RACING, AND THE RACES, at MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME

Racing and the Races at "My Old Kentucky Home";

An Examination of Slavery and the Thoroughbred Industry in Central Kentucky

by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar 

FEDERAL HILL PLANTATION, SEAT OF JUDGE JOHN ROWAN

 now My Old Kentucky Home State Park, as depicted in watercolor by Jim Cantrell

Very little tends to be known, commonly, of Kentucky’s early politicians and their preoccupation with racing.  History records their fiery oratory from the floors of the House & Senate, be they in Frankfort or in Washington D. C., but the personal passions of these public servants is generally omitted from historic narrative.  Such is certainly the case regarding John Rowan of Bardstown.  Even when touring his country home, Federal Hill, now a state historic site and shrine to the symbolism of Kentucky’s sense of place and home, we see in our mind’s eye a glorified town house set upon lush lawn rather than the seat of a 19^th century working plantation where crops grew, gardens were planted, and blooded horses were cared for by black grooms marked the success of the greater Bluegrass gentry.

Before now, the primary evidence we had for John Rowan’s participation in Kentucky’s Thoroughbred industry is recorded by Sanders DeWeese Bruce in his 1873 edition of The American Stud Book… (of)… Thorough-bred Stallions and Mares.  Here we find entries for two of Rowan’s later horses;

“RIFLE, ch. h., foaled 1840, bred and owned by John Rowan, Kentucky.  By John Richards.  Dam by Shakespeare”

 And

 “SLIPPER, b. m., foaled 1839, bred and owned by John Rowan, Kentucky.  By imported Barefoot.  Dam by Shakespeare.” (pp. 315 & 485)

Strangely, little else is mentioned of Rowan anywhere regarding his horse breeding endeavors until one makes a close examination of the local papers of the day.  In THE HERALD newspaper of Bardstown for the 14^th April 1836, John Rowan left scholars a vital clue as to his equine interests in the 1830s.  His advertisement there confirms not only his reliance upon Thoroughbred breeding at “My Old Kentucky Home” as a revenue source, but the influential socio-political ties of this important Kentucky family as well, ones that linked John Rowan to the highest of America’s political and horse racing societies.  John Rowan, then living primarily in Louisville rather than in Bardstown, posted this most remarkable and explanative narrative of an advertisement:

MASTER BURKE.

This fine young horse was raised by me, and will be kept for this season by my servant at my plantation adjoining Bardstown, and be let to mares at $10 the season- to be paid by the 1^st of August next- $15 for insuring the mare with foal, and $5 the single leap.  A note payable to me, must be left with the servant in each case.

In 1805 I bought Madison’s celebrated race mare.  She was said to be thorough bred and was believed to be the best racer for the four-mile heats in the State.  She had a mare colt by the imported horse Stirling- from her by a full-blooded horse of the Medley strain, came the dam of Master Burke, and he is sired by the old Aratus.

Master Burke is raising six years old- fifteen hands and a half high, as finely formed and I believe, as purely blooded, as any horse whatever.  JOHN ROWAN

So much voluntarily offered history is unusual in 19^th century stud advertisements, and while Rowan made known here his over 30 years of Thoroughbred breeding at Federal Hill in addition to his previously unknown connections to our nation’s fourth President, he left us with many, many unanswered questions.  The primary question involves the identity of his “servant.”  Rowan was living in his Louisville townhome when he published this advertisement.  In that year of 1836 he became one of 3 founders of the Louisville Medical Institute which would become the present-day University of Louisville Medical School.  The fast-growing commercial center of Kentucky at the “Falls of the Ohio” offered Rowan a substantial income base thanks to his legal clientele there and due to his substantial ownership of prime river frontage along the Ohio River that included the city wharf itself for which he received ½ of the proceeds, per the 1832 Louisville Directory.

We might reasonably conjecture that the beleaguered Rowan family had fled Federal Hill in Bardstown due to emotional distress, Judge Rowan having traumatically lost three children, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law, a sister, brother-in-law, and a granddaughter all to Cholera in a short span of mere days, just 3 short years beforehand in the epidemic of 1833.  But more than one race of Rowans at Federal Hill succumbed to disease that year.  26 enslaved individuals at Federal Hill perished from the disease as well, most interred in the segregated burial ground to the rear of the house.

