Chronology:Foot Ball
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1657.1 Boston Bans Foot Ball
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1657 the play of "foot-ball" in the streets of Boston was banned, on fine of 20 shillings. The banning of ball games on city streets has a long history in the U.S.! Hartford CT similarly banned foot ball in 1818, Norwich in 1827, Nantucket in 1824, Washington DC in 1853, Utica NY in 1808, Cincinnati prior to 1860, and Poughkeepsie in 1829.
Sources:
Scudder, "An Historical Sketch of the Oneida Foot Ball Club of Boston, 1862-1865" (1926).
Comment:
These early "foot ball" games were probably akin to modern soccer/football. "Foot ball" was played by West Point cadets c. 1822 (Samuel Heintzelman) and 1840 (James Longstreet). In the 1850-51 American Arctic Expedition, when the ships were stranded by the ice, the sailors amused themselves by playing foot ball on the ice. See Harpers New Monthly Magazine, vol. 4, p. 20.
Year
1657
1826.3 Base Ball Associated with Boston Gymnasium Proposal?
Age of Players:
[See image, below]
Messrs. William Sullivan and John G. Coffin have petitioned the Councils of Boston for the use of a piece of public ground, for two years, for the establishment of a Gymnastic School–a measure of doubtful propriety, we apprehend. If a boy wants to play; let him play but do not spoil the fun by dictating the modus operandi–a game of base ball, or foot ball, is worth a dozen gymnassiums [sic], where the eye of surveillance is to check the flow of animal spirits.
Sources:
United States Gazette (Philadelphia) March 28, 1826
Comment:
Note that this find comes five years before town ball is seen in Philadelphia.
From Bruce Allardice, email of 6/9/2021:
"In the year 1823, Dr. John G. Coffin, established a journal in Boston entitled, "The Boston Medical Intelligencer, devoted to the cause of physical education, and to the means of preventing and curing diseases." The motto in the title page was as follows :- "The best part of the medical art, is the avoiding of pain." This journal some five or six years afterward, became the "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," "
Dr. John G. Coffin (1769-1828), married. Eliza Rice.
This is undoubtedly one of the petitioners for the gymnasium.
The mentioned William Sullivan is probably Judge William Sullivan (1774-1839), a prominent local politician and lawyer.
Query:
Does this item suggest that 'base ball' was a term used in Philadelphia in 1826? In Boston in 1826?
Was the Gymnasium actually established in Boston? Was ballplaying among its activities? Was gymnastics seen in the Commons in the early years?
Isn't this ref a very early appearance of the term foot ball in the US? Can we learn what rules may have applied?
Year
1826
1855.45 Unitarians' Christian Register Defends Base Ball on Fast Day
The Boston-based Christian Register, "Devoted to Unitarian Christianity," appeared to respond to critics of Fast Day ballplaying in an unsigned article titled "Why Give It Up?"
"A game of ball out-doors on Fast Day will not do those who play so much harm as the game of poker that they will play in-doors tomorrow . . . ."
"Fast Day -- by some collusion of the Governor with the prophets of the weather, is almost always pleasant. It is apt to be the first day that savors of Spring. And so, -- even serious men stray into their gardens before sunset, -- look at the peach buds, and show children where the corn is to be, and where the peas. . . . And those who are not serious, -- are hoping to murder one or two robins, or using the dried grass for the first game, so often the last, of base ball or foot ball."last,
Sources:
Christian Register, Boston, March 31, 1855
Comment:
We do not know the circulation of this 1855 paper beyond Boston. (We do know that it covered a Worcester MA story at entry 1849.6)
The reference to players playing poker suggests that they were adults.
Query:
Was the writer saying, in "so often the last" game, that base ball and/or foot ball was not played much after Fast Day?
Do we know what Boston-area foot ball like in 1855?
Year
1855
1862.106 Confederate Prisoners Play Bull Pen at Fort Warren
Age of Players:
Confederate prisoners played "bull pen" at the Fort Warren POW camp in Boston Harbor. See McGavock Diary, p. 626 (May 14, 1862)
They played "foot ball" on May 17, 23, June 28th, 1862. No details of this "foot ball" game are given. The game probably resembled "Boston Code football", a sort of rugby precursor of what we know as modern football. The first "foot ball" club organized in the US was the Oneida Foot Ball Club of Boston, formed in 1862.
Sources:
Gower and Allen, "Pen and Sword" (McGavock Diary), p. 626 (May 14, 1862)
Year
1862
1862.121 Vermont soldiers play "foot ball" on Thanksgiving
Game:
Age of Players:
The Burlington Times, Dec. 16, 1862 reports that the 12th Vermont, in camp [near Munson's Hill, Fairfax County, VA] on Thanksgiving Day, played at "foot ball," wrestling and other amusements. There was team play, then one-on-one play, the Colonel vs. the Drum Major, then the Lt. Col. vs. the Chaplain.
From the one-on-one mention, it suggest this was a form of soccer, rather than rugby-type football.
Sources: The Burlington Times, Dec. 16, 1862
Comment: This is included to further show that base ball was not the only sport the soldiers played.
Year
1862