MORGAN WHITEHACKLE GAMEFOWL

In 1858, George Gilkerson, an English farmer residing in Cortland County, NY, imported a few fowl from Cumberland, England. These fowl were obtained from a man named Lawman, who happened to be a relative of Billy Lawman from New York State. Initially referred to as North Britain, they were later known as Gilkerson Whitehackles.

The North Britain gamefowl came in variations of duckwing red, brown red, and pyle. Prior to his passing, Gilkerson generously gave many of his fowl to Col. Morgan, including a small imported Scottish hen, possibly from the Lawman lineage, which Gilkerson held in high regard. Col. Morgan proceeded to breed this hen with the original Gilkerson fowl, resulting in her bloodline being present in all the strains of Whitehackle that he developed. The Morgan Whitehackle gained more fame than the Gilkerson fowl, triumphing over opponents such as Kearney, the Eslins, and Mahoney in the Pennsylvania coal mining district.

Morgan only introduced two outcrosses into his pure bloodline of Whitehackle. He acquired a ginger hen from Perry Baldwin and placed her in the care of Sonny Stone from Newark. Stone bred her, along with her grand-daughters and great grand-daughters, with the Morgan cocks.

The resulting Whitehackles possessed the fierce fighting ability and bloody heel of the pure Morgan’s strain, as well as the aggressiveness of the ginger (newbold fowl). Morgan then obtained a fifteen-sixteenth Morgan and a sixteenth (Ginger) newbold hen from Stone, and bred them on his own gamefarm. John Hoy of Albany purchased gamefowl from Billy Lawman, and he and Morgan freely exchanged broodcocks, ensuring the Whitehackle remained a pure strain.

Morgan continued to breed the Lawman Whitehackle, reducing it to one quarter on his own farm. In the early nineties, Morgan gifted a small group of his fowl to a Colonel in Virginia. The colonel proceeded to inbreed the fowl, and upon his demise, the Whitehackles became the roosters of a professor at Georgetown University. Although the professor had no knowledge of breeding or cock fighting, he diligently maintained the purity of the stock. Neither the pure Morgan Whitehackle nor the inbred birds have undergone any changes in the past twenty-five years.