By William “Skip” Deegans
In 1907, Fairlea’s Greenbrier Farm was the home of General Watts, one of the fastest race horses in the world. That year, the trotter set the world record for 3-year old trotting stallions at Readville, MA, and chalked up the most wins of any horse in harness racing. General Watts achieved national publicity for his penchant for chewing tobacco. When his groom would take a chew, he would share one with the stallion. His owner, Cornelius Clarkson Watts, was reported to have been offered $55,000 for the stallion (roughly $1.8 million in today’s dollars). Instead, Watts brought his horse back to Greenbrier County to breed at what was to become a substantial horse racing stable and breeding farm.
Watts was a successful Charleston lawyer and politician. Born in Virginia in 1848, he was 16 years old when he joined Mosby’s Rangers in the Confederate Army.
After the war, he attended law school at the University of Virginia. By 1875, Watts was a partner in the Charleston law firm, Kenna and Watts. One case that stands out in his legal career was tried before the U.S. Supreme Court of Appeals. In Chesapeake & Ohio Railway v. Miller (Auditor of WV), Watts won the right of West Virginia government to tax railroad property. The newspaper, Spirit of Jefferson, described Watts’ representation: “He was in good condition, thoroughly equipped and master of his case.”
Watts was elected West Virginia’s Attorney General in 1880 and was instrumental in the establishment of the West Virginia Colored Institution that became West Virginia State University. In a speech at the Institution in 1910, Watts said, “…wherever the black man and white man understood each other they were friends and that it was only the enemy to them both who tried to engender race feeling.”
By 1908, at Greenbrier Farm, Watts had 16 of the best broodmares in the country, and the number had increased to 60 by 1911 when he moved all of his horses and racing operations to Lexington, Kentucky. In 1919, he sold Greenbrier Farm to Guy B. Montgomery. Watts died in Charleston in 1930.
Sources: Greenbrier Independent, New York Times, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Advocate, Spirit of Jefferson.
