The Sandanona Harehounds, Beagling and Basseting in Millbrook

The Sandanona Harehounds Beagling and Basseting in Millbrook

Edited by Gary L. Dycus

Foreword by Peter Winants

The Sandanona Harehounds

The Sandanona Harehounds Beagling and Basseting in Millbrook

Gary L. Dycus, Editor

Liberty Hall Publications, Inc. 2004

Liberty Hall Publications, Inc. Hopewell Junction, New York Š Sandanona Harehounds, Inc. Printed in the United States of America Book Designers: Hiram Ash and Virginia Anstett ISBN 0-9749534-0-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2004091109

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Dedication

To Hiram Newton Ash (1934-2003) whose original concept and patient guidance made this book possible Photo courtesy of Jean Tate

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The Chronicle (now The Chronicle of the Horse) used the frontispiece on the cover page of its Friday, December 17, 1954, issue with the following information: Mr. Michael Lyne, who has made several trips here from England to paint horses and hounds, has included two beagle packs in his list of works, the Wolver Beagles, C. Oliver Iselin Jr., Master, Middleburg, VA, in 1953 and the Sandanona Beagles, Millbrook, New York in 1953.

Our cover page shows the Sandanona Beagles in full cry on a hare on their opening meet at Thorndale, Millbrook, October 10, 1953. Morgan Wing Jr., master and huntsman, is hunting the pack with Mrs. Wing, joint master and whipper-in, with her Norwich terrier, Killy Lieu (old English hunting term on view of hare corresponding to tallyho for fox), who regularly hunts with the pack. Next in line is whipper-in Miss Adele Leavitt.

The majority of the beagles are from individual portraits painted in the kennels by Mr. Lyne. One of the more prominent is the tail hound, a bitch Vernon Somerset Barberry, a gift from Edith Gambrill, widow of the late Richard V.N. Gambrill, master of the Vernon Somerset Beagles. Barberry at the age of 8 won the 15-inch three-hour stake for Sandanona at the National Beagle Club 1953 field trials.

Mr. Lyne, a beagler himself, and master of his own pack in England for some years, was a very active member of the field on the day he made his drawings for this lovely water color.

Beginning at least in the early 1950s, Michael Lyne and his wife Jessie made several visits to the United States. They established the custom of first visiting Mr. and Mrs. Frederic H. Bontecou of Millbrook, then traveling south to Maryland and Virginia.

Bontecou was master of the Millbrook Hunt at the time, and Lyne painted several Millbrook Hunt pictures including portraits of Bontecou and Elias Chadwell, Millbrook’s huntsman.

Right: Michael Lyne’s sketches for his 1955 picture, “The Sandanona Beagles”

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Acknowledgments

The idea for this book originated several years ago when Hiram Ash, a Sandanona Harehounds subscriber, graphic designer and publisher, encouraged Betsy Park to write an anecdotal memoir of her hare and fox hunting experiences. Time passed, and before the project was realized, Sandanona marked its 50th hunting season, 1998-1999.

Several other subscribers of Sandanona then thought that it would be a good idea to produce a commemorative pamphlet; here is the “pamphlet.�

Many present and former Sandanona subscribers and their families contributed photographs, information, articles and anecdotes. While space does not permit listing everyone who made this book possible, several particularly important contributors deserve special recognition. Hiram Ash was instrumental in guiding the project from the beginning. Jill Wing Heck provided access to Wing family pictures and artifacts and permission to photograph the picture used as the frontispiece. Betsy Park contributed her photograph and document files and her recollections, analysis, anecdotes and articles. Peter B. Devers contributed access to his extensive photograph and document files and wrote articles. Charlie Hoyt contributed excerpts from his hunting diary.

Dorothy Mayo researched and wrote about Sandanona’s results at the hound shows.

Ann LaFarge and Marsden Epworth provided editorial advice. Anne Frey coordinated advance sales and gave editorial assistance. Eleanor Park Hartwell and Rosemary H. Coates contributed maps and drawings. Peter Winants, former editor of The Chronicle of the Horse and director emeritus of the National Sporting Library, Middleburg, VA, provided encouragement and research assistance, as well as the foreword. The Chronicle of the Horse lent photographs and kindly gave permission to reprint articles that tell important parts of the Sandanona story. George T. Whalen III provided computer and office support. Virginia Anstett provided design and coordinated printing.

To all of the many others who assisted in many ways, thank you for helping to make this book possible.

Gary L. Dycus

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Prologue

In the Spring of 2003, as this act of communal composition lurched toward a conclusion, it has seemed as if this project has taken on a life of its own and now resembles the longest hunt on record more than it does any kind of literary effort. At “the meet” in 1998 (when this effort began), an order of draw was decided upon by the principal players, a hunting pack (of potential contributors) was selected and subsequently “lieued-in,” each one to seek archives, query friends and dredge memories for appropriate material. Many of these “hounds” struck great “scent” lines and departed in full cry for unknown destinations. The winds of many months carried their voices back to the compilers of this history, announcing the contents of old fixture cards, treasures found in stacks of letters, gold mines in Chronicle files; often we heard the clear tones of original participants. Just when the scattered cry of this pack was coalescing into a chorus, major interruptions occurred. A bizarre illness (leishmaniasis) caused a yearlong “check,” but eventually an “all-around-your-hat” cast recovered the line, and the pack settled in to finish the day. We experienced the literary equivalent of a “sight chase,” and pressed on with growing confidence toward the final accounting for the quarry. Victory…a publication date…was tangible. At this very moment our pack began to “run short” and, unbelievably, our first whipper-in was thrown out of the action, made a wrong turn and found himself carried far to the East; eventually he reported in from Bangkok with the news that another “check” of six months was inevitable. Absent this staff member, hounds’ heads came up.

They lost focus, rioted and disappeared into the many adjacent swamps. We were tempted to call it a day, but all was not lost. Those of us who posted ourselves on hilltops, listening for our vanished pack, eventually heard news. The voices of Mr. Reynal’s hounds, the “Big Lot,” the “Little Lot,” the Poona, the Hamardale, the Far Cry and the Flint Hill came to us from the past, and were added to the tale.

Eventually the silhouette of our missing staff member was viewed on the horizon, hounds were collected and cast for the last time, the last check was “picked” and with a final long (uphill!) drive our quarry was accounted for…the book was finished!

Whoo- WHOOP! Though the result of this epic hunt is rather like Sandanona’s nickname – Pandemonium – common threads carry us from the find to the end of the day. Kennels and country, hounds and bloodlines, our four masters and long-serving staff members, loyal subscribers and friendly landowners, have given Sandanona a seamless continuity lasting 50 years and beyond.

Elizabeth B. Park

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Foreword

The late Alexander Mackay-Smith, whom I succeeded as editor of The Chronicle of the Horse in 1974 and as director of the National Sporting Library 17 years later, had a favorite remark about books he wrote: “I want to do such a good job that there’ll never be need for anyone to write on this subject again.” This was true in Alex’s books on the American foxhound, the art of Edward L. Troye, the quarter horse in colonial America and his foxhunting anthologies.

Were Alex with us today, I feel certain that he’d feel the same about The Sandanona Harehounds, Beagling and Basseting in Millbrook. There’s no need to revisit. It’s all here – sport, history, statistics, human interest. And I’m glad the text isn’t limited to Sandanona per se, that the Millbrook Hunt, the proud history of the National Beagle Club and so much more are included.

Of course, each of you will have segments of the text that are favorites. For me, Peter Devers’ “Last Horn,” an incredibly moving description of the midnight funeral for Morgan Wing Jr. at Aldie, VA, gets the blue ribbon hands down. It brought tears to my eyes.

Also, “Sandanona Tales” focuses on amusing incidents – particularly the tales of Batsford and the Hong Kong Beaglers – that show the camaraderie and good times that exist in foot hunting.

A personal note as to why writing this foreword means so much to me, and is such an honor. My father died when I was 6. My mother married S. Bryce Wing, Morgan’s first cousin, when I was in my early teens. Mention is made time and again in this book that Morgan always encouraged the young and was a great ambassador for his sport. Bryce was the same in foxhunting, steeplechasing and other areas. He lit a fire under me that has been burning ever since. I might add that Morgan and I have sons named after Bryce Wing.

A final thought. When Gary Dycus first told me that a committee was in charge of creating the Sandanona story, my reaction was, “Committees don’t write books. It’ll never happen.” Wrong, Winants. This committee has produced a never-to-be-revisited sporting book.

Peter Winants Middleburg, VA

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Contents

Dedication

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Frontispiece

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Acknowledgments

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Prologue

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Foreword

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Chapter One Millbrook

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The Millbrook Country – Hunting in Millbrook – The Millbrook Hunt – Foot Hounds in Millbrook – Packs of Hounds Hunting the Millbrook Country Chapter Two The Sandanona Beagles

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The First Hunt, on Nantucket – Sandanona, the Name – Hunt Organization – Huntsmen – Members of the Field – The Hunt Country – The Molnars – Sandanona at the National Beagle Club Trials – An Infusion of Staff – The Deer Problem – Oakleigh as Huntsman – Morgan’s Illness Chapter Three The Flint Hill Bassets

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The Tewksbury Foot Bassets – A Move to Millbrook – The Flint Hill Bassets – Kennels – Family Traditions – Competing at the National Beagle Club – A Hound Trip Story – Merger With the Sandanona Beagles – Some Memorable Flint Hill Hounds

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Chapter Four The Sandanona Harehounds

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The Sandanona Beagles and the Flint Hill Bassets Hunt Together – Hare Hunting in the Millbrook Country – Merger of the Sandanona Beagles and the Flint Hill Bassets – Deer Proofing Sandanona – Training – Breeding – Results – Joint Meets – The First All Pack Hare Stake – Saturday, March 29, 1975, Thorndale – Sunday Morning, March 30, 1975 – The Tewksbury Foot Bassets, To Finish the Season, 1974-1975 – Evolution of The Hare Hunting Festival – The 1990 Hare Hunting Festival – The Tewksbury Foot Bassets, To Finish the Season, 1989-1990 – Aftermath, 1990 – The Festival Finals – The Sandanona Today – The 2001-2002 Season – Some Memorable Sandanona Hounds Chapter Five Morgan Wing, Jr.

