Horse RAISING IN CoLoNIAL NEw ENGLAND 891 
USEFULNESS OF HORSES TO THE COLONISTS 
Cattle and horses were of service to the colonists in many ways. The 
neat cattle furnished them food, hides for leather, and oxen for draft 
purposes. Sheep were valued chiefly for wool. Horses served to some 
extent for draft, but for ploughing and other heavy work they were 
found less serviceable than oxen. Their most important use was to 
furnish means of rapid transportation from place to place. In the 
earliest days of the settlements most of this travel was on foot or ‘in 
small boats (6), but by 1652 a New England writer (7) could boast 
of the ‘‘ wild and uncouth woods filled with frequented ways and 
rivers overlaid with bridges passable for both horse and foot.’’ This 
indicates in a general way the transition that soon took place, so that 
horses became of steadily increasing importance as the settlement of 
the country proceeded and the towns became more numerous and widely 
separated. 
In the difficulties with the Indians, horses were of especial advantage 
to the colonists. Not only was this true in the case of offensive operations 
against the savages, but in the frontier troubles which were always 
imminent the possession of horses enabled the settlers to bring aid 
quickly to one another when attacked and thus saved many an isolated 
settlement from extinction. That the colonists realized this advantage 
is apparent from the pains which they took to prevent any horses 
from coming into the hands of the natives. In Plymouth (8), in 
Massachusetts Bay (9), and in Connecticut (10), laws were passed to 
prevent the selling of any horses to the natives, and even as late as 1665 
it was only after considerable debate that the Plymouth court allowed 
one such sale to be made to a friendly Indian for purposes of 
p husbandry 7’ (11). 
Lastly, it is interesting to note that horse racing was not unknown 
even in the early days of the Puritan settlement in the Massachusetts 
Bay colony, where the court vents its dire condemnation on ‘‘ certain 
euill and disordered persons ’’ who engaged in such a breach of public 
decorum (12). At a later date, however, such racing came to be a 
recognized sport in Boston (13), and especially in Rhode Island, where 
races were very common and often for high stakes (14). These prac- 
tices were not frequent in the early days, however, and came to be 