Judge John Rowan o/c by Matthew Harris Jouett

Despite his necessary if chosen absence during the 1830s focusing upon work and his lucrative financial investments in Louisville, Bardstown was still John Rowan’s seat, and he never let the fields of Federal Hill go fallow or its enslaved inhabitants sit idle.  His plantation, the expression of the day that was Rowan’s own choice of nomenclature (and a term spurned by 20^th century historians with an agenda to distance Kentucky culturally from slavery and the “Confederate” South as a whole), was home to an immense capital outlay in chattel, both animal and human, the latter of which was trained and assigned to tasks and duties that perpetuated the upkeep of his country home and the profits derived from it.

There remains today some speculation as to the degree of Rowan’s involvement in slavery past mere ownership. Like many Kentucky slave masters, John has been viewed in modern reflections as a passive participant in the “peculiar institution” merely for the lack of accounts of beatings or hushed recollections of mulatto Rowan children being sold downriver.  Yet thousands of children, with or without their natural parents, were ultimately sold and shipped further south beginning at Rowan’s wharf, where the count of each head, be it cow, swine, or slave, added coins to Rowan’s pockets.  Passive profit, we might now conclude.  The sale of slaves was an inherent part of the plantation experience at Federal Hill, too, but extant records preclude our full understanding of motivation.  Rowan’s directives for the sale of slaves in his will do infer, sadly, the view of enslaved labor as being much in line with livestock, “upgrading” stock for the benefit of the plantation as needed & required.  We must assume, too, that Rowan viewed the institution as a potential source of profits, as many Kentucky slave holders did at this time, liquidating hands as a part of the greater stream of labor sent through the complex slave market system to feed the ever-increasing demand for strong backs in the Deep South.  That he never replenished his labor force after the tragic loss of lives to disease at Federal Hill might indicate a shift from agrarian dependence for John Rowan, and growing sense of “disposability” regarding the enslaved that was become more and more prevalent in Kentucky as the Commonwealth grew into the South’s primary breeding source for slave labor.

And this market for the flesh of the enslaved was as vital and economically necessary in Bardstown as it was in Lexington and Louisville, or their co-dependent sister markets in Natchez & New Orleans.  The biography of Isaac Johnson provides a haunting vision of the regard for humanity in Nelson County when the skin tone harkened to Africa rather the England.  He chillingly wrote,

 “the sheriff came and took us all to Bardstown in Nelson county, about two days journey eastward, and here we were placed in the negro pen for the night.

The next morning, to our astonishment, a crowd gathered and took turns examining us. What it all meant we could not imagine till Louis was led out about ten o'clock, placed on the auction block and the auctioneer cried out: "How much do I hear for this nigger?" Allow me to say here, it was only the vulgar and low whites who used the term "nigger," the better classes always spoke of us as negroes or colored folks. The auctioneer continued his cry for bids and Louis was at last sold for eight hundred dollars. By this time we had taken in the situation, and it seemed as though my mother's heart would break. Such despair I hope I may never again witness. We children knew something terrible was being done, but were not old enough to fully understand.

Then the auctioneer called for Isaac and I was led out, the auctioneer saying, "Time is precious, gentlemen, I must sell them all before night; how much do I hear for this nigger?" We were instructed beforehand that we must answer all questions put to us by "Yes, sir," and "No, sir." I was asked if I had ever been whipped, or sick, or had had the toothache, and similar questions to all of which I answered. He then cried for bids. The first bid was four hundred dollars. This was gradually raised until I was struck off for seven hundred dollars, and sold to William Madinglay [sic Mattingly], who came forward and said: "Come along with me, boy, you belong to me." I said to him: "Let me go and see my mother." He answered me crossly: "Come along with me, I will train you without your mother's help." I was taken one side and chained to a post as though I had been a horse. I remained hitched to this post till late in the afternoon.

 The next one sold was Ambrose. I could not see him, but I could hear the auctioneer crying for bids and my little four-year-old brother was sold for five hundred dollars to William Murphy.