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Josiah H. Child’s Tribute to Morgan – Morgan Wing Jr., Esquire, Master of Beagles (a Friend to the Basset Packs) – The Last Horn – A Marker for Morgan’s Grave Chapter Six Sandanona Officials, Staff and Kennels

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Masters – Hunt Committee Chairmen – Secretaries – Assistant Secretaries – Treasurers – Hunt Committee Members – Field Master – Whippers-In – Kennel Huntsmen – The Molnars – Fiftieth Season Hounds – Kennels – Renovation of the Runs – Kennels Renovation – Hound Transportation Chapter Seven Sandanona Followers

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Colors Awarded – Charlie Hoyt’s Hunting Diary – Opening Meet, Thorndale, October 8, 1988 – The Meet – Hunting – The Annual Meeting Chapter Eight Sandanona and the National Beagle Club of America The Home of Beagling – The “Aldie” Experience – Field Trials – Field Trial Organization – Sandanona and Flint Hill Results at the National Beagle Club Field Trials – The Morgan Wing Jr. Award – The Deer Problem at Aldie – The Annual Masters of Beagles and Bassets Dinners – Sandanona Beagles, Sandanona Harehounds and Flint Hill Bassets Awards at National Beagle Club Trials

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Chapter Nine Sandanona Milestones--The Twenty-fifth and Fiftieth Seasons

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The Twenty-fifth Season Opening Meet – The Fiftieth Season Activities – The Fiftieth Season Opening Meet – Gathering of Past and Present Staff – The Fiftieth Season Fixture Cards and Activities – The Twenty-fourth Annual Hare Hunting Festival – The Fiftieth Season Celebration – The Forty-sixth Annual Tewksbury Foot Bassets Joint Meet at Sandanona “To Finish the Season” Chapter Ten Sandanona at the Hound Shows

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The Bryn Mawr Hound Show – Sandanona’s Beagles at Bryn Mawr – Wildman’s Tale – Betsy Park on Lodgings at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show – Traveling With Hounds – Hound Show Trips and the Evolution of the Millbrook Hunt-Sandanona Dog and Pony Show – The 1980 Trip to Virginia – The Longest, Continuous Serial Breakdown That Ever Happened – Judging Hounds in England – Sandanona Beagles, Flint Hill Bassets and Sandanona Harehounds Results at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show Chapter Eleven Sandanona Traditions

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The Millbrook Hunt – Thorndale – Tea – Summer Hunting – Puppy Shows – The Tewksbury Foot Bassets “To Finish the Season” Chapter Twelve Sandanona Tales

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The Lost Film – A Run North – Batsford – The Visit – Bay State Clams – Leavitt-ation – A Hare in Every Pot – Hong Kong Beaglers – The Census Appendix I Beagle Packs

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Appendix II Hares and Hare Hunting

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On Hares and Hare Hunting – Hunting the Hare Is Much Harder Than Hunting the Rabbit – Always Another Rabbit – How Hares Influenced Hound Breeding – Hare Habitat Is Receding – Hares – Jack Rabbits – European Hares – The Varying Hare or Snowshoe Rabbit – Rabbits – Cottontails – Swamp Rabbits – Hare Facts – Brown Hare – Size – Appearance – Habitat – Breeding – Food – Relationship with Man xv

Appendix III Mr. Reynal’s Beagles

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Appendix IV Kent & Molly Leavitt’s Hounds

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The Poona Bassets – Betsy Park Recalls Meeting the Leavitts – Kent Leavitt’s Account of the Poona Bassets – Success at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show – Changes – Betsy Park Recalls the Dachshund Pack – Betsy Park’s Account of the Far Cry Beagles – A Far Cry Beagles Travel Story Appendix V The Hamardale Beagles

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Appendix VI Foot Hunting in Millbrook 1938-1943, Excerpts from The Millbrook Round Table

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Bibliography

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Beagling Bibliography

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Underwriters and Subscribers

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Beagling Glossary

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Footnotes

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The Sandanona Harehounds

Chapter One

Millbrook

By Peter B. Devers

The tradition of hare hunting in Millbrook goes back to the 1890s. Fox hunting came later, and both fox hunting and hare hunting continue in Millbrook today. In the following article, Peter B. Devers, a Millbrook resident, a historian and a longtime subscriber, staff member and follower of Sandanona, tells of the combination of country and sporting residents which has led to such a long tradition of hunting in Millbrook.

Hare drawing by Rosemary H. Coates

The Millbrook Country Midway up the Hudson River Valley, on a plateau that rises quickly to a height of 800 feet or more, then 10 miles east dives into the borders of Connecticut, lies an area known as the Millbrook Hunt country. Its boundaries are somewhat fluid, incorporating most of Millbrook and the Town of Washington and also portions of the neighboring townships of Stanford, Amenia, Pine Plains and Northeast. All these towns are connected by a trail system hundreds of miles in scope, which was built and is maintained by the landowners and subscribers of the Millbrook Hunt.

The area is one of unsurpassed beauty. This patchwork of fields and meadows, woodlands and marshes, hills and valleys is so lovely that around each bend there is a vista worth painting. Many ancient homes, some dating to the early 18th century, are sprinkled here and there, close to the old byways, or secret from them up long tree-lined drives. Views of the Catskills appear where you least expect them, surprising you with their majesty. From many points the jagged beauty of Stissing Mountain landmarks your location.

But Millbrook is also more. It is a state of mind, a magical spirit of pageantry, grace, 3

friendship and ritual that hallmark a true community. A weekender from New York City called Millbrook his Brigadoon. He didn’t have to wait every hundred years for it to magically appear; it appeared on Friday evenings, when his car turned off the Taconic Parkway to the little village on the hill. A sense of community is created by the activities we share with one another, and, in Millbrook, hounds and hunting have been at the core of our lives for well over one hundred years.

Hunting in Millbrook In the 18th and 19th centuries the Millbrook Hunt country was dotted with small family farms, most raising dairy and beef cattle which were driven on foot, then later shipped via train, to the hungry denizens of the city. Entertainments were few, but it seems that most of the farmers kept a hunting dog or two for shooting game, and others, hounds to go coon hunting with in the evenings after dinner. George Lester, in the late 1890s, was known far and wide as having some of the best coonhounds and foxhounds in the state.

These were usually hunted in pairs, or with his friends’ hounds in a small pack, while the huntsmen sat around a fire listening to their hounds’ music.

Formal hunting in the English manner didn’t get started in Millbrook until the end of the th century. At that time the Industrial Revolution was well underway and America was developing its first really wealthy class of people, folk who had the money, and above all the free time, to indulge themselves in leisure pursuits. This era also saw a great expansion in numbers of the middle class. Both looked to Britain as a role model, emulating the lifestyles they saw there and determined as fashionable. Horses were still the primary means of local transportation – everyone knew how to ride – and it was only natural that as an outgrowth foxhunting was adopted by many. It was an elegant way of having fun.

The first pack of foxhounds to hunt the Millbrook countryside was Archibald Rogers’ Dutchess County Hounds in 1889. This pack was a mixture of American and English blood. The dogs and bitches, drafts from the Meadowbrook Hunt of Long Island, the Walcott Hunt of England, the Pembrokeshire Hunt of Wales and six American hounds from Virginia, were kept on his estate, Crumwold, in Hyde Park. He hunted them up and down the riverside farms for many years. Franklin Roosevelt was a keen follower in his youth. The pack was brought to Millbrook for several hunts each year, with an enthusiastic crowd of local citizens joining in the fun from meets at the Millbrook Inn. The hunt went across the great estates that circled the village – Thorndale of the Thornes, Altamont of the Lamonts, Sandanona of the Wings, Edgewood of the Flaglers, Daheim of the Dieterichs – and when it left, people felt the loss. It seemed such a perfect part of what country life should be that G. Howard Davison was prevailed upon to get up a scratch pack of Millbrook’s own. His daughter Margaret (Mrs. Vansel Johnson) recalls that the initial pack was made up of the Davison house dogs with a later supplement of real English harriers from the Westchester County Hunt near White Plains. These hounds were hunted haphazardly for a number of years, providing a lot of fun and amusement, but little real hunting.

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The Millbrook Hunt Millbrook hungered for more. In 1907 a meeting was held at the home of Charles C. Marshall where the formation of a real pack of hounds was discussed. Some people there, such as Oakleigh Thorne (great-grandfather of Oakleigh B. Thorne, Sandanona joint master), thought Millbrook might be too difficult a place to establish a proper hunting country. Though at this time 90 percent of the land was open meadow and farmland, seemingly good for hunting, the countryside was also one of sharp hills, high stone walls and wire fences. Hunting countries, like those of Meadowbrook, Westchester, and the old Dutchess County Hunt, were flat going. The Shires of England, familiar to many in Millbrook, were the same. However, goaded and spurred on by Middleton O’Malley Knott, an Irish veterinarian and horseman recently moved to Millbrook, Marshall decided to have a go at it.

Hounds were purchased by Knott from the Watchung Hunt in New Jersey, Knott’s old stomping grounds, and Millbrook was off and running. After several years of hunting his private pack, Marshall surrendered the horn to the converted Oakleigh Thorne in 1910.

Thorne’s love of the sport, mirrored by his daughter Margaret’s interest, was enough to provide a catalyst to inject the hunt with stronger blood. His congenial relations with all his neighbors, especially the yeoman farmers, and his readiness to spend liberally to develop the countryside turned a rough and troublesome terrain into a magnificent foxhunting gameboard almost overnight. In only a few short years Millbrook was to become one of the best and most revered hunting countries in the New World.

It can be safely said that no hunting country in America has had as many first-rate packs of hounds hunt the land as Millbrook. The Thorne family spared no expense in paneling the countryside, purchasing the best harriers possible – for hare was the principal quarry at the outset – and in hiring professional English staff. When the sport took off and people, particularly his daughter Margaret, wanted a faster pack, the hounds were divided into the Little Lot to hunt hare, and the Big Lot to hunt fox. Later, real foxhounds were brought in, with Henry Higginson’s visiting Middlesex Hounds giving Millbrook six days of hunting each week for many seasons. These provided such an exhilarating experience that their reputation attracted to Millbrook new families of sportsmen – the Collins, Bontecou, Grand, Place, and Crawford families, among others – many of whose descendents still participate in hunting to this day.

Not only did Millbrook have its own pack, but it also had two significant visiting packs which took up residence here for many years. The famed proponent of English foxhounds, author of many books on foxhunting, and founder of the Masters of Foxhounds Association of America, Alexander Henry Higginson, brought his renowned Middlesex Hounds, here for the seasons 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1917. These were hunted on alternate days with the harriers. He sold his hounds in 1919 but returned to the Millbrook as huntsman for fox in 1920, 1921, and 1922 when Thorne divided his pack into the Little Lot for hare and Big Lot for fox. In the spring of 1923 Thorne sold off his own hounds. In their place the equally great proponent of American foxhounds, Joseph B. Thomas, was invited to hunt the country-side from Verbank to Tower Hill. He spent five glorious seasons here. While in Millbrook he wrote much of the premier classic of American hunting literature, “Hounds and 5

Hunting Through The Ages.” Mr. Reynal’s Harriers, a private pack, hunted the Verbank country from ’23 to ’34 after Thorne made the switch to fox. He was also regarded by many houndmen as one of the greats.

In 1928, having seen how well Thomas’s American hounds tore up the countryside, the hunt committee decided to reestablish a permanent pack in Millbrook with Virginia hounds. Thus started the era of Elias Chadwell, one of the best huntsmen ever born.

Chadwell was tall, rail thin and of that quiet courtly Virginia demeanor that harked back to the 18th century. He was the epitome of a huntsman and was well loved by hounds and followers alike. Gordon Grand, a subscriber of the Millbrook Hunt who wrote lovely foxhunting tales, thinly disguised Chadwell as his fictitious huntsman Will Madden. In a series of five books published by the Derrydale Press, he captures beautifully the aura of the Millbrook hunting community in the thirties and forties. The story “Trying” depicts Chadwell’s personality exquisitely.

