The Princesses Louise

Is Princess Louise Park in Sussex NB named for a British Royal or a horse? I’ve heard both answers. The person was daughter of Queen Victoria and patron of the 8^th Hussars Regiment. The horse was the 8^th Hussars Regimental Mascot.

Princess Louise, the horse, was an Italian-born WWII refugee. She later was naturalized as a Canadian citizen. She was also made a Freewoman of the Village of Hampton and a member of the Canadian Legion #28 Hampton Branch.

Princess Louise and her daughter, who was named after her mother, were both members of the 8th Hussars. They are commemorated with their own marker close to the Cenotaph  in Hampton’s Veterans Park.

An Orphaned Foal in Italy

In 1944 soldiers found a wounded foal beside her dead mother in Coriano, Italy. She was rescued by 8^th Hussars men from the Hampton and Sussex area. They named her Princess Louise after the regiment’s patron. She traveled with them for the rest of the war – to France, Belgium and Holland. It took considerable ingenuity to pull that off.

When the men moved by ship to France, they were not allowed to take animals. So they modified a truck that was being transported, building a stall behind a false wall in it. Two of the men went AWOL for a short period of time during loading. Afterwards, the charges against them were quietly dropped. So perhaps the machinations went quite a way up the chain of command?

8th Hussars Regimental Mascot

Princess Louise and the regiment were in Holland at the end of the war. When it came time for the men to come home, they couldn’t bring her back on the troopship.* They left her with the British Army Veterinary Corps, asking them to get her on a ship as soon as possible.

She arrived in New York a few months later. From there, she travelled by train to Saint John where she was given the keys to the city. She then traveled in style to Camp Sussex in the town of Sussex and served there for 27 years as Regimental Mascot.

Her duties included representing the regiment in Remembrance Day services and most civic events in Sussex. She greeted officials and was a favourite in parades around the province. H. Thad Stevens was her first handler and then Sgt. Gordon Bickerton took over care of her and her daughter.

Legacy

Princess Louise gave birth to three foals. After she died in 1973, a daughter named Princess Louise II served as mascot until she died at the age of 27 in 1981.

Princess Louise’s horseshoes, framed, hang in the Hampton Legion. Also there is her application for Legion membership. Her hoofprint is on the signature line. The answer typed in for her “number of dependants” is “3420 (total Regt’l enlistment).”

LCol. R. S. McLeod wrote her story. You can read it here. Ana Dearborn-Watts later wrote a children’s book about her, The Pony Princess. The Hampton Legion published it and gave copies to area school libraries.

The President of the Hampton Legion told me that usually every Remembrance Day, “somebody writes something about her.” Indeed a story this lovely, of horses and men, should not be lost to us.

I borrowed the photos of Princess Louise from the Saint John Telegraph-Journal’s 2011 Remembrance Day story, here. You can read more about the 8th Canadian Hussars here.

*US WWII veteran Bill Wynne, in his book Yorkie Doodle Dandy, tells how he successfully smuggled Smoky, his Yorkshire Terrier, back. He laments, however, that others were not so lucky with their adopted dogs, monkeys and other pets. But he doesn’t mention any serviceman trying to sneak a horse on board!