FIRST FRENCH HORSES IN AMERICA 129 



the best draft colts of any of the early importations. 

 They were very tough and lived to a good old age. 

 Mr. Curl had a team of horses by the Baker Horse 

 which I remember very well that lived to be about 

 25 years of age and worked every day. I personally 

 owned a mare of this stock that raised me thirteen 

 colts straight. Some of them sold as high as $300 

 and $500 apiece." 



To Nonesuch 346, or Old Bob, is due the original 

 popularity of the French horse in Delaware Co., 0., 

 a county that has since that time been a leader in 

 Ohio draft horse production. At the sale held by 

 the Darby Plains Importing Co., in 1857, "Bob" 

 was bought by Peter Bland, Milford Center, one of 

 the staunchest supporters of the type from the ear- 

 liest days, and by him was resold to Lewis Lee of 

 Delaware, at which place the stallion stood until 

 the year before his death in 1875. Old Bob was about 

 the same size aoad type as the Baker Horse and dur- 

 ing his sojourn in Delaware had all he could do in 

 the stud. Assuredly he made plain the path trodden 

 by the breed in later times. 



Doll 540 was the largest of the three animals im- 

 ported by the Darby Plains Co. in 1857. She stood 

 16.3 hands at the shoulder and weighed upwards of 

 1,700 pounds, being of a larger, more rangy. type 

 than the two stallions that accompanied her across 

 the ocean. She was possessed of the characteristic 

 "Frenchy" or "creasy" rump, then a marked fea-, 

 ture of the horses being brought over from France. 

 She was rather short and droopy in her quarters, 

 had heavy bone with some feather and in color was 



