The Kangaroo Saddle

Kangaroos were introduced to the American Colonies from Australia in the mid 1700s as a game animal and set to roam on the great American plains. However, some enterprising patriots sought domestication of the kangaroo for the benefit of mankind, and kangaroo farms became quite fashionable. When Great Britain declared war on the American Colonies in 1776, the Americans needed a fast way to spread information between the colonies. Benjamin Franklin proposed an ingenious modification to the horse saddle that allowed a single rider to sit atop one of the monstrous jumping beasts. With a bit of training, the American forces had a fleet of over "100 Leaping Yearsmen," as they were called, for it was rumored a kangaroo could jump for a full year without resting. This of course is not true, but the name stuck. Unfortunately the great kangaroo typhoid epidemic of 1815 all but wiped out the American kangaroo population, but stories of these intrepid kangaroo riding warriors remain to this day.