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In April 1831, Nash County, N.C. plantation owner Nick Arrington accepted Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s challenge to a cockfight. Arrington and about a dozen friends spent six months crossing the country with more than 300 gamecocks in a dozen mule-drawn wagons to meet the Mexican president outside modern-day El Paso.
Arrington won the majority of the fights, and a small fortune in prize money, but is perhaps best known for what happened after the cock match.
During the fights, one rooster of Arrington’s had left an impression on Santa Anna, whipping two of his best roosters in the short-heel fights. Having seen the gamecock fight two additional wins against aces already, Arrington told Santa Anna the bird wasn’t for sale at any price.
The dictator quickly tested Arrington’s conviction on that statement, placing the bird on a scale as he scooped one handful of gold coins after another onto the other side until it balanced out at 99 ounces (6-3).
With his rooster’s weight in gold on the table, the American acquiesced to the deal.
WELL-HEELED
The British crown granted Nick’s forbears land to colonize, and by the time Nick was born, the Arringtons had vast land holdings in Virginia and Alabama in addition to Nick’s Nash County, N.C. plantation, called The Cedars for the trees that covered the property. His grandfather, Arthur Arrington, developed and built the place, and like Nick and his father, Arthur is buried there.
During the Revolutionary War, General Arthur hosted George Washington and Lafayette at the Cedars. During Nick’s lifetime, Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson visited the Cedars to see Nick about the business of cocking.
Nick farm-walked his stags until about 2 years old, allowing each young rooster its own space to roam free with a few hens. Farm walks are still used today, though they’re much less common than they were in Nick’s lifetime.
During the roosters’ second year, Nick rode around to each property in a wagon to gather the roosters off their walks and bring them back to the Cedars. The fence along the main road and the driveway that cut into the property and to the big house had a stone fence, each post of which had a pen attached where Nick housed the birds during fighting season.
BLOODLINES
Travellers passing the property and visitors walked a gauntlet of crowing gamecocks in the pens along the fence, and at least by John Gideon’s life, the family had a breed of roosters called the Stone Fences.
Arrington called his most succesfull bloodline the Cripple Tonys, paying homage to a slave who was born on the plantation and injured in a timber felling accident there as a young man. The accident left him with an uneven gait and the nickname Cripple Tony for the rest of his life.
If the disability had a silver lining, it was that it disqualified Tony from most of the labor given to young black men on a plantation. He was assigned to various craftsmen on the property but nothing stuck until Nick noticed his attentiveness toward gamefowl. Thereafter, Tony worked exclusively with the gamefowl on the farm. He held this position even as a freeman for the rest of Nick’s life and even served the role to Nick’s eldest son, John Gideon for some time.
The Cripple Tony family of fowl Nick fought were the breeding result of at least three generations of Arrington cockfighters. For most of his life, Nick’s grandfather kept a famliy of black-breasted reds that he eventually crossed under a Spanish Blue cock. To this bloodline, Nick’s dad crossed with a solid white gamecock he’d bought in a N.C. port. Nick’s major contribution to the line came from an Irish grey cock he’d bought at a cockpit in Halifax, N.C.
Other bloolines associated with the family include the Stone Fences and the Thompson
Whites, the later of which seems to have been originated by Bradford Thompson, an overseer on an Arrington plantation in Alabama.
The Travelling Cocker
Santa Anna and Nick fought another main more than a decade after the first in Louisiana at the Le Barra plantation along the Mississippi River, which Arrington also won.
He fought against the best rooster men of his time at the highest stakes on record and is said to have never lost a main.
Before the second meeting with Santa Anna, Arrington and Co. made a circuit of the event, ditching the wagon train at Memphis for a steamer equipped with a cockpit onboard. After beating Santa Anna, Arrington signed terms for a main against a wealthy New Orleans cocker named Paul Renault for $40,000 (!). After beating Renault in New Orleans, Arrington fought his cocks succesfully against cocking legend Judge Lacy on his way back up the river to memphis.
The episode goes beyond the exploits of Arrington to explore U.S. cockfighting of the broader Antebellum and Colonial periods. We learn a little about the bloodilnes kept by George Washington–a family of reds, which was apparently preserved through Nick’s lifetime unlike the first president’s Washington Grey line, though to be lost to history.
Andrew Jackson’s visit to the Cedars is described in an early chapter of the book, when the celebrated war veteran and then-president stayed a day or two and took a ride with Tony and Nick to various surrounding properties where Nick country-walked his roosters.
Head over to the bibliography for a list of texts used to source this and other episodes. Learn more about the show and it’s creator in the introduction episode, here. Find us on Facebook and let us know what you think, or email us directly. Y’all keep’m crowing.
Great podcast with great information on gamefowl history 👍👍👍👍
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