232 RURAL NEW YORK 



HORSES (See Figs. 28, 29) 



The light harness type of horse is the only one 

 m the production of which the State has attained 

 much prominence, and here the record is notable. 

 New York was one of the earliest metropolitan cities 

 of the country and produced the wealth and the leis- 

 ure in those pre-motor days that were utilized in the 

 fancy coach turnout and the " four-in-hand." It 

 is also expressed in the thoroughbred and finally in 

 the standard bred or trotter which has been so popu- 

 lar in America. The foundation stock of the light 

 harness horse was imported Arabian blood. On the 

 roads on Long Island, some of the earliest races were 

 held. The old Jamaica road or Jericho Turnpike is 

 perhaps the most notable in these annals. The orig- 

 inal home of the trotter is Orange County at Goshen 

 where Hambletonian 10, a grandson of the imported 

 Arabian stallion Bellfounder (Messenger) was 

 foaled in 1849 and died in 1876. His monument 

 stands at Chester. He was by far the greatest sire of 

 famous trotting stock the country has produced. 

 Other notable horses have been originated. At Stony 

 Ford in the same county is a monument to Green 

 Mountain Maid, known as the Greatest Mother of 

 Trotters. Membrino Chief was foaled across the 

 Hudson Eiver in Dutchess County in 1844, and 

 Ethan Allen, a notable sire in the Morgan strain and 

 son of Justin Morgan, was also foaled in the Hudson 

 Valley. Goshen, in Orange County, was known as 

 the " Lexington of the North." The Puritan atti- 