The next to be set up was my mother and our little baby boy Eddie. To the cry for bids no one responded for some time and it looked for a while that they were to escape being sold. But someone called out: "Put them up separately." Then the cry was: "How much do I hear for the woman without the baby?" The first bid was eight hundred dollars, and this was gradually raised till she was sold for eleven hundred dollars.

The next sale was of Eddie, my little brother whom we all loved so much, he was sold for two hundred dollars, to one John Hunter. Thus, in a very short time, our happy family was scattered, without even the privilege of saying "Good by" to each other, and never again to be seen, at least so far as I was concerned.”  [Johnson, Isaac, Slavery Days in Old Kentucky.  A true Story of a Father Who Sold His Wife and Four Children.  By one of the Children.  1901.

While it was not unusual for Kentucky slaves to be highly trained, there is yet little record of those special African-Americans who rose above their own fettered racial ranks to achieve mastery of arts & trades in which they were highly regarded by all races for their abilities.  A scant few of the Rowan slaves menially supported the social aspects of the Judge’s station in Louisville.  Per the 1840 Census, 3 were assigned to the running of the Louisville household, while the majority would have remained in Bardstown.  While some slaves learned only the basics of agrarian duty, others were trained to perform valuable service in the community.  One such enslaved man was Mack, a mulatto slave of Rowan’s who was trained as a cobbler, a profession that sustained him on the plantation and in the community after Emancipation.  Mack’s story, were we now privy to its details, would undoubtedly fascinate modern scholars for its dramatic twists of fate.  Born in Federal Hill’s basement ca. 1819-20, Mack Rowan was ultimately ordered sold per the directives of his master’s will, then late in life he returned to his birthplace to serve the plantation’s final mistress, Madge Rowan Frost. 

John Rowan clearly had immense trust in and reliance upon this particular, unidentified slave to whom he left full responsibility for breeding the valuable stock of clients and the collection of stud fees on his behalf.  Thus far, there is no concrete indication of his name, though it is highly probable it was either Ben or Andrew, the two enslaved men bequeathed to John Rowan Jr. by his father.  According to Judge Rowan’s will of June 1840, he makes exception to “a mare and colt, which he (John Jr.) bought of the late Abraham Smith” indicating his son needed to make payment himself as obligated rather than including the debt for the estate to cover.  As it becomes clear the younger Rowan was as well keeping horses at My Old Kentucky Home, it seems plausible that the elder statesman would leave his primary stable keeper on site.  Another clue is found in Judge Rowan’s contract with a new overseer in January of 1842.  In the hiring of William Maden, Rowan specifically assigns him oversight of the horses, including the Thoroughbred mare Magnatia and her two colts, to whom Maden was charged with special care.  As Andrew would have been nearing the age of 70 by this date, it makes sense his duties would have been significantly lessened, especially in the oversight of breeding.  Ultimately the search for the identity this obscure “servant”, like that of so many of Kentucky’s “nameless who toiled”, must continue.  It’s an obligation, not out of guilt, not for sake of reparations, but to attempt to provide a completeness of a common, combined and intertwined history for the generations of Kentuckians to come and to better tell the story of the Thoroughbred and those other than the owners and jockeys who have perpetuated the industry here.

Slavery at Federal Hill has never been adequately studied or understood, at least not formally by the Commonwealth, but the institution was vital to the economic wellbeing of John Rowan and his family.  Few public records offer adequate insight, though the 1830 Census provides at least a glimpse at the labor force at Federal Hill during the decade Rowan was apparently most active in Thoroughbred breeding.  That year 39 men, women & children were enumerated as the enslaved property of Rowan.  At least 3 adult men and 7 adult women lived and worked for the Rowan family, in addition to as many as 29 African-American children & adolescents of varying ages. We have no indication as to how many additional enslaved men Rowan may have periodically leased, a common practice on central Kentucky’s smaller plantations based upon seasonal agricultural need.  Such leased enslaved labor was especially practical in the outlying Bluegrass during this period in Kentucky’s economy when so many African-Americans were being sold and transported from the Commonwealth to sustain a constant labor supply to the cotton-dependent Deep South.

