118 A HISTORY OF THE PERCHEEON HOESE 



brought to our farm on which, we still live and always 

 have lived. The reason we do not know his age 

 when he died is that after keeping him many years 

 we sold him to a Mr. Bird of New Jersey. How 

 long he lived after that we do not know. His weight 

 was between 1,300 and 1,400 pounds. His colts were 

 fine and he was a sure foal-getter. He was not popu- 

 lar at first, but it was not long before he was appre- 

 ciated, though not in our immediate neighborhood. 

 Buyers came from New York and many places of 

 distance to buy his colts as they were remarkably 

 fine and far superior to the colts by ordinary horses. 

 He was a dark silver, dappled, three years old, one 

 year older than Valley Bill. He was perfectly gentle 

 and for his size very active, as were all of his colts." 



The illustration of Gray Billy is from a curious 

 old oil painting in the Holman home near Phoenix- 

 ville, Pa., our engraving being a facsimile reproduc- 

 tion, without effort to correct its manifest crudities. 

 Gray Billy is thus identified with the hitherto un- 

 placed Harmer's Norman, Holmes' Norman, Hol- 

 man 's Norman, and Duke of Norrnandy 172, recorded 

 under that number without date of birth or im- 

 portation, or other data. 



Louis Napoleon.— In 1851 in the course of a trip 

 abroad three Ohio men — Erastus Martin of Wood- 

 stock, Pearl Howard of the same place, and young 

 James Fullington of Milford Center, a member of 

 a family distinguislied in Ohio agricultural historj*- 

 went from England to France in quest of Merino 

 sheep. Somewhere in the neighborhood of Eouen 

 Martin saw a gray stallion with which he was deeply 

 impressed — a big one possessing the distinction of 



