32 MEMOIR. 



John Tod as Cleveland's representative on the 

 Board of Stewards of the Grand Central Trotting 

 Circuit, his associates in that body being M. P. 

 Bush, Buffalo, N. Y. ; George J. Whitney, Rochester, 

 N. Y. ; M. G. Thompson, Utica, N. Y. ; Morgan L. 

 Mott, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. ; Alexander Harbison, Hart- 

 ford, Conn., and L. J. Powers, Springfield, Mass., while 

 Sam Briggs, the Secretary of the Cleveland Club, was 

 still the Circuit Secretarv. At this time Colonel Edwards 

 was also a member of the Central District Board of The 

 National Trotting Association, he having been first 

 chosen as member of the Board of Appeals in 1874. 



With Colonel Edwards at the helm Cleveland began 

 to march to the front in racing affairs. His tact and en- 

 thusiasm were equal to every emergency, from giving a 

 man a complimentary ticket, to starting a free-for-all, 

 while his popularity at home and reputation as a true 

 sportsman abroad, drew hundreds of people to the Cleve- 

 land meetings that would not have gone there with any 

 other man, no matter how capable, in charge. During 

 race week his summer house at Cliff Beach, and at a later 

 date his house on Prospect Street, was the abiding place 

 of his friends, for as Fasig frequently remarked, "Colonel 

 Edwards lived and planned fifty-one weeks in the hope of 

 making the race week of each year more enjoyable than 

 the one that preceded it." Everyone in Cleveland knew 

 "Billy Edwards." He had a kind word and a nod for all 

 he met, from the switch-tender on the corner of Water 

 and Superior Street, up to an embryo President of the 

 United States. He jogged through life endowed with 

 that happy faculty of making friends and retaining them. 

 He had his faults, so have we all, but in him they are for- 

 gotten and forgiven, as he loved much and was loved in 

 return. 



