Farewell, Old Friend

COOPERSTOWN—On January 24, the community lost a beloved figure. Zeb, a Percheron at The Farmer’s Museum since 1997, passed away at age 29. He was 83 in human years. Zeb was born on August 10, 1994. He arrived at The Farmers’ Museum from Vermont as a three-year-old and was immediately put to work on the Lippitt farm. Zeb’s duties included field work—plowing, harrowing, cultivating and discing—and pulling the wagon for horse-drawn wagon rides. Zeb weighed in around 1,500 pounds and was 16.1 hands tall, or 5.3 feet from the highest point of the withers, where the neck meets the back, down to the ground. Zeb was retired from physical labor about nine years ago, since which time it has been his job to meet and greet visitors to the museum grounds. Zeb departed for that big pasture in the sky on January 24. He will be much missed.