Town Ball

Last Updated March 11, 2010

Town ball

A Working Chronology

Note: This list was derived from version 11 of the full Protoball Chronology, which was uploaded in April 2010. Additional relevant entries may have been added to any later versions of the full Chronology; not all entries on this subchronology are necessarily identical to those on the most recently updated full Chronology. Readers are encouraged to suggest or perform updates. Please send notes about omissions, mistakes, typos, etc, to lmccray@mit.edu.

Caveat: Research on town ball is made difficult its duality of usage of the term over the years. Some have used “town ball” to denote a games called by that name when they were played, and having regular rules: examples are Philadelphia town ball and town ball in Cincinnati from 1830-1860. Others have more recently used the term to refer to any predecessor game – anywhere -- that was played prior to the spread of the New York game. This usage would even cover early forms of the Massachusetts game, for example, even though contemporaries would not have used that term.

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1750s.2 – Town Ball and Cat Played in NC Lowlands?

One biographer has estimated: “Of formalized games, choices for males [in NC] appear to have been ‘town-ball, bull-pen,’ ‘cat,’ and ‘prisoner’s base,’ whatever exhibitions of dexterity they may have involved” Chalmers G. Davidson, Piedmont Partisan: The Life and Times of Brigadier-General William Lee Davidson (Davidson College, Davidson NC, 1951), page 20. 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.

Caution: This is a very early claim for town ball, preceding even New England references to roundball or like games. It would be useful to examine C. Davidson’s sources. Note: Can we determine what region of NC is under discussion? Text of the biography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/15/2008. Prisoner’s base is not a ball game, and bull-pen is not a safe-haven game.

1784.2 – Seymour Adverts to Evidence that Town Ball Exported to England

“Rounders not a serious game until 1889 in Britain. But at least close resemblance. Evidence Town ball introduced by Amer. to Br. 1784 – between Rounders and Base Ball.”

Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Note: it would be good to find such evidence soon.

1790s.3 -- Britannica Dates Stickball to Late 18th Century

“Stickball is a game played on a street or other restricted area, with a stick, such as a mop handle or broomstick, and a hard rubber ball. Stickball developed in the late 18th century from such English games as old cat, rounders, and town ball. Stickball also relates to a game played in southern England and colonial Boston in North America called stoolball. All of these games were played on a field with bases, a ball, and one or more sticks. The modern game is played especially in New York City on the streets where such fixtures as a fire hydrant or an abandoned car serve as bases.”

Britannica Online search conducted 5/25/2005 by Larry McCray. Caution: No sources are provided for this unique report of early stickball. It also seems unusual to define town ball as an English game.

1790s.4 -- Calhoun and Crawford: Ballplaying Schoolmates?

“These two illustrious statesmen [southern leaders John C. Calhoun and William H. Crawford], who had played town ball and marbles and gathered nuts together . . . were never again to view each other except in bonds of bitterness.”

J. E. D. Shipp, Giant Days: or the Life and Times of William H. Crawford [Southern Printers, 1909], page 167. Note: Crawford was ten years older than Calhoun, so it seems unlikely that they were close in school. Both leaders had attended Waddell’s school, but that school opened in 1804 [see #1804.1] when Crawford was 32 years old, so their common school must have preceded their time at Waddell’s.

1804.1 – SC School Opens, Students Play Town Ball and Bull Pen

At Moses Waddell’s “famous academy” established in Wilkington in 1804, “instead of playing baseball or football, boys took their recreation in running jumping, wrestling, playing town ball and bull pen.”

Meriwether, Colyer, History of Higher Education in South Carolina [Washington GPO, 1889], chapter II, page 39. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Note: The terminology in this source appears more current than 1804, and it would be wise to consider whether it accurately depicts 1804 events. In addition, Seymour’s note does not make clear whether the play described occurred at the time of the establishment of the academy, or later in its history. Is “Wilkington” correct?

