Semantic search
1828c.4 NH Man Recalls Boyhood Habit of Playing Ball
Cyrus Bradley, born in 1818 in rural NH, refers in 1835 to his boyhood habit of playing ball.
"Journal of Cyrus P. Bradley," Ohio Archeological and Historical Society, Volume XV [1906], page 210. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
1828c.5 Vermont Schoolboy Recalls Playing Goal, With Elm Trees as Goals
"The big boys had great times playing goal, and other noisy and running games, and the elm trees by our yard were the goals . . . "
History of Samuel Paine, Jr., 1778-1861 and His Wife Pamela (Chase) Paine, 1780-1856, of Randolph VT and Their Ancestors and Descendants, compiled and edited by their grandson Albert Prescott Paine, 1923. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
1829.1 Philadelphians Play Ball
A group of Philadelphians who may eventually organize as the Olympic Ball Club begin playing town ball in Philadelphia, PA, but are prohibited from doing so within the city limits by ordinances dating to Colonial times. A site in Camden, New Jersey is used to avoid breaking the laws in Philadelphia. Caution: this unsourced item, retained from the original chronology of 70 items, has been seriously questioned by a researcher familiar with Philadelphia ballplaying. This group may correspond to the eighteen ropemakers whose ball play is cited in “A Word Fitly Spoken,” published in The American Sunday School Magazine of January 1830, pp. 3-5.
1829.2 Round Ball Played in MA
From a letter to the Mills Commission: "Mr. Lawrence considers Round Ball and Four Old Cat one and the same game; the Old Cat game merely being the they could do when there were not more than a dozen players, all told. . . . Mr. Lawrence says, as a boy, he played Round Ball in 1829.
"So far as Mr. Lawrence's argument goes for Round Ball being the father of Base Ball it is all well enough, but there are two things that cannot be accounted for; the conception of the foul ball, and the abolishment of the rules that a player could be put out by being hit by a thrown ball. No one remembers the case of a player being injured by being hit by a thrown ball, so that cannot be the reason for that change. The foul rule made the greatest skill of the Massachusetts game count for nothing - the batting skill - the back handed and slide batting. Mr. Stoddard told me that there were 9 of the 14 Upton batters who never batted ahead."
Henry Sargent Letter to the Mills Commission, June 25, 1905.
1829.3 Small Cambridge MA Schoolground Crimps Base and Cricket Play
his new Cambridge school too small. "[N]one of the favorite games of foot-ball, hand-ball, base or cricket could be played in the grounds with any satisfaction, for the ball would be constantly flying over the fence, beyond which he boys could not go without asking special leave. This was a damper on the more ranging & athletic exercises."
-- Richard Henry Dana, on the limitations of school ground play at his new school in Cambridge MA
Robert Metdorf, ed., An Autobiographical Sketch (1815-1842) (Shoe String Press, Hamden CT, 1953), pages 51-52. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 38. The text of the autobiography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/16/2008.
Richard Henry Dana, later the author of Two Years Before the Mast and a leading abolitionist, was 14 in 1829.
1829.4 In Upstate NY, A Teen's Death on the Ballfield
"As a number of the students at Fairfield academy were amusing themselves with a game of ball, on the 19th inst., a young man by the name of Philo Petrie, . . . of the town of Little Falls, was hit on the side of his head be a ball club and died almost instantly. He was about 17 years old."
New-York Spectator, October 30, 1829, page 2, column 5; taken from the Herkimer Herald. Posted by George Thompson to the 19CBB listserve on January 3, 2010. The Jamestown [NY] Journal reran the piece on November 4, 1829: accessed via subscription search on 2/17/2009. Fairfield NY is about 15 miles east of Utica in Central New York, and about 10 miles north of Herkimer and Little Falls.
The game played was wicket. See the Ilion Citizen, March 13, 1903:
One Saturday afternoon, in the fall of 1829 while a party of academics were playing a game of wicket ball on the "green," Philo Petrie, a student, was hit by a bat and almost instantly fell dead. Ozias Nellis was at the wicket, defending it, and in his playing raised his bat to strike the fall; as it came he struck but missed the ball, and momentum of the blow swung Nellis and the bat around, raising the bat as it went, and hit Petrie, who was standing near, on the side of his head. Petrie suddenly clapped both hands to his head, and in a moment fell headlong to the ground. No blame was laid on Nellis; the blow was accidental, but fatal.
1829.5 Town Ball Takes Off in Philadelphia?
A group of young rope makers is reported to have played a game of ball in 1829 at 18th and Race Streets.
William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning (McFarland, 2009), page 114. Ryczek cites a 2006 email from Richard Hershberger as the source of the location of the game. He identifies this game as perhaps the earliest known form of town ball, but Hershberger is unconvinced (see Warning, below).
Citing the makeup of these players as differing from that of early town ball players' reports, and seeing the 1829 account as more of a morality tale than a reliable report, Richard Hershberger (email of 10/31/12) discounts this item as an account of the origins of Philadelphia town ball.
In 1831 two organized groups, which later merged, played town ball: for a succinct history of the origins of Philadelphia town ball, see Richard Hershberger, "A Reconstruction of Philadelphia Town Ball," Base Ball, volume 1 number 2 (Fall 2007), pp 28-29.
Can we find the source of this 1829 account?
