CHAPTER XXI 



SIMMONS, STONER, AND THAYER 



ZACHARIA E. SIMMONS had in his younger days a 

 fine athletic figure and his intellect was keen. He 

 made money rapidly and spent it lavishly, and was 

 quite a lion among those who frequented the Hoff- 

 man House. He drove the best horses on the road 

 and stood ready to match his horses on the track. 

 To lose did not ruffle his temper, and to win did not 

 make him boastful. He and his brother, Wm. L. 

 Simmons, owned and raced the stallion George 

 Wilkes, and then sent him to Kentucky, where he 

 found blood lines to suit him and founded a great 

 family of trotters. The brothers disagreed and 

 Geo. Wilkes passed to Wm. L. Simmons, and was 

 at the head of Ashgrove Stock Farm, near Lexing- 

 ton. His three sons, Jay Bird, William L. and 

 Young Jim, helped to make the Ashgrove group 

 prominent, and so many visitors flocked to the farm 

 that William L. Simmons gave his address in his 

 catalogue as George Wilkes Simmons, Lexington. 

 In the flush days of Kentucky breeding money was 

 coined at Ashgrove Farm, and Wm. L. Simmons 

 became so wedded to Blue Grass that he could not 

 be persuaded to visit New York City, where his well- 



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