Elias Chadwell passed the horn to his son Earl in 1950 who carried on the sport gallantly and well for 27 years. He in turn passed it on to Betsy Park, the present huntsman, in 1977. Woven in among the mounted hunting, however, was another sport with hounds – beagling, the chase on foot after hares and rabbits.

Foot Hounds in Millbrook The Millbrook countryside has seen several fine packs of foot hounds hunting the land since 1910, when Eugene Reynal first brought his beagle pack up for a visit from its home kennels near White Plains. Mr. Reynal’s Beagles was a private pack, but many in Millbrook hunted with Reynal and enjoyed the sport the small hounds provided (see Appendix III). After Reynal’s pack was disbanded in 1934, Millbrook saw a few years without beagling until Morgan Wing Jr., a Millbrook native living on Long Island, brought the Buckram Beagles of Glen Head, of which he was joint master, here for annual hunting visits. Since Millbrook was one of the few places in America with a significant population of brown hare, it was a desired visiting place for other foot packs as well. Mrs. DuPont’s Foxcatcher Beagles, Richard Gambrill’s Vernon Somerset Beagles, David Sharp’s Treweryn Beagles and others came here for hunting holidays. The Millbrook Round Table reported on many of these visits over the years. (See Appendix VI.) Finally, in 1948, Millbrook got a pack of its own again. Morgan Wing and Anne Vogels, a whipper-in for the Waldingfield Beagles (as well as Mr. Almy’s Foxhounds and the Nantucket Harriers), married and moved to Millbrook. With them they brought the nucleus of a new beagle pack, named after the Wing estate – Sandanona. The hounds went from a private pack to a subscription pack in 1953, and again the Thorne family came into the fun with enthusiasm and unstinting support, greatly helping to make the Sandanona a success.

While the Sandanona became the primary foot pack in Millbrook, other packs of foot hounds have also graced the stage. The Leavitt family was responsible for three of them: the Poona Bassets, the Far Cry Beagles and a pack of dachshunds that lasted long enough to be cursed, but not long enough to be named. In 1964 Betsy and Jamie Park moved here from the Tewksbury Foot Bassets country of New Jersey and established their own lot of hounds, the Flint Hill Bassets. For a short time there were four packs actively hunting the 6

Millbrook countryside. Couple that with the presence of the Mid Hudson Beagle Club, for brace people in Lithgow, and you have quite a bit of houndwork going on in Millbrook.

Changing land use patterns from the start to the finish of the 20th century have brought about a reduced population of the pack beagle’s chief quarry, the European brown hare. In 1900, as has been noted, virtually 90 percent of Dutchess County was open farmland. The numerous dairy farms provided excellent foraging grounds for hare, first imported to Millbrook by Charles Dieterich in the 1880s. In the early part of the century the hare population exploded, so much so that the state offered bounties on hares due to the damage they caused to orchards. In 1915 alone over 100,000 hare were killed in the county.

Today, Dutchess County is approximately 60 percent woodland. The family dairy farms are few and far between. The change of habitat has allowed the fox population to grow in numbers, and even more so, has allowed the extension of the range of the eastern coyote into our area over the past 20 years. This loss of habitat and food, the increase in predators and the exponential increase in the numbers of deer have decimated the hare population. In 1978 you could always count on finding hares on Thorndale. Now, sadly, there are none.

A few brown hare are left, and these continue to provide good sport. Increasingly, though, the foot pack has taken to hunting cottontail, where in times past this animal would have been considered riot. Rabbits have proved to be more fun than most thought.

The Sandanona has provided great sport in Millbrook for more than a half century.

Its Sunday hunts, October through March, are woven into the fabric of the community and are part of what makes Millbrook such a lovely place to live.

Mr. Reynal’s Beagles, 1912, l. to r.: Edward H. Carle, whipper-in; Eugene S. Reynal Jr., whipper-in; Eugene S. Reynal, master and huntsman; Tom Waller, second whipper-in and kennel huntsman Photographs courtesy of Peter B. Devers

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Packs of Hounds Hunting the Millbrook Country “…Mr. G. Howard Davison of the Altamont Stock Farm maintained a small private pack in the late nineties which was used for a season or two for drag and hare hunting.” 1

1890 Beagles and Bassets Sandanona Harehounds 1977- (hare until about 1998, then also cottontails) Beagles Mr. Reynal’s Beagles 1910-1934 (hare) Sandanona Beagles 1948-1977 (hare) Hamardale Beagles 1960-1973 (hare) Far Cry Beagles 1968-1972 (hare & cottontails) Bassets Poona Bassets 1954-1961 (hare & cottontails) Flint Hill Bassets 1968-1977 (hare and cottontails) Dachshunds Kent & Molly Leavitt’s unnamed pack 1962-1965 (hare and cottontails) Kerry Beagles Millbrook Hunt 1907-1913 (hare) Harriers Millbrook Hunt 1912-1923 Little Lot 1916-1923 (hare) Big Lot 1916-1923 (fox) Mr. Reynal’s Harriers 1924-1934 2 (hare) Foxhounds Middlesex Foxhounds 1913-1915, 1917 (fox) Mr. Thomas’s Hounds 1923-1927 (fox) Millbrook Hunt 1907-12, 1924-present (fox and coyote)

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1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Right: Mr. Reynal’s Beagles, Middleton O’Malley Knott leading Below: The Sandanona Harehounds coming up Pugsley Hill from the Millbrook Equestrian Center, October 1992

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Above: l. to r. Oakleigh Thorne, A. Henry Higginson, C.F.P. McNeill and E.S. Reynal at Millbrook, 1915 from “Try Back, A Huntsman’s Reminiscences” by A. Henry Higginson, MFH, 1931 Left: Detail from the cover of Hounds, December 1984

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Right: The Buckram Beagles meet at Thorndale, October 1937, from rear to front, l. to r., Henry B. Thompson Jr., MB; William L. Rochester, E. Mortimer Ward Jr., Morgan Wing Jr., Norman Duryea, huntsman; Anthony Garvan, to the rear of Henry Thompson, not in livery; J. Woodeson “Woody” Glenn; Lady Glenn

Below: Mr. Reynal’s Beagles, Eugene S. Reynal, master, in the center, at the Reynal residence

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Chapter Two

The Sandanona Beagles

By Gary L. Dycus, Peter B. Devers and Elizabeth B. Park

The Sandanona Beagles was founded in 1948 by Anne and Morgan Wing Jr. after they received beagles from six of the best-known beagle packs of the time as wedding presents. 1 Morgan and Anne spent the summer of 1948 hunting hares with these hounds on Nantucket, where Rebecca Lanier Trimpi, (later Mrs. David B. [Bun] Sharp), master of the Nantucket Harriers, made kennel space available to them. In the fall of 1948 the Wings moved to Millbrook, NY, and with the permission of the Millbrook Hunt, began hunting hares.

The First Hunt, on Nantucket The following article, reprinted with the permission of The Chronicle of the Horse, tells of Sandanona’s founding and its very first hunt.

Hare drawing by Rosemary H. Coates

Sandanona Beagles on Nantucket, The Morgan Wings’ Wedding Gift Pack Opens the Season at Altar Rock In Preparation for Fall Season at Millbrook The Sandanona Beagles, a new pack composed entirely of wedding presents to Anne and Morgan Wing Jr., held their opening meet July 14th at Altar Rock, Nantucket Island.

Morgan’s marriage to Anne W. Vogels, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David S. Vogels, on June 26 climaxed a real beagle romance, which started on an expedition to Nantucket this past New Year’s when Josiah H. Child at the suggestion of his whip brought the Waldingfield Beagles to hunt hare on Nantucket. Morgan was one of the 19 who made this memorable trip.2 13

Four couples were hunted by Morgan with Anne and me [Philip K. Crowe] whipping to him. The field consisted of my daughter, Phillippa, and Irene and Sandy Mackay.

Phillippa’s progress was somewhat impeded by her beagle, Beauty, who came along on a leash and took as much interest in hunting as Ferdinand did in a bull fighter.

Altar Rock is the highest point on the island and served  years ago as the sacrificial block of the now extinct Nantucket Indians. They could not have chosen a more beautiful place. The moor falls away from the rock in rolling carpets of green gorse, spotted here and there by wild roses and purple thistle. Three small lakes glisten in the hollows, and a great variety of moor birds dart about the bushes. The sea and the bay are just visible on two sides, and the sky meets the moor on the others.

From a hunting standpoint, it was not a successful day, hare being scarce and the field picking flowers, but few packs could begin their hunting career in a lovelier setting. It reminded me of some of the very early prints of beagling in Somerset, where the artists caught the blues and yellows of the south country moors and almost forgot to include the hounds and hunters.

The Sandanona stem from almost all the best known packs in the country. C. Oliver Iselin Jr., master of the Wolver Beagles of Middleburg, VA, donated Baker and Ranger.

Josiah H. Child, master of the Waldingfield of South Westport, MA, gave Piper. Durable and Durham came from John C. Baker Jr., master of the Buckram Beagles on Long Island.

Chetwood Smith, master of the renowned Sir Sister Beagles of Boston is sending two hounds, names unknown. Mirthful and Mystery, two very fine looking bitches, were presented by R.V.N. Gambrill, master of the excellent Vernon Somerset Beagles, Peapack, NJ, Tom Grier, master of the Bethel Lake Beagles of Sewell, NJ, has another on the way, and Arthur Armstrong and Andrew Ford of the Whitford Beagles out in Cleveland, OH, are also sending a four-legged present.

Permission has been asked of Frederic Bontecou, master of the Millbrook Hunt, to hunt the Sandanona during the fall and winter months at Millbrook, NY, over the southern country of the fox hounds. The Wings have rented a house in Millbrook and plan to hunt the European hare there from September to March. The Millbrook area, incidentally, is one of the very few in the country where European hare are found. They were released there  years ago by a German businessman, C.F. Dieterich, who missed the fauna of Bavaria.

The name Sandanona originated with Morgan Wing’s great grandfather, who built a house by that name in Millbrook in 1810 [Sandanona was built in 1887, see below]. The name lives today through the same house and the Sandanona Pheasantry which belongs to Morgan’s father where I have had some excellent shooting.

The Wings have submitted colors to the National Beagle Club – yellow with grey piping. This is particularly appropriate, as yellow is the basic color of the Waldingfield Beagles, for which pack Anne whipped for three years, and grey is the color of the Buckram Beagles, of which Morgan was joint master with John Baker for 10 years.

The Sandanona will enter a two- and four-couple pack in the National Beagle Club Trials at Aldie, VA, this fall. It will be the 59th running of the National Trials, and Morgan, as secretary of the National Beagle Club, will have a double interest in the 14

proceedings. He also expects to compete in the pack trials at Gladstone, NJ, which precede the National Trials.

The Chronicle

By Philip K. Crowe August 6, 1948 Sandanona, the Name Sandanona was the name given by John D. Wing, great-grandfather of Morgan Wing Jr., to the grand and famous house he built in Millbrook in 1887. In “A History of the Town of Washington and Millbrook,” Carmine Di Arpino says that John D. Wing, a founder of Wing and Evans, a chemical brokerage firm in New York City, “…bought the Nine Partners School property in 1867 and developed it into a first-rate livestock farm and made the old school into a house which he named Maple Shade. The schoolhouse was moved to a hilltop about a mile away (now Linden Lane) to be expanded and modified until it became the famed mansion Sandanona which he surrounded with terraced gardens.”

