It is impossible to seperate horses from American history. The role they played in the founding of this great nation was so integral that it could easily be argued that without horses, there would be no United States of America. They carried our brave soldiers and messengers during the revolutionary and civil wars, WWI, WWII and beyond. They plowed our fields, labored in our mines, and pulled the carts that fueled American industry. And lets not forget that then-modern marvel and incredible source of national pride, the Pony Express. If you ever doubted the importance of the horse in American history, just try to imagine where we would be today without the following equine heroes:
BROWN BEAUTY
When the American hero Paul Revere shouted the warning words "The British Are Coming", he was mounted on a gallant mare of special stamina belonging to a Charleston merchant and patriot John Larkin. The borrowed Brown Beauty and Paul Revere a 40-year-old silversmith were destined to change the course of American history. And it did not take decades of commitment for the pair to pass into legend but merely an evening.
On 18th April 1775, the alarm was raised and a message sent to Paul Revere at hi house (which is still there and the oldest house in Boston). He was to ride the 12 miles to Concord via Lexington to warn the rebels, but before his ride could start he had to be smuggled across the River Charles to Charlestown where he collected Brown Beauty from her owner and they set off apace.
Thus mounted on a horse of English descent, Paul Revere rode to warn his fellows of the threat of the British and in so doing ignited the American War of Independence. At midnight, flanks covered with sweat and blood, Brown Beauty slid to a halt outside Hancock s house. A sergeant on guard warned Paul to stop making a noise. Noise?! Revere shouted, You ll have noise enough before long. The Regulars are coming out!
A history of the Larkin family states: Samuel [Larkin] born October 22, 1701, died October 8 1784, aged 83; he was a chairmaker, then a fisherman and had horses and a stable. He was the owner of Brown Beauty, the mare of Paul Revere s Ride The mare was loaned at the request of Samuel s son, deacon John Larkin, and was never returned to the owner Brown Beauty s end may have been unnoticed but her history-changing role has never been forgotten and is honored by a glorious statue in a square in Boston, as well as immortalized by the poet Longfellow:
Listen my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year
A hurry of hoofs in a village street
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light
The fate of a nation was riding that night
And the spark struck out by that steed, in [her] flight
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