Eastman Johnson's "Life At The South" aka "My Old Kentucky Home"

As for Rowan’s Thoroughbred business interests with President Madison, the unnamed race horse (referred to henceforth as the "Madison Mare") he purchased from Madison in 1805 was among a rather large stable of animals that Madison maintained at Montpelier, horses that served the varied needs of a large Virginia plantation.  During his lifetime, Madison owned as many as few as 5 horses and as many as 43.  A survey of Presidential letters and records offers some vital clues regarding this singular mare in question, but sadly fails to ever provide us her name, if one was ever given her.  In fact, in studying the extant records of Madison’s horses and their breeding there was found a most tantalizing hint of Rowan’s far keener understanding of bloodlines and the fast-developing problems from extreme inbreeding by the established Virginia horsemen, an over-reliance that would soon enough be lamented in print by a contemporary Virginia Thoroughbred historian & genealogist.

Madison’s naivete and inexperience in Thoroughbred bloodline study is evident from several records.  Even he acknowledged his own failings in this art.   Underscoring Madison’s redundancies in breeding is an undated historical scrap out of the Montpelier archives in which Madison’s farm manager preserves for us an overview of James Madison’s rather limited Thoroughbred stud choices and an ultimate dependency upon early Virginia breeder Dr. William Thornton of near Georgetown.  Here we find an appraisal of Madison’s stock prepared by Montpelier’s overseer Gideon Gouch [sic} for what was likely the year 1809 [Madison, James, and G Gouch. G. Gouch to James Madison. Evaluation of mares. 1804. Manuscript/Mixed Material.  Dated 1804 by the Library of Congress, there is justifiably confirmed contention among scholars that the 1804 date assigned this document is too early and that it was certainly composed a few years later.  This correction is supported by a 5th December 1809 statement of accounts sent to Madison by Thornton in which he references an 1809 valuation by Gooch for foal values due Thornton, as well as a 29 April 1805 letter from Madison where he discusses having just seen Clifden but not yet chosen him to cover one of his mares.  The Library of Congress maintains the 1804 date for the document, however.  The erroneous date might at first lead one to conclude that Rowan’s mare was included, but sadly she would have already been stabled in Kentucky by 1809.   The document does show us the reliance that President Madison quickly gained for the Thornton stable that produced many foals by Clifden and Childers at Montpelier].  

Records maintained by Gooch (thought by some to be Madison’s brother-in-law, and at least a collateral relation by marriage) confirm the virility and popularity of two certain stallions from the Thornton stable, Childers and Clifden.  Quoting the notations of the National Archives pertaining to a December 1809 bill from Thornton to Madison, “Clifden had a spectacular season at Newmarket as a five-year-old in 1792, and Thornton imported the horse from England in 1799.  Thornton’s billing accords with the (1809) evaluation by Gideon Gooch, the Montpelier farm manager.” 

Modern Day View of the Stables at Madison's Montpelier

William Thornton was truly a renaissance man of America’s late Colonial and early Federal periods.  He is often referred to today as the “Architect of the Capitol” for his designs for the United States Capital submitted in 1793, based upon classical inspiration found in both the Louvre and the Pantheon.  He won Thomas Jefferson’s approval, commenting, “simple, noble, beautiful.”  Besides his excellence in architecture, Thornton was a physician, inventor, and painter in addition to one of America’s primary Thoroughbred enthusiasts, founding the Washington Jockey Club and designing its one-mile race track.  

Dr. William Thornton

James Madison had become introduced to Thornton by the mid-1780s per extant letters in the Madison archives, and had begun his equine correspondence with William Thornton at least by 1803, discussing proposed sales and breeding of horses.  It wasn’t until 1805 that he was made aware of Thornton’s horse Clifden, a stallion associated with Rowan’s Madison Mare, as recounted in Madison’s letter of 29^th April 1805 to Isaac Winston.  Madison wrote,

