246 THE GOLDSMITHS. 



owned by Joseph Lewis, who sold her to William A. 

 Delevan, a member of the circus establishment of 

 Welsh and Delevan. By this gentleman the brown 

 mare was sold to Henry D. Felter, of New York, 

 whose father, Colonel Felter, of Orange County, no 

 sooner saw her than he declared she would make a 

 very fine brood-mare. It is a little more than ten 

 years since he purchased her of his son for $375, and 

 took her to Orange County to be bred to Hamble- 

 tonian. That celebrated horse was then almost un- 

 known to fame, being but five years old. Colonel 

 Felter and his son, however, joined in predicting that 

 he would in due time be as renowned as his sire, Ab- 

 dallah. In the latter part of May, 1855, Dolly Spanker 

 was bred to Hambletonian, and when she returned to 

 Colonel Felter's farm she was pregnant with the 

 greatest and fastest heir to the accumulated fame of 

 the Messengers. The wise and worthy gentleman 

 who had her felt a presentiment, while she was big 

 with foal, that the colt would be a world's wonder, 

 and, in spite of the badinage of his sons and neigh- 

 bors, stuck to that opinion, even when the colt she 

 dropped was a weak and puny thing. A misfortune, 

 too, now happened to the mother, which would have 

 shaken the faith of almost any other man than 

 Colonel Felter. Before the colt was forty-eight 

 hours old she ruptured herself, and could not suckle 

 her offspring. The Job's-comforters now declared to 

 Colonel Felter that the puny little colt would never 

 be worth raising. The Colonel replied, with some 

 contempt, that he had the stout and hardy blood of 

 the Messengers and Bellfounders to bring him 

 through, and that he would raise him by hand. It 



