Early 1900's.
Somebody was searching the web for info (likely related to some item on eBay):
Revised search (especially enjoyed the read about he winning a litigation against the Morning Telegraph (a similar announcement was published and re-published in the Trotter and Pacer magaizne)).
Revised at Google offers a few more:
Here's a bio of Amos Rathburn from a Dec 25, 1893 Michigan Horse News:
AMOS RATHBUN
A portrait gallery of the trotting horse drivers of Michigan would be
incomplete without at picture of A. M. Rathbun, yet if he could have had his own way his picture would have never appeared in this or any other Journal, and while its as a young man he has had good success on the turf, yet his request was that if anything was said about him at all we should do it in its few words as possible, and that the least said would please him the best. Now, its the Michigan Horse News aims to please its patrons it will comply with this very reasonable and very modest request of Mr. Rathbun and
mention as briefly as it can what he has accomplished towards bringing the horses of Michigan into prominence, for it is well known that he knows how to develop speed as well is how to drive a. winning race. He has probably driven over as many tracks and in as many states as any driver of his age in Michigan and has developed and given records to such horses as Cleveland S., 2:11 3-4; Maud Adiar, 2:18 1-4; Billy Beverly, 2:21; Prince S., 2:22 1-4;
Geo. R, 2:27 1-2, the first trotter he ever owned; Novi, 2:29 1-4, which he sold at Baltimore, Md., for $3,000; Sutherland, 2:29 3-4; William V., 2:30. and, if the first monies and the stakes he has won with these horses, with Ripple, 2:17 1-4, as well as with many others that have been in his stable and under his management were added together the amount would tell the story, and it would also show that he has been very successful as a pilot.
Just what he will do next year or what horses he will campaign is not its yet decided. For the past four weeks he has been at Chicago playing attention to his first love, the gallopers.
end of quote
I've a bunch of sinlge line references to Mr. Rathburn, most of which are focused around the area of Syracuse, N. Y., one even mentions ice racing on Lake Oneida.
He and a partner sold the great trotting mare "Lucille" to C. K. G.
Billings in the 1890's for 10k. The reference mentioned the other selling partner as a publisher of a periodical.
