Twelve horses were found dead in the pasture at the Morgan Horse Farm in Windsor on Saturday afternoon last week by Harry Larrow, hostler at the farm, when he went to salt the horses that afternoon. Of these 12, 11 were the best Morgan mares in the possession of A.F. Phillips, the proprietor of this farm, and the best of their kind in the world, since they were of the genuine Morgan strain. Now that they are gone the key to the restoration of the Morgan horse is forever lost. The other horse found dead was a valuable gelding of the same blood.
It is supposed that the animals were killed by a stroke of lightning on Tuesday night, August 26th, during the rain and thunderstorm. When Mr. Larrow made his discovery he found the horses dead under a tree in the apple orchard there just where they had assembled as horses do when overtaken by storms. It is probably that all died together when the lightning struck one, the current passing through all instantaneously. As one looked down upon their bodies he was reminded of scenes of the battlefield when a shell bursts in a company of soldiers since some were laid one way, some another, just as fate placed them in the tragic hour of death. It is planned to cremate the bodies of these animals and thus destroy as soon as possible the remains of the tragedy.
This loss is irreparable. For 25 years, ever since Mr. Phillips came into Vermont, he has devoted all this time and the sum of a quarter of a million dollars to restore this breed of animals into their old time place in the history of Vermont. It was the Morgans that helped the early settlers in their work of building a civilization in Vermont. It was the Morgans who faced the charge of Pickett at Gettysburg in the great cavalry advance that day when General Farnsworth lost his life. So with the passing of these splendid animals the writer says again, “The key of the great work of their restoration is forever lost.”
The names of the horses killed are as follows: Nancy, Narcissus, Virginia, Elberta, Victoria, Blanche Fowle, Princess, Primrose, Anna Beresford, Mati Hari, Noontide, and the gelding, Count Woodbury.
Omar Khayyam, Persian poet, in illustrating the efforts of man, says:
“The worldly hope men set their hearts upon
Turn ashes or it prospers; and anon,
Like snow upon the desert’s dusty face,
Lighting a little hour or two is gone.”
(Photo of some of Phillips’ broodmares.
