Count Noble / Mildmay Park Beauty

Count Noble, also, Mildmay Park Beauty. . Side A , Count Noble , Across this lawn frolicked Count Noble (1879-1891). He has been called the greatest dog that ever lived. Count Noble sired generations of field and show champion English Setters and is a pillar of the breed in America. Bred by Richard Llewellin, he was imported from England and owned by Benjamin Frederick Wilson (1830-1896). Born in Wales, B.F. Wilson was a banker and captain of industry in the Iron City. The B.F. Wilson house and adjacent J. Barr Haines house were razed in 1973 for the construction of the Osborne Elementary School. A life-sized portrait of Count Noble by E.H. Osthaus (1858-1928) hangs in the Duquesne Club in downtown Pittsburgh. The New York Times reported the death of Count Noble on January 22, 1891. His body was mounted and displayed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. In 1999, the Count Noble exhibit was transferred to the National Bird Dog Museum, Grand Junction, Tennessee. , , Side B , Mildmay Park Beauty , The residence of B.F. Wilson stood on this site in what was originally called Osborne Station. His wife, Susannah Roberts Wilson (1847-1919), was owner of the first English Toy Spaniel registered by the American Kennel Club in 1886, Mildmay Park Beauty. Beauty was born in 1883 in Mildmay Park, a district of London, England. She traveled many days by ship and then rail to her new home in Pennsylvania. Like her husband, Mrs. Wilson bred and exhibited her dogs in the earliest years of the sport of purebred dogs. Still known in other nations by its historic name, King Charles Spaniel, the breed was a favorite pet of the nobility and high society for many centuries. Only the Pug and Yorkshire Terrier, recognized in 1885, precede the English Toy Spaniel in seniority among Toy breeds in America.