The Long Riders' Guild - Historical Long Riders

The Long Riders' Guild

Historical Long Riders

	Harriet Wadsworth Harper, was a cousin of Historical Long Rider Martha Wadsworth (below). Unlike other women of her time, Harriet was unusual in that her side-saddle placed her legs on the right-hand side of the horse, not the left-hand side. "The family woke up one day to the fact that I had begun to look like a crooked little gnome. Something was wrong, so off I was sent to a surgeon, who ordered a steel and leather brace for me and suggested that a saddle to go on the right side of the horse should be made. This was to help correct my crooked back. No girls rode astride in those days - it was unthinkable.... I never changed back to riding on the near [left] side," Harriet wrote. But what sets Harriet apart from other Historical Long Riders was not her saddle. It was the fact that she and Martha are the only Long Riders in history to have undertaken an equestrian journey together during which both riders used a side-saddle. In May 1907 they made a 1200-mile journey "down through Virginia to West Virginia, up the Ohio River, across Pennsylvania, and home to Genesee, New York. We stayed at farmhouses, in mining camps, any place that had spare beds." In an interesting historical aside, one of the "pleasant companions" who joined the intrepid side-saddle Long Riders for a brief period was Gutzon Borglum "the sculptor who carved the heads of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt into Mount Rushmore, South Dakota."
	Martha Wadsworth - in April 1912 made an equestrian journey from Washington DC to her home in Genesee Valley New York, and back. According to contemporary accounts, Martha "made it an annual custom to ride from Washington to her New York home, taking a different route each time." In May 1907 she was accompanied on a 1200-mile journey by her cousin, Harriet Wadsworth Harper. To learn more about Martha and the Genesee Valley Hunt, which she helped to found, please click here.
	A prolific author, and a great friend of Mark Twain, Charles Warner made a witty and perceptive contribution to the world of nineteenth century American literature when he and Twain co-authored “The Gilded Age”, the book that gave the era its name. In 1887 Warner combined his urbane wit with a love of adventure travel when he penned On Horseback in Virginia. Always a keen observer, the roving author set out on horseback to investigate a great, rugged stretch of southern Appalachia. The extended equestrian journey took Warner from Virginia, through North Carolina, and into the remote hills of Tennessee. Additionally, the book contains a second narrative account of Warner’s equestrian adventures in the Old West. This time he saddled up and rode from El Paso, Texas to Mexico City, Mexico. Both tales comprise a book full of meaty descriptions told by one of America’s premier nineteenth century storytellers.
	At the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865, Confederate Colonel Alexander Watkins Terrell was faced with a difficult decision. If he remained in his native Texas he would find himself under the military rule of his former enemies. His other option was to saddle up and seek not only safety, but foreign aid for a possible extension of the southern cause. Terrell decided that Mexico, under the political rule of Emperor Maximilian, the French installed puppet ruler, was the place to find money, guns and shelter. Accompanied by his fellow Confederate officers, Colonels M. T. Johnson, George Flournoy and Peter Smith, the four Long Riders rode into exile. “We were all mounted on fine animals, “Terrell recounted in a rare account published just before his death in 1933. “Each of us rode one horse the entire distance. We stopped every thirty minutes, removed saddle and blankets, and permitted the horses to graze or rest for five minutes before remounting.” Though Terrill did meet Maximilian, the French emperor was soon captured and executed by Mexican partisans, thus destroying any dreams of resurrecting the American Confederacy. Yet Terrill’s amazing story served as the inspiration for at least two Hollywood films, “Vera Cruz” starring Gary Cooper and “The Undefeated” starring John Wayne. Both films depicted Confederate officers riding into Mexico in search of Maximilian’s help.
