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Welcome to Out of the Archives!
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We hope you enjoy this complimentary issue of "Out of the Archives," a quarterly newsletter devoted to the history of the Morgan horse. If you enjoy this newsletter, please be sure to sign up at www.morganhorse.com (on the right-hand side of the home page) to continue receiving this and other specialty newsletters. If you do not subscribe, you will not receive the next edition. Please note, if you unsubscribe at the bottom of the page, you will be unsubscribing from ALL future AMHA correspondence.
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Meet the National Museum of the Morgan Horse!
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The National Museum of the Morgan Horse was founded in 1988 and works to educate the public about the history of the Morgan horse by collecting, preserving, and exhibiting Morgan related art and historical materials. The Morgan Museum's archives, housed in Special Collections at the Middlebury College library, consists of paintings, photographs, prints, and sculptures depicting the Morgan horse in all of its endeavors from the late 1700s to the present day. Brochures, breeding pamphlets, books, club newsletters, trophies, correspondence, leather tack, and civil war ephemera are included in the collection. The archive is available for research.
The Museum maintains an exhibit space on Main St. in Middlebury, where rotating exhibits on the Morgan horse are featured. A visit to the Museum will allow visitors a glimpse into the story of "America's First Breed." The National Museum of the Morgan Horse is located at 34 Main Street in Middlebury, Vermont. The gallery and gift shop are open Wednesday through Saturday from 10-5. Please contact us at morganmuseum@gmail.com or at (802) 388-1639 for further information, if you have historic documents or items that you may wish to place in the archives, or to make a donation. |
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The Founders
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 | The Morgan Horse Club Governors at Delmonico's in New York, 1910.
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The original "Morgan Horse Club" was founded 104 years ago in 1909, on September 23, at an organizational meeting held at the Vermont State Fairgrounds in White River Junction, Vermont. Lunch was served!
An invitation to attend had been issued by Maxwell Evarts (President of the State Fair Commission), A. Fullerton Phillips, C. C. Stillman (Secretary and Treasurer of the newly formed club), and Henry Wardner, who was chosen as President. Wardner had weathervanes made in the image of Hale's Green Mountain 42 as gifts for directors of the club. Fifteen of these weathervanes were known to exist.
Most Morgan breeders east of the Mississippi attended or expressed their written support. The 31 attendees agreed to have a board of 15 governors and five vice-presidents. Charles Mellen, President of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railway was also present. His railway provided transportation for many of the animals that arrived at the state fair. Although not a Morgan breeder, he was elected a member of the club.
The stated goals of this original organization have been maintained throughout the last 104 years and are still a part of our road map today. They were: To preserve and perpetuate the Morgan horse and Morgan horse breed type; to encourage the presentation of Morgans to the public in horse shows and fairs; to establish a breed standard; to educate judges about Morgans and breed history; to offer prizes that encouraged the breeding of Morgans; to encourage registration of Morgans by their owners; to provide information concerning Morgan breeding stallions and the breeding process; and to promote "friendly social relations" among members of the club.
To learn more about these interesting individuals, please refer to The Men Behind The Morgan Horse by Marilyn Childs, published in 1979. Other sources, National Museum of the Morgan Horse Archives, The Morgan Horse magazine, August 1979.  | | Henry Steele Wardner, Morgan Horse Club President from 1909 to 1915 (Vermont Historical Society). |
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 | Ethan Allen and George M. Patchen.
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Trotting is an exclusively American born, grown, and developed sport and became the great national pastime during the middle and late decades of the nineteenth century. Other sports like baseball and boxing were not as yet serious competition, and Thoroughbred racing was only for the exceptionally wealthy. Trotting was "the people's sport."
"Currier and Ives have told the story of trotting and pacing from 1845 to 1895 by producing a pageant of lithographs that are factual, entertaining, and often of artistic merit. During those years Currier and Ives published more than 600 titles emphasizing the importance of the horse to our ancestors and how the 'trotting craze' developed." Excerpted from "Currier and Ives Trotting-A Pageant of Horse Prints" 1984.
Many of those Currier and Ives lithographs included images of the Morgan trotting horses of the day-Black Hawk 20, the coal black stallion foaled in 1833, whose record for the mile was 2:42, and his bay son Ethan Allen 50, born in 1849 (the same year as Hambletonian) with a mile record of 2:25 ½, were featured several times.
Currier and Ives prints remain highly collectible today. The National Museum of the Morgan Horse has several original prints and many reproductions in its collection. The images seen in this article are from the collection at the Hall of Fame of the Trotter in Goshen, New York.
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Ethan Allen & Mate and Dexter
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Ode to the Working Western Morgan
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Funquest Gold Hawk 12571 (Chief Red Hawk 11365 x Allan's Fancy L 07224) b. April 10, 1959. Stallion, bred by Stuart Hazard, Topeka, Kansas, trained and shown by Dean Smith. A top Morgan cutting horse competing in open competition as well. Photo by Dick King.
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Balance, agility and intelligence are inherent qualities that the Morgan horse brings to the world of cutting cattle. The Archives of the National Museum of the Morgan Horse, housed in Special Collections at the Davis Library at Middlebury College, have ample evidence of the popularity of Morgan horses working as cow ponies going back to the 1950s and before. The Morgan Horse in Pictures by Margaret Cabell Self, published in 1967, has a chapter on Morgans as cutting horses, parade horses, and trail horses. During the 1950s,
The Morgan Horse magazine featured working Western Morgans on the cover several times. An article published in the June 1953 issue, by Albert W. Cross from Wyoming, discusses the reasons why the Morgan is a good cow pony. He writes:
"I'm ready to start a one-man war to preserve the recognition of the Morgan as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, cow horse in the U.S. By cow horse, I mean a working cow horse. One that not only can catch a calf in a rodeo arena in a jump-and-holler, but a horse that you can catch old Mossy Horn in a scrub-oak with or go into a herd and rope from 1 to 100 calves without scattering the round-up over four counties. If a calf does quit the herd, you have horse enough to catch him in any kind of footing before he has to run himself to death. Due to the Quarter Horse propaganda machine, the average layman thinks that all cow punchers ride Quarter Horses. I want you to know that there are a good many who ride Morgans, and I've never seen a Morgan horseman come in afoot, as the saying goes."
The strength, stamina, intelligence, and agility of the Morgan, as well as his sensible disposition and smooth gaits, make him ideal for this work.  | |
John Geddes 9853 (Lippitt Moro Ash 8044 x Ruthven's Beatrice Ann 05528). A versatile Morgan who competed as a Western pleasure horse and in cutting competitions. Owned by Walter and Rheda Kane of South Lyon, Michigan, b. May 12, 1945
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