Longfellow (horse)

Longfellow (1867–1893) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse and sire.

Longfellow was owned, bred, and trained by "Uncle" John Harper of Nantura Stock Farm in Midway, Kentucky. Harper was worth perhaps a million dollars (a very great sum in the 1850s), yet he lived in a simple cottage on his 1,000 acres (4 km²) adjacent to Robert A. Alexander's famed Woodburn Stud in Woodford County, Kentucky. In 1856, Harper stood both Lexington and Glencoe, two of the country's greatest stallions. Combined, they led America's sire lists for 24 years.

Longfellow was sired by Leamington, the successor of Lexington, as noted: America's leading sire for 14 years. His dam was John Harper's foundation mare Nantura by Brawner's Eclipse). A brown colt with a white stripe, a white near hind sock, and white on his off hind coronet, Longfellow was foaled in 1867. When people asked Harper, born in 1800, if he had named his colt for the noted poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harper replied, "Never heared much of that feller but that colt of mine's got the longest legs of any feller I ever seen." At maturity, Longfellow stood 17 hands tall and was said to have a 26-foot stride.

Longfellow was unraced at two while he matured into his size. Harper tried him out in the spring of his third year, entering him in the Phoenix Hotel Stakes—but he was green. He lost to another son of Leamington called Enquirer, who had an undefeated season.

In 1871, Longfellow was entered in a match race at Lexington, Kentucky against a horse called Pilgrim. On the night before the race, Harper slept at Longfellow's head in a barn at the old Kentucky Association track. In the middle of the night, Harper was awakened by a rattling at the locked barn door. An unseen man asked to see Longfellow, but Harper ordered him to leave. Early the next morning came the news that Harper's sister Betsy and his brother Jacob, also both elderly, had been murdered in John's small cottage at Nantura. They had been hacked to death by a hatchet. All three were childless. If John had been home that night and was killed along with his brother and sister, the estate would have been divided among several nephews. It was suspected that a nephew named Adam Harper had committed the murders. Wallace Harper, another nephew, openly accused Adam of the crimes. Even though considerable evidence mounted against Adam Harper, he was never charged. Upon his death, Harper (who'd had Adam investigated privately, but never revealed the results) left everything to another nephew, Frank Harper.

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