Dear Sir

I have been favored with yours of the 18th.1 but not in time to be acknowledged by the mail of last week. I am not in immediate want of Carriage horses, but probably shall in the course of a year or so. I had contemplated a further use of the pair I have, until I could provide a large & handsome pair to take their place, and until I could find in my resources a convenient surplus beyond the demands on them. The offer you make is very friendly and lays me under obligation: Whether I ought to accept it depends first on the degree of convenience with which you can await mine in making payment: Secondly on the ensemble of the horses, of which some allusion to the probable price would have better enabled me to judge. As to the first point I am unwilling to expose you to the risk of suffering from my delay, which tho’ I have reason to calculate that it would not be necessarily considerable, might prove so from unforeseen expenses of which I have had already sufficient experience. As to the second, the omission may easily be supplied by a few lines from you. In the meantime however I insist that if you have decided to part with your horses, that you do not lose or endanger any opportunity that may offer; it being so very unlikely that in any event I shall be led to avail myself of the kind proposition you have made me.

I take this occasion, whilst I beg you to excuse the delay, to thank you for the trouble and the terms by which you procured me the Mare Clio. I have learnt from Gooch that she got safe into his hands, and I shall put her with some others to the best horse to be found. Having seen Dr Thornton’s Horse Cliffden, and heard from good authority the reputation of his Colts, I propose to give him the preference. He stands near Manchester.  I have long regretted that in rearing horses I have so long made use of inferior brood mares, particularly those not thorough-bred, to which fancy & fashion attach so much value: and shall in future endeavor to repair the error.

Be so good as to present my affectionate respects to your father Mrs. W. and the family. I leave to my wife the account of mine. She writes by this mail. Very sincerely & respectfully I am Dr. Sir, Yours

James Madison 

[“From James Madison to Isaac Winston, 29 April 1805,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/02-09-02-0325. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, vol. 9, 1 February 1805–30 June 1805, ed. Mary A. Hackett, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, Anne Mandeville Colony, Angela Kreider, and Katherine E. Harbury. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011, pp. 295–296.]

Thus was established a long course of breeding choices that involved Clifden & Childers, Clifden being the best known and proven racehorse of William Thornton’s stable that prolifically sired so many Thoroughbred foals throughout Virginia during the 1st quarter of the 19th century, including it would appear at least one by John Rowan’s Madison Mare.  Clifden, then a five-year-old in 1792, was heralded for his performance at Newmarket, capturing Thornton’s interest and prompting his purchase in 1799.  Childers is considered to be one of the Virginia stallions by the English horse by that named owned by the Duke of Devonshire.  Ultimately Madison became so enamored with the stallion Childers that he attempted to purchase him from Thornton through trade.

It is in the varied correspondences between Madison and Thornton that we do at last find the most telling clue to the identity of the horse that John Rowan purchased.  A letter from Thornton to Madison dated 19 November 1804 relates,

Novr: 19th: 1804.

The Terms on which I have let brood Mares are these—

The Person who takes them breeds from them by putting them yearly to the best Horses, and after rearing the foals till they are three yrs. old sets a price on each which he will either give or take; he being at all expense till then.

On the above Terms I will let two Mares; one by Driver1 out of the full sister of Nontocka2 by Hall’s Eclipse (imported)3 her grand Dam Young Ebony, by Don Carlos, gt. grand Dam Young Selima by old Fearnought; gt. gt. gr: dam old Ebony by Othello; gt. gt. gt. gr: dam Old Selima (imported) by the Godolphin Arabian.4

The above Mare in foal to Clifden.5

Another Mare by Old Medley, dam by Clockfast6—I have not yet got her Pedigree—but was assured of having it when Mr. Robinson returns from the Mediterranean—that she is thorough bred, and I know she ran successfully at Alexandria. She has a Colt by Wild Medley,7 & is in foal by Clifden. As the foal was rather late it was not weaned, and may go with the Mare on the same terms.

W: Thornton. 

[“To James Madison from William Thornton, 19 November 1804,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/02-08-02-0312. Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, vol. 8, 1 September 1804 – 31 January 1805 and supplement 1776 – 23 June 1804, ed. Mary A. Hackett, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, Anne Mandeville Colony, Angela Kreider, Jeanne Kerr Cross, and Wendy Ellen Perry. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007, pp. 304–305.]