How the name Sandanona came to the attention of John D. Wing, and why it became the name of his house are unknown. Local lore and Wing family tradition is that Sandanona is a Native American word meaning “place of the rising sun.” However, the word Sandanona appears in “Indian Names in New York, with a Selection From Other States, and Some Onondaga Names of Plants, Etc.” and in “Aboriginal Place Names of New York,” both by William M. Beauchamp. Beauchamp states that San-da-no’-na means big mountain, and cites several references including The Rev. Albert A. Cusick, an Onondaga interpreter, and Charles Fenno Hoffman. 3 Sandanona is believed to have been designed by the prominent New York architect James E. Ware, who also designed several other buildings in Millbrook including Daheim, the estate of Charles Francis Dieterich, Altamont, the estate of the Lamont family and Halcyon Hall, the resort hotel built in 1892, which later became Bennett College. Ware was also the designer of a secondary residence on the Sandanona estate, Shadow Lodge, on Nine Partners Lane, built by John D. Wing in 1888 for his son J. Morgan Wing. Sandanona’s grounds included terraced gardens, a carriage house and a gatehouse. The main house was torn down and a new house was built on its site. The gatehouse (on Franklin Avenue opposite the Thorne Building) and the carriage house (on Linden Lane) survive as residences. The Sandanona name was also used by Morgan’s father for the 250-acre shooting preserve he founded off the Sharon Turnpike, the first of its kind in America. The shooting facility was willed to Morgan’s brother Henry, who ran it successfully for many years. It is now known as Orvis Sandanona, and offers shooting instruction, sporting clays and wing shooting.

Hunt Organization The Sandanona was initially a private pack with Morgan as master and Anne as honorary secretary and first whipper-in. The National Beagle Club recognized the Sandanona Beagles in 1948. Hounds were kenneled at the Wings’ residence on the Sandanona estate near Millbrook. The Sandanona continued as a private pack until 1953, when, grow15

ing too large for the Wing property, it was reorganized as a subscription pack. A hunt committee was formed to manage the treasury, but in all other matters Morgan still called the shots.

Hounds were moved at that time to the old Millbrook Hunt kennels at Thorndale, generously welcomed there by subscriber Oakleigh L. Thorne. The kennels were built in 1920 by his grandfather when it was decided to move the hunt operations from South Road to the home estate. The dog house, as Oakleigh L. called it, was built of block and stucco, as were the stables at the bottom of the hill. A few years before, a young arsonist had torched some farm buildings, and it was thought concrete would prove more fire resistant. It did, but had the misfortune to be considered damp and clammy. It was heartily disliked by houndsman Joseph B. Thomas, the famous foxhunter and author, who spent a few seasons there shortly after the kennels were constructed.

The use of the kennel huntsman’s house nearby was also contributed by Oakleigh L. to the Sandanona cause. A kennel the size of Thorndale’s was too enticing to Morgan: all those lodgings had to be filled, and soon were. The ever-increasing size of the pack demanded the services of a kennel huntsman, and so John Anspach was inveigled to accept the position. He arrived with family in 1955, staying on for seven years until the spring of 1962.The house was his rent free, along with a small stipend, in return for feeding and caring for the pack. John is remembered as a warm and dedicated man who became an indispensable part of the Sandanona family. With him Morgan got an extra bonus: John’s daughter Marie was drafted for duty as whipper-in.

Thorne’s contribution of the kennels and cottage enabled the Sandanona to run smoothly, and on a modest budget, given the size of the operation. Subscriptions were set at a level just adequate to cover the costs of feed, utilities, veterinary bills, registrations, transportation and the kennelman’s allowance. Both Morgan and Oakleigh L. wanted the pack to be a true community one, with anyone having a hunting instinct welcome in the field. The modest subscription fee made this possible. Even children with a small allowance could afford to join on their own if they wished. To further encourage participants, for an extra $5 – in the early ’70s raised to $10 – a subscriber could bring as many guests along with him, as many times as he wished, to a Sunday afternoon meet. Many new subscribers were attracted by this method. This tradition and philosophy has followed the history of the Sandanona ever since.

Assisting Morgan in the field was a gallant group of whips who, like him, loved hounds and hunting. Anne was a regular, of course, and her brother, David Vogels, helped out whenever he could. Oakleigh L., Arthur J. (Pete) Barry III, Marie Anspach and Ray Evangelista formed the principal team early on. Adele Leavitt and E. Gordon MacKenzie also were in service. Later they were joined by an enthusiastic Oakleigh B. Thorne, “Young Oak,” who thought beagling was just the wildest and craziest sport ever. The Wing daughters, Jill and Lucia, were promoted from puppy walkers to whippers-in when old enough. Farnham Collins, later to become joint master of the Millbrook Hunt and chairman of the Sandanona Hunt Committee, also thoroughly enjoyed carrying a whip in the field and did so for many years. Morgan got his greatest gift of whips ever in the 1964 season when Betsy and Jamie Park and Bill Wetmore joined the team. All were fast, determined, dedi16

cated, and gave their all for the pack. Other whips falling in behind the Wing mastership included Scott Wheaton, Peter Devers, Felicitas Thorne, Betsey Battistoni, Harry Ritchter and Margot Richter.

Huntsmen During the 25-year history of the Sandanona Beagles there were only two huntsmen, and both, as Jorrocks said, were “desperation fond of ’untin.”

Morgan Wing Jr., the pack’s founder, was the first huntsman and carried the horn for 17 years. He loved fielding as large a pack as possible, for hare hunting requires hounds to cover an exceptionally large area when drawing for quarry. He wasn’t too concerned about matching hounds to the country being hunted: since it was mostly Thorndale, always the same, everyone got to go. The sound of his hounds’ voices opening in unison on a line was the finest music to him. “Don’t ya love it!” he would often exclaim as hounds tore off on a hare. Morgan also attended to the pack’s breeding and took them to just about every field trial he could. These he loved to win and might sulk for a minute when he didn’t, but his happiness was soon restored when he realized tomorrow would bring another hunt. He was a great showman, rallying the field with some welcoming remarks, and a big laugh, before blowing his horn and setting forth. For many people, only Christmas surpassed Morgan’s opening day in importance.

Keeping on terms with hounds when hunting hare can be a daunting experience. The exercise requires strength and both physical and mental stamina. Above all, it is important that a huntsman be with his hounds at a check lest they explode in too many directions when casting. When Morgan found himself lagging in this regard, he asked one of his whips to take over hunting the pack.

That whipper-in was Young Oak. Oakleigh B. Thorne grew up in Bedford, NY, but on visits to Thorndale as a boy went out with the beagles and was hooked. The festival-like atmosphere, the camaraderie of the beagling folk, and above all the physical challenge of racing full out around Thorndale captivated him. He went out with the Sandanona at every opportunity, and upon moving to the East Farm full time in 1961, every opportunity was every Sunday. Morgan found in him an apt pupil who picked up the nuances of hunting and hound sense almost instinctively.

In 1962 Anne Wing’s interests were turning away from beagling to other sports. She is a perfectionist, and when she felt she had reached her plateau in a sport, she went looking for another challenge. Anne, now Mrs. Rodney Aller of Lakeville, CT, has at various times whipped in to Mr. Almy’s Quonsett Foxhounds, the Waldingfield Beagles, the Nantucket Harriers, the Sandanona Beagles and the Millbrook Hunt. Anne is also a champion international alpine ski racer, a dogsled racer, golfer and a recreational rollerblader (if an almost daily run of 17 miles in one-and-one-half hours can be considered recreational). By the early 1960s, beagling occupied less and less of her time and attention.

Morgan, desiring a co-supporter, asked Oakleigh to become joint master. In 1964 he became huntsman as well and fielded the pack for  years, both while Morgan lived and for several years afterwards. The only place where he didn’t hunt hounds – while Morgan was alive – was at the NBC field trials at Aldie. Rabbit hunting didn’t require the physical 17

prowess hare hunting did, so Morgan felt comfortable taking the horn again to hunt there.

Oakleigh didn’t get too heavily involved in breeding hounds, leaving that to the senior master. Oakleigh enjoyed hunting hounds, and the beagles responded well to him. He did not always follow Morgan’s directives, or the rules laid down by Peter Beckford, but instead developed a few tricks of his own. An instance of such is to be found in Peter Devers’s journal for 26 September 1976: Met informally at the newly painted kennels at 1pm Oak, Scott & Midge, Farnie and Mark, Mark Collins and Betsy Park were out. Drew left around Cardiac Hill and had a short burst on [unknown quarry] to the barns. Up over the hill and through the draw into the next field where two pheasant were flushed. A circle through the cornfields on the west of Thorndale and back through the draw again. Just as we got through the gap, Scotty tallyhoed a hare which hounds ran up over Cardiac along the fenceline & overshot her turn.

They poured into the hog yard and were chased out by the squealing brutes. Oak cast this way and that to no avail. He then called it quits, saying that whenever he did so they’d pick the check. It worked! Oak laughed in victory as puss was restarted at the base of Cardiac Hill by the kennel drive.

Members of the Field Morgan’s wish to have a friendly community hunt was realized, in no small part due to his own charismatic and welcoming personality. He was a handsome man, a bit larger than life, who almost seemed elemental in his joie de vivre with hounds and people. His love of hunting was infectious. Many coming out for a lark, not realizing what beagling was, fell under his spell and showed up Sunday after Sunday spoiling for a good run. Morgan was especially adored by children. It was a regular sight to see him followed close on the heel by five or six children as he hunted hounds, or later acted as field master. One novice to beagling, seeing her offspring disappear with others behind Wing, wondered if that were prudent. Ruth Bontecou responded, “Oh yes, he does give them back at the end of the day.” Children recognized what Morgan’s adult friends did not: that Morgan was essentially a 16-year-old boy, with all of youth’s dreams, hopes and excitement for life, locked in an older man’s body. Many’s the parent who had to go out on a Sunday hunt because his or her children were crazy to go with Mr. Wing and his beagles.

The beagles and bassets used to hunt hares and rabbits are slower than foxhounds and are usually followed on foot, rather than on horseback. The elimination of the need for riding skill and the expense of horses opens up the sport of hunting to a larger group of participants and often permits a closer view of the hounds at work. Members of the Sandanona field came from everywhere, and chiefly they came in families. Beagling is a sport that everyone, from babies in a backpack to octogenarians, can enjoy. Where so many sports require special physical skills, maturity, etc., to participate in – beagling could be carried on by each according to his own ability. It was the ideal family activity for a Sunday afternoon. Bontecous, Bucklins, Thornes, Hansens, Youngs, Hoyts, Busches, Deverses, Collinses, Barrys, Greenes, Recknagels, O’Briens, Van Stirums and many more showed up and remained loyal followers.

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The Hunt Country If a novice were to look at the fixture cards for the first 15 years of Sandanona’s history, he would conclude that the hunt met at many different locales around Millbrook. On the cards were listed entries for Thorndale, East Farm, the Stone House, the Kennels, and Wilbur Hill Farm. The conclusion would be erroneous, however, as all were just different spots on Thorndale itself.