1819.6 – Ball Games Recalled in Southwestern WI

At the close of the Civil War, a dispute on the actual age Joseph Crele, who claimed to be 139 years old, reached Milwaukee newsprint: “Beouchard . . . says he has known Crele for 40 years. In 1819, at Prarie du Chien, Crele was one of the most active participants in the games of base ball, town ball foot races, horse races, &c, and yet at that time, by the claim made for him, he must have been 93 years old.”

Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, April 4, 1865. As posted to the 19CBB listserve by Dennis Pajot, December 11, 2009. Prarie du Chien is about 90 miles west of Madison WI, on the Mississippi River. Note: it is interesting that Beouchard recalls two distinct games [and/or two distinct names of games] being played.

1820c.6 – Modified Version of Rounders Played in New England.

“About 1820 a somewhat modified version of the old English game of rounders was played on the New England commons, and twenty years later the game had spread and become “town ball.” In 1833 the first regularly organized ball club was formed in Philadelphia with the sonorous title of “The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia.” About 1850 the game gained vogue in New York.”

Barbour, Ralph H., The Book of School and College Sports [D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1904] page 143. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Thanks to Mark Aubrey for locating a pdf of the baseball section of this text, June 2007. Barbour does not provide sources for his text. Do we have indications that the games played in MA in the 1840s and in NY in the 1850s were called, or should be called, “town ball?”

1820s.10 – Philadelphians Play Ball

A group of Philadelphians who will eventually organize as the Olympic Ball Club begin playing town ball in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but are prohibited from doing so within the city limits by ordinances dating to Puritan times. A site in Camden, New Jersey is used to avoid breaking the laws in Philadelphia. ||34|| Note: this item, which first appeared in the Heitz/Thorn chronology needs to be confirmed or dropped

1820s.5 – Town Ball Recalled in Eastern IL

“In the early times, fifty or sixty years ago, when the modern games of croquet and base-ball were unknown, the people used to amuse themselves with marbles, “town-ball” – which was base-ball in a rude state – and other simple pastimes of a like character. Col. Mayo says, the first amusement he remembers in the county was a game of town-ball, on the day of the public sale of lots in Paris, in which many of the “young men of the period engaged.”

The History of Edgar County, Illinois (Wm. LeBaron, Chicago, 1879), page 273. Contributed January 31, 2010, by Jeff Kittel.

1820s.23 – Town Ball Came to Central IL in 1820s.

“This game [bullpen, the local favorite] was, in time, abandoned for a game called “town ball;” the present base ball being town ball reduced to a science.”

The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois (Baskin and Company, Chicago, 1879), page 252. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, January 31, 2010. Jeff notes that the author was in this passage describing educational conditions in the early 1820s. The two counties are just north of Springfield IL.

1829.5 – Town Ball Takes Off in Philadelphia

“Town ball was pioneered in Philadelphia in the late 1820s by a group of young rope makers who were first heard from in 1829, while playing at 18^th 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. 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.

1830s.16 – Future President Plays Town Ball, Joins Hopping Contests

James Gurley 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.” 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?

The 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”

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.

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 [p31/32] ‘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. Fives is a team game resembling one-wall hand-ball. Curry’s school was in Lincoln County GA, about 30 miles NE of Augusta.

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.”

1831.1 – Ball Club Forms in Philadelphia

The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia unites with a group of ball players based in Camden, New Jersey

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.” [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. Note: Is it accurate to call this a “town ball” club? 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.

1833c.12 – America’s First Interclub Ballgame, in Philadelphia

In Philadelphia PA, the Olympic Club and an unnamed club merged in 1833, but only after they had, apparently, played some games against one another. “Since . . . there weren’t any other ball clubs, either formal or informal, anywhere else until at least 1842, this anonymous context would have to stand as the first ball game between two separate, organized club teams anywhere in the United States.”

John Shiffert, Base Ball in Philadelphia (McFarland, 2006), page 17. The game was a form of town ball.

