Justin Morgan And The Morgan Horse, Living On The Town Line

By Dennis Tatro

Living On The Town Line is a book that documents fourteen years of successes and failures, in a story form, searching for the exact location that Justin Morgan had settle at when he came to Vermont. A small and to the point history book that explains how historians, archaeologist, metal detecting professionals and even paranormal investigators b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Denlore Inc.
• Release date: May 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9780578682952

Dennis Tatro

Dennis Tatro is a Morgan Horse historian, breeder, researcher, and Equine photographer. He has managed many Morgan Horse events like The Morgan Mile Trotting Races, the Lippitt Morgan Country Horse Show and Vermont Morgan Heritage Day. He has shown their Morgan Stallion, Denlore's Desert Storm at dozens of horse shows and equine events all over New England and started "Morgan Row" at Equine Affaire in West Springfield Massachusetts. He has been involved with Morgan Horses since 1986 and has served on the board of the Vermont Morgan Horse Association for ten years and has been President of the Lippitt Club for three years, whose goal is to preserve the original type of the Morgan Horse. Dennis and his wife Laura reside at Denlore Morgan Horse Farm in Sharon Vermont along with their Morgan Horses, two Shih Tzu dogs Ozzie and Harriet and their two Muscovy Ducks George and Lulu.

Book preview

Introduction

I have always had a love for history, particularly American history. It was this love of history that inspired me to get involved with breeding Morgan horses in 1988, and it was also this love of history that has obsessed me to dig deeper into the past of this great breed of horse. The Morgan is a beautiful creature, and over my lifetime my involvement with this breed has been extensive. I have shown and bred Morgan horses, have served on the board of the Vermont Morgan Horse Association, and have been President of the Lippitt Morgan Club. I have participated in and I have been a show manager of many horse shows, events, clinics, and we have attended Equine Affaire with our beautiful stallion, Denlore’s Desert Storm for fourteen years as well. I love the Morgan breed and the history that this breed has brought along with it.

There are hundreds of stories about the Morgan Horse, but the story of one colt that was taken from Massachusetts, and brought to Vermont and who became the progenitor of a breed of horse is an amazing one. It’s a story that delves deep into Vermont’s origins and it’s a story that makes you want to continue to search for more. One progenitor of a particular breed is something that has never happened before at anytime, anywhere in the world and will more than likely never happen again. We all know that it takes two to procreate, but this one colt, who was brought to Vermont by his breeder in 1792 at the age of three, created offspring after offspring in his likeness. Figure passed on his distinct features like his small ears, laid back shoulders and short back. The face of a Morgan Horse is well defined with wide eyes and flaring nostrils. There is no mistaking the wonderful attitude and willingness to please as a Morgan can do just about anything asked of them.

There are a number of lovers of The Morgan Horse who have spent years researching the breed to find out who owned Figure throughout his life. They wanted to know every little detail of what he did and what mares he bred. The Morgan Horse family has quite a colorful history, especially since Morgan horses were used to clear the land, and were often the race horse of choice, They were also known as family horses and were the select mount of the US Calvary. I love the Morgan Horse for his versatility and beauty, but the frosting on the cake for me is its rich history. The history of Figure is a long story, but one that is difficult to research because of how much the stories have varied since they have been told and changed over the years. Hence, as I was once told by a friend, the word history is based on the two words of his and story and yes, those stories do have slight differences in them and those differences have made uncovering the truth difficult.

I have often been told that the history of the Morgan Horse is about the horse, but the story in my mind first begins with the man. I had so many questions that needed to be answered and it had become difficult to know where to start my quest for the answers. Why did Justin Morgan, the man, move to Vermont? Why did he settle in Randolph, and where was the log cabin in which he made his home? It was known that Morgan settled somewhere on the Randolph-Brookfield town line, but no one has ever found the exact location.

To me, finding this location would give the story of the Morgan Horse in Vermont a new beginning and explain why history played out as it did for this breed of horse. It would be the location of where Morgan and his family originated, where they lived, and, where his wife died, the spot where he brought his colt home, where this one of a kind colt roamed, worked and raced. It would be the location that marks the beginning of the Morgan Horse in Vermont.