1829.7 While Playing Peacefully, "Wisdom Stole His Bat and Ball"
The poem "Childhood and His Visitors," evidently first printed [anonymously] in 1829 and appearing in many other places in the ensuing decades, turns on the line "Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball" which signifies the moment when childhood ends and manhood begins. Wisdom then, the verse continues, "taught him . . . why no toy may last forever." One interpretation may be that Childhood was using his bat and ball while "hard at play/Upon a bank of blushing flowers:/ Happy - he knew not whence or why" when Wisdom finally paid her visit. Thus, an image of bat and ball symbolizes immaturity.
The poem was referenced by Hugh MacDougall in a positing to the 19CBB listserve on 2/17/2010.
A possible initial source is The Casket, a Miscellany, Consisting of Unpublished Poems (John Murray, London, 1829), pages 21-23. Accessed 2/19/2010 via Google Books search ("the casket a miscellany"). In 1865 the piece, dated 1829, appears in The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Volume I (Widdleton, New York, 1865), pages 370-372. Accessed 2/19/2010 via Google Books search ("bat and ball" 1865 widdleton). Assuming that Praed was the actual author, as his wife thought, the poem had appeared during the year when, at age 27, the young Romantic turned away from thoughts of blushing flowers and toward a career as a British lawyer and Tory politician.
1829.9 Pupil in Class Seen to "Scamper like a Boy at Bass-ball"
Under the heading "School-boy Anecdote," this item tells of a "pupil in one of the common schools in New-York" who responded in an oral spelling quiz with an indistinct answer. The teacher pressed him on his answer: "Did you say 'a' or 'e'?"
"Why, you take ary [sic] one on 'em!" said the boy, and he scampered [to the front of the classroom] "like a boy at bass-ball, and placed himself at the head of the class."
Carried in the New-Hampshire Statesman and Concord Register, [Concord, NH], June 6, 1829, page 4, column 3: Attributed to the Berkshire American (no date given).
One source identifies the Berkshire American as being published in Pittsfield MA 1825-28.
Pittsfield is in westernmost MA and within 10 miles of the New York border. It is about 35 miles SE of Albany NY.
1829c.1 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Plays Ball as a Harvard student.
Several sources report that Oliver Wendell Holmes playing ball at Harvard.
[actual Holmes text is still needed]
Krout, John A, Annals of American Sport (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1929), p. 115. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, p. 240, ref 49. Richard Hershberger, posting to 19CBB on 10/8/2007, found an earlier source - Caylor, O. P., "Early Baseball Days," Washington Post, April 11, 1896. John Thorn reports [email of 2/15/2008] that Holmes biographies do not mention his sporting interests. Note: We still need the original source for the famous Harvard story. Holmes graduated in 1829; the date of play is unconfirmed.
See entry #1824.6 above on Holmes' reference to prep school baseball at Phillips Academy.
We still need the original source for the famous Harvard story. Holmes graduated in 1829; the date of play as cited is unconfirmed. The Holmes story reportedly appears in JM Ward's "Base Ball: How to Become a Player," where he says OWH told it "to the reporter of a Boston paper." (Ward page citation?)
Small Puzzle: Harvard's 19th Century playing field was "Holmes Field;" was it named for this Holmes? Harvard is in Cambridge MA.
1829c.10 Base Ball in Peterboro in 1829? 1809?
The Oneida (NY) Sachem, June 18, 1859, commenting on a base ball game in Peterboro, writes that "Peterboro thirty--even fifty--years ago, was celebrated for its Base Ball playing, and wonderful stories are recounted, in which the names of Rice and Wilburs, and others, shine with an enduring fame! And yet we think the Peterboro of today will eclipse the splendor of that behind-the-age celebrity."
Oneida (NY) Sachem, June 18, 1859
There were many people named Wilbur/Wilber, or Rice, in the Peterboro area at this time. So the individuals can't be identified. Nor did a search of area newspapers turn up anything further.
1830.1 Children's Amusements Describes Bat/Ball Play for Brits and Yanks
The book Children's Amusements, published in Oxford (England) and New York, contains an illustration of ball playing (page 9) and this text (page 10): "Playing ball is much practised by school boys and is an excellent exercise to unbend the mind, and restore to the body that elasticity and spring which the close application to sedentary employment in their studies within doors, has a tendency to clog, dull or blunt. But, when practised as is the common method, with a club or bat great care is necessary, as sometimes sad accidents have happened, by its slipping from the hand, or hitting some of their fellows. We would therefore, recommend Fives as a safer play in which the club is not used and which is equally good for exercise. The writer of this, beside other sad hurts which he has been witness of in the use of clubs, knew a youth who had his skull broke badly with one, and it nearly cost him his life."
Children's Amusements, [New York, Samuel Wood, 1820], p. 9. Note: we need to sort out the #1820.1 and #1830.1 entries for this title.
1830.14 Australia's First Recorded Cricket Match Played
The Sydney Gazette [date not supplied] reported on a match between a military club and the Australia Cricket Club, comprising native-born members. They played at "the Racecourse" at Sydney's Hyde Park, attracted as many as 200 spectators, and set stakes of £20 per side.
Egan, Jack, The Story of Cricket in Australia (ABC Books, 1987), page 12.
1830.17 NYS Squirrel Hunters Stop for Ballplaying
From an account that appeared 53 later, involving a 25-year-old who lived about 20 miles south of Buffalo NY:
"Mr. Wickham had a great taste for hunting, and he relates the incidents of a squirrel hunt that took place in Collins in 1830. Two sides were chosen, consisting of eight hunters on a side, and the party that scored the most points by producing the tails of the game secured, were declared the victors. . . . About 4 o'clock P.M. the hunters came in and the scores counted up and it was found that Timothy Clark's side were victorious by over one hundred counts and the day's sport wound up by an old fashioned game of .base ball, in which Timothy Clark's men again came off victorious."
