APPENDIX. 421 



but under a saddle, with Dan Mace upon his back, he was a reg 

 nlar " clinker." He had been tried by moonlight on the Fashion, 

 in the presence of Mr. Genet, Mr. Revere, and the late Tom 

 Burns, and they made up their minds that he couldn't lose it. 

 The first heat was trotted in 2m. 21 Js., and the stallion close up. 

 They had four heats, and it was dark before it was over, Butler 

 winning the deciding heat, and as poor Horace Jones always 

 maintained, not without doing a deal of running. This was in 

 1862, three years before Lady Thorn trotted on Long Island. 

 Butler soon came to be a horse of great note, and won a two-mile 

 heat to wagon, beating George M. Patchen, in 4m. 56^s. That was 

 then, and is now, the fastest time for two miles to wagon. Dexter 

 equalled it, but never surpassed it. After that great feat, it seemed 

 that Butler was destined to be the rock ahead of the stallion. Mr. 

 Simmons and John Morrissey matched the latter at;ainst the 

 " Contraband," two-mile heats to wagon. The match was made 

 at Saratoga, asnd in the hot weather of the early fall, in order, as 

 they thought, "to make assurance doubly sure, and take a bond 

 of fate to win in spite of thunder," they must needs came down 

 here and try the horse. It was upon the Centreville course, on a 

 close, sultry day, and the stallion was short of work "' " The 

 Bishop of Long Island" was present. The stallion had long 

 been his joy and pride, and afterwards, when the subject of his 

 evening orison and early matin song was his beloved Lady Thorn, 

 he still maintained a great fondness for George Wilkes. The 

 latter went the two-mile trial, and I have no doubt that it was 

 faster than trocter ever had before, or has since, gone two miles 

 in any rig. But it " cooked his mutton," as the saying is, and 

 for a long time he was George Wilkes no more. He gradually 

 recovered most of his speed and bottom, but I think that he was 

 ever after a little inclined to sulk, and he never achieved that 

 place upon the topmost pinnacle of fame for which I think he 

 once had the capacity. He was the first of the Hambletonians of 

 very high stamj). 



