Happy May Day, and Happy Friday! Here is your First Friday Flashback, researched and written by historian Betsy Curler:
“The Dam Line of Ashbrook”
A mare named Old Leben (x Gifford Morgan 30) was the first of a strong mare family found by Phillips when he went to the Rochester, Vermont area in his search for Morgans of the old stamp. Old Leben was called a mare of fine finish. Her daughter Peggy was a daughter of the Hackett Horse 43, a son of Gifford Morgan 30, who, like her dam, was also a mare of fine finish. This family was deep and close up with the breeding of Gifford Morgan 30 and his sire Woodbury Morgan.
The breeding of this family line as given in the American Morgan Horse Register differs from that provided by Phillips in his writings. Which is the correct version is, of course, debatable and we will present the information and let the reader decide for himself/herself as to the verity of each statement. The horses involved do not appear to have been registered until the same period of time that Phillips arrived in Vermont and was seeking horses to purchase.
Indeed, the registration number of Pete Morgan 5411 (foaled 1890) is just one ahead of that of Frank Bump 5412 (foaled 1906). The latter colt was purchased and registered by Phillips. The Pete Morgan daughter Dew of June was also foaled in 1906 and was purchased and registered by Phillips. It may be chance that the numbers are so close together, but Pete Morgan’s registration may have been done at the behest of Phillips to his owner.
Old Leben was a mare of fine finish, endurance and longevity. Caleb Ford of Granville, Vermont, north of Rochester and Hancock, drove her almost every day to Bethel, Vermont during the Civil War. The drive was twenty-plus miles one way and done in an “old-fashioned” chaise. Ford was interested in obtaining the latest news from the war front and on his return trip would ride alongside others who had made the same errand to discuss the latest news.
After going side-by-side together for a few miles, Ford would excuse himself in order to get the news to those anxious to hear at home. Ford would “soon disappear from sight with the speed of a locomotive.” Even at that time, Old Leben “was in a class by herself,” her speed and endurance exceptional in nature.
It is the pedigree of Old Leben that is given differently in the AMHR and by Phillips in his writings. As Phillips registered Dew of June and Nancy 03553, the fillies he owned that traced back in this pedigree, he was presumably the one that originally provided the information placed in the AMHR. In the AMHR, Old Leben’s dam is given as said to be out of a daughter of Justin Morgan 1. In Phillips’ writings, however, her first dam is given as being a daughter of Woodbury Morgan and she out of a daughter of Justin Morgan 1. The latter adds an additional generation and an additional cross to Justin Morgan through Woodbury Morgan.
Peggy was the dam of two half sisters that both appear in the pedigree. One was Maggie, sired by Benedict Morrill 252, and the other was Jessie by Vermont Boy 797. Maggie was the dam of the sire of Flossie and Jessie was the dam of Flossie. Flossie was the dam of Dew of June (x Pete Morgan 5411). Dew of June was the maternal granddam of Ashbrook 7079.
Flossie foaled the filly Dew of June when she was 29 years old. She proved to have a tough constitution as, at 31 years of age, she was crossing Rochester Mountain and back in one day. She was said to display no sign of fatigue after covering the 35-mile distance as “quickly as any horse in Vermont.” Phillips attributed it to the innate toughness bred into the Morgan horse resulting from the harsh environment in which the breed developed and thrived.
(Photo of Ashbrook by Bert Clark Thayer. Ashbrook was by Croydon Prince, and out of Nancy. Nancy was out of Dew of June.)