Erasmus Briggs, History of the Original Town of Concord, Being the Present Towns of Concord, Collins, N. Collins, and Sardinia Erie County New York (Rochester, Union and Advertiser Company's Print, 1883), page 526. Submitted by David Nevard, 2/22/07.
1830.18 At PA Ballfield, Man Asks English Question, Receives American Answer
"I have spent an hour in a beautiful grove in this borough [West Chester PA] witnessing the sports of its denizens. All attorneys, editors, physicians, were engaged in playing ball, while the Judge of the County was seated calmly by, preserving an account of the game! I asked a very respectable gentleman to whom I had been introduced, who were the principal men in the town present; and he answered, that there were no principal men in the town all were equalized, or attained no superiority save that of exertions fro the public weal . . ."Adams Sentinel (Gettysburg PA; August 10, 1830), page 7, as taken from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Posted to 19CBB in October 2008 by John Thorn.
1830.25 Proud Father Lauds Son's Ballplaying Prowess
"My son Roger is a rare lad . . . He can run like a deer, jump like a catamount, wrastle like a bear . . . . He can pitch quates like all creations, he can play ball like a cat o' nine tails, and throw a stone where you could never see it again."
"Parental Partiality. My Son Roger," Salem [MA] Gazette, May 7, 1830. Taken from the New York Constitution. Accessed via subscription search, April 9, 2009. Roger is described as 19 years old. Query: Any chance of discovering the name and residence of the author?
1830.3 Union General Joseph Hooker Plays Baseball as a Boy
Hooker is recalled as having been enthusiastic about baseball in about 1830. [Note: Hooker was about 16 then.] "[H]e enjoyed and was active in all boyish sorts. At baseball, then a very different game from now [1895], he was very expert; catching was his forte. He would take a ball from almost in front of the bat, so eager, active, and dexterous were his movements."
Franklin Bonney, "Memoir of Joseph Hooker," Springfield Republican, May 8 1895. From Henderson text at pp. 147-148.
Hooker was born in 1814 and raised in Hadley, MA.
1830.4 School Boys Play Base Ball Regularly at Portsmouth NH Grammar School
Letter from J. A. Mendum to Albert Spalding, My 17, 1905.. From Henderson, pp. 149-150, no ref given. John Thorn on 3/4/2006 notes that the letter included a clip from the New Hampshire Gazette titled "Origin of Baseball. Mr. Mendum Played the Game in Portsmouth in 1830." XXX request scan from John Thorn
Cited in Peterson, "The Man Who Invented Baseball," p. 10 (1939)
1830c.10 Baseball-like Scene Reappears in Children's Book
Sports of Childhood [Northampton MA, E. Turner], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 193. Coverage of trap-ball is accompanied by the same base-ball like scene found earlier in Remarks on Children's Play (#1811.4, above).
1830c.2 Thoreau Associates "Fast Day" with Base-Ball Played in Russet Fields
"April 10 [1856]. Fast-Day. . . . . I associate this day, when I can remember it, with games of baseball played over beyond the hills in the russet fields toward Sleepy Hollow, where the snow was just melted and dried up.
Submitted by David Nevard. On 8/2/2005, George Thompson submitted the following reference: Torrey, Bradford, Journal of Henry David Thoreau vol. 8, page 270. He notes that Princeton University Press is publishing a new edition, but isn't up to 1856 yet.
1830c.26 Plymouth MA Boys Play Round Ball, Other Ballgames: Ballmaking Described
Writing about 70 years later, William Davis considers the range of pastimes in his boyhood: "After the hoop came, as now, the ball games, skip, one old cat, two old cat, hit or miss, and round ball. We made our own balls, winding yarn over a core of India rubber, until the right size was reached, and then working a loop stitch all around it with good, tightly spun twine. Attempts were occasionally made to play ball in the streets, but the by-laws of the town forbidding it were rigidly enforced."
William T. Davis, Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian (Memorial Press, Plymouth MA, 1906), page 104. Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search (plymouth octogenarian). Plymouth MA is about 35 miles SE of Boston on Cape Cod Bay.
Query: do we know the nature of the ball games of "skip" and "hit or miss?"
1830c.27 Lenox Academy Students Play Wicket
Recalling a genial local sheriff, the author writes: "We well remember the urbanity of his manner as he passed the students of Lenox Academy, always bowing to them and greeting them with a pleasant salutation, which tended to increase their self-respect . . . .As he drove by us when we were playing 'wicket' - the game of ball them fashionable - he did not drive his stylish horse and gig over our wickets, as many took a malicious pleasure in doing, but turned aside, with a pleasant smile . . . ."
J. E. A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield From the Year 1800 to the Year 1876 (C. W. Bryan & Co., Springfield MA, 1876), pp 401-402. Accessed 2/5/2010 via Google Books search <history pittsfield 1876>.
Lenox Academy was in Lenox MA, about 7 miles S of Pittsfield, and about 35 miles SE of Albany NY.
Caveat: It is difficult to estimate a date for this anecdote.
The gentleman, Major Brown, lived in Pittsfield from 1812 to 1838. As the event seems to be the author's personal recollection, verifying if and when he attended the Lenox Academy may narrow the range of possibilities for the period he recalls playing.
