Books and Manuscripts

(Newdegate, C.N.)
Sketches from the Washington Races in October 1840 by An Eye Witness
(London, ca. 1840). Comprising three fine hand-colored lithographic plates, by and after Newdegate; printed text below each image; loose as issued; each sheet measuring 15 x 22 1/8 in. (381 x 562 mm). Original oatmeal printed paper folder, foxed, repair at bottom fold and in upper front panel; foxing to Pl. 1, small spotting along margins of other plates; in black fall-down-back box. Henderson, Early American Sport, p. 135; Not in Snelgrove

A near-fine copy of this very rare series of hand-colored lithographs, depicting scenes from a race conducted by African American jockeys at the Washington Race Course, in Charleston, South Carolina, in October 1840. Below each plate is printed an explanatory quatrain, such as “At the tap of the drum they jump off from the stand, Be the track deep in mud or heavy with sand, At a pace which at once makes fast ones extend, An e'en the best winded cry bellows to mend.”

The Washington Race Course (also known as the Charleston Race Course), was developed by 1792, and served as the one-mile track for the South Carolina Jockey Club's annual one-week races in early February. The jockeys were usually enslaved men, and the races were a series of two-, three-, and four-mile heats run by the same jockeys and horses. The track closed ca. 1900. On the disbanding of the Club, the piers from the entrance of the Washington Race Course were given to Belmont Park, New York, where they still stand today.

The “eye-witness” is attributed to conservative British politician Charles Newdigate Newdegate (1816-87).