The Original Letter from Thornton to Madison

Here Thornton’s words virtually parallel those chosen by Rowan in his 1836 advertisement when the Virginia breeder made the sales pitch to Madison of his “thorough-bred” mare who “ran successfully at Alexandria.”  After an extensive combing of the letters and papers that might potentially identify Rowan’s “Madison Mare” I have concluded, despite the lack of any surviving sales record, that his was indeed the same racehorse acquired by Madison from Thornton in 1804 and ultimately sold again in 1805 to John Rowan of Bardstown, Kentucky.  It seems plausible that Rowan as well obtained her colt by Wild Medley when he purchased her as there is no indication of Madison’s retention of this horse, and perhaps even the Clifden foal out of the Madison Mare.

The lineage presented by John Rowan 31 years after his purchase of the Madison Mare may seem vague and incomplete to modern day Thoroughbred genealogists, but his summary was rather common for the early 19^th century in America where there was no established “stud book” or registry with which breeders could record the birth and pedigree of their foals, despite the preliminary efforts of Richard Mason in Virginia to lay out the primary bloodlines to assist breeders.  Many offspring of notable sires and dams went unnamed and undocumented but for simplistic citations like that of Judge Rowan until the advent of Kentuckian Sanders Bruce’s labor of love, The American StudBook in 1873, followed by the Thoroughbred industry’s support of foal registry by The Jockey Club.  In fact, it was customary in some cases during the early 19^th century to refrain altogether from naming a horse until it had proven his abilities on the track or in siring/foaling proven winners.

"Old" Medley

Referring to Bruce and his compilation of pedigree, it’s important to note that Rowan’s Master Burke shared a name with another contemporary Southern horse, one bred a year later by John D. Amis of North Carolina who owned the famed Thoroughbred Sir Archy.  Bruce was either aware only of Amis’ stallion, or confused the two horses.  The duplication was most likely entirely coincidental, as there is no indication Rowan and Amis knew each other, much less did business together regarding horses.  As Rowan recounts the bloodline in question, his Master Burke was the progeny of a respected “black line” pedigree.  Sired by Aratus with a damsire of Medley descent, Master Burke’s female tail was out of Madison’s noteworthy but apparently unnamed mare, she being his 3^rd dam.  This “Madison Mare” had been bred to:

STIRLING, Imported; a bay horse, by Volunteer, his dam Hariet by Highflyer, his grandam by Young Cade, his great grandam Childerkin by Second out of the dam of Old Snap.  Foaled 1792 Bowling Green, Va John Hoomes. [Mason, Richard, The Gentleman’s New Pocket Farrier, Fifth Edition, Richmond VA, 1830].

Mason, in his “American Stud Book” addendum, explains to us the development of racing in Colonial Virginia, chastising the contribution of Colonel John Hoomes and explaining the need for a concise Thoroughbred registry.  He wrote,

 “It was during this period that “races were established almost at every town and considerable place in Virginia; when the inhabitants, almost to a man, were devoted to this fascinating and rational amusement:  when all ranks and denominations were fond of horses, especially those of the race breed:  when gentlemen of fortune expended large sums on their stud, sparing no pains or trouble in importing the best stock, and improving the breed by judicious crossing.”  The effects of the revolutionary war put a stop to the spirit of racing until about the year 1790.  When it began to revive, and under the most promising auspices as regarded the breed of turf horses, for just at that time or a little previous, the capital stallion Old Medley was imported, who contributed his full share to the reputation of the racing stock, whose value had been before so well established.  Previous to the year 1800, but little degeneracy had taken place either in the purity of the blood, the form or performances of the Virginia race horse; and in searching for the causes of a change for the worse, after this period, the most prominent one was the injudicious importation of inferior stallions from England.  About the period of time last mentioned, Colonel Hoomes and many others, availing themselves of the passion for racing, inundated Virginia with imported stallions, bought up frequently at low prices in England, having little reputation there, and of less approved blood, thereby greatly contaminating the tried and approved stocks which had long and eminently distinguished themselves for their feats on the turf, their services under the saddle, and as valuable cavalry horses during the revolutionary was.  In recommending renewed efforts to the Virginians, for the further improvement and preservation of their stock of blood horses, the necessity and importance of the immediate publication of a Stud Book (and of a Racing Calender [sic] hereafter) cannot be overlooked."