1830c.28 Fictional Mom Recalls Liking to Bat Ball as a Girl
Tom Altherr located a fictional story in The Child's Friend (January 1848) in which a mother recounts to her son, George, how she 'liked boys' playthings best' when she was a little girl and could 'drive hoop, spin top, bat ball, jump, and climb' as well as her brothers could."
The Child's Friend, January 1848. Full citation needed. Submitted by Deb Shattuck, May 2013.
It is, of course, difficult to specify a reasonable date for a fictional account like this one.
1830c.30 "Old Boys" Play Throwback Game to 100 Tallies in Ohio
Ball Playing -- Old Boys at it!
Base-ball was a favorite game of the early settlers at the gatherings which brought men and boys together -- such as raisings, bees, elections, trainings, Fourth of Julys, etc., etc., and we are glad to see that the manly sport is still in vogue, at least in 'benighted Ashtabula.' We learn by the Sentinel that a matched game came off at Jefferson on the 4th, fourteen selected players on each side, chosen by Judge Dann and Squire Warren. The party winning the first hundred scores was to be the victor. Judge Dann's side won the game by eleven scores. The Sentinel says:
There were thirteen innings without a tally. [This suggests that, at least by 1859, this game used one-out-side-out innings.] The highest number of scores was made by James R. Giddings, a young chap of sixty-four, who led the field, having made a tally as often as the club came to his hand. The game excited great interest, and was witnessed by a large number of spectators. The supper was prepared by 'our host' at the Jefferson House.
Note: Protoball's PrePro data base shows another reference to a group, including Giddings, playing this predecessor game in Jefferson; see http://protoball.org/In_Jefferson_OH_in_July_1859.
Cleveland [Ohio] Daily Leader, Saturday July 9, 1859, First Edition.
See clipping at http://www.newspapers.com/clip/2414996/18590709_cleveland/.
We have assigned this to a date of ca. 1830 on the basis that players in their sixties seem to have played this (same) game as young adults. Comments welcome on this assumption. Were the southern shores of Lake Erie settled by Europeans at that date?
Ashtabula (1850 population: 821 souls) is about 55 miles NE of Cleveland OH and a few miles from Lake Erie. The town of Jefferson OH is about 8 miles inland [S] of Ashtabula.
"The Sentinel" is presumably the Ashtabula Sentinel.
Further commentary on the site and date of this remembered game are welcome.
Was the Ashtabula area well-settled by 1830?
1830c.35 Pretty Darn Early Ballplaying Card
"Here is the earliest known card of a bat and ball game, and the only example known. Included within a set of children’s educational game cards typical of those popular in the early part of the nineteenth century, . . ."
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2005/important-sports-memorabilia-and-cards-n08155/lot.266.html, accessed 2/2/22.
From the Sotheby site:
[H]ere is the earliest known card of a bat and ball game, and the only example known. Included within a set of children’s educational game cards typical of those popular in the early part of the nineteenth century, it pictures three boys engaged in a game that is clearly an antecedent and close cousin to the sport that has evolved into baseball. The cards in the series measure 2 1/8" by 2 5/8" and each of the group of seventeen offered here features a different rhyming riddle. The bat and ball game shown here is akin to other known woodcut images depicting primitive baseball-like scenes dating from the period 1815-1830, most of them also showing an oddly-shaped end to the bat typical of the time before there was such a thing as a commercially manufactured bat. Significantly, the few other such known images all originated in books or pamphlets. The image presented here is the only example known to exist on a card.
The curved bat is suggestive of the bat used for the game of wicket in the US.
John Thorn indicates that this card was owned by our late SABR friend Frank Ceresi. Frank is not unlikely the source of the estimate of "around 1830" as when the card appeared.
Can we obtain a more precise estimate of when this card was made?
Can we determine whether the card was distributed in America or in England?
1830c.39 Report: "Groups of Full Grown Players At Base and Cricket" Recalled in New York
The Plaindealer, New York, April 15, 1837.
David Block, 5/3/2021, on the idea that ballplaying clubs were though to be extinct in 1837: "Not quite extinct."
Tom Gilbert, 5/4/2021: "We knew -- largely indirectly -- that there were adult bb clubs and a thriving bb scene in NYC in the 1830s and probably earlier, but it is great to see confirmation, and by a contemporary source. This also underlines the importance of Stevens's Elysian Fields in helping to preserve the incipient sport from being snuffed out by rapid urban development, in a sort of incubator.
Should our dating at circa 1835 be modified?
1830c.7 Boston Gent Recalls Old Game of "Massachusetts Run-Around"
T. King wrote to the Mills Commission in 1905. "Just a word in regard to the old game of Massachusetts Run-around. We always pronounced the name as if it were run-round without the "a," but I presume, technically that should be incorporated.
"This was the old time game which I played between 44 and 50 years ago [1855-1861 - LM.], and which I heard my father speak of as playing 35 to 40 years before that, carrying it back to the vicinity of 1830." [Actually, the arithmetic implies the vicinity of 1820.]
T. King, Letter to the Mills Commission, November 24, 1905.
Notes: can we establish the age of King's father at King's birth?
Can we determine where the two Kings might have played?
1830c.8 Chapbook Illustrates Trap-ball
Juvenile Pastimes in Verse [New York, Mahlon Day], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 193. The book describes "several popular games," including trap-ball, with poetry and woodcuts.
1830c.9 Indoor Batsman Reappears in Publication
My Father [New York, Mahlon Day], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 193. The picture from Good Examples (#1823.3, above) is included without accompanying test.
1830s.11 In MO, the Slowly Migrating Mormons Play Ball
"Ball was a favorite sport with the men, and the Prophet frequently took a hand in the sport."