Thorndale is one of the loveliest and most romantic country estates imaginable. The Thorne family has been comfortably ensconced on the land since 1787, making it one of the longest continuously tenured landholders in New York State. From its humble beginning as a single-room log cabin, the homestead has grown into a most attractive mansion, but one with great personality and warmth. In the gilded age of the late 1800s and early 1900s, the grounds around the house were groomed in the English manner: a reflecting pond, walled gardens, topiary work, a tea house and splendid plantings of trees and flowers came to grace the small valley in which the house was nestled.

Thorndale was then, as it is now, a working farm. Virtually all of its 632 acres were in agriculture, with perhaps as much as 90 percent of it being open fields and meadows. Behind the main house rises Wilbur Hill (sometimes referred to as Cardiac Hill by panting whips and followers) a tall, well-drained ground formed by the outwashings of the last glacier.

Surrounding Wilbur Hill are undulating rises and dips of land, hedgerows, small woodlands, boggy areas, trails and streams. This topography, coupled with the farming being carried on, provided the hare with a lovely place to live and breed. It also provided a challenging and interesting chessboard for the hunters and hounds who chased them about.

While three of the four meets a month were held somewhere on Thorndale, Morgan also liked to hunt the old South Country around Verbank. This was the original home ground of the Millbrook Hunt. Here, as a boy, he beagled with the famed foot pack of Eugene Reynal that was kenneled for a quarter century on the top of Germond Hill. Hares were plentiful in this area, and meets were scheduled at places like Victor McQuade’s house on Welwyn Road, the Dyson farm and Benham’s Bos Haven farm. The countryside was more fraught with danger, however, than at Thorndale: larger woodlands harbored deer in greater numbers, and it was often more difficult to keep on terms with hounds when hunting the fields and forests here. After too many stag hunts lasting late into evening’s darkness the whips rebelled. Morgan was cajoled into abandoning hunting south of Thorndale, and instead encouraged to look at the more open countryside to the north in the environs of Rally Farms.

The Molnars Morgan Wing often joked that he helped foment the Hungarian Revolution just so he could get Bela and Ilona Molnar to leave their country for America. The situation, however, was not quite so humorous initially. When the Anspachs informed him they would be retiring from kennel work in early 1962, he was beside himself with worry over finding replacements with their dedication and zeal. It seemed an almost impossible task.

Fortunately, however, the Anspachs came up with a perfect solution to the problem.

Catherine Anspach worked at the Wassaic Developmental Center and there had befriended 19

the Molnars. Bela and Ilona had come to America from Hungary in 1957. Both took jobs at Wassaic caring for the patients. It was at the facility that Bela and Ilona first met early in 1957 and were married in December of the same year.

Catherine knew that as a hobby Bela had become associated with a psychiatrist living in Connecticut who raised and showed German shepherds. Bela would often accompany him to dog shows in the Northeast, showing some of the dogs at the less important venues and helping the doctor’s professional kennelman with his duties at others. When the Anspachs knew they were going to leave the Sandanona, Catherine suggested to Bela and Ilona that they apply for the job. She invited them to dinner at the kennel huntsman’s cottage, gave them a tour of the kennels, informed them of the workload, and gave them Morgan’s phone number. Both Bela and Ilona were smitten with the happy-go-lucky beagles, and the stories the Anspachs told of the hunting and hunting people, and so called Morgan. An interview was arranged at which Bela appeared in a three-piece suit, impressing Morgan and Oakleigh no end with such traditional Hungarian kennelman’s attire. After a checking with Bela’s references, they were offered the job. With it came the house and a $100-a-month stipend.

Though they had no prior experience with hounds and kennel management, they learned the ropes quickly from Morgan. He was often at the kennels doing one thing or another and was patience exemplified in breaking them in to the Sandanona routines.

Morgan did virtually all the work with the breeding and raising of puppies, as well as the veterinary work when needed, so some of the more difficult tasks didn’t fall to the Molnars initially. As Morgan often found families to raise his puppies for him until they were four or five months old, the Molnars were further relieved of a lot of work. The Molnars also were not required to go out looking for lost hounds on Sunday evenings, as they had to be at work early Monday. Morgan felt he should handle that duty himself. Oakleigh and the other whippers-in would help him in this if it were a big disastrous loss.

One year when the Molnars went to Hungary for three months all the kennel work fell on Morgan’s shoulders. He was also in charge of looking after their German shepherd – which he feared he had lost when it disappeared for four days. Morgan was really at his wit’s end on how to break the sad news to the Molnars when, looking up at the bathroom window, he saw the shepherd looking back at him. He had accidentally locked the dog in the house, and, being thirsty, it had run up to the bathroom for a drink of water from the toilet.

Bela and Ilona loved the hounds from the start, and life at Thorndale didn’t seem like a job to them at all. Morgan was a good and enthusiastic teacher and they learned much from him. Morgan also felt right at home with the Molnars, and often would stay for dinner after checking on the hounds during the week, or after hunting on Sundays if there was not a tea.

Morgan spent a lot of time at the kennels but never did much work on the facility itself. Bela and Ilona would patch fences and fill holes, but it was just a waiting game until new ones were torn or dug. Before the new runs were built, the yards were a mass of dead trees, briars and overgrown bushes – a miniature jungle just for beagles. After the new fencing was installed, Bela whacked away at the brush with a tractor and bush hog, gradually getting it into good form. Paul Beck, the farm manager, was often irritated by this because Bela bent and dulled a blade or two (or three) before the work was completed.

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When the couple first moved to Thorndale, Bela did most of the feeding and kennel keeping. Later, after Ilona retired from Wassaic, she took over the bulk of the duties as Bela had embarked on a new career as an airline pilot and was away a lot. Early on, they had gotten the work down to a routine they could complete in about an hour a day. This was exceptionally efficient considering that at one time Morgan had as many as 110 beagles in the kennel compound.

For the first 10 years Bela and Ilona went out only occasionally with the beagles on hunting days. They liked beagling a lot, but their hours working for the state (Bela eventually left Wassaic and went to work as a guard at the state facility in Poughkeepsie) and raising a family prevented them from going out frequently. Starting in 1972, however, they had more free time and began beagling in earnest.

Bela’s first time at Aldie was in 1971 when he flew to the Leesburg airport with his son Victor. Morgan and Col. Roger A. Young picked them up at the airport and chauffeured them over to Aldie. He remembers Peter Devers making a surprise appearance there whipping in to Mrs. Streeter’s Skycastle Bassets in his motorcycle leathers. She had yanked him off his Kawasaki upon arrival as her staff had mysteriously vanished, and no one else was available. Bela knew then that the Aldie experience would be something different from Millbrook for sure! Both he and Ilona have been to Aldie many times, enjoying it immensely.

Sandanona at the National Beagle Club Trials In an article published in The Chronicle, December 3, 1948, about the National Trials, June Badger wrote that the Sandanona Beagles “…has lately acquired the nickname of Pandemonium, due to an unpremeditated three-hour deer hunt at the Gladstone Trials.”

Sandanona went on to win the 15-inch two-couples class and take second place in the fourcouples class at the National Beagle Club trials at Aldie, VA, November 10-14, 1948.

Morgan was an active participant and proponent of the sport of beagling, taking the Sandanona to pack trials and hound shows in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as at the National Beagle Club (NBC) where he had been secretary since 1946. He also occasionally entered some of his slower and more diligent hounds in area brace trials. As secretary of the NBC, Morgan usually wrote a foreword to The Chronicle’s annual beagle issue each December, summarizing the state of beagling and the NBC. Morgan was also the author of a chapter in “The Complete Beagle” about the customs, organization and conduct of beagling (See Appendix I). In its 1952-1953 edition, Bailey’s Hunting Directory included for the first time the roster of American beagle packs ( packs of beagles, one pack of bassets and one pack of harriers), and Morgan, as secretary of the NBC, wrote a foreword for the American beagle section of the directory.

An Infusion of Staff In 1964, Morgan was very happy to see Jamie and Betsy Park and Bill and Margaret Wetmore arrive in Millbrook. Bill had run track in college, and Jamie and Betsy were both good runners. All three had “hound sense,” and suddenly Morgan and the Sandanona Beagles were gifted with three whippers-in who might actually be able to do something about the “Pandemonium.”

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Jamie and Betsy clearly remember their first opening meet at Thorndale. It was the 1964-65 season, and Morgan had entrusted the hunting of the pack to his joint master, Oakleigh Thorne, for the first time. According to Betsy, “Oakleigh loved to hunt the hounds, and they liked him and hunted well for him. Morgan was shouting directions.

Oakleigh went totally deaf, and everything worked out very well. Morgan didn’t mind!”

Betsy remembers, “hearing [Morgan’s] great laugh booming across the countryside, a happy man doing his favorite thing. Staff and field had to get back to the annual meeting, as a big tea was laid on at Thorndale. But no sooner were hounds stopped and packed up than another hare would jump up under their feet. Finally, in frustration, Oakleigh flung his horn at one of these hares and lost it in the thick grass. That horn is still down by the big sycamore tree in the back field on the east side of the kennels!”

The Deer Problem It was terrible at that time: they all ran deer. To stop hounds the whippers-in had to overtake and physically apprehend them, as the hounds would otherwise ignore them.

Staff took to the field with pockets full of little metal couplings, bootlaces and pieces of twine so that they could lash the hounds together, and, when they finally caught them, drag them home. On a long deer run – and plenty of these were very long – Betsy’s bassets usually fell in behind her. When she managed to run down and catch the beagles they were anchored on couples to a basset, which made the homeward trip easier.

Earl Chadwell, huntsman for the Millbrook Hunt from 1950 to 1977 and still wheel whip, speaks about the beginning of the deer problem. He says the deer started coming back just after the war, and, when they found one with the foxhounds, they often caught him, but sometimes it took 10 miles. Now there are so many deer that they don’t go far, opting for little circles, and it is easier to expose hounds to deer in order to school and discipline them.

Staff spent an inordinate amount of time in the 1960s and the 1970s coping with the deer problem. Many deer-hunting hounds (foxhounds, beagles and bassets) were lost on the road.

Bassets are hard to see, especially at night crossing highways, and they were often killed.

Before his illness Morgan frequently drove to Aldie alone, and there he was often beset by catastrophe: his hounds ran deer; they found holes in the fence; they disappeared. On one occasion the NBC was trying to raise money to fence the farm’s outside perimeter so that people wouldn’t continually lose hounds. (It was not just a Sandanona problem!) This effort was successful largely because Morgan was out there in the woods all night picking up beagles, then returning and making a report. After a number of trials without Morgan, all the rest of Sandanona’s staff became very well acquainted with the back roads of the surrounding countryside! When Rick Nunez and Betsy Park took the beagles to Aldie after Morgan’s death, Betsy recalls that she not only ran through a lot of unfamiliar country, but that she, too, ended up driving those wild back roads at night. On one occasion at the trials, the last hound out from the previous day’s riot arrived back at the farm barely  minutes before it was needed to run in the eight-couple entry. Betsy was very sympathetic with what Morgan had gone through, but the following incident solidified her resolve to deer proof the hounds.

