The Stallion Register (1893-1907)
Written by PA Heritage Staff in the Our Documentary Heritage category and the Spring 2005 issue Topics in this article: Athens Academy, Bradford County, Pennsylvania State Archives, Robert E. Pattison, Robert S. Edmiston, Stephen Collins Foster, William FosterAn Act to prevent deception and fraud by owners and agents who may have of control of any stallion kept for services, by proclaiming or publishing fraudulent or false pedigrees or records, and to protect such owners or agents in the collection of fees for services of such stallions (Act 33) was passed by the state legislature and signed into law on May 10, 1893, by Governor Robert E. Pattison. The act required any owner or agent having custody or control of any stallion for which he intended to charge a fee for services to file with the clerk of the court of quarter sessions of the county a written statement giving the name, age, pedigree, and the description, terms, and conditions upon which the stallion would serve.
Upon the official filing of this statement, the clerk of the court would issue a certificate or license to the owner or agent who was required to post a copy of the statement at a conspicuous location where the stallion was kept for service. Owners or agents who published fraudulent pedigrees, or who refused to comply with the provisions of the act, risked forfeiting all fees they had charged for the services of the stallion. The act specified that individuals who had been defrauded could also sue them for damages.
Among the earliest records created in response to the new law is an entry dated July 19, 1893, by Robert S. Edmiston of Milan, Ulster Township, Bradford County, for a six-year-old stallion named Gold Patch that contains an unusually detailed pedigree. (“Honest Bob” Edmiston was elected twice to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and served in the state senate from 1901 to 1909.) The Stallion Register containing Edmiston’s sworn statement covers the period from 1893 to 1907, and includes entries for forty-eight uncastrated adult male horses. The earliest such register in the custody of the Pennsylvania State Archives, it is one of three volumes comprising series 47.17 in the Records of County Governments (Record Group 47). Like many areas in rural Pennsylvania at the time, Bradford County could be regarded as “horse country.” At the suggestion of his brother William Foster, a civil engineer working in Towanda, the composer Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) attended the Athens Academy in Bradford County from 1839 to 1841. A race track at Camptown in the southeastern corner of Bradford County is frequently cited as one of the inspirations for Foster’s popular 1850 composition “Camptown Races” (see “Marking Time” in the spring 2005 issue). Material relating to Foster is contained in Manuscript Group 9, Pennsylvania Writers Collection, 1837-1975, held by the Pennsylvania State Archives.