Seaman the Newfoundland Dog–An Accurate Picture?
Seaman probably looked a lot like this Newfoundland.
In the past few years, it has been commonplace to talk about “Seaman,” the Newfoundland the Lewis and Clark “Corps of Discovery” expedition. Lewis purchased him for $20 at Pittsburgh in 1803. That’s where the expedition set off down the Ohio.
Newfoundland dog enthusiasts have hitched their wagon to Seaman’s star, and various portrayals of Seaman show him as a heavily boned dog with thick hair. Most books and portraits portray him as a black dog that looks exactly like the modern show Newfoundland,
But is this portrayal accurate?
Well, it’s probably not.
For one thing, the really big Newfoundlands of that did not have such a Molosser appearance– except in a few European examples of the breed (see Bewick’s representation). Most North American examples of the breed were more like large retrievers.
Almost all were black and white. That was the color of the dog dealers’ stock. Newfoundlands were among the earliest breeds offered as mass produced family pets. Indeed, they were probably the first mass-produced fad dog in North America and Europe. They were the Labrador retrievers of their day.
In addition to being widely sought after as pets, the dogs were used as retrievers. It’s likely that when the term Newfoundland was used for a retriever in the nineteenth century that it could mean both the ancestor of the modern Newfoundland and the St. John’s water dog, which is somewhat similar dog from Newfoundland but a bit smaller and usually with a short coat. (That’s one reason why this gets very confusing.)
It is most likely that he was a black and white dog that was very similar to a large golden retriever.
Not unlike this dog that Custer captured during the Peninsula Campaign:
This dog is a Newfoundland that belonged to some Confederates. I've seen a few sources that claim this dog is a collie. He is not.
So this notion that Seaman looked like a show Newfoundland is a bit of lore.
It’s a bit like the notion that any dog belonging to a Scottish crofter looked anything like Lassie. It’s good lore, but it’s probably not accurate.
However, if an sculptor or artist portrayed Seaman as he probably looked, it is likely that the Newfoundland fanciers would be quite angry. Already, I’ve seen rather robust debates as the identity of “Swansea Jack,” a legendary hero dog that rescued people from drowning near the docks of Swansea, Wales. In some places he’s called a retriever, and in others, he’s called Newfoundland. But as we have seen with Zelstone, neither identity was mutually exclusive at the time.
I read a great, well-research historical fiction book (From Sea to Shining Sea) about the Lewis and Clark expedition recently. He claims in the book that they thought about having to kill and eat Seaman along the way. He also claims that they (including Lewis himself) did eat [Indian] dogs and so did Seaman.
Now, my source is Mark Derr’s “A Dog’s History of America”– and they didn’t eat Seaman because he was so useful and so well trained that he was used as an ice-breaker with tribes that were unsure of Lewis and Clark. Derr doesn’t think they seriously considered eating him.
Clark never really got into dog eating, but Lewis loved it. In fact, they got in trouble by eating dogs that belonged to a tribe that didn’t eat dogs, but I can’t remember which one that was.
I have to smirk at the absence of any facts in this blog. How about some evidence to support the allegations.
Easy.
Here are some Landseer paintings of Newfoundland dogs:
http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/landseer-saved1.jpg
Custer’s Newfoundland is in the post, as is the Bewick depiction.
Bummer and Lazarus. Bummer was a Newfoundland dog: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Bummerandlazarus2.jpg
Another Newfoundland acting as a retriever by Landseer– note how white the dog is: http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/SOL20090709_38689/28.jpg
Another, but more black: http://www.encore-editions.com/dogs/landseer1/thm_thm_retrieverandwoodcock.jpg
Another with collie features: http://gentscaninesociety.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/neptune.jpg
Solid black was very rare in the mass-produced pet Newfoundland of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nearly all were black and white.
The big Newfs as the exist now can’t be used as working retrievers. However, they were at the base of many lines of retriever.
In not a single painting of the big Newvfoundland from that time period do I find a single solid black dog.
Now the other dog called “the Newfoundland” is the St. John’s water dog. It very often was very close to solid black in color. It’s the one that was more often crossed into retriever lines, and it is the ancestor of the Labrador, which isn’t from Labrador or North America at all. It’s a Scottish dog.
Because of the pictorial evidence at the time, it is very likely that Seaman looked like a large, black and white golden retriever, not a black modern Newfoundland, a Landseer, or even an FCI Landseer.
This is the closest one I could find to a modern breed of this ancestry. It looks a lot like an FCI Landseer: http://www.landseers.lt/paveiksliukai/istorija2.jpg
I’ve read many different descriptions of the hauling dog from Newfoundland, and each one is different. Some say they have narrow heads, while others call the big Newfoundland the Labrador and the little St. John’s water dog a Newfoundland. That pretty much tells me that both were landrace breeds that existed in rather diverse forms. I’ve found long-haired St. John’s water dogs, which supposedly don’t exist, and Bewick’s big Newfoundland has short hair.
The only anomaly to this is Emily Dickenson’s “brown” Newfoundland “Carlo.” Liver was a recessive in the St. John’s water dog, so it’s possible that she had one of those. The Chesapeake Bay retriever is partially derived from a “red liver” St. John’s water dog, which is not the same thing as the big hauling Newfoundland.
We can’t use modern Newfoundlands as waterfowl dogs because they enter water with very little style and the swim so slowly. However, many of them have retrieving instincts and are quite trainable.
Many retriever people are very concerned that Newfoundlandish characteristics are becoming common in certain breeds, mainly in goldens and Labs. Even as early as 1907, I have an account of a retriever fancier who warns about keeping the size and bone of the Newfoundland out of retriever stock.
However, those Newfouldands are much stronger than retrievers, although they certainly lack the speed of the retrievers in the water.
I have better evidence on this than I do for my contention that Sussex spaniels once had long legs.
newfoundland dogs are NOT retriever dogs. they were never bred to be retriever dogs. they are lifesaving and draught dogs.
NO! NO! NO!
Both breeds of Newfoundland were used as retrievers.
EVERYTHING IN THAT POST COMES FROM LEWIS AND CLARK’S OWN DIARIES!
YOU ARE VERY STUPID PERSON.
YES YES YES!
heehee its quite funny how frustrated you get!
newfies are not retrievers!! they may have been used as retrievers at one point in history but NOW they are water working and draught dogs.
they may not be super speedy but they are at home in the water they can swim for hours withought tiring, they are agile swimmers, strong and extremely brave and intelligent, the perfect trates for life savers.
They excell with water and draught work, not merely retieving dead birds.
BTW, are you aware that the term Newfy is a pejorative towards the people of Newfoundland?
But you wouldn’t know that– after all, you are an expert.
p.s. You are very lucky to own the actual diary’s of lewis and clarke!
I don’t. I just have this book (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-Dogs-History-of-America/Mark-Derr/e/9780374529970), which quotes them.
But you can also read them online. They are terrible writers. Terrible, Terrible.
http://lewisandclarktrail.com/diary.htm