If You Take A Horse to Court (Part Two): Samuel D. Thompson and the American Percheron Horse Breeders’ and Importers’ Association
I apologize for the delay in this post, dear readers. However, I did promise you a part two in our small series over court trials involving Percheron horses and Joseph Glidden. In this post we are going to examine the case of Samuel D. Thompson and the American Percheron Horse Breeders’ and Importers’ Association. Though, Glidden is scarcely involved in this compared to his trial against Pooler, he still has a small role in this trial against a horse corporation.
On December 6, 1899, Glidden received a letter from a Mr. Samuel D. Thompson. Thompson was listed as the secretary of the “American Percheron Horse Breeders’ Association” and was requesting Glidden’s applications for the next volume of the Percheron stud book. Thompson believed that Glidden’s horse should make an appearance as they were of good stock and he believed that breeding of draft horses was to continue for some years in popularity. Unfortunately, we do not have Glidden’s reply to Thompson’s letter but one can speculate that Glidden took no mind to Thompson’s request. You see, dear reader, Samuel D. Thompson was a fraud. The real organization for Percheron breeding was the American Percheron Horse Breeders’ and Importers’ Association would take Thompson to court. Thompson would claim that the court ruled in his favor, but the case would be sent back to the Illinois Circuit court for a rehearing.
In a letter to the members of the Breeders and Importers of Percheron Horses, the group stated that Thompson had turned over any and all records on his person that dealt with any pedigrees of Percherons that had been registered with him. Thompson had attempted to issue a statement that he would record pedigrees at a reduced rate for the American Percheron Horse Breeders’ Association, but the court ruled that he could not. The American Percheron Horse Breeders’ and Importers’ Association won the right to be the only stud registry for Percheron horses.
Hannah Palsa
Working Animal Researcher
glidden homestead 