John Doyle Lee, Confessions of John D. Lee: Mormonism Unveiled [1877], Chapter 8.
Submitted by John Thorn, 8/17/2004 supplemented 2/22/2006. Note: Are we sure that "1830s" is the right date here? The text may imply a later date.
1830s.12 Watching Wicket Ball in Buffalo NY
"[The Indians] would lounge on the steps of the 'Old First Church,' where they could look at our young men playing wicket ball in front of the church (no fences there then):, and this was a favorite ball ground."
" . . . the boys, who must always have their fun, did not always 'Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,' but would make a holiday of it by a vigorous game of ball, in some secluded spot in the suburbs of he town . . . "
Samuel M. Welch, Home History: Recollections of Buffalo During the Decade from 1830 to 1840, or Fifty Years Since [P. Paul and bro., Buffalo, 1890], pages 112 and 220. Submitted by John Thorn 9/13/2006. Also see Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 38.
Are these Welch's own recollections?
1830s.13 "Baseball" Found in Several Works by Mary Russell Mitford
Submitted by Hugh MacDougall, Cooperstown NY, 12/6/2006:
"Everyone knows of Jane Austen's use of the term baseball in her novel Northanger Abbey (see item #1798.1). I recently came across, online, an 1841 anthology of works by the English essayist Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1865). A search revealed five uses of the work "baseball." What is intriguing is that every reference seems to assume that "baseball" whatever it is is a familiar rough and tumble game played by girls (and apparently girls only) between the ages of 6 and 10 or so.."
The "baseball" usages:
[] "The Tenants of Beechgrove:" "But better than playing with her doll, better even than baseball, or sliding and romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father's knee:
[] "Jack Hatch" see item #1828.9 above for two references.
[] "Our Village [introduction]": " . . . Master Andrew's four fair-haired girls who are scrambling and squabbling at baseball on the other." (See item #1824.3 above.)
[] Belford Regis: "What can be prettier than this, unless it be the fellow-group of girls . . . who are laughing and screaming round the great oak; then darting to and fro, in a game compounded of hide-and-seek and baseball. Now tossing the ball high, high amidst the branches; now flinging it low along the common, bowling as it were, almost within reach of the cricketers; now pursuing, now retreating, jumping shouting, bawling almost shrieking with ecstasy; whilst one sunburnt black-eyed gipsy throws forth her laughing face from behind the trunk of an old oak, and then flings a newer and gayer ball fortunate purchase of some hoarded sixpence among her happy playmates.
David Block's forthcoming 2019 book may address the rules of English Base-Ball in this period.
MacDougall asks: "Mary Mitford seems to have a pretty good idea of what the girls are playing, when they play at 'baseball' but it seems to have little or nothing to do with the sport we now call by that name. Does anyone know what it was?"
1830s.15 In Buffalo NY, Balls Formed from Fish Noses
Writing over 50 years later, Samuel Welch recalled:
"the fish I bought as a small boy at that time [1830-1840], at one cent per pound, mainly to get its noses for cores for our balls, to make them bound, to play the present National Game."
Welch also recalls the local enthusiasm for ballplaying: "the boys, who must have their fun, did not always 'Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,' but would make a holiday of it by a vigorous game of ball, in some secluded spot in the suburbs of the town."
Welch, Samuel L., Home History. Recollections of Buffalo during the Decade from 1830 to 1840, or Fifty Years Since (Peter Paul and Brother, Buffalo, 1891), page 353 and page 220, respectively. [Text unavailable via Google Books as of 11/16/2008.] See also Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see pages 245-6, and ref #82.
1830s.16 Future President Lincoln Plays Town Ball, Joins Hopping Contests
James Gurley (Gourley?) knew Abraham Lincoln from 1834, when Lincoln was 25. In 1866 he gave an informal interview to William Herndon, the late President's biographer and former law partner in Springfield IL. His 1866 recollection:
"We played the old-fashioned game of town ball - jumped - ran - fought and danced. Lincoln played town ball - he hopped well - in 3 hops he would go 40.2 [feet?] on a dead level. . . . He was a good player - could catch a ball."
Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements About Abraham Lincoln (U Illinois Press, 1998), page 451.
See also Beveridge, Albert J., Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858 (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1928), Volume I, page 298. The author provides source for this info as: "James Gourley's" statement, later established as 1866. Weik MSS. Per John Thorn, 7/9/04.
There is some ambiguity about the city intended in this recollection. Springfield IL and New Salem IL seem mostly likely locations.
A previous Protoball entry, listed as #1840s.16: "He [Abraham Lincoln in the 1840s] joined with gusto in outdoor sports foot-races, jumping and hopping contests, town ball, wrestling . . . " Source: a limited online version of the 1997 book edited by Douglas L Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, Herndon's Informants (U of Illinois Press, 1997 or 1998). Posted to 19CBB on 12/11/2007 by Richard Hershberger. Richard notes that the index to the book promises several other references to Lincoln's ballplaying but [Jan. 2008] reports that the ones he has found are unspecific.. Note: can we chase this book down and collect those references?
Earlier versions of this find were submitted by Richard Hershberger (2007) and John Thorn (2004).
1830s.19 NH Lad Had Happy Games of Ball
"I had many happy hours with the village boys in games of ball and I spy. "
A. Andrews, ed., Christopher C. Andrews: Recollections: 1829-1922 (Arthur H. Clark, Cleveland, 1928), page 25. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 30. Tom notes that Andrews lived in the Upper Village of Hillsboro NH.
