Horsepower Made Great Contributions to World Development
by Candice C. Dunnigan

The contribution of the horse is great, even in today's world. In fact, the word "horsepower" is a direct connection of these animals in relation to mechanization. It was James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, who forever changed our total dependency on these animals. Ironically, Watt also invented the term "horsepower." What does it mean? Watt wanted to advertise how much work his new invention could muster. He calculated that the work of a good draft horse was equal to 550 foot pounds of work per second. If his engine could do the same, it was then a "onehorsepower" engine. We still use this exact engineering unit of measurement today for all kinds of power engines.

Horsepower, the natural kind, ran everything. Horses worked on trolleys, omnibuses, mills, canal boats, freight wagons, supply wagons, andcarrying the mail. They were the key muscle behind harvesting crops, defending homelands, carrying artillery, and building roads. In fact, in America alone, the horse has been a continuous contributor in every era and economy.

It has been determined that Spaniards, such as Hernando Cortez, were responsible for bringing the first horses to the Americas in the early 1500s. By the mid 1500s, Fernando de Soto had brought horses into the wilds of the lower Mississippi regions. Many of these animals were stolen by Native American tribes. Horses were also traded to them, and some horses and entire herds escaped. All of these aspects helped to establish equine populations in Americas. For the Indians, the horse became a very important accessory in raids and war parties, just as they had been for the ancient Assyrians, Huns, and Goths.

Draft horses Mitch and Leah are the Mackinac Island early morning service delivery team.

The first equine sports were chariot races and a form of polo. In 776 BC the Greeks built the first hippodrome, named for Hippos, the horse. The hippodrome was an enclosed race track that had seating for 100,000 people. One of the largest Hippodromes was reported to be in Constantinople. Horses were important factors in the very first Olympics.

Many people ask me when the first horses came to Mackinac. No one knows the specific dates. However, timing and circumstances seem to suggest that the equines were introduced into the Straits area in the 1700s. Again, these animals were used as beasts of burden.

As the Island grew and developed, horses here increased just as the population did. Goods and services became dependent upon them. Just before World War I the number of farm horses in America alone reached a peak of 26 million working animals. By 1959 working mules and horses had declined to a population of only 3 million animals in the continental states. Today, however, in the United States there are more pleasure and sport horses than in the "pre-power" age.

On Mackinac, the horse population peaked in the late 1890s with horses involved in commerce. Ironically, a hundred years later in the 1990s, the "work horse," or the draft, has increased its visibility on the Island. The massive three-horse hitch wagons of Mackinac Island Carriage Tours began using these animals in earnest, and the consolidation of the dray lines diminished the use of lighter-bred horses for power. The size of these animals has also increased the hay tonnage that must be transported each week to Mackinac to keep these animals fit and fed.

The pleasure horse population on Mackinac is also on a small increase. Nationally, today the horse is known as a pleasure, sport, and racing animal of huge popularity. It seems that it is the beauty, ability, and plain friendliness of a horse that draws people of all ages to him. In that respect, the horse has now made a dramatic comeback, although it is "mechanical" horsepower that has now taken over the work he used to do. That is, except for the world of the horse on Mackinac Island.

Candice Dunnigan is an active member of the American Equestrian Association, the Waterloo Hunt, and the Mackinac Island Horsemen's Association. Seasonally she resides at Easterly Cottage.