Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1891-04-17
kELLOGG'S HIGHLANDER,
JOSEPH BATTELL,
Mi11lpburV. Vt.

Editor Of he Register In your issue
of April 3, 1891, page 6, you say, Gran
dolph Huntington says Uncle Tom KEEL
logg called his Highlander horse Sher-
man Morgan (N
1t is IL mistake | never said so. As the
Middlebury REGISTER has a large and
widespread circulation, | nm sorry you
have made such a mistake in connection
with my name. Will you do me the
kindness to publish what | did say in
K~ellogg's horse Highlander, while con-
tending for the true breeding of the dams
of Geo. Wilkes.
AS the Middlebury REGISTER has been
long working to establish truth in the
matter of horse pedigrees, | will write
out in full what | caused to be published
20 years ago.
Late in the COS an ex-tramp preacher
out in Iowa put out an abortion of a stud
book a miXed-up mess of pedigrees of
thoroughbred horses and trotting horses.
| saw the book, aud was amused at the
ignorance of horses and of breedings by
the compiler, although remarked that
the man who put out the book could be
assisted to make such a work of some
value, | thought.
Another remark | made at the time
0S1l) was that a Trotting Stud Book
should be classified into families; sug-
gesting that all Clay horses should be
bred to their own blood in order to be
eligible to registry, and so with all other
recognized names, as the Morgan, the
Stars, Mambrino Chiefs and so-called
Hambletonians, each name pure to its
W blood, making blood the standard.
The attempt to embody all the horses in
this great land in one book would certain
ly prove a gold mine to the one who own
ed the copyright, but would in the end
ruin financially all who might be deceiv-
ed by such registry. These public opin-
ions were met with ridicule and malice.
However, | presumed to write TO this
man Wallace, at Muscatine, Iowa, point.
ing out to him serious errors in pedigrees
of valuable stock-horses, among them
Geo. Wilkes. He had him recorded as
from a granddaughter of imported Mes.
senger; and so with other then more i'm.
portant horses, the ~breedings as recorded
were wrong. | continued to reply to his
letters, urging him to correct his mis-.
takes, until in 1873, when | Judged from
his letters that his sole object was the
money he could get for registry and the
sale of his book.
He was not a horse-man, and knew
nothing of breeding; hence entirely un
fitted for such an important ~nationa
undertaking.
In 1874 he put out a second volume o.
his stud book, and, as in the case of tn,
Norman prophet, Jas. Smiths, golt
bible, every man to register or to buy
a book was liable to become a proselyt,
TO his ignorant methods.
In vol. No. , the ~breedings of tn,
dams of Geo. Wilkes were changed from
a granddaughter of Messenger to
Mambrino mare.
| had found that nothing could be don,
to correct the Wallace receptions, Sc
wrote up the true breedings of the dam!
of Geo. Wilkes in manuscript form foI
three papers, sending them so that they
appeared almost simultaneously in tn,
Turf, Field q Farm, the Spirit of tn,
Turf and in a California paper.
This caused Wallace to correct hi
errors made in volumes | and III, b,
semi-copy of my statements into hi
third volume.
The direct dam of Geo. Wilkes was b,
Henry Clay; and she was bred ant
raised in the town of Bristol, Ontario
Co, n. Y, near where l got my wife
and where | knew near every farm an
farmer of the township. The seconC
dam of Geo. Wilkes was a Morgan mar,
called a Highlander. At this, my frs
writing, | did not explain why calleG
Highlander; and the prejudice agains
Clay was so very great that most hors,
writer's jumped the direct Clay dam o
Geo. Wilkes to make the blood of i'm
ported thoroughbred Highlander tn,
one cause of super-excellence in Geo
Wilkes as a trOtter and sire. | ther
wrote in full of Highlander, as | viii
now do.
Thomas IL. Kellogg was born a
Sheffield, Mass. in l773. In the early
1900 he moved to East Bloomfield, On
tario Co.. N. y, where he bought
large farm. East Bloomfield was then
as it is today, one of the healthiest anC
most beautiful farming countries in tn,
United States. 1t is eight miles direct
ly west of ~Canandaigua. In those early