In the mid 1970s (before the reorganization caused by Morgan’s death, and while Oak22

leigh was still hunting the hounds) Betsy was pleased to be invited to judge the NBC fall beagle trials at Aldie. Her co-judge was fellow foxhunter and ex-MFH Henry Woolman.

The judges met Oakleigh and the Sandanona eight-couples at the Tenant Farm and instructed him to draw uphill. About 45 seconds later the hounds jumped a deer, and departed with a roar from all 16 beagle throats. Oakleigh and Betsy, as well as the rest of the Sandanona staff, had been working very hard with the beagles to change their riotous behavior, because they weren’t called the Pandemonium for nothing. All through Sandanona’s history, if hounds didn’t run deer at these trials, they would usually account for their rabbit and often win. It was therefore particularly annoying and embarrassing to Betsy to see Sandanona’s hounds do this. For 20 minutes, judges and Sandanona staff tried to cut them off, crossing the rides, the judges riding over them with their horses (judges at NBC trials are mounted, to provide them with the best possible view of the hunting), cracking whips at them and cursing them – by name. The hounds totally ignored everyone. Finally, an armed person with the Ardrossan Beagles peppered them on the butt with harmless but stinging bird shot, and they reluctantly stopped.

Oakleigh gathered them together, all hounds “on,” having run the deer beautifully, and re-presented them to the judges (Henry and Betsy). Hounds then proceeded to hunt a rabbit with an equal degree of zeal. Unfortunately Oakleigh had one old hound, breathless and exhausted from her deer hunt, who was way behind. The judges placed Sandanona second in the eight-couple trial because of this. Otherwise Sandanona might have won it.

(This was in the days before running deer meant certain disqualification.)

This incident added fuel to Betsy’s determination to fix the deer problem, which Morgan would never do. He preferred to have hounds as enthusiastic about all their hunting as they were. His idea of deer proofing the pack was to send a cadre of wives, children and weekend house guests through the coverts on Thorndale banging garbage can lids to send the deer out before the beagles arrived.

In 1964 there were no deer on Thorndale; the present resident herd of hundreds did not yet exist. However, there were deer in other places, specifically in Verbank, where Sandanona often met. After the find, hounds often ran a mile or so to the first check, leaving staff members struggling behind. As hounds cast themselves, a deer would frequently get up, hounds would change before staff got there, and the hunt would finish at the Greer School, or the Dutchess Day School, or even way down in the Clove Valley. Eventually all would limp home in the dark, with the hounds tied up in strings and couples (if they were caught). Sometimes staff didn’t manage to catch them. Morgan’s enthusiasm was boundless – even repeated stag hunts could not dampen his spirits for long. Finally his staff agreed to tell their fearless leader that if he planned any more Verbank meets (at Charlie Dyson’s, for instance, which was the worst) they were just not going to show up.

Sandanona was not alone. All the packs of hounds in the country – foxhounds, beagles and bassets – had to deal with this problem as the deer population exploded. It became obvious that hounds with certain bloodlines were more intransigent than others, just as some individuals were more biddable. “We reluctantly concluded that we had to draft those hounds out of our packs, in order to survive,” Betsy reported. “Ben Hardaway, MFH and huntsman of the Midland Fox Hounds, led the way. He had pure July hounds in his 23

pack in the 1950s, and said many times that if the deer had never returned to Georgia, he would still have July hounds, but he could not break them. Unfortunately, Morgan’s Sandanona were much the same. The heartbreak and frustration of having hounds that will persist with hunting deer are insupportable for those of us who spend so much time trying to do this right. Ben took the lead and the rest of us followed his example as best we could.”

Oakleigh as Huntsman Betsy remembers Oakleigh as a very unselfconscious, good and sporting huntsman.

He often hunted hounds with a conch shell, especially in the cold of winter when the mouthpiece of a metal horn can stick unpleasantly to the lip, and he was filled with enthusiasm. Morgan, especially in the early days, often shouted directions at Oakleigh from the rear; Oakleigh ignored them and did whatever he pleased! In the ’s there were so many hares on Thorndale that it was hardly possible to make a mistake; boom! Tallyho! Off hounds would go on a sight chase. Oakleigh was as excited as the hounds, and tore around, blowing the horn and cheering them on.

Morgan would roll his eyes and lecture about steadiness and taking hounds on to the line quietly in the correct way, etc. etc. Usually by the time Morgan was able to express all this, Oakleigh was gone. Oakleigh, an excellent runner, was almost always with his hounds and had an intuitive grasp of the unfolding run. He also abhorred a day in which nothing happened. (Like Jimmy Jones, telling us to spread out and have a little evening hunt. See chapter three) We all learned to be especially alert if we had been out for several hours blank, with no hare found. Oakleigh would inch closer and closer and closer to the woods in which cloven-footed doom awaited. Hounds on more than one occasion drifted into covert and immediately jumped one deer or several, condemning the hunt staff to a midnight march up Canoe Hill, or other even worse places.

We all had to get up and be productive on Monday morning, so we became adept at heading beagles out of the woods when Oakleigh was drawing in that direction, and maybe even suggesting to him that it was time to give up and go home before we ended up crossing Wappinger’s Creek or the Taconic Parkway, running a “Bambi.”

Morgan’s Illness In the early 1970s Morgan fell ill with liver cancer. He made a long and valiant struggle against this debilitating disease. Betsy recalls that “Time and time again, he rose up out of his sickbed or staggered out of the hospital and made the trip to Aldie, driven by one of us – sometimes Jamie, sometimes me, sometimes Oakleigh, sometimes all of the above – to watch his beloved hounds compete. Morgan got strength just from being at Aldie, his favorite place on earth. He adored going, and he went when he was barely able. He went by himself. He went if people went with him. He took his hounds, no matter what.”

Morgan’s illness was stressful for the Sandanona staff and caused concern about the future of the pack. There were many hounds in kennels, and only Morgan was really sure who they all were. Betsy and Morgan worked months to write out pedigrees and tattoo hounds, but when Morgan died they still had not completely identified all hounds.

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While Morgan was alive, Oakleigh’s chief duty was as huntsman, with Morgan orchestrating breeding, kennel management and field trials behind the scenes. After several seasons without Morgan, Oakleigh realized that trying to field a pack of hounds on a regular basis involved a lot more than just hunting them. Together, Betsy and Oakleigh devised what has been a satisfactory solution – a merger of the Sandanona Beagles and the Flint Hill Bassets.

Right: Anne and Morgan

Below: Sandanona Beagles

Wing Jr., June 26, 1948,

button, drawing by Eleanor

New Bedford, MA Standard-

Park Hartwell

Times staff photo

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Right: Anne Wing, 1959, courtesy of New York Times Pictures

Below: Sandanona as it appeared ca. 1900, photo courtesy of the Dutchess County Historical Society

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Right: Morgan and Anne Wing, ca. 1950

Below: Meet of Sandanona Beagles on the estate of Mr. and Mrs. H.C. Seherr-Thoss, Litchfield, CT, l to r, F.E. Haight II, Mrs. H.C. SeherrThoss, and Mr. and Mrs. Morgan Wing Jr., 1954, Hanway photo courtesy of The Chronicle of the Horse

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Opposite: Morgan Wing Jr., 1960, Reynolds photo courtesy of The Chronicle of the Horse Above: Bela Molnar showing “Shookey,” Sandanona’s Saddlerock Shookup, winner of the Best In Group, Mid Hudson Kennel Club Show, April 19, 1964, Michael Loconte photo courtesy of Bela and Ilona Molnar Left: Morgan Wing Jr., 1969

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Right: The Sandanona pack has just jumped a rabbit in the brush to the left of the huntsman – Morgan Wing Jr., National Beagle Club Trials, 1971, photo courtesy of Lucia Wing

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Chapter Three

The Flint Hill Bassets

By Elizabeth B. Park

From the growing end of a life filled with four leggeds, it may seem inevitable that I would hunt several packs of hounds simultaneously for several decades. From the childhood end, however, such an outcome was unimaginable, especially from my parents’ perspective.

Hare drawing by Rosemary H. Coates

The Tewksbury Foot Bassets As a teenager I always needed money and turned to baby-sitting as a source of same.

I often worked for Jack and Cornelia Eyre, who were neighbors on the Bernardsville Mountain. As fate would have it, Jack was then the field master for the Tewksbury Foot Bassets, and his house was filled with hunting books. When the Eyres returned home they usually found me asleep on the couch, underneath a copy of “Hounds and Hunting Through The Ages” or similar tome. Jack suggested that I might enjoy the bassets, hinted that they were always looking for young runners to whip-in, and volunteered to transport me to and from the meets. The bassets hunted European hares in the country of the Essex Fox Hounds every Sunday afternoon, and they welcomed and encouraged me in every possible way. They had some wonderful whippers-in at the time (notably the redoubtable Margaret Wemple, who also foxhunted and taught me by example) but packs of harehounds can never have too many able staff members.

I soon discovered that I had the gift of distance running. I was asked to whip-in, and my increasing stamina as a runner enabled me to provide real assistance to the pack. One anecdote will serve as an example of the hunting education I was receiving. The Tewksbury had a dog hound by the name of Bushrod, a tall, rough-coated character with a very 33

distinctive voice. After a dissolute youth during which he ran everything with abandon, he had a spiritual revelation, and in his later years swore off deer, foxes and even the cottontail, hunting only the European hare. The bassets were in the midst of a long and difficult run from a meet at the Pidcock farm, and I found myself quite alone with hounds in the middle of a wood which was strange to me. The pack split, and I was temporarily at a loss as to what to do. I quickly realized that the group closest to me did not contain Bushrod; listening, I heard his voice receding in the distance with the other group. Certain that he at least was correct, I stopped my lot and sent them back to his, thereby avoiding a probable deer hunt and subsequent disaster. From this point on the hounds became an obsession, and I was motivated to work on my running skills so that I could stay with them and watch what they did. Through the bassets I discovered the hound part of hunting, which had been previously obscured by my horse fixation.

No account of my early days with the Tewksbury would be complete without mention of their founder (with Haliburton Fales II), Joint Master and Huntsman James S. Jones.

Jimmy was an original and outrageous character, seemingly transported to the hills of Somerset County from some other century. To do him justice would take another entire book. In the ’50s the Tewksbury was defined by Jimmy as master and huntsman, and his goal was always to show sport of the very highest order. Suffering fools gladly was not part of his persona; he refused to suffer them at all! An aspiring whipper-in always risked falling into the fool’s category and receiving a public tongue-lashing, and this was to be avoided at all costs. Jimmy was impatient, expected superhuman feats of all the people that he dealt with and let them know that in no uncertain terms. I quickly learned how the job should be done: to anticipate trouble while roading hounds, to anticipate potential trouble when drawing in order to stop hounds off any conceivable riot, to hustle to get to roads in advance of a hard-running pack, to be alert for cottontails running through the hedgerows or distracting hounds at a check. When Jimmy’s hounds were running a hare there was nothing on the planet more important. Woe betide the unfortunate whipper-in who stopped hounds without an excellent reason. (A major highway at dusk was not an acceptable reason: one was expected to stop the cars, not the hounds.)

