In the early 1680s two of the leading merchants of southern Maine engaged in a gentlemanly negotiation. Major John Davis of York, the Deputy President of the Province of Maine, desperately wanted Lt. Humphrey Chadbourne Jr.’s fine gray riding horse. Chadbourne, a wealthy sawmill owner in Berwick, at first refused Davis, claiming the stallion was his wife’s, and she enjoyed riding him. Davis insisted that “he must have the horse” so the major gave Chadbourne his case of pistols in return for the steed. Furthermore, the elderly Davis promised that upon his death, the stallion would be returned to the lieutenant. Less than a month after Davis’s death in October 1691, Chadbourne went to court to reclaim his prize mount. By this time, the horse had become one of his few remaining assets. In the spring of 1690 Humphrey’s extensive complex including a mansion house, a large farm, and a sawmill were all destroyed by a combined French and Native force in the Salmon Falls raid, one of the early encounters of King William’s War. Chadbourne had been virtually wiped out. The court took the matter under advisement. Unfortunately, before Chadbourne could get his stallion back, York also fell victim to a raid. In the Candlemas attack in January 1692 Wabanaki raiders killed or took captive about 120 residents, slaughtered livestock, and burned most of the town. It is likely that Chadbourne’s fine gray stallion was one of the victims of Candlemas. The once wealthy merchant died insolvent three years later.