RECOLLECTIONS OF MEN AND HORSES 



The Almont family is one of great power and 

 potency. General Withers closed his letter with a 

 personal remark: 



" My general health seems fully restored, though 

 I still suffer from an old Mexican War wound, and 

 have to use crutches in walking." 



Happy Medium also founded a great family, one 

 of his daughters being Nancy Hanks, 2.04, ex-queen 

 of the trotting turf. The fastest trotter by Aberdeen 

 was Kentucky Union, 2.07^. Onward Silver, 2.05 J, 

 is out of one of his daughters. General Withers was 

 a liberal advertiser, and he was the first of large 

 breeders to issue a catalogue fully describing each 

 animal and naming the price at which it would be 

 sold. Horses were sold by correspondence from 

 Fairlawn, literally from Maine to Texas, and the 

 business was remunerative. With the passing of 

 General Withers Fairlawn passed. In October, 

 1904, I walked under the locust trees and was made 

 sad by the dilapidated stables and other evidences 

 of departed glory. 



W. H. Wilson came to Lexington as a breeder in 

 1873, bringing George Wilkes and Honest Allen 

 under a partnership arrangement with Z. E. and 

 Wm. L. Simmons. He established the farm called 

 Ashland Park, and was one of the original members 

 of the Kentucky Trotting Horse Breeding Associa- 

 tion. In letters that he wrote to breeders throughout 

 the Blue Grass district, soliciting their suppor^ he 