If Jimmy was outdistanced at a check, one had to know where the check occurred, which hound was the last one to own the line, where they had cast themselves and be able to communicate all those observations, succinctly, preferably before being asked. The Third Circle of the Inferno was reserved for the hapless whip who failed to anticipate a flash back onto the heel line by hounds being taken to a view. One had to know at all times during the course of a day’s hunting how many hounds were out, how many were on, who any stragglers were, and where they could have got to. I learned by observation, by frequently falling short and eventually by succeeding. Jimmy was a stickler for the correct way to do everything, from the arrival of the hounds at the meet well before the appointed hour, to the proper accounting and loading up at night. I learned the art of producing a mannerly pack of hounds, properly turned out in a timely way, while I was still a teenager. Little did I realize what importance this would have in my future. Whipping-in for Jimmy was an exercise in character building, an education, and a marathon – and above all, with the hounds we had, tremendous fun.

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One of the memories of my childhood that has endured to this day is losing a hare as the sun was setting, many miles from home; we would all be leg weary, chilled and exhausted. Jimmy would collect hounds and start back for the meet, but if we came to a nice sort of a place as the moon was rising, he would say, “Well, let’s spread out (in order to put a hare up), let’s spread out and we’ll have a little evening hunt.” Well, “a little evening hunt” has passed into the lexicon. The scent does get better at night. The only trouble with “a little evening hunt” was that all of us, including the hounds, were normally done in by that time.

In 1957 Jimmy made me the astonishing offer of going halves with me on my first green coat. The first couple of seasons I wore an old coat of Betty’s (Mrs. Jones) that I remember fondly because it was really warm, and it fit me very well. But Betty did occasionally need her coat, and this was not a permanent thing. Jimmy decreed that I should have a coat of my own, and he sent me to Kauffman’s in New York to be measured for one.

The coat cost the astonishing, staggering sum of $80, of which I was responsible for half.

It was a type of lightweight whipcord, very tough, and I wore it for many, many years, first with the Tewksbury Foot Bassets’ robin’s egg blue collar and later with Sandanona’s yellow collar with grey trim and even after that with my very own Flint Hill Bassets’ colors, which were darker blue with grey piping. It was a wonderful coat. It fit me beautifully, and I remember to this day that Jimmy insisted on double vents. He said that they looked much better than the single vented ones, and I now realize that this is absolutely the case, especially from the back.

A Move to Millbrook Not long after our marriage in 1963 Jamie and I moved to Millbrook, where he had been offered a job at the Millbrook School. Millbrook, in many ways, was an extension of the community we knew in New Jersey. There was a famous pack of American foxhounds there, whose huntsman, Earl Chadwell, was a cousin of the Essex huntsman, Buster Chadwell. Jack Eyre, for whose family I baby-sat, was a graduate of the Millbrook School and told us stories about playing baseball when in Millbrook in something called the Twilight League. One of the teams they played was composed entirely of Chadwells, Earl’s father Elias and nine Chadwell children. (We found the league still going when we arrived on campus.) In addition, there was also a pack of hounds hunting hares in the Millbrook countryside, although as I recall Jimmy never took beagles very seriously. “They sound like mice talking,” he said, on more than one occasion!

The Flint Hill Bassets In 1960, I raised a litter of puppies for the Tewksbury Foot Bassets that included my dog Quest. He was a wonderful hound, the best in his litter, as the others were never as successful. In fact, it was their failure as an entry of hunting hounds that sent Jimmy and Joe Wiley to England in 1963 to look for fresh blood. It was at that time that we all began to realize that the American Kennel Club (AKC) was doing us no good in terms of breeding hunting hounds, that AKC hounds were becoming less and less likely to hunt at all, and that we needed to refresh our hunting stock with new blood from somewhere else. This 35

effort continues to this day. This decision eventually affected the breeding of most of the basset packs in America. When those English hounds were bred to the better-hunting AKC-type hounds, the result was the English Basset. Most of these hounds have a beagle or harrier outcross in their ancestry, often seven or eight generations back.

Eventually Jimmy bred TFB Manager, a brilliant but “orthodox” AKC dog hound, to a bitch named Remedy, imported from the English basset pack, the Westerby. Remedy was exceptionally plain, looking rather like a beagle, but she was a superb harehound and one of the best hounds of any kind that I’ve hunted behind. Her descendents have carried on her incredibly talented ways. Remedy produced four puppies, one of which, called Relish, we kept. She was too short-legged and classic looking for the Tewksbury, but she wasn’t slow at all. They were trying to breed a “level” pack from their outcross strains, hounds that would all run together, and they were suddenly much taller, and very much quicker than they had been before. Jimmy turned out on a horse for a while as the whole thing accelerated in speed, but I didn’t wish to do that; I was hunting alone, on foot. Relish was the perfect size for me, and was bred to Quest (see below) on several occasions, producing precocious youngsters who were great hunters and filled with personality. By 1966 or 1967 we had two and one-half couples of bassets, and I embarked in the smallest possible way on my huntsman’s career with my own Flint Hill Bassets.

In 1965 I raised another litter of puppies for the Tewksbury, eight lemon-and-white hounds out of a bitch named Calico. They grew up on Flint Hill, and when summer came I was pack breaking them. One day I was walking them out on the farm in couples; I had all the puppies and Quest, and a Scottish terrier, and our daughter Eleanor on my back in a backpack. We walked a loop around the barns, through the fields and down to the pond to give them a drink. This was fine, except on the way over the hill they put up a hare, and ran from the top of Flint Hill Road (Quest leading), down toward the pond. Upon arrival at the water’s edge the puppies decided what they really wanted was a drink; it was hot, and they’d been working against one another while in pursuit of Quest and the hare in their couples. While I struggled to catch them (carrying Eleanor in the backpack) they all ran into the pond. I realized that, coupled up, they were in imminent danger of drowning one another, and the question arose as to whether I was going to shed the baby and save them or plunge in, baby and all. Fortunately they sorted it out and got out of the water more or less unscathed – hazards of walking out in the 1960s!

While all this was going on, Morgan Wing was working hard behind the scenes to get the Flint Hill registered with the National Beagle Club (NBC) as a basset pack. I first met Morgan in New Jersey, as he was a perennial judge at the Tewksbury Foot Bassets puppy show. Morgan loved to promote the growth and expansion of other packs of hounds, not necessarily just beagles. He was endlessly encouraging to us when we were just starting the Flint Hill Bassets and allowed us to come to the NBC fall trials even before we had the requisite five couples of hounds needed for NBC recognition. Morgan was directly responsible for the fact that there are now two sets of trials at Aldie, one for beagles and one for bassets. The connection between Morgan and Jonesie, as Morgan always called Jimmy, was enduring, lasting Morgan’s entire life.

With Morgan’s encouragement, Jamie and I sat down and considered forming our 36

own basset pack. Bassets are expensive to feed, but we felt we could slowly expand our pack to five or six couples, thereby assembling enough hounds so that we could be considered for recognition by the National Beagle Club. 1 Kennels One day in the mid-sixties, when I was still raising Tewksbury puppies for the Tewksbury Foot Bassets, up Flint Hill Road came a dump truck piloted by Tewksbury stalwarts John Ike and Teddy Koven. In the back was a pig house, weighing about a quarter ton, which was intended as housing for the puppies. They lived there happily, first the puppies, then most of our own hounds, for quite a few years. In 1970 we had a catastrophic house fire, and when we reconstructed the damaged part of the house, we added kennel space for the hounds. It is a small space, but we had a very small pack. There is bench space enough for ten or twelve hounds and a swinging door to an outside run north of the house, all of the kennel proper being incorporated into our new kitchen wing. If they weren’t sleeping well, we knew about it. I had a slingshot by the window, and if they went out to quarrel at night, they found that I could hit a noise in the dark quite well. They knew not to go out and bay at the moon!

In the late 1960s and early 1970s we had some awesome winters. I was faced with the problem of having the hounds walk out across the fences, which were five feet high (memories of the Poona Bassets, see Appendix IV). There was a larch tree in the middle of their yard, and somewhere I have a picture of hounds sitting up in the branches of this tree because I’d had to excavate a huge amount of snow from around the inside of the fence so they couldn’t escape. Every morning we would go out and dig and dig to keep them in.

The snow was so hard-packed by the wind that they walked right on the top of it, a scary situation. The wind blew, the snow blew, and we tried to pile the damned stuff up so it wouldn’t blow right back into the trench I was digging around the yard fence.

By 1972 or 1973 Jamie and I had seven or seven-and-one-half couples of hounds happily ensconced in their digs on Flint Hill.

Family Traditions My sister Annecy’s husband, Bob Schooley, was a very keen basseter and whipper-in for Jimmy Jones. They always came up and stayed with us on Flint Hill “to finish the season” in the early days. Bob tragically died in 1967 of staphylococcus pneumonia, leaving my sister to raise their two children. Until her recent death, she and my nieces spent most of the major holidays with us. Like Jamie and me, they became as much a part of the Sandanona community as the Tewksbury community.

We volunteered to do our first end-of-the-season lunch on Flint Hill in the late ’60s.

The crowd was small, and we have pictures of everyone sitting in our living room. Betty and Jimmy Jones were there, the Schooleys, Morgan and so many other people who are no longer with us. Following lunch we all went hunting, and thence on to an extraordinary tea, probably at the Woodstock Road house of Jane Auchincloss. When Jamie and I and Bob and Annecy came back we had to face unbelievable piles of dishes. We listened to records and washed and dried far into the night.

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On another luncheon occasion I came upon Betty Jones in our kitchen holding up a plate, checking out the underside. Betty was an interior decorator and had a great eye for “stuff.” She said, “Oh my, this is really quite nice!” perhaps not expecting anything but chipped pottery from the confines of our kitchen/kennel. After the luncheon Molly Leavitt came to the kitchen door, surveyed the expanse of unbelievable destruction and dirty dishes and turned around and said, quite regally, “Well, if this were my kitchen, I would never come home.” Well, of course we were going to come home and deal with it, but we went and had fun hunting first.

Competing at the National Beagle Club In 1968 I went to the National Beagle Club basset trials at Aldie, VA, for the first time, taking Relish and three of her puppies. Relish was a seasoned hound, but the puppies were all that year’s entry. The hounds traveled in the middle of our Volkswagen bug, and Eleanor, aged 3, sat in the space behind the back seat (eating Cheerios all the way to my mother’s house in New Jersey and feeding half of them to the hounds). After leaving Eleanor with my mother, I drove to Aldie with my “pack.” I had never been there, as my parents had not allowed me to spend three days “gallivanting” with these strange basset people, participating in an incomprehensible competition in an unknown place, especially when school was in session. They had enough trouble understanding hunting in the first place; Aldie was out of the question, and I had to be as nearly adult as I ever got to be to go there.

I arrived with my four hounds and was assigned a kennel for my hounds and a bed in the “squaw” cabin for myself. By the luck of the draw, my little pack was selected to hunt last in the two-couple. Darkness was falling, and the judges wanted to finish the competition by the end of the day. The hounds found quickly and ran their rabbit very nicely around the enclosure, which was very much the same then as it is now. The outside fencing was chicken wire, and in the dark it was practically invisible. The rabbit, viewed by everyone, came flying out of the woods as far as the fence, and squatted. The hounds came flying out of the woods and all hit the fence sequentially, ending in a tangle of basset bodies, while the rabbit returned the way it had come. The hounds picked themselves up, solved the check, and ran the rabbit to ground. Morgan, judging, produced his trademark belly laugh and explained to all who would listen that we didn’t have chicken wire in Millbrook!

