My mother lives in a small town in Nova Scotia called >> Annapolis Royal <<. One of the colourful people in the Town's history was Bill Edwards who owned a local inn and was one of the first people with a car. He was however best known for his pet monkey and his trained horse. Bill, his car, the monkey named 'Jack', and the horse named 'Pat' are seen here in this photo that appeared in the local newspaper on July 16, 1914. Looks like the car may have been an RIO. (I note rear fenders are longer than Ron's recent posting of a RIO Speedwagon -- fronts of Ron's car and this one appear very similar to me).


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Note Bill's monkey 'Jack' on the bonnet. Jack was a local celebrity and was regularly 'interviewed' for his take on current events by both local newspapers. Bill Edwards was a Tory and so he favoured the pro-Tory paper over the one the one that favoured Grit policies. Bill taught Jack to be able to discern between the two papers. If Jack was handed a copy of the Herald he would pretend to read it. If handed a copy of the Morning Chronicle he would tear it up. Sadly, one year after the above pic was taken Jack had an accident and was killed. Apparently Jack would ride on something called, in 1915, the "Jib Boom" of the moving car. Unfortunately he fell off and was run over by the car. Bill had him stuffed.

The horse was also a celebrity and locally considered to be the smartest horse in the world because of the many tricks he could do. In 1919 when 20 years old Pat the horse laid down and died. Moments before he had walked around to all his favorite places and had shaked a hoof with John MacKay, the Chief of Police. As far as I know Pat was not stuffed.