44 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
gence, of Morgan speed, and of Morgan endurance, 
that are told by the dim light of a lantern in many 
a country livery stable in Northern New England. 
Iremember— But at present we are concerned with 
the Morgan merely as a trotter, and so I reserve 
my stories of Morgan roadsters for a subsequent 
chapter, 
Justin Morgan’s finest son was Sherman, whose dam 
was a small but highly bred chestnut mare. Sherman 
himself, a bright chestnut in color, stood no taller than 
a pony, for he measured only 132 hands. He weighed, 
however, 925 pounds. Sherman was the sire of Ver- 
mont Black Hawk, and Vermont Black Hawk founded 
a trotting family. His dam was a half-bred “Eng- 
lish” mare from New Brunswick. She stood sixteen 
hands high, and weighed about eleven hundred pounds. 
Vermont Black Hawk was foaled in 1883; he was a 
little under fifteen hands, and jet-black in color. This 
horse, besides being a trotter, had every quality of a 
good roadster; he was strong, speedy, enduring; he 
had a lively but pleasant disposition, and he was re- 
markably handsome. His back was short, he carried 
his head high, and he possessed that elastic “trappy ” 
gait which is the true roadster way of going. 
His most distinguished son was Ethan Allen, a very 
beautiful little bay horse, whose dam was a highly 
bred gray* mare, said to be of Messenger descent. 
Kthan Allen’s trotting action was wonderfully smooth 
and pure. He has a record of 2.15? with running 
1 Both the black color of his sire and the gray color of his dam 
are very infrequent in the descendants of Ethan Allen. They are 
commonly bays or chestnuts. 
2H. B. Winship, a descendant of Ethan Allen, has since trotted 
a mile in 2.06 with running mate. 
