THE CANADIAN PACER 237 



Coming south from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we find between the Province 

 and the inhabited parts of Maine and New Hampshire a vast wilderness 

 through which, save at the extreme north, but a single road passed. When 

 we reach the Vermont boundary, the conditions change. Roads constantly 

 cross, and the intercourse between the two sections is, and has been for a 

 hundred years, constant and varied. The Province of Quebec is also touched 

 by the northern part of New York, and here, too, is easy communication. The 

 conditions here are such that if the Canadian pacer came to Canada from 

 the States, the probability is very strong that he came from Vermont, 

 or northern New York, or at least passed through those States in coming. 

 It is to be remembered, too, that the particular part of the Province of Que- 

 bec where these pacing horses were first known to have appeared, and the 

 part where they were mostly bred, is that contiguous to and directly north of 

 Vermont. If we admit that he might have come from northern New York, 

 the question arises : Was there any stock at that time in northern New York 

 resembling him and a probable source of his origin? The world has 

 never heard of them. 



But on the other hand, in Vermont, a few years before the 

 birth of the first known fast Canadian pacer, there lived a horse, 

 between whose descendants and this Canadian pacer there was, as we shall 

 show, a very marked resemblance, every known son of which produced a 

 family of great local celebrity, and the reputation of whose stock eventually 

 extended throughout the world. This was the Morgan Horse, descended largely 

 from the best imported blood ; and it is certainly most reasonable to think 

 that either he, or some son or grandson of his, crossed the border, and founded, 

 or helped to found, the great Canadian family that rose into prominence 

 at this time. It is the more natural to think so when we perceive that 

 the other most noted families of horses in the Province of Quebec, since this 

 period, whose origin is known, like the descendants of the Hawkins Horse, 

 Black Morgan and Anglo-Saxon, in the Eastern Townships, and Brandy- 

 wine, Canada Black Hawk, and, later, Ben. Morrill, in the French country, 

 had such origin. The suggestion is the more forcible because there is no 

 other source to which this family can reasonably be attributed ; no other horse 

 of that day in this part of the country, or in any part of it, that got stock of 

 like popular qualities and enduring fame. 



Let us now consider this question of the similarity of the stock, and see 

 in what respects this famous family of pacers resembles the Morgans, and in 

 what it differs from them. 



The first of these pacers to appear in Kentucky was Copperbottom, 

 in 1816. He was a sorrel stallion, foaled in 1809, and is described as about 

 fifteen and one-half hands, very strongly built, with broad breast, round barrel, 

 short back, good neck and head, handsome appearance, and the fastest pacer 

 of his day. The next most famous pacer that appeared in Kentucky was 

 Tom Hal. The description of him is similar to that of Copperbottom, ex- 

 cepting that he was roan, and probably not quite so tall. There was the 

 same blocky build and handsome appearance ; the same qualities of general 