This was all very exciting, and I announced to the judges that I thought that the rabbit had gone in. Unfortunately, I didn’t blow them to ground; I just told the judges that that was where it was. We finished fourth, but Morgan later told me that if I had blown gone to ground, I would have been second. It was almost, but not quite, the best hunt of the day.

I was very pleased with my hounds, and while I didn’t have a four-couple, which was the only other class at that time, I did have hounds to run in the stake. To my astonishment, my young hound Dragon won this event and his mother Relish was fourth. I came home on cloud nine. This was a great accomplishment for my infant pack, and I was incredibly proud of them. As I learned quite soon, something of this sort is difficult to sustain!

Dragon won the stake again in the following year. However, he was the kind of dog that if you bred a lot of him, would ruin your pack. When he was two-and-a-half he was killed 38

crossing the highway coming home after a deer hunt, which was the other thing that he did absolutely brilliantly! Deer hunting was the worst problem that I had with my bassets; Quest was incorrigible, preferring to run deer if he could. We didn’t have as many rabbits in those days; I persisted in hare hunting, which was really the most fun, and I did it almost entirely by myself. We had some classic hare hunts, but also some deer hunts that were simply astonishing. Because there were fewer deer, they often went vast distances in front of hounds. I spent one day running from Separate Road to Stissing Mountain (about 13 miles) after my hounds, which were running deer. Some hounds broke themselves, and of necessity we got more adept at preventive measures. It took many years to get them steady, and they are still not 100 percent, but they are much better than they were in the old days when the deer went straight away for the next county. The huge number of deer in the country now also makes it much easier to teach hounds not to hunt them.

A Hound Trip Story The Flint Hill trips to Aldie were always punctuated by a stop at the Inn 22 in Harrisburg. Since time immemorial (i.e. before the construction of Interstate 78), the Tewksbury Foot Bassets had stopped there en route to Aldie for lunch. Everything moved more deliberately then, and the state of the road was such that it took most of the day to get to northern Virginia. (Now it takes me six-and-a-half hours from Millbrook.) Once upon a time it was a long and twisty trip, punctuated by inns. I would plan my departure so that I would arrive in time to join them all at Inn 22, a tradition and a gathering point.

On this particular October day, the hounds were traveling in their accustomed spot in the back of our green VW squareback, safely behind their barrier. I cracked the windows open a bit so they wouldn’t suffocate while we lunched. When I returned, they were gone.

My “barrier” – homemade – was sufficient to keep them from climbing into the front when I was driving. But I wasn’t driving; I was inside having lunch. They had squirmed over the barrier, squeezed out the window, and vanished. Panic set in! This was distressing because Inn 22 was on Route 22, which was four lanes of continuous traffic. There was much urban noise, and I was desperately concerned about my little missing pack. We stopped to listen; hark! the sound of hounds in full cry rose from the back yards of the housing development behind the Inn, and from a dump that was behind the houses. The Flint Hill Bassets were happily running rabbits. We got them all back intact; nobody got squashed on the road, and miraculously no angry householders appeared. It was probably at that point that I began to think that sharing a vehicle with these things was probably a less than ideal way to transport them.

Merger with the Sandanona Beagles In 1977, after Morgan’s death, Oakleigh decided that he really didn’t want to have total responsibility for the beagles. At the same time, I accepted the job as the Millbrook Hunt’s professional huntsman. The bassets moved to Thorndale and became part of the Sandanona Harehounds, and we took down our own kennel fence. The kennel is still there, and someday I may give all this up and keep two couples of bassets again. Full circle, maybe fun!

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Some Memorable Flint Hill Hounds

Flint Hill Quest

Quest was a member of the first litter that I raised for the Tewksbury Foot Bassets in 1960.

He was the smallest and least prepossessing of eight puppies, but he showed great intelligence and caught my attention early. I raised these puppies from birth to the age of about 10 weeks, after which Quest’s seven littermates went back to the Tewksbury kennels, and Quest became our house dog. Legend has it that hunting dogs that live in the house never excel, but Quest was certainly the exception. On our first morning’s hunting we were a few minutes late to a 6am meet, at Larger Crossroad, in Far Hills, NJ, and hounds had moved off when we arrived.

We heard, but could not see, hounds running in the mist, and Quest unhesitatingly left me to join them. It is only now, from the perspective of many years, that I realize how astonishing it was for a dog that had never been hunting to “enter” immediately to something that he was completely unprepared to do. He ran hard from the outset, and Tewksbury’s huntsman, Jimmy Jones, was quite critical of him at first, but soon gave him credit for doing his part.

When we moved to Millbrook, it never occurred to me to ask Morgan if this hound would be allowed to join the beagles. It was very hard on him, seeing us putting on our green coats and going off on a Sunday afternoon! He knew perfectly well what we were doing.

One day, despite a tremendous snowfall, Oakleigh decided to go out, just for some exercise. We asked if Quest could come, and Oak said, “Oh sure, why not?” We tramped around Thorndale in trackless, beautiful snow. Eventually we managed to step on a hare hidden under the snow, and she exploded in our midst with sprays and showers of snow and hysterical beagles going everywhere. A sight chase ensued, followed by a total loss.

Quest made a big cast around, stuck his nose in her tracks and off he went. He was the only hound that knew he could run this hare by smelling the tracks she left. Every once in a while he stopped and put his nose into the snow to confirm, but for the most part, he ran her tracks by sight. I have had a number of hounds over time that would do that; if they intersected with another hare track, they always had to stop and check which track was the one they were hunting.

Oakleigh thought that was pretty useful, and told us to bring him every Sunday; for about four seasons, Quest was a regular member of the team. He ran steadily in the middle of the beagle pack, and distinguished himself by continuing straight on through their checks while they were making a cast to correct themselves. He was not quite as fast as they were, but he certainly had a better nose, and he was extremely steady on the hares. When I began to have more bassets I would bring two couples to hunt with the beagles, and they were useful in many situations. They do hunt differently from beagles. My early bassets seldom over-ran, and were also very intelligent at working checks.

Quest himself, unfortunately, was an appalling deerhound. We didn’t have enough deer to set the hounds up and mete out appropriate punishment when they transgressed; eventually he and Dragon were killed returning from a long staghunt. They had gotten away and run through Turkey Hollow, and they were killed on the way home, crossing Route 44. This early disaster was one of the things that made me resolve to change the way that we interacted with the deer, as it was too difficult to continue as we were.

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Flint Hill Bullrush

Quest was the Flint Hill Bassets’ foundation sire, and the bitch that I bred him to was the previously mentioned Relish. She had two litters of puppies for us, and all the ones we kept hunted really well. In the first litter there was a dog named Bullrush, which I gave to the Tewksbury. Jimmy eventually gave him back, I think because he thought at the time he was the wrong color, or maybe he thought he was too small, or possibly there was some other reason. Bullrush was the first dog I ever had that broke himself from running deer. That was a real start for me, as it enabled me to begin to understand what was going on. If I saw him coming back to me, I knew there was trouble! In those days I hunted as often as I could, and hares were everywhere. Sometimes I had difficulty finding them, but I had some memorable hunts, often on Pugsley Hill, sometimes on Thorndale, almost always by myself, but sometimes accompanied by Bill Wetmore, Jamie or Farnham Collins. Farnie had several superb days with my fledgling pack.

Bullrush sired several litters and eventually retired to our house, spending his days and sometimes his evenings running rabbits up and down the hedgerows. One evening we heard him running all night, loud and clear and joyfully. He came home in the morning, very pleased with himself. Later I went out to pick up the children at school, and when I returned, Bullrush was stretched out on the lawn having a siesta. Only it wasn’t so – he was dead as a mackerel. I’m sure he was dreaming of rabbit hunting, even as he slipped away, and I hope we may all be so lucky!

Flint Hill Beadle

Another grand hound that was whelped on Flint Hill was a dog hound named Beadle, sired

by Bullrush out of Flint Hill Dido. Beadle had that look about him denoting spirit and intelligence, and he was a beautiful mover. I thought he was going to be a great one, but watched in dismay as he grew – and grew. He was clearly going to be too fast for my little pack and so, regretfully, I gave him to the Tewksbury. In those days Jimmy’s pack was predominantly lemon and white, and Beadle was a rich dark tricolor, so for many years they neither showed nor bred him. Finally, however, good sense prevailed and Beadle appeared in the Stallion Hound Class at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show. He caught the eye of Benjamin H. Hardaway, MFH, who was judging the English Basset ring that year, and Ben eventually put him up as champion. Those were the days of two basset rings at Bryn Mawr, one for the outcrossed English Bassets and one for AKC hounds. The winners of each ring met at the end of the day to compete for Grand Champion Basset. Sparks flew at the final judging! The AKC judge, noted basset breeder Peg Walton, looked Hardaway dead in the eye and announced that she would not accede to his desire to put a “beagle” up as champion basset! A total deadlock occurred which was only resolved in favor of the AKC basset when Mrs. Walton relentlessly pointed out that in addition to looking like a “beagle,” Hardaway’s Champion English Basset had one foot which pointed west. History, however, has vindicated his choice, as Beadle went on to sire Tewksbury Foot Bassets’ Fixture ’84 and Fabric ’84; both were perennial hound show champions, and Fabric figures prominently in the pedigrees of a great many of today’s hunting bassets.

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Flint Hill Ballad

Ballad was a littermate of Bullrush and Beadle. She was staggeringly beautiful, a wonderful hunting hound and an excellent brood bitch. She had a beautiful correct front, lovely feet, a wonderful, laid-back shoulder and a long swan neck. In my innocence I expected that I would be able to breed them like this all the time! If I can breed this one, why can’t I breed more? Well, I still have never, in the intervening 25 years, bred another hound, bitch or dog, as good-looking as Ballad.

Betsy and Jamie Park with the Flint Hill Bassets at the National Beagle Club, Aldie, VA, 1976, photo courtesy of The Chronicle of the Horse

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Above: Betsy Park and Quest’s litter, 1960

Right: Jamie and Betsy Park with their daughter, Eleanor, at their house on Flint Hill Road, Amenia, NY, 1969

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Above: Joseph McKenna, joint master of the Coldstream Bassets, and Eleanor Park (now Hartwell) showing Flint Hill Amazon at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show, 1975, photo courtesy of Betsy Park Right: Flint Hill Dido, winner of the Timber Ridge Bassets Trophy for the Best AKC Basset Hound in the show, Bryn Mawr Hound Show 1972, shown by Betsy Park, Freudy photo courtesy of Betsy Park

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Above: Hares boxing in the moonlight on Flint Hill Road, drawing by Eleanor Park Hartwell Right: Flint Hill Bassets button, drawing by Eleanor Park Hartwell

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Clockwise from upper left: Oakleigh B. Thorne; Anne and Morgan Wing Jr.; Elizabeth B. Park; Morgan Wing Jr.

ISBN 0-9749534-0-7