Happy Friday! Here is your Friday Flashback, provided by Nancy Plimpton. Nancy wrote this piece for our current club directory:
CHARLES CHAUNCEY STILLMAN
C.C. Stillman was born September 29, 1877 in Irvington On-Hudson, New York, a descendant of Colonial New England ancestors. He attended Harvard University, graduating cum laude in 1898, and went to work for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1902, retiring as the company’s vice president in 1918.
Mr. Stillman married Mary Wight in 1903 and they had two sons and one daughter.
His first exposure to Morgans came about when he accompanied Col. Spencer Borden to the Vermont State Fair, held in White River Junction, in 1908. He was deeply impressed with the breed and its unique history; he decided to start his own breeding program. He became a founding member of the Morgan Horse Club that was established the next year of the Fair and became secretary-treasurer.
When Joseph Battell, founder of the Morgan Horse Register, died February 23, 1915, Mr. Stillman purchased the Register from the Middlebury Collage, which had received it as part of the Battell estate. He took the responsibility to continue what Mr. Battell had done. Mr. Stillman formed a corporation, and provided space for The Morgan Horse Club in his New York offices, also where the Register was carried on.
For the centennial of Justin Morgan’s death, Mr. Stillman commissioned Frederick H. Roth, of Englewood, New Jersey to make a life-size bronze statue of Justin Morgan to set on a pedestal of granite. Mr. Roth was one of the foremost animal sculptors of the world. Mr. Stillman covered the $18,000 cost for the statue. On October 1, 1921 the Morgan Horse Club presented the statue to the U.S. Morgan Horse Farm in Waybridge, Vermont, where it still stands tall and proud today.
Mr. Stillman in starting a breeding program acquired Bell Marea (Knox Morgan X Underwood Mare by Norton Morgan) from H.R.C. Watson. Marea was sent to Elmer Darling’s Mountain View Farm, to be bred to the then popular stallion Sir Ethan Allen (Ethan Allen 3rd X bay mare by Corbett). The results of this breeding was the well know dark chestnut stallion “Sealect” 7266, born April 6,1921, on the farm at Mr. Stillman’s inherited Kenridge estate in Cornwell-on-Hudson, New York.
Sealect is one of the 25 foundation stallions for the Lippitt Morgan Family.
After Mr. Stillman’s death, Sealect was sold to C.A. Stone through the estate. From there he finally wound up with Mrs. B.H. Dickson at the Townshend Farm in Vermont. Sealect had a great influence on the Morgan.
One of Sealect’s daughters would prove to be particularly influential; she was Lady Sealect, out of My Lady Knox who, like Sealect’s dam, was by Knox Morgan, carrying very close breeding.
One of Mr. Stillman’s stallions was Donald, which was his favorite. A head-shot of Donald became the Lippitt Club’s Logo in 1981.
Mr. Stillman died of a heart attack on August 16, 1926. Most of the horses from the Stillman estate, was bought by Charles A. Stone, among them Sealect; two of the Stillman horses remained with his children.
How fortunate we are today that Mr. Stillman combined his concern and wealth to preserve the Morgan breed and its history.
By Nancy C. Plimpton 2014
(Photos: Cover of 2014 LC Directory; Sealect)
