MESSENGER (HUTCHINSON’S).—This was a large grey horse, foaled in 1792, and bred by Mathias Hutchinson, of Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. His dam was by Hunt’s Grey Figure, son of imported Figure. He was kept in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1797, and it is probable that he was often represented as imported Messenger himself. I have no knowledge of this horse or his progeny beyond the mere facts here given. MESSENGER (COOPER’S).—This son of imported Messenger was generally known as “Cooper’s Grey” and sometimes as Ringgold. He was sixteen hands high and was foaled about 1803. He was bred in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and was kept about Philadelphia, on both sides of the Delaware, till 1821, when he was sold by the administrators of Jacob Kirk, and it has been said he was taken to the Wabash by Amos Cooper. He ran some races when he was young, and was a horse of a good deal of local fame. He was liberally patronized in the stud and left valuable progeny. It has been suggested that probably he was the sire of Amazonia, the dam of Abdallah; but as there is nothing to support this suggestion except the mere matter of location, and as all that has ever been claimed for her paternity is that she was by “a son of Messenger,” we must not forget that there were plenty of other sons of Messenger in the same locality that might have been her sire. The name “Messenger” was more sadly abused in its duplication in the closing of the last and the early decades of the present century than that of any other horse, or perhaps of all other horses of that period put together. Multitudes of his sons were called “Messenger,” and, in the next generation, multitudes of his grandsons gloried in the same cognomen, and thus generation after generation perpetuated it, in widening circles, till “confusion became worse confounded,” leaving the historian in helpless and hopeless ignorance as to what was true and what was false. When grey horses in the second, third, or fourth remove from the imported horse became old, it required but little “diplomacy” to satisfy the public that they were true sons of the original, and this became the custom. [Illustration: ALIX. By Patronage, record 2:03¾, the fastest to this date.] CHAPTER XX. MESSENGER’S DESCENDANTS. History of Abdallah—Characteristics of his dam, Amazonia—Speculations as to her blood—Description of Abdallah—Almack, progenitor of the Champion line—Mambrino Paymaster, sire of Mambrino Chief—History and pedigree—Mambrino Messenger—Harris’ Hambletonian—Judson’s Hambletonian—Andrus’ Hambletonian, sire of the famous Princess, Happy Medium’s dam.