- Rarus - Where he was raised became San Simeon by the Sound -

By Danny McCarthy

NOTE: Arshamomaaque is located between Southold hamlet and the Village of Greenport.
Here’s a tribute to one of the earliest champions in Southold Town. Many Long Island farmers were horsemen just as trotting became popular before the Civil War. The horses that partook in trotting were trained specifically for harness racing. The Greenport main street was a favorite speedway and in those days there was much local interest in trotting. A great pride of Long Island that was known as the greatest trotter of his time was born on a farm overlooking Long Island Sound at Arshamomoque to Richard (“Dick”) and Joseph Hull Conklin. Dick became a stage carpenter in New York City theaters. At the age of 31 in 1848, he gave up his trade and rented a stall in the Fulton Fish Market in New York City where he remained as provision dealer and prospered. In 1854, Dick bought part of the old Conklin farm at Arshamomoque running the farm as well as his business in the city. He noticed a splendid looking stallion named Abdallah drawing a heavy load of fish. He bought the animal for a nominal sum and had him shipped to his East End farm. Dick began breeding horses on his Arshamomoque farm, a mile-and-a-half northwest of Greenport.
Dick’s one-eyed brother, Hull, drove the stage from Brooklyn to Orient shortly before the railroad was extended through to Greenport. There was rumors that Hull’s companion oftentimes on the driver’s box was Walt Whitman, then Smithtown’s schoolmaster. There's a further rumor of a story that goes that while Hull and his wife Thankful lived together, Whitman boarded with them and he had to stay in bed while his only shirt laid on her clothesline awaiting to dry. - Aha! - Something to research about! - Write on!
Later Dick bought Nancy Awful, a gray mare that could trot a mile in about three minutes. To Nancy Awful and the fish market stallion was born June 7, 1867, a long-legged bay which was given the name Rarus. Rarus had a fine disposition and unusual intelligence. Hull was a born horseman who had long since stopped driving a stage. He went to work on his brother’s farm and became the nursemaid for Rarus. A Brooklyn liverykeeper named Jim Page was the trotter’s official handler but Hull slept in the colt’s stable and did keep his watchful eye consistently available.
The champion took on all-comers from coast to coast. While on the Pacific coast, Rarus cut his time for a mile to 2.15 and finally, at Buffalo, on August 3, 1878, trotting a mile in 2.13 ¼, the fastest time that had ever been made up to that day by any .
Rarus died in 1892 in White Plains, NY and Hull was no longer himself at his brother’s Stock Farm where Dick had built a mansion. Hull and Thankful went back to Smithtown and later moved to East Marion with their daughter Sarah and husband Frank J. Tuthill, a commercial fisherman.
The pasture on which Rarus ran around and the track on which he trained was first planted to Long Island spuds and then became a course. Today it is where San Simeon stands. However, the native-born Long Island trotter and the Conklin brothers live on! This is something we can be thankful for.