FIRST FRENCH HORSES IN AMERICA 121 



It is related that Howard had remarked when tlic 

 purchase of a one-third interest in the colt had first 

 been suggested to him that "when he wanted to 

 breed his mares to a bull he would choose one with 

 horns," and that sentiment, implying that the horse 

 was too big and clumsy, was very general at first 

 among the owners of mares around AVoodstock, Mil- 

 ford Center, and contiguous territory. 



Taken to Illinois.— A. P. Cushman of DeWitt Co., 

 111., a trader widely known in his day, while visiting 

 in central Ohio that fall saw for the first time ' ' The 

 French Horse," as Louis Napoleon was then gener- 

 ally knoAvn. At a glance his practiced eye grasped 

 the potentialities inherent in the big dark-gray stal- 

 lion, then turning six years of age. To him it seemed 

 merely a matter of sufficient size in the mares, and 

 Tazewell, DeWitt, Logan, and other Illinois counties 

 had many big ones sired by Oakley's English Cart 

 Horse Samson and his sons. So for $1,500 Mr. Cush- 

 man acquired "The French Horse," and "roaded" 

 him to his new home in tlie Prairie State. 



Acquired by the Dillons. — Louis Napoleon made 

 the season of 1855 at Waynesville, and within the 

 next three years various undivided interests in him 

 were traded and sold until finally in the fall of 185S 

 Ellis Dillon acquired a one-fourth interest in addi- 

 tion to the half already owned by Isaiah and Levi 

 Dillon, thus giving them a controlling interest. The 

 Dillons, aftenvards to acquire such prominence in 

 the trade, were at that time residents of Tazewell 

 county, and to their home Louis Napoleon was moved 