For fourteen years I had organized a re-creation of the historical race in which Figure had raced two famous Thoroughbred race horses of that time, named Silvertail and Sweepstakes. Figure had gained a reputation for being able to work all day, and then win races that very same afternoon. In 1796, the rumor of the horse Figure winning all these races had reached two New Yorkers, who challenged their horses against Figure for a fifty-dollar stake, in which he beat both horses in two separate races. Figure was raced frequently on this specific dirt road in Brookfield, Vermont and that road today is known as Morgan Mile upon which we have held races in September, trotting down that same road Figure had raced on.

One day after we held races on the Morgan Mile, a gentleman came up to me and asked me how I knew where on the road the Morgan Horse had raced. I explained that I didn’t think they had any particular spot. I continued to explain that the races could have happened anywhere on the road that men had been working and in the spirit of competition and my horse is better than your horse, they would then challenge each other on the spot. It was well known that the stakes for many races were usually a bottle of rum, so more than likely the race would be held in the direction of the nearest tavern. The talkative gentleman explained that he felt the races would have taken place down On the other end of the road that had been closed down, because that is where Justin Morgan’s log cabin had been located, although he did not know exactly where on the road he had settled. That conversation is what kindled a fire within me and served to create more questions than I had the answers to at that given point in time. My years and years of searching for the homesite of Justin Morgan began as a quest to simply answer a few questions, but soon it became a full blown obsession. An obsession and journey that my wife, Laura, not only tolerated but also accompanied me on as we put the pieces of the past together.

I don’t really know why this quest became so important to me. There was so much history already written out there about the Morgan Horse that I could have spent this time researching some other aspect about the horse, but for me the story of this wonderful colt that started a breed needed a beginning, and if you don’t know where the story started how can it go on? I’m sure at some point someone knew where the Morgan home site was, but that knowledge had been lost over the years. Maybe no one cares, maybe the history of the breed is not important any longer, but I knew that it mattered to me. It’s kind of like a love affair. There was something very mystical about it drew me like a siren’s song, and it seemed very strange that we were racing on the same road that the Morgan Horse had raced on over two hundred years ago. It was like you could sense the past whispering in the breeze, the sound of hooves of the horses galloping down the road echoed in your bones. I was walking on the same ground and I wanted to find the location where Morgan had settled. The same location where they lived and worked. The same location that the Morgan Horse was brought to and the pastures that he roamed. I knew that this was going to be a challenge, but I felt very strongly about it. The journey down the road to discovering the log cabin of Justin Morgan was about to begin.

Vermont, at the time Justin Morgan arrived in Randolph in 1788, was an area that was untamed. Roads were nothing more than a crude footpath, just wide enough to walk upon or for a horse to travel, and even roads which were considered a main thoroughfare were just barely wide enough for an ox and wagon to pass by. Most main routes of travel followed major waterways such as a river, so naturally when Justin Morgan came to Vermont with his family he followed the Connecticut River, and then the White River, on what is now Route 14. His trip continued up that road until he came to what was known as Benedicts Tavern in East Randolph. From there he headed up the hill to a road that was named the Stage Road. Today sections of the road have been closed down by the surrounding towns for lack of use. One section left open, named The Morgan Mile Road in Brookfield, Vermont, is the road where the trotting races are held every year. I realized that because times were so different in 1788 compared to today, I needed to understand how people lived during that time.

Can you imagine living in a small, twenty foot home with no electricity? That would mean having no lights, no television, no computers, no dishwasher or any other modern conveniences we have come so accustomed to. Think about those times in your life when the electricity has gone out due to severe weather or for some other reason and how difficult it was for you to go about your day-to-day life with no electricity.

Then take a look at the automobile, airplanes, trains, and other modern modes of transportation today. By automobile, we can travel two or three hundred miles easily in the course of a day. However, back during the days when Justin Morgan