Despite Mason’s somewhat negative opinions of Hoomes’ and other Virginians’ importation choices, Stirling was considered a “useful” stallion in the establishment of the overall racing stock in 18^th century Virginia.  Hoomes as well purchased and brought to Virginia in 1798 the famed English racehorse Diomed, winner of the inaugural Epsom Derby of 1780.  It was from Diomed, great grandsire of Aratus, that John Rowan’s Master Burke descended.  Thus, the colonial importer and Alpha horseman of Virginia played a vital role in the establishment of the Rowan stable at Bardstown.  

Diomed

Master Burke’s dam, the Madison Mare, was as previously mentioned most likely by “Old” Medley, just as John Rowan specifically attested to, with Clockfast the damsire (Medley and Clockfast being sibling stallions by Gimcrack). From a precursory review of Madison papers, there might appear a slightest possibility the Madison Mare was by Highflyer, for stud records in the Governor James Barbour Family account book record Madison’s stud fees paid for a “season of Mare to Highflyer” who was foaled in 1794 and acquired by James Barbour from William Newson.  The pedigree for Highflyer however negates that supposition.  Considering the dependence Madison had upon Thornton and his Clifden & Childers stallions, along with the strongly supportive letter from Thornton regarding his racing mare then in foal by Clifden, “odds are favorable” that she was in fact Thornton’s mare sold to James Madison and thusly to Rowan.  Interestingly, the sale to Rowan seems to have driven Madison to seek a replacement in 1805, the aforementioned Isaac Winston mare Clio.  In fact, Madison’s stable increased dramatically after the sale of the Madison Mare, surging from 22 horses in 1805 to 35 horses in 1806, peaking with 43 horses in 1809. [MRD-S44930.]  John Rowan was serving in Congress during this time, limiting his desires to breed and race Thoroughbreds.  His relationship with Madison may have waned, too, though Rowan remained well connected politically, hosting Presidents Monroe and Jackson as well as the Marquis de Lafayette before accepting an appointment as Judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals followed by stints in the Kentucky House and the United States Senate.  Politics rather than Thoroughbreds clearly constituted the stronger calling for John Rowan, and while he stabled Thoroughbreds at Federal Hill until his death, it would seem they became more hobby than a source of revenue as the years passed.

Gimcrack

Special thanks to Katie Farmer at the Keeneland Library, and to Hilarie M. Hicks at Montpelier for access to their Research Database and her current research Plantation Life Project, Chapter 4: Livestock, “To Take Particular Care of the Horses & Stock;” Livestock, Vehicles, and Equipment At Montpelier.  Also retired University of Kentucky professor Dr. Joanne Pope Melish.  Thank you, ladies, for your kind attentiveness, assistance, and encouragement.  And this brief work certainly need encouragement.  John Rowan exemplifies for us today the symbiotic nature regarding horses and slavery in 19^th century Kentucky.  The subject warrants much more attention than I was able to give it in this rambling yet summary look that spiderwebbed along several filaments of discussion yet forbade a satisfactory examination of any.  We have much to learn about slavery in general, but especially regarding the particular peculiarities of the “Peculiar Institution” as it existed in Kentucky.  Too, the positions and actions of our 19^th century elected leaders call for scrutiny to better understand their relationships with slavery in the South, both personal and political.  And regarding the burgeoning American Thoroughbred industry of the Colonial and Federal Periods, there is insufficient scholarship, and what we’ve access to fails to credit the impact of slavery in the breeding and racing of the Thoroughbred.  There is much work to be done.

Additional reference citations and sources for additional data include the following:

Roberts, Ida M. K., Rising Above It All:  A Tribute to the Rowan Slaves of Federal Hill.

Capps, Randall, The Rowan Story:  From Federal Hill to My Old Kentucky Home.

Horton, James & Lois, Editors, Slavery and Public History:  The Tough Stuff of American Memory including the essay by Professor Joanne Melish, “Recovering (from) Slavery:  Four Struggles to Tell the Truth.”