Feb. 25, 1911.] 
Washington as a Master of Hounds. 
Washington is well known to have been a 
sportsman and especially a fox hunter. He was 
deeply interested in the commercial fisheries 
but we do not know that he was in any sense 
an angler. 
The f °ll°"'ing article has been brought to our 
attention by Daniel B. Fearing, of Newport, 
whose angling library is believed to be the 
greatest in America, possibly in the world. It 
appeared in the English Land and Water forty- 
tour years ago, and it is not known that it has 
Jeen re P rmt ed. It was written by Lord 
William Lenox. 
Great men have always scorn’d great recompenses; 
George Washington had thanks and nought beside 
Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men’s is) 
lo tree his country. 
* 
.... Leonidas and Washington, 
U hose every battlefield is holy ground, 
\\ hich breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone 
How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound.” 
The time which Colonel Washington could 
forest and stream 
distinguished guests from the neighborhood, 
from Maryland and elsewhere. The visits of 
those Nimrods were not of days, but weeks- 
mid they were entertained in the good old style 
o Virginia’s ancient hospitality. Washington, 
always splendidly mounted, took the field at 
dawn of day, with his huntsman Will. Lee, his 
friends, and neighbors; and none rode more 
gallantly to hounds, nor with voice more 
cheerfully awakened echo in the woodland, than 
he who was afterward destined, by voice and 
example, to cheer his countrymen in their 
stiuggle for independence and empire. Such 
was the establishment at Mount Vernon prior 
to the revolution. We now come to events of 
late times. After the peace of 1783, the hunt¬ 
ing establishment, which had declined during 
t ie war was renewed by the arrival of a pack 
of French hounds, sent by the Marquis de la 
Layette. These chiens de chasse were of great 
sizes: 
Bred out of the Spartan kind, 
So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung 
VVith ears that sweep away the morning dew- 
JJewlapp’d like Thessalian bulls; 
Matched in mouth like bells.” 
297 
He always said that he required but one good 
qua lty in a horse, that of being able to go 
along at a good pace, and ridiculed the idea of 
its being even possible that he should be un¬ 
horsed, provided the animal kept on his legs— 
indeed, the perfect and sinewy frame of this 
admirable man gave him such a perfect seat that 
a lorse might as soon disencumber itself of the 
saddle as of such a rider. The General usually 
rode a horse called Blueskin, a dark iron-gray 
approaching to blue—hence his name—a fine 
but rather fiery animal, and of great endurance 
m a long run. Will, the huntsman, better 
known in revolutionary lore as Billy rode a 
horse called Chinkling, a surprising lea’per, and 
made very much like its rider, low, but sturdv, 
and of great bone and muscle. Will had but 
one order, which was to keep with the hounds— 
a somewhat difficult one to accomplish in such 
a stiff country. Mounted on Chinkling, with a 
French horn at his back, this fearless rider 
would rush through brake or tangle- wood, over 
hedge and ditch, in a style worthy a modern 
Heltoman. There were roads cut through the 
woods in various directions, by which aged and 
timid riders and ladies could enjoy the ex- 
looking up the bow river. 
I'hotograph by Rutherford Page. 
spare from his building and agricultural im¬ 
provements. between the years i 7 s9 and 1774 
was devoted to the chase. He was neither—to 
use an Americanism—“a gunner” nor a disciple 
of old Izaak Walton; but was a passionate lover 
of lox hunting, and which sport, being of a bold 
and animating character, suited well with the 
temperament of the “lusty prime” of his age, 
and accorded peculiarly with his fondness for 
equestrian exercises. His kennel was situate 
about one hundred yards south of the family 
vault, in which at present rest his venerated 
remains. The building was a rude structure, 
but affording comfortable quarters for the 
hounds, with a large enclosure paled in. having, 
111 tlle center , a spring of running water. The 
pack was very numerous and select—the Colonel 
visiting and inspecting his kennel morning and 
evening, after the same manner as he did his 
stables. It was his pride, and a proof of his 
skill in hunting, to have his pack so critically 
drafted, both as to speed and bottom, that in 
1 Cry ’ t0 u * e a sporting phrase, you might 
>-o\er t lem with a sheet. During the hunting 
season Mount Vernon, to which he applied the 
Punning motto —Vir non semper floret —had many 
Indeed, by their strength they were fitted, 
only to pull down the stately stag, but, in fie 
combat, to encounter the wolf or boar, or e- 
to grapple with the lordly lion. These houn 
from their fierce disposition, were genera 
kept confined; but woe to the stranger v 
might be passing their kennels after nightf 
Should the gates be unclosed, his fate would 
sealed, unless he could climb some friendly tr 
or the voice of the huntsman or whipper 
came speedily to the rescue. The habit was 
hunt three times a week, weather permittir 
Breakfast was served on these mornings 
candlelight, the Genera] always breaking his fa 
with an Indian corn cake and a bowl of mil 
and ere the “early village cock” had “doi 
salutation to the morn” the whole cavalcai 
would have left the house, and the fox frequent 
be unkenneled before sunrise. Those who hai 
seen Washington on horseback admit that he w; 
the most accomplished of cavaliers, in the tri 
sense and perfection of the character; he roc 
as he did everything, with ease, elegance an 
power. 
The vicious propensities of horses were o 
no moment to so skillful and daring a rider 
hilarating cry without risk of life or limb. 
The foxes hunted in America eightv-three 
years ago were gray foxes, with one ex¬ 
ception. This was a famous black fox, which, 
differing from his brethren of “orders gray,”’ 
often set his pursuers at defiance. After seven 
or eight runs, Billy recommended that the black 
reynard should be let alone, giving it as his 
opinion that he was very near akin to anothei 
sable character, equally remarkable for his wiles. 
This advice was adopted, and ever after care 
was taken to avoid the haunt of the unconquer¬ 
able fox. The chase ended, the party would 
return to the mansion-house, where, at the well- 
spread board, and with cheerful glass, the feats 
of the day, the prowess of the gallant steeds 
and riders, and the “artful dodges” of the 
famous black fox were all discussed, while 
Washington, never permitting even his pleas¬ 
ures to infringe upon the order and regularity 
°f his habits, would, after a few glasses of Ma¬ 
deira, retire to his bed at nine o’clock. In 1787, 
Genera' Washington being called to preside in 
the convention which formed the Federal 
Constitution, gave his hounds away, and bade 
adieu forever to the pleasures of the chase 
