Some 170 years ago, steam-powered boats and locomotives began to show up as alternatives to sailing ships and horse-drawn wagons, carriages and carts. By the 1890s, internal combustion engines began appearing as power plants for a new idea, the automobile. In the 120 years since 1890, the automobile has become so widespread and popular that it has for all intents and purposes replaced horses for ordinary transportation.

Interestingly, when steam locomotives first appeared, many people opposed them because the hissing, clanging machines scared the horses.

Automobiles met with the same opposition. Cars were considered nuisances and a danger to society because they spooked the horses and caused runaways. Everyone so depended on horses in ordinary life that the new mechanical contrivances were considered expendable in order to preserve the peace of the indispensable horses.

How quickly those attitudes turned around! These days, I suppose many people would regard a horse on the road as a nuisance and a danger to traffic.

Maybe people back in the early days of mechanical power needed horses like the two we had on our farm in the 1940s and 1950s. I don’t recall our ole Pat or Mike ever becoming spooked by anything. I never saw them running, or even trotting. Our horses were placid, calm and steady. OK, they might get a little agitated if a dog was yapping around them! But our horses were very much work horses, plow horses, as some would call them. They were no good for riding. When they moved, they walked; they trudged. There was never any clipetty clop, clipetty clop or any rapid clip-clip-clip-clips.

With our Pat and Mike it was clip-a-clop-a-clip-a-clop.

It has always amazed me how much difference in size one sees among horses. On the small side, we see Shetland ponies just barely tall enough to ride; and even little miniature horses that are too short to sit on. Then, in contrast, we see the monster Clydesdales and huge Percherons whose heads may be 10 feet in the air. I have seen my biggest horses in places outside Arkansas. Especially when our kids were small, we used to go to St. Louis to see the Clydesdales at Grant’s Farm. But probably the greatest collection of giant horses I ever saw was at the Iowa State Fair. We saw a barnful of great horses whose backs must have been seven or eight feet above the ground, and whose feet were as big as five-gallon buckets. Some of those great horses were at least twice the size of our old Pat and Mike.

I’ve been told that the really big horses were bred in the olden days of armored knights, when the horses not only carried the metalshielded knight, but also their own heavy armor as well.

Those great horses were the “tanks” in warfare back before motorized mobile armor was invented.

Interestingly, in the era of motorized transportation, we still measure the power of our engines in horsepower.

Measuring a car motor or truck motor or tractor motor or lawn mower motor in horsepower seems a little tricky. As I have known them, horses are not equal. Some can do more work quicker than others, some can pull the plow deeper, some can step along faster. Anyway, a horsepower is supposed to be the power that an average horse can sustain when he is operating on “cruise.” One of the advantages of a horse is that, when needed, he can buckle down and do some really heavy lugging for a short burst. Some people who love to farm with horses also point out that horses have an advantage over tractors, in that you almost never have to jump-start a horse. Of course I have seen horses that would head for the back side of the field whenever they see the farmer coming with the bridle or harness.

As a boy I read Anna Sewell’s book, “Black Beauty.” That is a horse lover’s book!

It greatly influenced my attitudes about the animals that we use for work, or for play, and the conditions we provide for them or subject them to. When I hear of someone abusing an animal, be it horse or cow or dog or cat or chicken, I think maybe it could have been different if they had read Black Beauty!

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@ centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.

The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The TIMES.

Community, Pages 5 on 09/29/2010