Henrico County Historical Society
PO Box 90775   Henrico, VA 23273   (804)501-5682   hchsinfo@yahoo.com
Open by appointment only

Henrico County Historical Society's motto, which is Preserving the Past in the Present for the FutureSkipwith Academy in Three Chopt District, Henrico County, Virginia.Log Cabin in Tuckahoe District, Henrico County, Virginia.Mankin Mansion in Fairfield District, Henrico County, Virginia.Dorey Barn in Varina District, Henrico County, Virginia.Bethlehem Church in Brookland District, Henrico County, Virginia.


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News 2024, Fourth Quarter

President's Message

We are very excited about the special meeting at Historic Tuckahoe on December 1.

Registration is required and there is a $15.00 per person fee because additional staff is needed at Tuckahoe for the occasion. The registration form is available on the HCHS website at www.henricohistoricalsociety.org/shopping.html and can be mailed or registered online by way of PayPal on the shopping page.

As previously mentioned, we were notified by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in September of 2023 a State historical highway marker was proposed (and later approved) in recognition of Boston. Considered America's first great racehorse, Boston was foaled at a farm in Henrico County owned by John Wickham. The marker is sponsored by Becky Francois, whose friend was a descendant of William Ransom Johnson (aka Napoleon of the Turf) of Chesterfield County who was a trainer of Boston.

Boston.


The Boston marker was ordered in January from the foundry but it was uncertain exactly when it would be delivered, likely a number of months since there were 37 on order.

Meanwhile, on July 13th of this year, an inaugural Stakes Race was held in honor of Boston at Colonial Downs . . . all very exciting! There have been a number of remarkable coincidences.

The winner of "The Boston" Stakes Race, Fulmineo, is owned by Josh and Ellen Pons. Josh is an award-winning author of three books and articles on thoroughbred horses.

The marker was recently delivered and we will combine the HCHS meeting with the marker dedication at Tuckahoe. Josh Pons will speak with us about his book Letters From Country Life, Adolphe Pons, Man o'War, and the Founding of Maryland's Oldest Thoroughbred Farm. Josh and Ellen have much more association with thoroughbreds than we have space here to note.

That association is a coincidence in itself but is not all: Tuckahoe was chosen as a location nearby for the marker dedication. We have since learned the farm owned by John Wickham where Boston was foaled, was once part of Tuckahoe. John Wickham bought 629 acres from the Randolphs of Tuckahoe in 1800. He later bought additional property in the area, and his plantation became known as East Tuckahoe. The house there was called Woodside.

And that's still not all! An HCHS member put me in touch with his friend who lives on what was formerly the Wickham property and is also a descendant of John Marshall (who also owned property in Henrico, but that is another story for another day.) He welcomed me to his home and there on the wall was a framed picture of Boston. I have not mentioned names because I did not get their approval but the name seemed familiar and later confirmed to be he who drew the rendition of Meadow Farm as part of our fundraising efforts to build a replica kitchen there.

Amazing! So much history and so little space! Hope to see you there to hear the rest of the story.

We will also be fortunate to experience a tour of Historic Tuckahoe, the only Randolph family home remaining at the original site and the boyhood home of Thomas Jefferson.

Sarah Pace
President


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Reserve Your Place for Special December HCHS Meeting

Reserve your place for the special December HCHS Meeting at Historic Tuckahoe Plantation on Sunday, December 1 at 1:30 p.m. Historic Tuckahoe Plantation is located at 1206 River Road in Henrico, VA 23228. It was Thomas Jefferson's boyhood home.

Historic Tuckahoe.


There will be a presentation by Josh Pons on his book, Letters from Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o' War, and the Founding of Maryland's Oldest Thoroughbred Farm. A Historic Marker Dedication for the famous thoroughbred Boston that was foaled in Henrico County will follow.

Letters from Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o' War, and the Founding of Maryland's Oldest Thoroughbred Farm.


There will also be a special tour of Historic Tuckahoe. Registration is required, and there will be a $15.00 per person fee which may be made at the society's website, www.henricohistoricalsociety.org/shopping.html.

To reserve your place at the meeting or for additional information, text or call (804)-839-2407.


