Milton Horse Racing

Milton Horse Racing

In reporting on a stakes horse race won by Milton's "Monsieur Tonsen" (owned by Mr. Clay), Ned Howard stated the following in the Milton Times:

"The winning steed on the occasion was one of a famous stud of racers owned by a Mr. Clay, of our town [Milton]. The writer remembers too that the lengthy and stirring accounts of the contest in the newspapers all closed with the announcement that Monsieur Tonsen was rode [sic] by Robert Wooding (uncle of our present Bob), with whom this writer afterwards had the pleasure of going to school to [with?] Malbon [Mablon] Kenyon, at that time editor and publisher of the Milton Gazette and Roanoke Advertiser.

"The printing office, the foreman's family [foreman of what?], and the school department were all in the same building -- the old landmark still standing at the east corner south side Main Street. Happy days, 'would I were a boy again!'"

Ned Howard in the Milton Times. Webster's Weekly (Reidsville, NC), 31 October 1895.

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Query the identity of the men mentioned, the location of the building described, and whether the school was Hyco Academy.

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Webster's Weekly (Reidsville, North Carolina), 31 October 1895.

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Mablon Kenyon, M.A., graduate of a Northern college, succeeded John H. Hinton in 1821 as master/teacher at Hyco Academy and remained at least through 1824. He previously had taught in public academies and had been a private tutor for several years, so the college preparatory program of the Academy continued. Kenyon was soon termed Principal and Dabney Rainey was his assistant. Rainey was also experienced and was cited for his "capability for governing and instruction." In 1824 Rainey departed Hyco to join the teaching staff of the Caswell Academy, and Kenyon apparently left at the end of the 1824 session. It was in that year that he became editor of the Milton Gazette & Roanoke Advertiser newspaper, a position he filled until 1831.

Source: Powell, William S. When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County North Carolina 1777-1977. Durham (North Carolina): Moore Publishing Company, 1977 at 358.