Happy Friday, and Happy October! Here is your First Friday Flashback, so kindly provided by historian Betsy Curler:
Sir Ethan Allen 6537
While visiting Charles Lang several years ago, he spoke of Sir Ethan Allen: “He was one of our favorite horses. Like the old time Morgans, he would go right along when driving into town, head and tail up, stepping high. Carried himself proudly.” He was a horse with which to a man could impress everyone when he went to town.
Sir Ethan Allen, a son of Borden’s Ethan Allen 3rd, was a chestnut horse foaled in 1909. He was bred by Frank Leach, then of Kirby, Vermont. Leach was a farmer and carpenter at the time. The dam of Sir Ethan Allen was a bay mare bred by Walter Russell. She was sired by Corbett 4393, by Cobden, a son of Daniel Lambert, and out of the Jake Hopkins Mare.
Walter Russell, also of Kirby, Vermont, grew up on a farm. His father had ventured out and about the world, going to California and then Australia. After his father returned to Kirby, he settled down to farm the rest of his life. Although Walter farmed with his mother for some years, by 1900 he was living in St. Johnsbury and selling school supplies.
At some point Russell acquired the Jake Hopkins Mare, breeding not given, and it is not known if she was used on the farm or was Russell’s driving horse when he was on the road as a salesman.
Sir Ethan Allen was purchased by C.V. Kent of Montpelier and he was the one who registered him. None of the transfers of ownership for Sir Ethan Allen appear in the Morgan Horse Register beyond this. His first two foals were buckskin fillies out of Sylvia 03794 in 1916 and 1917. The breeder of these mares lived in Plainfield, Vermont, and it is not known if Sir Ethan Allen was owned in that town or if the mare (Sylvia) was taken to Montpelier to be bred.
The first foal bred by E.A. Darling of Burke, Vermont, arrived in 1918. Gelded at two years, Tokio’s biggest “claim to fame” was being pinned Grand Champion Gelding at the Vermont State Fair. His trophy from that win was given to the National Museum of the Morgan Horse in the 1990’s.
Sir Ethan Allen went on to sire several more foals when owned by Darling. The best known of these is Sealect (x Bell Marea), bred by C.C. Stillman. Sealect was the sire of Cornwallis, Sealect Lass, and Sealectman, among others, particularly for Townshend Farm. Lippitt descendants of Sealect Lass come through her daughter Sealect Lady Jane of Mrs. Margaret Rice’s breeding program.
Sir Ethan Allen sired other offspring that found their way into Lippitt Morgans. Ethanelda (x Lucinne), bred by Frank Orcutt, was the dam of Ethan Eldon, of the Royalton breeding program. Allenwood was the sire of Bethal, who had several foals for the Green Mountain Stock Farm. Among her descendants were Denny Emerson’s Lippitt Sandy and Covenant Lydia K. A very prolific pair was his daughter was Rita (x Hepsibeth) and his double granddaughter Alrita (Allansus x Rita) for the Lippitt and Moro Hill’s breeding programs.
Sir Ethan Allen’s last registered foal was Firefly’s Betty Jane, born in 1934. Based on the assumption that Sir Ethan Allen had no registered foals born after 1934, he presumably passed away between 1933 and 1935. Sir Ethan Allen was handicapped as a sire, being born on the cusp of the introduction of the Model T and the subsequent loss of the city market for driving horses. In spite of that, he was able to establish himself as an influential sire among the Lippitts through multiple breeding programs.
(Picture is courtesy of Bruce Orser, Lyle F. Horton Memorial Ancient Morgan Archive.)
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