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In Memorium

The Henrico County Historical Society expresses its deepest sympathy to the family of Polly Lantz.


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Congratulations!

Congratulations to Sarah Pace, President of HCHS, on her Historic Preservation Advisory Committee's Award of Merit.


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Inventive Henricoans

Rufus Chandler's wristband for shirts was certainly a fashionable looking addition to a man's wardrobe. And as elegant as it looks, it was actually designed as an aid in prolonging the wearability of the garment to which it was attached by doubling the time a gentleman would be able to sport a clean shirt cuff.

Wristband patent.


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Lost in a Card Game, Henrico-foaled Boston was a . . .Winner on the Turf

In the late 50s or early 60s, my friends and I would ride our bikes out Patterson Avenue near Gaskins Road to a place where a man kept horses that were docile and inexpensive enough for kids to ride. While we thought they were amazing, they were nowhere near as amazing as a champion horse that was foaled a few miles west of there over a century before at John Wickham's Tuckahoe. His name was Boston.

Wickham only owned the colt for two years, giving the chestnut colt to Nathaniel Rives in 1835 to satisfy an $800 card debt, the rough equivalent of $2800 today. That colt was Boston, and that name might have been a reference the card game Boston that brought him to Rives.

Boston.


Boston would also be known as Old White Nose, a reference to the white blaze on his face. Boston first raced on 20 April 1836 at Broad Rock in Richmond; and after building a large lead, apparently refused to go on. However, he went on to win 40 out of approximately 45 races over the course of his career.

As a four-year-old, Boston entered the stables of Colonel William Ransom Johnson, known as the "Napoleon of the Turf" and owner of Sir Archy, Boston's grandsire. He won four races for Johnson that season, including the $1,000 purse for the fourth day at the Union Course Races, earning the biggest purse offered at the event. The newspaper clip below from the 1 June 1838 Lynchburg Virginian adds a note that foreshadowed Boston' future greatness.

1 June 1838 Lynchburg Virginian.


Boston demonstrated his greatness as a five-year-old, winning all eleven of his starts for Johnson that season, one of which was at the New York Races at Union Course. Here's how the 18 June 1839 Richmond Enquirer described it:

18 June 1839 Richmond Enquirer.


Colonel Johnson, "the Old Napoleon," obviously knew his horse's style and ability, as his confident trackside prediction illustrated.

And the article suggests that he was confident enough in his assessment of the horse to offer 10:3 odds on Boston and accept nineteen bets.

He was also well aware of the horse's value and was ready to capitalize on it. The $800-dollar colt had become an impressive 6-year old whose value had increased at a pace that matched, or even exceeded, his pace on the race track. And so Old White Nose went up for sale. And the price was impressive.

The 11 July 1839 Alexandria Gazette reported Boston's sale for fifteen times what Wickham had originally settled for.

11 July 1839 Alexandria Gazette.


However, that price, it seems, is only half the story and half the real amount because most sources indicate that Johnson remained half owner. That would make the horse's value twice the $12,500 sale price. To estimate today's value of that sale and other figures in this article, one might multiple them by a factor of at least 30, making Boston's 1839 value somewhere near $450,000.

Boston had also apparently become the gold standard for his contemporary competitors, witnessed by the account below from the 11 October 1839 Richmond Enquirer.

11 Oct 1839 Richmond Enquirer.


Long wasted no time in at least attempting to fulfill the idea of a match with Wagner as the 8 November 1839 Alexandria Gazette announcement indicates:

8 November 1839 Alexandria Gazette.


No record of that race could be found; but if it occured, Boston won because he won all seven of his races in 1840.

And one of those was a challenge race. This race was in Augusta, Georgia. That was quite a distance for a racehorse, and it would be interesting to know just how Boston made the trip. Requiring that horse to walk the distance would be far too time-consuming, and a faster pace would have been too much for a horse expected to race. There were special wagons that could transport horses, and there were trains; but no matter how he traveled, he got there, and the 7 December Alexandria Gazette carried the following announcement:

7 December 1840 Alexandria Gazette.


The 29 December 1840 Richmond Enquirer provided a brief recap of the event:

29 December 1840 Richmond Enquirer.


Boston's performance brought offers for his purchase, like the one below from the 21 December 1840 Alexandria Gazette:

21 December 1840 Alexandria Gazette.


The two articles about the Boston-Gano race also give a little insight into the speed at which news traveled to different markets since the Alexandria paper got news of the post-race offer before the Enquirer had even received the news of the race results.

