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In Bookstores June 10
Equine History - Now published
Coming Soon...Gunpowder History
Louisiana State University Press
Alexander Keene Richards (1827-1881) was one of the most important horse importers and breeders of the nineteenth century. Born in Georgetown, Kentucky, he was convinced that the key to improving the stamina of the Thoroughbred was to return to the same roots that had produced the superlative English Thoroughbred, believed to be largely a product of crosses between the horses of Britain and the magnificent steeds of the Middle Eastern desert. Richards traveled traveling tens of thousands of miles across Europe and the Middle East, making two expeditions into the heart of the Syrian desert, in 1852-53 and 1855-56, to obtain Arabian breeding stock of the purest blood. He was the first American, indeed, the first Westerner of any national origin, to venture into the desert to bargain directly with the nomadic tribesmen for their horses. He transformed his grandfather’s farm at the western edge of Georgetown into a premier breeding establishment known as Blue Grass Park.
“Artist in the Holy Land: The Pilgrimage of Edward Troye”
Cheiron: The International Journal of Equine and Equestrian History 5 (February 2025), 87-123.
Edward Troye was America’s most celebrated painter of animal portraits during the nineteenth century, primarily of Thoroughbred horses. During 1855-56, he accompanied wealthy Kentucky turfman Keene Richards to the Near East on an expedition to purchase horses from among the Bedouins. This paper focuses primarily upon his travel through Palestine and the circumstances in which his Oriental paintings were created, an aspect of his life which has often been overlooked in favor of his better-known work concerning animal paintings. I have made extensive use of Troye’s personal journal, which provides a day-by-day accounting of this trip. Few other writers have tapped this important resource, and even then only sparingly. Finally, a number of significant errors made by previous researchers are corrected.
“The First and Last Powdermen in Kentucky: Richard Foley and Alexander McCoy”
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (Summer 2025)
Gunpowder is a mixture of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal in a ratio of 75:12:13. Abundant nitrate deposits (“saltpeter”) were naturally occurring in the numerous caves and rockshelters of Kentucky. Because Lexington was centrally located to the mining areas, it became the market center for saltpeter used locally to make gunpowder and shipped to eastern factories. Accordingly, the Inner Bluegrass region around Lexington contained the largest concentration of gunpowder mills. The first commercial powder mill was established in Fayette County in 1793 by Richard Foley and was operated by the Foley family through the War of 1812, ceasing production in 1815. Neil McCoy established a gunpowder mill at Lexington circa 1810, which on Neil’s death in 1841 was taken over by his son Alexander McCoy and produced powder until the 1850s. When the Confederate army under Kirby Smith occupied Lexington in June 1862, being a southern sympathizer, McCoy set the powder mill in operation again to furnish powder to the Confederacy. When the Confederates retreated from Kentucky after the battle of Perryville in December, McCoy packed up the mill equipment and went with him. He was captured by Union forces in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and jailed. His production of powder for the Confederates made him the last powderman of Kentucky.