Excerpt from Fox Hunting in America Fox hunting in America, as well as in Great Britain, had its beginning around the year 1700. In England long before that time, and indeed as early as 1611, the fox was hunted by the farmer and the petty squire, but the pursuit was really sport and was treated with great contempt by the sportsmen of those days, who held that stag hounds gave royal recreation and that the chase of the hare came next in importance. In America, however (and when I say America, I speak of the colonies of Virginia and Maryland for those early days), the sport of hunting any animal with hounds cannot very well have taken place until the end of the seventeenth century (1690) for the reason that the first settlements were upon the banks of streams, and for many years thereafter there were no fields over which hounds could run and, indeed, the settlers possessed neither hounds nor horses, even if the country had been adapted to hunting. The colony in Virginia, founded at Jamestown in 1607, was almost swept away by the great massacre in 1622, and for a year thereafter the colonists lived within stockades. never daring to wander beyond sight of a primitive fort. There is no record that fox hounds existed in the colony at that time and, indeed, the records of the Virginia Company from 1619 to 1624 contained no mention of foxes, or hounds, or of hunting. In Maryland, where the first settlement was founded at St. Mary's, near the present site of Annapolis, in 1634, the same state of affairs existed, and it seems, therefore, hardly probable that the statement made in Outing of October, 1897, by Mr. Hanson Hiss, in his very interesting article. "The Beginning of Fox Hunting in America," to the effect that in Queen Anne County the first fox hunt in America took place in the year 1650, is correct. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Around a campfire in the woods through long hours of night, men used to gather to listen to the music of hounds’ voices as they chased an elusive and seemingly preternatural fox. To the highly trained ears of these backwoods hunters, the hounds told the story of the pursuit like operatic voices chanting a great epic. Although the hunt almost always ended in the escape of the fox—as the hunters hoped it would—the thrill of the chase made the men feel “that they [were] close to something lost and never to be found, just as one can feel something in a great poem or a dream.” Gray Ghosts and Red Rangers offers a colorful account of this vanishing American folkway—back-country fox hunting known as “hilltopping,” “moonlighting,” “fox racing,” or “one-gallus fox hunting.” Practiced neither for blood sport nor to put food on the table, hilltopping was worlds removed from elite fox hunting where red- and black-coated horsemen thundered across green fields in daylight. Hilltopping was a nocturnal, even mystical pursuit, uniting men across social and racial lines as they gathered to listen to dogs chasing foxes over miles of ground until the sun rose. Engaged in by thousands of rural and small-town Americans from the 1860s to the 1980s, hilltopping encouraged a quasi-spiritual identification of man with animal that bound its devotees into a “brotherhood of blood and cause” and made them seem almost crazy to outsiders.

Internationally renowned Master and huntsman Hugh J. Robards, MFH engagingly informs foxhunters, new or experienced, how to more fully absorb the drama of the hunt. What is the huntsman doing? Why does he do that? What about the whippers-in? The Field Master? The hounds? The fox? What problems do each encounter in the field during the course of a typical hunt? What decisions must they make? It may be a revelation to some, especially those who hunt to ride, but even while standing still, things are happening if you know what to look for and how to interpret what you see. By learning what to watch and listen for, field members can increase their awareness and thus their enjoyment of every hunting day.

This oral history of foxhunting examines the mentors and influences of fifty people who have dedicated their lives to the sport of horse and hound. From the seventy some years of hound breeding experience of Melvin Poe, to the unusual story of a retired grandmother who decided to overcome her fear of horses and got her colors with Red Rock Hounds on her seventieth birthday, this oral history explores the depth and the breadth of foxhunting through the faces and voices of fifty different people who have been a tremendous influence on the sport or whose lives have been tremendously influenced by foxhunting. These oral histories are accompanied by beautiful black and white portraits taken by photographer Mary Kalergis.The recollected sights, sounds and scents of foxhunting shared within these pages are a feast for the senses and nourish the soul.