MID-WEST PIONEERS 175 



James H. Sanders. — Contemporaneous witli the 

 entrance of these men into the field of Percheron im- 

 porting and breeding, the late James Harvey San- 

 ders, founder of live stock journalism and compiler 

 of the first Percheron Stud Book ever projected, com- 

 menced as early as 1868 in the state of Iowa activities 

 destined to have a far-reaching influence in the mid- 

 dle west. 



Eeared upon a farm in central Ohio, Mr. Sanders 

 had accompanied some of the pioneers across the 

 western prairies prior to the outbreak of the Civil 

 War. Locating in Keokuk Co., la., he embraced the 

 first opportunity to indulge an inborn fondness for 

 good horses. He had personal knowledge of the 

 superiority of the descendants of the French stallions 

 imported into his native state over the ordinary 

 farm stock of the western country, and in 1868 he 

 went back to his old Ohio home and bought a four- 

 year-old gray known as Victor Hugo, sired by imp. 

 Count Robert, commonly known as the Baker Horse, 

 imported by the Darby Plains Co. in 1857, and — as 

 he tells us in an old hand biU printed after this colt 

 was taken to Iowa — "universally admitted to be the 

 best trotter ever imported from France into that 

 region, now 18 years old, sound and hearty, and 

 making a fortune for his owners. ' ' The dam of Vic- 

 tor Hugo was by ' ' Old Bill, ' ' imported by Dr. Brown 

 of CircleviUe ui 1851 — the "Valley Horse" of such 

 celebrity as has already been mentioned, "now 21 

 years old and so highly valued that his owner re- 

 fuses to put a price upon him." Victor Hugo's 