The text of the Andrews book is not accessible via Google Books as of 11/15/2008.
Hillsboro NH is about 25 miles NW of Manchester NH.
1830s.20 In GA, Men Played Fives, Schoolboys Played Base and Town Ball
"Men as well as boys played the competitive games of 'Long Bullets' and 'Fives,' the latter played against a battery built by nailing planks to twenty-foot poles set to make the 'battery' at least fifty feet wide. The school boys played 'base,' 'bull-pen,' 'town ball' and 'shinny' too."
Jessie Pearl Rice, J. L. M. Curry: Southerner, Statesman, and Educator (King's Crown Press, New York, 1949), pages 6-7. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), pages 31-32.
The full text of the Rice biography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/15/2008.
Long-bullets involved distance throwing, often along roadsides. Fives is a team game resembling one-wall hand-ball.
"Fives" seems to have been played in Beverly, WVa, around 1860. From Thomas J. Arnold's "Beverly in the Sixties":
"For amusement, the boys, young men, and a number of the middle-aged, late in the afternoon, would gather at the Courthouse - to the windows, of which, on the west side, where the Beverly Bank now stands, they had by public contribution placed shutters, and have a game of ball - different from any ballgame I have ever seen. It was called ball-alley, usually played by two or four to each side, the ball made of yarn wound over a small piece of rubber and covered with pig skin. The leader of one side would throw the ball against the side of the Courthouse - his opponents had to knock it back against the wall with open hand, either before it touched the ground or at the first bound from the ground, and hit the wall above the foundation, next play by opponent and so on, alternating. Failure to get the ball against the wall above the foundation scored. It was a good game and gave plenty of exercise. I don't know how many times the Court entered orders prohibiting the playing of ball against the Courthouse but the boys invariably over-ruled the Court - the latter finally quit making orders in disgust." The Beverly Heritage Center has one of these balls.
Curry's school was in Lincoln County GA, about 30 miles NW of Augusta.
Team hand-ball? Really? Wasn't it usually a one-on-one game?
1830s.21 Future OH Senator Has Little Interest in Playing Ball
"Notwithstanding his studious habits as a boy [Clement Vallandigham] was fond of out-door sports, although never very fond of what the youngsters call playing. He much preferred going out gunning or fusing, to playing ball, or any of the other games so eagerly pursued as a general thing, by boys."
James L. Vallandigham, A Life of Clement L. Vallandigham (Turnbell Brothers, Baltimore, 1872), page 10. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 32. Clement Vallandigham was born in 1820 in Lisbon OH and grew up there. The biography, barren for our purposes was accessed 11/15/2008 via a "life of clement" Google Books search.
1830s.22 Ballplaying Recurs in Abolitionist's Life -- From Age 10 to Harvard
You may think of Thomas Wentworth Higginson [b. 1823] as a noted abolitionist, or as the mentor of Emily Dickinson, but he was also a ballplayer and sporting advocate [see also #1858.17]. Higginson's autobiography includes several glimpses of MA ballplaying:
- at ten he knew many Harvard students - "their nicknames, their games, their individual haunts, we watched them at football and cricket [page 40]"
- at his Cambridge school "there was perpetual playing of ball and fascinating running games [page 20]".
- he and his friends "played baseball and football, and a modified cricket, and on Saturdays made our way to the tenpin alleys [page 36]".
- once enrolled at Harvard College [Class of 1841] himself, he used "the heavy three-cornered bats and large balls of the game we called cricket [page 60]." Note: sounds a bit like wicket?
- in his early thirties he was president of a cricket club [and a skating club and a gymnastics club] in Worcester MA. [Pages 194-195]
See also #1858.17.
Source: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1898). Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), pages 33-34 and ref #29. Accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Books search for <cheerful yesterdays>.
1830s.23 In South-Central Illinois, Teachers Joined in On Town Ball
"The bull pen, town ball, and drop the handkerchief were among the sports indulged in on the school grounds, and the teacher usually joined in with the sports."
A. T. Strange, ed., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume 2 (Munsell, Chicago, 1918), page 792. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, January 31, 2010. Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search ("town ball and drop). Jeff's comments: "The author is talking about the history of education in Montgomery County, IL, which is located south of Springfield and NE of St. Louis. It's tough to date this. He speaks of '75 or 80 years ago,' so it's probably the 1830s and 1840s."
1830s.24 Union Cricket Club Gains Strength in Philadelphia PA
"No city took to the sport [cricket] with more avidity than Philadelphia where the game had been played since the 1830s by the Union Club"
William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning, McFarland, 2009), page 105. No source is cited. Ryczek goes on to say that Englishmen who moved to work in the city's wool industry was one root cause of cricket's success there.
1830s.29 PA Schoolboys Recalled as Playing Town Ball and Long Ball
"Here we played town ball, corner ball, sow ball and long ball. Sometimes we would jump, to see how high we could leap; then it was hop, step and jump. Once in a while we played ring, provided the girls would help, and generally they would..."
Samuel Penniman Bates, Jacob Fraise, Warner Beers, History of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Containing a History of the County, its Townships, Towns, Villages, Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania, Statistical and Miscellaneous Matter, etc. (Chicago: Warner, Beers and Company, 1887), page 300.
This observation is attributed to John B. Kaufman, a teacher turned surveyor in Franklin County, PA , reflecting on his childhood spent in a log school house in "50 odd years ago": Kaufman was born in 1827. Find confirmed 10/9/2014 via search of <"john b. kaufman" "long ball">
Franklin County PA is in south central PA, on the Maryland border. Its population in 1830 was about 35,000.
