SECRETARY'S REPORT. 187 



1860 were claimed to be of this stock, and almost every good- 

 sized, fast-travelling, gray horse is called a Messenger. The 

 genuine descendants of Messenger have been justly celebrated 

 as active, tough, serviceable and long-lived horses, and it is 

 singular that they should not have been preserved in greater 

 purity. 



THE MORGAN HORSE. 



In New England, we find in the highest perfection the horse 

 of all work, bred by the universal Yankee, the only man who 

 can be " Jack-at-all-trades," and good at all. This animal pos- 

 sesses such an extraordinary combination of valuable qualities 

 as enables him to excel on the parade ground, as a spirited 

 charger ; on the road as a stylish driving horse, intelligent, 

 prompt and enduring ; on the farm as a fine, pleasant, power- 

 ful work-horse ; and on the track as a fast and beautiful 

 trotter. During the last fifty years, especially in Vermont, 

 these horses have been bred in great numbers, and with con- 

 siderable care, and they have now become famous all the world 

 over, so that they are beginning to be exported to England for 

 breeding purposes. They derive their name, Morgan, from a 

 small, partly Thoroughbred stallion, foaled in Springfield, 

 Mass., in the year 1793, and afterwards kept at Randolph, 

 Vermont. This horse having acquired some reputation as a 

 stock horse, was named after his first owner, Justin Morgan. 

 He left three sons, whose progeny have become celebrated as 

 the three families of Morgans, viz. : the Sherman, the Wood- 

 bury, and the Bulrush Morgans. 



The famous stallion, Black Hawk, is thought, by some, to 

 have been got by Sherman Morgan out of a half-bred English 

 mare, said to have been raised in New Brunswick, and to have 

 been of a black color, a fast trotter, and a very fine animal. This 

 horse was foaled in 1833, in Greenland, New Hampshire, and when 

 four years old, was purchased for -$150, and used as a roadster 

 by Benjamin Thurston, of Lowell, until 1844. As he was a 

 beautiful, spirited horse, able to trot his mile in two minutes 

 and forty seconds, and as the few colts he had got proved 

 remarkably promising, he was then bought by Major David 

 Hill, of Bridport, Vermont, who kept him until his death in 

 185G. Black Hawk was about fifteen hands high, and weighed 

 nine hundred and fifty pounds. His skeleton is preserved iii 



