Inventor Name
Fennell, James
Repository
Western Kentucky University
Kentucky Library
Manuscripts Section
Bowling Green KY 42101
http://www.wku.edu/library/dlsc/
Physical Description
11 cubic feet
Summary
These are business records of a horse boot company founded at Cynthiana in Harrison County, Kentucky by Fennell, the inventor of horse boots. These boots were lightweight leather "sleeves" that covered horses’ lower legs and were used to protect standardbreds from self-inflicted wounds from their sharp hooves. Materials include ledgers, account books, horseboot order books, checkbooks, receipts, business correspondence, and photographs. Correspondence of other Cynthiana residents, such as J. J. and W. J. Osborne and legal correspondence of C. M. Jewett and M. C. Swinford, dates in the early part of the twentieth century. Fennell’s original design, developed during service with the Confederate Army, hampered the horses’ speed, but a new boot with a flexible joint, created when he returned to Cynthiana after the war, solved the problem. His invention began to receive notice within the harness racing industry, especially after the establishment of Abdullah Race Track at Cynthiana in 1873. He founded the Cynthiana Horse Boot Company, which held patents on several varieties of the boot, and sold boots throughout the United States and parts of Canada, Europe, and South America. Business diminished with the Panic of 1893, as interest in harness racing declined, and did not revive until after Fennell’s death in 1919.