Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1889-03-08
PEDIGREE HUNTING. |.
ST. CLAIR

In addition to previous information fur
nished the REGISTER by E. H. Miller,
secretary Pacific railroad at San Francis
co, to the effect that Mr.. Philip Roberts,
who owned and worked st. Clair in
team from 1851 to 1856, said that he saw
the man who claimed to have brought
st. Clair over the plains in the fall of
1919, and who said that he was got by
Morgan horse from Vermont; that he
was kept near Springfield, H., in 1912,
and taken back to Vermont the next sea-
son, and was out of a Canadian mare;
we have in our present California trip
got the following:
We called upon Mr.. f. II. Miller at his
office in the large railroad building at
San Francisco. Mr.. Miller is man of
the highest character, and of great
wealth, one of the best-known business
men on the Pacific coast. He received
us most cordially and gave quite good
deal of time to looking up the records of
his old tracing of st. Clair in 1872.
The criticism was made by our friend,
Mr.. Parlin of the Cultivator, that the
information obtained, having come from
a drayman, might not be trustworthy.
We do not think Mr.. Parlin cared espe-
cially to sustain this position. All he
meant to suggest was that it might have
come from some unstable or drifting per-
son. But Mr.. Miller says that the Philip
pnhn no hi toe h.
came highly respected and successful
merchant at Grass Valley, Cal, and that
he (Mr. Miller) was personally acquaint-
ed with him and knew him to be very
reliable and respectable man and very
accurate in statement of facts. Before
crossing to California Mr.. Roberts was a
clerk in the great dry goods house Of A.
Il. Stewart q Co., New York. After
reaching California at very early date
he found himself out of employment.
Some friend suggested that he buy a
horse and go to carting, and he bought
St. Clair and did so.
Mr.. Miller has no doubts himself that
the representations made to Mr.. Roberts
by the man who claimed to have brought
st. Clair over the plains were substan-
TALLY correct. He says this man insisted
upon Mr.. Roberts taking the pedigree of
the horse, and wrote it out for him. Mr..
Roberts copied it into the front page of
his ledger, but this was afterwards des-
troyed by fire, and the original memo
randum was lost. Mr.. Roberts saw this
man several times, and in 1851, he thinks,
moved him, his wife and two children
about II miles from San Francisco on the
Auburn road, where he was going to
keep wayside hotel. Mr.. Miller fol-
lowed up this cue and learned of a man
there by the name of Brown, who had a
wife and two children, kept hotel on Au-
burn road a few months about that time
and moved to Oregon.
Mr.. Miller was unable to learn to what
part of Oregon he went and could get no
further trace of him. Mr.. Miller also
told me that Mr.. Roberts said this man
said the Morgan horse referred to as sire
of st. Clair was bay horse. Mr.. Miller
referred us to Wilbur Smith at Sacrament
to as excellent authority ON horse mat
tiers. MIR. Miller said that he got Lins-
ley's book to see if he could learn there
of such horse as referred to, but found
no account of one that went one year to
Illinois. Mr.. Miller felt quite sure that
the proper place to begin now was at the
Illinois end.
! remember learning accidentally at
Barnard, VT, that the Putnam Morgan,
whose dam was by Chandelier, reputed
son of Duroc, was taken West one year
and brought back the next. do not re-
member whether he was bay horse. /
have learned of other horses that were
taken West, and returned.
Mr.. Dan Dennison, an old-time driver