rtsdyk's hambletonian 121 



back to New Yorkers for $500 — Messrs. Sim- 

 mons & Smith, Bull's Head dealers, buying 

 him as a speculation. No purchaser could the 

 speculators find at any price, and the stallion 

 was virtually given away to stop expenses of 

 keeping. About this time Charles Kent wanted 

 a new horse for his butcher wagon, and traded, 

 through Alexander Campbell, of Bull's Head, 

 his worn out mare to Edmund Seeley, a farmer 

 in Orange County, New York, for a steer for 

 butchering. The butcher's mare had, originally, 

 been sold to him by Campbell, who had obtained 

 her in a drove of western horses, paying $40 for 

 her. Her pedigree was quite unknown. This mare 

 is known in American horse history as the 

 Charles Kent mare, and is said to be by imported 

 Bellfounder. She was in foal to Abdallah when 

 Seeley got her, and the colt and mare became the 

 property of Bill Rysdyk, a hired man on Seeley's 

 farm. Rysdyk looked around for a name for his 

 colt — a name which should indicate the Mes- 

 senger blood in him. There had been in the early 

 years of the century a famous son of Messenger 

 named after Alexander Hamilton. This horse 



