view raw text
HOW LEXINGTON WAS HIDDEN HIDDENGreat Great Horse May Have Been Sent to Canada Diifin j Civil War Time BV SALVATOR SALVATORAs As 11 matter of history Woodburn Farm in Ken ¬ tucky was milled by Mosbys Confederate guerrillas in tlu early spring of 18C5 niul a number of valu ¬ able horses run off principally howevejr trotters The NjnlUon Bay Chief was killed lu a running fight between the guerrillas and Union forces that went in pursuit of them while Alexanders Abdullah one of tins greatest of all trotting progenitors was rid lieli so hard that lie died of fatjgile and exposure Far from being immune from attack Voodburn was subjected to it throughout the Civil War and owing to this fuel Mr Alexander split many of his best horses to the North out of harms way He theii Iliad a brother living nt Montgomejy 111 a little t town only n couple of hours ride from Chicago and there he sent several carloads Others were sent to Ohio Some of these Avere trotters and some runners runnersThere There is still living and a visitor to Chicago quite frequently a little Gaul known as Preiuhv Bclland now well past seventy who was an exercise boy at AVoodlmrn before the Civil War and he has told me that Mr Alexander sent a carload of thor ouuhbreds to Canada in his Bellands care in order to place them in safety safetyWhether Whether Lexington stayed at Woodburn rislit along or not I am not certain lie may have done so as Alexander tried to keep up his breeding despite the war and nnil he not done so would not liavj lost the hotses referrcU to That he Alex ¬ ander was a Itritish subject at this time I am not entirely sure He was born in 1811 and died in ISC The Alexander faintly canie to Kentucky shortly after the RevQlution and settled in Wood ford County The grunt of land to them from the rnited States which includes the Woodburn tract was issued in 1792 Tile property is still in the hands of tins Alexander family but no horses either runners or trotters have been bred there for about twenty years R A Alexander I have Jieard was entitled to call himself Sir after the death of oiie of the older members of the family in Scotland but declined to do so and I believe called himself an American citizen He may or may not have been American born bornTJIH TJIH Swigert who was superintendent at Wood bum for years was his brotherinlaw Iiter Swigert established Klmendorf and there bred Sal vator Fireiizi and many other celebrated runners Still later Klmendorf passed to 7 1 Haggiu and I his estate still owns I believe the original tract j called by that name though a number of the parcels that were added to it by 1 15 Haggin have since his death been sold Snlvator died almost on the same spot where he was foaled and I remember well going out to KlinendorC when in Kentucky the fall before ho dled and seeing him in the last stages of decrepitude I have a superb photograph of him Unit one of our boys took there when he was In his prime