	It was 1933 and Magdalene Weale was faced with a dilemma. How to best explore her beloved English countryside? A motor car was denounced for its lack of involvement with the landscape. The bicycle, a “useful vehicle,” was nonetheless ruled out as it restricted the traveller to much the same view afforded from a car. Plus walking allowed only a limited degree of rural investigation. It seemed logical therefore to set out on horseback! What better way to do justice to the glorious "Highlands of Shropshire" or experience a sense of wild freedom than from the back of a saddle? A picturesque part of England steeped in legend, Weale discovered that Shropshire hosted ancient stone circles once frequented by sun worshipping primitives, Roman ruins close to their still tightly cobbled roads, and the remains of Saxon, Norman and Viking settlements. Through the Highlands of Shropshire contains page after page revealing the poetic observations of flora and fauna, birds and wildlife, as seen from the back of Weale’s ambling mare, Sandy. Part historical account, part Edwardian remembrance, it invokes a gentle, softer world inhabited by gracious country lairds, wise farmers, and jolly inn keepers. Complete with pencil drawings and detailed maps, this fine little book begs the reader to follow Weale’s advice. “Go thou and do likewise.”
	H. H. Weatherly rode a Thoroughbred from Pennsylvania to Ohio in 1909 to demonstrate that this breed of horse “should be distinguished as being more than a mere gambling machine.”
	Edwin Lord Weeks occupies a unique position in the pantheon of Long Rider heroes. There are more famous equestrian explorers, more prolific writers. Yet no one ever documented the world of horse travel quite like this Artist-Explorer. Born into a wealthy New England family, Weeks left Boston in the early 1870s in search of artistic training and adventure. He found them both in Paris. The young American studied with the finest artists of his day, developing a style devoted to absolute realism and love of colour. Then, armed with his palette and passport, Weeks set off to paint the dangerous portions of the world. His first daring journey took him to a forbidden section of Morocco in 1878, where he escaped being killed “by the skin of my teeth.” Back in his Paris studio, Weeks produced large paintings depicting the Oriental mystery and glamour he had witnessed in Morocco. With his beautiful paintings now hanging in prestigious Paris salons, the young painter’s fame was assured. Yet it was his equestrian journey from Persia to India that provided Weeks with the material, not only for a superb equestrian travel book, but the magnificent paintings of mythical India which assured him of artistic immortality. Accompanied by the noted travel writer, Theodore Child, the young adventurers set off in 1892 to ride more than a thousand miles from Trebizond to Bushire. During the course of their journey the two friends encountered a bevy of bad lodgings, bandits, and even death. For ultimately only Weeks managed to ride into India, after having lost his companion to the terrors of the trail. Though the brilliant expatriate artist went on to produce some of the most celebrated Indian paintings ever done, his beautifully written account of the equestrian journey which inspired his masterpieces, has been largely forgotten for more than a hundred years. Amply illustrated with drawings done during this historic journey, Artist Explorer recounts the amazing adventures of a painter who sought to study the world and his soul from the back of that ancient altar of travel, the saddle.
	It was wartime in England. London was being bombed by the Nazis. Coventry Cathedral was a smoke-filled ruin and a sense of desperation gripped the island kingdom. Yet even though the Second World War was raging all around him, the English country squire J. Wentworth Day decided the time was right for an extended horseback ride through his disaster-torn country! Setting off on his Thoroughbred, Robert, Day began the only wartime ride of its kind, a rural odyssey that took him through Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridge, Norfolk and Suffolk. The equestrian journey gave the author a glimpse into the living picture of a mediaeval portion of England which, until 1939, had hardly changed for centuries. Day takes the reader into the countryside and delivers one surprise after another. For while the eastern coast was being ravaged by warfare, the gentleman farmer discovered an inland oasis of mellow harvest fields, birds and badgers, autumn sunshine, moated Tudor farmhouses, peaceful country halls, and fishing villages, all populated by shrewd farmers or slow-talking fisher folk. Wartime Ride manages to put into words the charm of a countryside struggling for its very existence.
	Eberhard von Westarp - rode across the Ottoman Empire and Persia in 1913.
	Little Chief White Eagle and Princess Rainbow Sistesso of USA - rode from Los Angeles to New York on their honeymoon in 1930.