Old Hub Dawson
By Tom Masters
Blue Island, Illinois
The Hunter’s Horn
March, 1980
Page 59
I want to give an account of the old Master himself, Hub Dawson 908. There has been so much
said about Hub Dawson in the past that now one has to have known him personally to give a
true account of him as a fox dog, but this incident stands out in my mind as to his real qualities
as a fox hound as well as a great sire.
Old Hub was in his prime, tough as a pine knot and, as we all know, had an almost iron
constitution, and if I remember correctly it was in the late spring or early summer in 1913 that
W. T. Woodward, now deceased, had been east with race horses and had come back to
Lexington and Richmond to visit his lifelong friend, J.D. Chenault. Also he visited the hunters
in Madison County, and in Clark and Fayette Counties who had planned a great camp hunt
down along the Kentucky River near Boonesboro. On the Clark County side of the river they
had looked forward for weeks to this camp hunt. The appointed time arrived and the hunters
from Richmond, J.D. Jep, Chenault, Alex Parrish, Jennings and Bill Maupin and several more
of the Madison County local hunters picked ten dogs, including old Hub Dawson, and drove
down to Boonesboro and met the Clark County hunters from around Winchester with ten or
twelve picked dogs.
They were going to run a matched race for endurance and were to run every night for a week
straight, or five nights, in fact. They met and arranged camp and were all talking about their
hounds and past races. Nothing was said, about old Hub being above average as he was just
then beginning his career. He was whelped February 10, 1910, and died, if I remember
correctly, June 19, 1920. He was a big, stout, well made dog, a beautiful color, black, white and
tan. The Clark County and Fayette County hunters had heard of him, but had never seen or
run him as yet, so they looked him over well, but passed on to many of the others, then called
great fox dogs. They sat and whittled and ate fish and talked all afternoon Monday,
anticipating the race for that night. A little after dark the hounds were cast, 21 in all, and there
was an old male red fox in that locality that didn’t live in the ground and had no hole that any of
the hunters far or near knew of. He had whipped good packs of hounds in many a race. I have
lain near that same spot and run him many a night and he trained many of the great hounds
that today show on the end of five generation pedigrees of the Walker strain, such hounds as
Screamer, Hazelwoods Bell, Orange Blossom, Hazel Stride, old Huntress, Lucy Giles,
Champion Lafayette, old Rex Dawson, Champion Hustler, and many other great Walkers.
They cast the hounds up what we always called Howards Creek and in due time the strike was
made. After some hard work trailing, they jumped him and the race was on, hounds all pretty
well packed up and you couldn’t tell very much about any special one dog. The race wore on
and on, but most all the hounds ran a fine race that night and only one or two quit. Tuesday
night they lit on him again a little after dark and ran almost as well as they did the first night,
with only two or three more dogs dropping out of the running. Wednesday night they cast
down the river and hit the real old war horse and after an hour or so he would make a few
doubles along the river in the bluffs and then take out across the open Blue Grass Country
where the dogs could really get up and drive him. He would be gone out of hearing for an
hour at a time and each time he came back there would be some dog missing out of the race
and by daylight there were a lot of the dogs laying around the campfire seemingly deaf. That
night finished the Clark County boys and they left the Richmond hunters there to finish things
out and a lot of the Richmond dogs had quit by this time. Thursday night they cast what dogs
they had left that hadn’t quit and others just lay around camp with their eyes nearly closed and
all cut and with snagged feet almost entirely worn out, blood running from their footpads and
from between their toes. Really those dogs hadn’t quit but had just done all there was in them
to do. There were about five dogs left the next morning still driving hard and steady, but most
of their tails was dragging, tongues were hanging out the sides of their mouths, front legs all
covered with slobber and they were not barking very often. Just about good daylight they
holed him and the dogs straggled into camp one at a time and it was nearly noon when the last
hound got in, so the boys fed them good and they were very content to lay down anywhere for
some most needed rest. The hunters then slept until noon time when they got up one at a time
and all began to fix some dinner. After they walked around some to pass off the afternoon and
when the sun began to get low in the west they got back to camp and fixed supper, fed the
hounds a little more and a little after dark turned them loose again. There were only four or five
dogs that would go at all. They had to walk off a ways with them to get them to go. After quite
a little time they made a strike and it wasn’t long until they had him jumped, but the fox stayed
mostly in the rounds along the river that night and the dogs that were left him did fairly good.
Only two quit that night, leaving old Hub Dawson and two others running next morning.
Those three dogs left had been in every lick of the running all four nights, so the hunters
amused themselves that day by eating plenty more fresh fish from the Kentucky River and
entertaining some hunters who came in to see and watch the finishing race Friday night.
Every hunter had his fill of good fish and a real old time smoke after supper. They cast the
dogs up Howards Creek again that night and they got a few of the other hounds to go that had
had a day’s rest with the three that had run the last night; they trailed out up Howards creek
out of hearing and were gone quite some time and when they did come back in hearing they
were really setting on him. Up and down Howards Creek they went and came down the
Kentucky River across Durids Creek on to Shot Factory, then up Boons Creek to the level
Blue Grass Country and then came about three miles right across that grassy level country.
About midnight hounds began to get enough, the ones that had already quit, quit again and it
thinned down to the three that had run the last night and by two o’clock in the morning they
had both quit and most of the hunters thought the race had wound up and was over. After a
short talk they all fell asleep and not a man woke until way after daylight. They got up, began
to stretch and chunk up the fire to make breakfast and some of the hunters began to look over
the dogs all around the camp. They couldn’t get a dog to stand on his feet, just run to death
almost, so while they were talking, one of them stepped out from the fire and said, “Hush,
boys, I hear a dog running something.” Everybody got so quiet to listen and just then he
dropped into a hollow out of hearing and when he topped the next ridge so they could tell
what dog it was, it was old Hub Dawson by his lonesome coming up the river, driving that fox
just like a Beagle hound running a cotton tail, never missing a note, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo,
whoo. Every hound that had started Monday night was gone, most of them had quit, some ran
until they just couldn’t run any more, but old Hub Dawson was driving right on, had run five
straight nights after big running foxes, made 20 good hounds quit and had shown the hunters
his mastership as a real he-man fox dog that was Dead Game to the core.
The hunters ate breakfast and got the dogs up that could stand up and pulled the rest up and
tied them and started walking down to the river where they would cross a ferry boat to get
back to Madison County where their horses were left. They went back to Richmond with one
dog, old Hub Dawson, and he ran many great races after that and proved himself to be a super
fox hound and one of the great stud dogs that made the cornerstone to our great present day
Walker hounds.
(Part of the last paragraph was left off, due to content)