"Sow Ball?"
1830s.32 Spiked Egg-Nog Between Innings?
"Players consumed egg-nog 'between intervals of base-ball playing' on nearby Shapleigh's Island and taunted the temperance forces." -- Tom Altherr
Charles W Brewster, Rambles Around Portsmouth, second series ((Portsmouth, John Melcher, 1869), pages 5-6. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 244 and ref #68.
1830s.33 The Balk Rule Existed Before the 1845 Knick Rules?
"A Balk is a Base."--Any one having a remembrance of the ball games of his youth must recollect that in the game of base, if the tosser made a balk to entice the individual making the round from his post, the latter had the right to walk to the next base unscathed. Pity it is that the Hudson folks engaged in the late political movement in Columbia County did not remember that "a balk is a base" in the games of children of a larger growth." (Note: This led into a lengthy diatribe on local politics that I did not attempt to make sense of. - David Block)
Rondout Freeman , June 5, 1847:
Dating this remembered practice to the 1830s is somewhat arbitrary, as the writer's age in 1847 is unknown. Locating the practice in NY State is also uncertain.
[] "Here is another early example of baseball terminology being used to illustrate a non-sports topic."The text appeared in the June 5, 1847 issue of the Roundout Freeman (Roundout was a Hudson River community that has since been swallowed by the town of Kingston)."I had always supposed that the balk rule was introduced by the crafters of the New York game, but this passage suggests it began to be practiced at some earlier time."-- David Block, 11/12/2010[] "I wrote in my book [R. Hershberger. Strike Four, Rowman and Littlefield, 2019, page 37] that the balk rule seemed to be novel to the 1845 Knickerbocker rules. Evidently not. While this is two years later, it also is from [nearly] a hundred miles away in Kingston, NY, and presented as a homespun saying from the writer's youth." -- Richard Hershberger, 19CBB posting, 12/9/2020[] John Thorn, email of 1/31/2023: "This will testify to the antiquity of the balk rule and give a hint that it meant a feint." -- John Thorn, 1/31/2023[] As of February 2023, Protoball has no other data on pre-1845 balk rules. Richard Hershberger hasn't found any yet.[] Added Local color: "Rondout has been since 1870, an unincorporated hamlet within the city of Kingston (where I lived for decade; it was called "Rondout" because of its adjoining Roundout Creek, which fed into the Hudson River). The Rondout Freeman in its first incarnation may have indeed lasted till 1847 (founded 1845):https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86071034/."Hudson is a large city about 25 miles north of Kingston, on the other side of the Hudson River, in Columbia County. Today a bridge connects my hometown of Catskill (west bank) with Hudson (east bank). Taghkanic is the proper spelling of the tribe for whom today is named the Taconic Parkway."
-- John Thorn, email of 12/10/2020.
Is a balk rule -- or the "stolen" base -- known in cricket or English Base Ball? Or in any pre-1845 baserunning game?
Protoball welcomes further comment on the possible origin of the balk rule.
1830s.34 1883 Account Reflects on Details of "Town Ball" Played Decades Earlier in PA
"Old Town Ball: Reminiscences of the Game by a Very Old Boy.
"I deem it probable that a description of the the game called 'Town Ball' fifty years ago, from which base ball of the present originated, will prove interesting to your readers. I propose to give it to them as it comes back to me through the mental mist of half a century."
As described, the old game used:
[] at least four players on a side, but the average team size was about eight.
[] a flipped paddle to determine first ups.
[] four bases, called "corners" and set about 50 feet apart
[] home was called "the holes."
[] the pitching distance was 30 feet.
[] the batting "paddle" was about two feet long and 4 inches wide, wielded with one or two hands
[] the ball was 2 inches in diameter, made of cork and rubber strips, wrapped yarn and then in a buckskin cover.
[] there was a balk rule, and fast pitching was disallowed.
[] There was a bound rule, and plugging. Innings were all-out-side-out
[] A Lazarus rule allowed a side to earn a new inning if its last batter hit three straight homers
Players came from "Pipe Town, Hog Town, Scotch Hill, the Point and Bayard's Town. Sligo and Allegheny" were often foes.
Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, May 2, 1883
Some portions of this image were indistinct, and some areas were clipped off.
Richard Hershberger: "A hole was definitely a feature of very early baseball (and very early cricket, too). I expect this is a vestige of that practice, which had disappeared in most American baseball. It is the use of "holes" equating these with "home plate" that I wonder about. Were there more than one hole at home?
Note: Willughby, writing around 1650, describes a baserunning game (hornebillets) that used holes instead of bases, and that is similar to the old-cat game. See Hornebillets.
1830s.36 Town Ball, Bull Pen, Tip Cat Played in the Antebellum South
The Carrolton (GA) Free Press, April 26, 1889, runs an item from Gainesville about how the old timers will play a game of town ball, a game they played in the 1820s, 30s and 50s. The item notes that younger people won't be invited to play, as they have no idea what the game is.
The item also claims that Town ball, bull pen and tip cat were commonly played in the antebellum South.
The Carrolton (GA) Free Press, April 26, 1889
1830s.37 Cat, Town and Corner Ball recalled in Pittston
A letter writer to the Pittston Gazette in 1851 recalled as a schoolboy playing Cat Ball, "towns-ball" and corner ball.
The date of play is uncertain. The place isn't even certain.
