there, and 011 the 

 conclusion of the races taken back. Tell them that 

 Admiral Coffin imported Barefoot to Boston, or that men 

 purchased blood horses for stud purposes, taking them to 

 their homes on the banks of the Kennebec, or among the 

 green hills that bordered Lake Champlain on the east, 

 and they would be moved to laughter so boisterous that 

 they would almost be in the state of Dr. Holmes' patient, 

 who frightened him from afterwards writing anything " as 

 funny as he could. " Mr. Van Eanst sold Defiance, by 

 "Florizel, to go to Northern N. Y. ; Cock of the Rock, by 

 Duroc, out of Romp, by Messenger, to General Barnum, 

 tf Vermont; Dinwiddie, by Diomede, dam by Wildair, to 

 ft company at Utica, N. Y. ; Selah, by Bussorah Arabian, 

 4am by Messenger, to Saratoga County, N. Y.; Callender, 

 My Eclipse, his dam by Sir Archy, to Washington County, 

 N. Y.; Liberty, by Dinwiddie, dam Miller's Maid, by 

 Duroc, grandam Miller's Damsel, by Messenger, to Bran- 

 don, Vermont. At that day, 1825, the blood horse was 

 recognized to be the one to breed from, though twenty-five 

 years later they were carried away by false lights after the 

 splattering little Morgans, and part-bred Canucks, which, 

 by an infusion of racing blood, were redeemed from utter 

 worthlessness; yet if you show me a region where a trot- 

 ter, worthy of the name, has been bred, I will undertake 

 to prove that, at no distant day, the blood horse was there 

 and prepared the way. There are exceptions, as in e very- 

 tiling else, though I am acquainted with but one of any 



