Huntland Kennels at One Hundred
1914 photograph of Huntsman Charlie Carver (front), Master Joe Thomas, and hounds / Courtesy of Karen L. MyersThis year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the completion by Joseph B. Thomas of the stables and kennels at his historic estate in Middleburg, Virginia, aptly named Huntland.
On September 18, 2011, current owner Dr. Betsee Parker marked the anniversary with a luncheon for members of both the Piedmont and Middleburg Hunts. Newly uncovered photographs of the original structure were displayed, and people were free to wander through the stables and kennels.
Old Huntland, Joe Thomas Photos Discovered
A youthful Joseph B. Thomas at Huntland / Courtesy of Karen L. MyersJoseph B. Thomas, MFH came to Middleburg, Virginia via Boston and New York in the early part of the twentieth century and built Huntland—house, stables, and kennels. Thomas was a founding member of the American Foxhound Club, Master of the Piedmont Fox Hounds, and author of Hounds and Hunting Through the Ages, the first comprehensive book on hunting with hounds ever written by an American.
Thomas became the largest breeder of foxhounds for mounted packs in North America and helped to define the American foxhound breed. He has been a subject of great interest to all serious scholars of North American foxhunting, and much has been written about him. However, available images of Thomas (and his famous huntsman Charlie Carver) to grace all that published text have been sparse.
Now, just in time for the present owner and restorer of Huntland, Dr. Betsee Parker, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of her famous home, we have a treasure trove of recently discovered old photographs of Thomas, Carver, hounds, and kennels.
A Most Memorable Hunt
Returning to our Tell-Me-a-Story series, we’ve already covered “How I Came to Foxhunting” and “My First Foxhunt,” and we’ve received some good stories from our readers in return. For the next subject, let’s tackle “A Most Memorable Hunt.” There has to be at least one day, among all the days in all the seasons past, that remains as clear in your memory as the day it happened. There are probably several such days. I’m going to pick one that has remained for me a constant joy to recall. I’ll tell you my story. Please tell us yours.
My memorable hunt doesn’t equate to the best, the fastest, or the most exciting. Many of the most thrilling hunts I’ve experienced remain simply a blur. I recall such days with hounds roaring, hooves pounding, fences disappearing below the girth, and no thought but to keep up. However, there was never time for my mind’s shutter to capture and freeze those images with clarity for a lifetime.
Rather, I recall one slow, bluebird day, when scent was less than ideal, hounds had to work for every inch of the line, and the pace was never brisker than a trot. After twenty-five years at least, the images are still vivid. What made that day so memorable would be a fair question to ask.
Storms Wreak Havoc in Belle Meade Hunting Country
As the result of recent storms through Georgia, fifty percent of all the trails in the Belle Meade hunting country are blocked, according to Epp Wilson, MFH. Hounds and coyote are able to get through, but not horses. “There are more large trees down across our trails than I have seen in forty-five years of […]
Hunting Songs, Volume One: The Lakeland Fell Packs
Hunting Songs, Volume One: The Lakeland Fell Packs, Ron Black and Wendy Fraser, Blurb Publishing, 2011, 75 pages, 7.50 pounds (soft cover), 15.50 pounds (hard cover), www.cumbrian-lad.comRon Black and Wendy Fraser collaborated on this collection—a folk history, really—of Lakeland hunting songs. Over the course of three-hundred years, followers of the fell packs of the English Lake District wrote these songs to memorialize historic runs, iconic huntsmen, special foxhounds, and—what pleased me especially—brave terriers! Perhaps I just never noticed, but I cannot recall any other book of hunting songs and poems that includes odes to these feisty little creatures.
Or perhaps I paid special notice here because I now happen to be the smitten owner of a nine-month-old Border terrier whose ancestors scurried in their determined fashion over those same fells on the English-Scottish border. Here’s the story of Badger and Butcher by Mr. and Mrs. Curry, and it’s still sung today!
Driver and Trevor: Puppies of a Different Species
One-year-old Driver meets four-year-old Trevor on hound walk. / Glenye Oakford photoWHAT a beautiful day Saturday was! It started with a crashing thunderstorm that prevented me from riding over to catch our trailer ride to the day’s hound walk, so I went out with the hounds on foot for what turned out to be a Very Special Morning. Young entry of two different species, each new to the field, met and got acquainted.
The Lost Hound
Lost Hound illustration by Jane Gaston from the book of the same name by Robert AshcomYoung Entry—a common phrase used to describe the puppies just entered into the pack. Very soon, most of us will be watching them with a mixture of curiosity and expectation. To the huntsman, they hold the keys to his future successes or disappointments; to the Masters they are the ratification or the despair of their breeding philosophies; to those members of the field who have walked hounds, a few are dear and even exasperating friends known practically from the cradle; to most fieldmembers, they are a curious batch of newcomers from whom much is expected. But imagine entering the pack from the puppies’ point of view—suddenly turned loose for the first time midst a bewildering flurry of horses, staff, new sounds, and new sights. After a year of control and repression, the puppy is now free to blossom into the being its up-to-now-stifled genes have urged it to be. How frightening and at the same time how exhilarating! And then the moment when, experimenting with its freedom and following its nose, it suddenly finds itself completely alone for the first time ever. And utterly lost. Here’s a sympathetic look by Will Ogilvie.
The winter sunset lit the leafless trees
With gold and crimson as the short day waned;
The wind had ceased its plaintive melodies;
The woodland darkened, and deep silence reigned.
Then sudden from the firs there rose a wail,
A cry that shook the heavens with distress;
A lost hound stood, one foot upon the rail,
Telling the crescent moon his loneliness.
Allen Nixon Rodday: My Teacher, My Friend
Allen Nixon “Nick” Rodday died on July 26, 2011 at his home in Brewster, Massachusetts on Cape Cod at the age of ninety. He’d retired there after giving up his horse farm, Elm Brook Farm, in Concord, Massachusetts about thirty years ago. He bought himself a lobster boat and for the next fifteen years fulfilled a longtime ambition. But he still couldn’t resist stabling horses, and before long he was once again leading rides and driving his carriage.
Nick Rodday ran a riding stable, Victory Lee and later Elm Brook Farm, through most of the latter half of the twentieth century. He gave lessons, rented hirelings, and took his clients hunting. He was a charismatic guy with a beautiful tenor singing voice to boot. He taught me to ride and took me hunting. I met my wife-to-be Joan and many others who became good friends in his riding ring. He stood up for me at our wedding. Without question, he changed my life profoundly.
Donald Maley Is New Whipper-In at Potomac
Don, Sara and Alice Maley at the Virginia Foxhound Show / Karen Kandra Wenzel photoDonald Maley, an experienced honorary whipper-in with several Virginia hunts, has joined the ranks of the professionals. He will whip-in to the Potomac Hunt (MD) foxhounds starting this season. Maley, a farrier, has whipped-in to Oliver and Michael Brown at Rappahannock, […]
Eglinton and Caledon Noel Is Grand Champion at Canadian Foxhound Show
Canadian Grand Champion Eglinton and Caledon Noel 2006 / Paul Wilson photoA lovely English bitch—a veteran of five hunting seasons—was judged Grand Champion at the Canadian Foxhound Show at the London Hunt and Country Club on June 11, 2011. To emerge as Best in Show with that accumulated mileage is quite an achievement. There had to be a story here, so I looked up her pedigree.
Eglinton and Caledon Noel 2006 is descended from all modern English on the sire’s side and fell hound bloodlines on the dam’s side. The answer to her achievement was there, but I didn’t put two-and-two together until I talked to huntsman Steve Clifton.