In addition to racing, Boston was beginning another career as a stud horse. In the 11 February 1841 Richmond Enquirer below, Colonel Johnson announced the horse's availability. 11 February 1841 Richmond Enquirer.


Boston, however, wasn't invincible. Reporting in the 4 November 1841 Lynchburg Virginian on a late season loss took on what seems to be a consciously bombastic tone in its treatment of the effect on the horse's reputation and that of his owner.

4 November 1841 Lynchburg Virginian.


1842 saw Boston outrun again in a race against Fashion, a horse that actually had a connection to Colonel Johnson's stables. The race was run on 10 May 1842, and the 17 May 1842 Richmond Enquirer ran the account below from the New York Spirit of the Times.

17 May 1842 Richmond Enquirer.


The length of that account was several columns long, detailing almost every step of the race. The portion printed here is an illustration of the

flowery, high-flown style of the writing of the age.

Interest in the race obviously ran high. Methods of communicating accounts seem to have been used like that mentioned in the 13 June 1842 Daily Richmond Whig.

13 June 1842 Daily Richmond Whig.


A briefer treatment of the race mentioning a rematch appeared in the 16 May Lynchburg Virginian.

16 May 1842 Lynchburg Virginian.


The race was apparently a sort of family affair since Fashion's blood line could be traced back to Colonel Johnson's stable, as the 19 May 1842 Alexandria Gazette points out.

19 May 1842 Alexandria Gazette.


The 1842 season wasn't always good to Boston, but he came back from the loss at Long Island, as the 25 October 1842 Richmond Enquirer notes.

25 October 1842 Richmond Enquirer.


But that race seemed to be the beginning of the end of Boston's racing career. The 31 October 1842 Virginia Gazette suggested that the previous race was to be Boston's last, and it also provides a bit of information about how racehorses were sometimes transported.

31 October 1842 Virginia Gazette.


Boston's later years were spent in Petersburg and Hanover where he serviced mares who produced more racehorses. The announcement of his availability appears in the 31 March 1843 Richmond Enquirer:

31 March 1843 Richmond Enquirer.


Boston spent the remainder of his life standing, as the racing world referred to stud services, in Hanover, Petersburg, Washington D.C. and Kentucky. He sired 95 winners of 293 races, including 26 at 4-mile heats and 61 at 3-mile heats.

Boston died on 31 January 1850. The Henrico County Historical Society will host the dedication of a historical marker for Boston at its December meeting on Sunday the 1st of December at Historic Tuckahoe.

I'm past cycling for long distances, but I'll be driving out the route I often traveled in my youth to see the marker to an amazing horse.

Joey Boehling

Boston's birthplace: Boston was bred by John Wickham at Tuckahoe plantation (circled on Smith's map below), which he bought from the Randolph family in 1800.


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Now You Know

Vascula - 'Botanist boxes' for professionals, amateurs & even children . . .

We had guesses ranging from lunch boxes to snuff boxes and more, but only Chelsea Blake correctly identified the objects in the last "What Do You Know?" as vascula (plural of vasculum). A vasculum is a container used to protect plants collected in the wild. These three vascula came from Mitchell Snow's collection.

Vascula.


These three children's vascula were from nineteenth-century Germany and are similar to the one seen in the photograph below.

Children with vasculum.


As the small photo directly below shows, moistened cloth or paper was usually put in the bottom of the case to help preserve the collected plants until they could be taken home, to the botanist's laboratory, to the garden or the terrarium.

Vasculum.


John Houston Balfour explained the proper use of a vasculum in The Botanical Companion (1860) seen at the left.

The Botanical Companion 1860.


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What Do You Know?

Wooden box.




This wooden box measures 3.5 x 2 x 5 inches. The metal mechanism on the top is brass and metal.




Do you know what it is?

Email your answers to jboehling@verizon.net.




We look forward to hearing from you.


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