Pittston Gazette, Feb. 28, 1851
1830s.38 "A Balk Is A Base"
1830s.5 Wicket Played in The Western Reserve [OH]
"How far the Connecticut game of wicket has travelled I cannot say, but it is certain that when the Western Reserve region of Ohio was settled from Connecticut, the game was taken along. Our member [of the Connecticut Society of Colonial War], Professor Thomas Day Seymour of Yale, tells me that wicket was a favorite game of the students at Western Reserve College then located at Hudson Ohio . . . . 'Up to 1861,' he says, 'the standard games at our college were wicket and baseball, with wicket well in the lead. This game was in no sense a revival. A proof of this is the fact that young men coming to college [from?] all over the Reserve were accustomed to the game at home. My impression is that my father recognized the game as familiar to him his boyhood [probably in New England], but of this I am not absolutely certain. The ball was about 5 and a half inches in diameter; the wickets were about 4 inches above the ground, and about 5 feet long. The bats were very heavy, -- of oak, about 50 inches long, with an almost circular lower end of (say) 8 inches in diameter. The ball was so heavy that most bowlers merely rolled it with such a twist that they could impart; but some bowlers almost threw it. Mark Hanna was a star player about 1860, and the rule had to be called on his that the ball must touch ghe ground three times before it struck the wicket. The bats were so heavy that only the strong (and quick) batter dared to wait until the ball was opposite him and then strike. I was always satisfied to steer the ball off to one side. The rules favored the batter and many runns were made.'"
Letter from Thomas Day Seymour to "My dear Kinsman" from New Haven CT, April 25, 1905. Reproduced in "The Game of Wicket and Some Old-Time Wicket Players," in George Dudley Seymour, Papers and Addresses of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut, Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society, (n. p., 1909.) page 289.
Yale Professor T. D Seymour was born in 1848, and thus about 12 years old in the days he saw wicket played at Western Reserve College in 1860. Hudson OH is about 25 miles SE of Cleveland. George Dudley Seymour (p. 289) decribes the local cummunity as "of pure Connecticut stock."
1830s.6 Players Drink Egg-Nog in Base Ball Intervals in Portsmouth NH
Brewster, Charles W., Rambles About Portsmouth, Second Series [Lewis Brewster, Portsmouth, 1869], p. 269. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 67.
1831.1 A Ball Club Forms in Philadelphia; It Later Adopts Base Ball, and Lasts to 1887
The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia unites with a group of ball players based in Camden, NJ
Orem writes: "An association of Town Ball players began playing at Camden, New Jersey on Market Street in the Spring of 1831."
Orem says, without citing a source, that "On the first day but four players appeared, so the game was "Cat Ball," called in some parts of New England at the time "Two Old Cat." Later accounts report that the club formed in 1833, although J. M. Ward [1888] also dated the formation of the club to 1831.
Orem notes that "so great was the prejudice of the general public against the game at the time that the players were frequently censured by their friends for indulging in such a childish amusement."
* * *
In January 2017, Richard Hershberger reported (19CBB posting) that after more than five decades, the club disbanded in 1887 -- see Supplemental Text, below.
The Olympic Club played Town Ball until it switched to modern base ball in 1860. See Chronology entry 1860.64.
* * *
For a reconstruction of the rules of Philadelphia town ball, see Hershberger, below. Games were played under the term "town ball" in Cincinnati as well as Philadelphia and a number of southern locations (for an unedited map of 23 locations with references to town ball, conduct an Enhanced Search for <town ball>.
* * *
The club is credited with several firsts in American baserunning games:
[] 1833: first game played between two established clubs -- see Chronology entry 1833c.12.
[] 1837: first team to play in uniforms -- see Chronology entry 1837.14.
[] 1969: First interracial game -- See Chronology entry 1869.3.
* * *
[Orem, Preston D., Baseball (1845-1881) From the Newspaper Accounts(self-published, Altadena CA, 1961), page 4.]
Constitution of the Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia [private printing, 1838]. Parts reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [University of Nebraska Press, 1995], pp. 5-8.
Richard Hershberger, "A Reconstruction of Philadelphia Town Ball," Base Ball, Volume 1 number 2 (Fall 2007), pp. 28-43. Online as of 2017 at:
https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-reconstruction-of-philadelphia-town-ball-f3a80d283c07#.blta7cw82
For a little more on the game of town ball, see http://protoball.org/Town_Ball.
The "firsts" tentatively listed above are for the US play of baserunning games other than cricket. Further analysis is needed to confirm or disconfirm its elements.
Protoball would welcome an analysis of the US history of town ball and its variants.
It seems plausible that town ball was being played years earlier in the Philadelphia. Newspaper accounts refer to cricket "and other ball games" being played locally as as early as 1822. See Chronology entry 1822.3.
Notes:
Is it accurate to call this a "town ball" club? When was it formed? Dean Sullivan dates it to 1837, while J. M. Ward [Ward's Base Ball Book, page 18] sets 1831 as the date of formation. The constitution was revised in 1837, but the Olympic Club merged with the Camden Town ball Club in 1833, and that event is regarded as the formation date of the Olympics. The story of the Olympics is covered in "Sporting Gossip," by "the Critic" in an unidentified photocopy found at the Giamatti Research Center at the HOF. What appears to be a continuation of this article is also at the HOF. It is "Evolution of Baseball from 1833 Up to the Present Time," by Horace S. Fogel, and appeared in The Philadelphia Daily Evening Telegraph, March 22-23, 1908.
2 Are we certain that the "firsts" listed in this entry predate the initial appearance of the indicated innovations in American cricket?