The Old Colony Driving Club 



THE Old Colony Driving Club, 

 from the humble first member- 

 ship of five, who, at that time, 

 were members of the Dorchester 

 Gentlemen's Driving Club and, 

 residing on the South Shore, had to drive 

 quite a distance from their homes to race on 

 the Dorchester Speedway, has grown within 

 the past three years to be one of the largest 

 and most enthusiastic, as well as prosperous, 

 driving clubs in New England. The club 

 draws its membership from Quincy. Wey- 

 mouth, Braintree, Whitman, Abington, Rock- 

 land and Hingham. 



The racing ground of the club is at South 

 Weymouth, directly in the center of this ter- 

 ritory, and they have one of the best half-mile 

 tracks, with spacious grandstands and sixty- 

 two as fine horse stalls as there are in New 

 England. All of these things have a great 

 bearing on the success and prosperity of the 

 club, coupled with the interesting races held 

 every Saturday and holiday during the season, 

 which begins April 19 and ends November 1. 

 On holidays the club features extra attrac- 

 tions and charges admission at the gate. On 

 all other racing days admission is free. 



On a returning trip home from an annual 

 election of the Dorchester Gentlemen's Driv- 

 ing Club, one night in December of 1907, 

 Harry C. Thayer, H. P. Hobart, W. H. Foss 

 and George French, of South Braintree, with 

 B. C. Wilder, of Hingham, talked over the 

 matter of organizing a driving club for the 

 horsemen of the South Shore, and the leas- 

 ing of the South Weymouth track. 



Meetings were held in the stable office of 

 Harry Thayer, at 19 Stafford Street, South 

 Braintree, where, around the hot stove during 

 the cold Winter evenings, the Old Colony 

 Driving Club was born with the five members 

 mentioned above. 



After preliminary arrangements had been 

 completed, a call was sent out to the horse 

 owners in the several towns to meet at Mr. 

 Thayer's stable office on January 24, 1908. 

 In the meantime, each one of the five button- 

 holed every horse owner he met and talked 

 the proposition over in true advertising solici- 

 tor's style. 



On the evening of the meeting, so well had 

 the promoters done their work that the stable 

 office was not large enough to accommodate 

 the number gathered. So, after a few remarks 

 from Mr. Thayer, who stated the object of 



the meeting, adjournment was taken to Odd 

 Fellows' Hall, for the evening of January 31. 



In the meantime, their friends in the Dor- 

 chester Gentlemen's Driving Club, not wish- 

 ing to lose them as members, tried to influ- 

 ence these five against the proposition by try- 

 ing to convince them that the adventure was 

 a foolish one and could not be made a success. 



Much of this reasoning was caused from 

 the fact that some years previous there had 

 been a club, called the South Shore Driving 

 Club, which had leased the South Weymouth 

 track to give horse races for purses and gate 

 money. 



This club had put the name of driving 

 clubs in bad with the horsemen of that vicin- 

 ity. They had horses named as entered in 

 their races who never appeared. They had 

 classes advertised to start with ten and twelve 

 horses, guaranteeing to the paying public in- 

 teresting races with large fields of horses. 

 These interesting races never took place; in 

 fact, the horses advertised had never been en- 

 tered. The public was fooled so many times 

 that it became disgusted and refused to at- 

 tend the races. 



But despite all this, Mr. Thayer and his 

 associates felt that they could gain back the 

 good opinion of the horsemen and racegoers 

 of the South Shore by being careful of what- 

 ever they might do. 



So on the evening of January 31, when 

 the meeting was called to order in Odd Fel- 

 lows' Hall, there were nearly fifty horse own- 

 ers present. After the usual routine business 

 necessary to organizing, there was a general 

 discussion for and against the proposition, but 

 the opposition was very small. 



The promoters at this point appreciated the 

 fact that, if they were to pull the thing 

 through to a .success, they must carefully se- 

 lect their officials. So the following slate was 

 made up and elected unanimously: 



President, Col. A. C. Drinkwater, one of 

 the leading horse breeders of New England ; 

 vice-president, Lot Lohnes ; secretary and 

 treasurer, Theron L. Tirrell ; directors, Geo. 

 A. French, W. H. Foss, B. W. Shaw and 

 Frank P. Fay ; racing committee, Harry C. 

 Thayer, E. H. Waite, H. P. Hobart, Lot 

 Lohnes, B. W. Shaw, W. F. Drinkwater, 

 A. R. Hobart, Joseph A. Haley, C. S. Han- 

 naford and John J. Hanley; membership com- 

 mittee, Robert R. Stocker, James Ford, lo- 

 seph A. Haley; finance committee, J. Marcus 



