7 6 THE MORGAN HORSE 



a thick, heavy horse of about middling size, with a thick, heavy mane 

 and tail, hairy legs, and a smooth traveler. Diamond was kept by 

 Justin Morgan himself, at the time the dam of the Justin Morgan 

 horse was sired. He was raised in East Hartford, Connecticut. 

 His sire was the Wildair, known as the Church horse. His dam 

 was the noted imported mare Wildair, owned by Capt. Samuel Burt 

 of Springfield, Massachusetts. The Church horse was sired by the 

 horse Wildair, imported by DeLancey of Long Island, and, as it was 

 said, was afterwards taken back to England. Mr. John Morgan des- 

 cribes True Briton as being a high-headed and hollow or sway-backed 

 horse, and his stock was of such description ; and states that the 

 Wildairs also were generally so". 



Thirteen months later, under date of February 27, 1847, Justin 

 Morgan, 2d, wrote to the "Albany Cultivator", as follows: 



" There seem to be some persons who still continue to suppose 

 that there was French-Canadian blood in the original horse which 

 belonged to my father, Justin Morgan, and from which the excellent 

 stock of Morgan horses sprung; while no one who has attended to 

 the clear proofs to the contrary, which have from time to time ap- 

 peared in your valuable journal, can now justly entertain any such 

 notion. In the fall of 1795, my father brought the horse, then a two- 

 year-old colt, from Springfield, Massachusetts, to Randolph, Ver- 

 mont. Mr. John Morgan of Lima, New York, who, though of the 

 same name, is but a distant relative of my father's family, then lived, 

 as I have been informed, in Springfield, and had every opportunity, as 

 I believe, of knowing the truth in relation to the horse. Mr. Morgan 

 says he was not only well acquainted with my father's horse, but also 

 with the sire of that horse, True Briton or Beautiful Bay; and he 

 states that he (Mr. J. M.) kept the latter horse at the time my father's 

 colt was begotten by him. He says, also, that he was acquainted with 

 Traveler, Diamond and Wildair, and, at the time, knew them to be 

 English blood horses. Mr. John Morgan says that, however much 

 may have been said relative to my father having brought the horse 

 from Canada, he knows that it was not so. His means of knowledge 

 and the respectability of his character entitle his statements to the 

 fullest credit. The fact that my father died about two and a half 

 years after he brought the colt into Randolph, his children all being 

 young, and the horse having been sold out of the family very soon 

 after my father's decease, may account for his pedigree not being 

 better understood. I have a perfect recollection of the horse when 

 my father owned him and afterwards, and have always lived where 