1835.4 – A Ballplayer’s Progress: “Bound and Catch,” “Barn Ball,” “Town Ball”

H. H. Waldo told the Mills Commission: “I commenced playing ball seventy years ago (1835). I was the only one in the game and it was called “Toss up and Catch,” or “Bound and Catch.” A few years later I played “Barn Ball.” Two were in this game, one a thrower against the barn, and catcher on its rebound, unless the batter hit it with a club; if so, and he could run and touch the barn with his bat, and return to the home plate before the ball reached there, he was not out – otherwise he was.

“A few years later the school boys played what was called “Town ball.” That consisted of a catcher, thrower, 1^st goal, 2^nd goal and home goal. The inner field was diamond shape: the outer field was occupied by the balance of the players, number not limited. The outs were as follows: Three strikes,” “Tick and catch,” ball caught on the fly, and base runner hit or touched with the ball off from the base. That was sometimes modified by “Over the fence and out.” [Note: this places what Waldo calls “town ball” at about 1840 or so.]

Letter from H. H. Waldo, Rockford IL, to the Mills Commission, July 7, 1905.

1837.7 – Canton Illinois Bans Sunday Cricket, Cat, Town-Ball, Etc.

Section 36 of the Canton IL ordinance passed on 3/27/1837 said:

“any person who shall on the Sabbath day play at bandy, cricket, cat, town-ball, corner-ball, over-ball, fives, or any other game of ball, in any public place, shall . . . “ [be fined one dollar].

http://www.illinoisancestors.org/fulton/1871_canton/pages95_126.html#firstincorporation, as accessed 1/1/2008. Information provided by David Nevard 6/11/2007. See also #1837.8, below. Canton IL is about 25 miles SW of Peoria.

On January 31, 2010, Jeff Kittel contributed that he has found the text in another source: History of Fulton County, Illinois (Chapman & Co., Peoria, 1879), pp 527-528. Accessed 2/6/10 via Google Books search ("history of fulton" 1879). Jeff, noting that the ban appeared just 37 days after Canton was incorporated, adds:

“It seems that they had a lively community of ballplayers in Fulton County. Obviously, if they’re passing laws against the playing of ball, ball-playing is so widely prevalent, and there is such a variety of ball games being played, then pre-modern baseball had been played in the community for some time. It’s fascinating that one of the first things they did, upon incorporation, was ban ball-playing on the Sabbath.”

1838.11 – On a Day Trip to Camden NJ, Philly Man Documents Olympic Club

“Messrs Editors – Feeling desirous the other day of breathing air somewhat purer [than Philadelphia PA’s, I took the ferry to Camden]. I took up a stroll into the bordering woods; it being a lovely day, all nature seemed to be in vegetation. A small distance from the woods, I beheld a party of young men (the majority of whom I afterwards distinguished to be Market street merchants) and who styled themselves the “Olympic Club,” a title well answering to its name by the manner in which the party amused itself in the recreant pleasure of town ball, and several other games. In my estimation, there is much benefit to be derived from a club of this nature. Young men who are confined to the daily toils of business, and who can get away . . . should avail themselves of the opportunity to become associated with the “Olympic Club.” Signed, H.M.O.

Public Ledger (Philadelphia PA) May 14, 1838. Posted by Richard Hershberger to the 19CBB listserve, April 1, 2009. Subscription search. Richard notes that this becomes the earliest Philly ref to town ball, and pushes back from 1858 the earliest contemporary account of the Olympics. 1838 is also the reported date of the Club’s constitution.

1839.1 – Graves Letters of 1905 Say that Doubleday Invented Base Ball

Abner Doubleday, who was to become a Civil War notable, is much later (1905) said to have “invented” baseball at Cooperstown, New York, according to the findings of the Mills Commission (1905-1907), a group of baseball magnates appointed by the American and National League Presidents to investigate the origins of baseball. Caution: The Commission bases its findings almost entirely on letters received from Abner Graves, a resident of Cooperstown in his childhood. The Commission’s findings are soon discredited by historians who proclaim the “Doubleday Invention” to be entirely a myth.

The Doubleday game, according to Graves’ offerings, retained the plugging of runners, eleven players per team, and flat bats that were four inches wide. Graves sees the main improvement of the Doubleday game that it limited the size of teams, while town ball as previously played there permitted “twenty to fifty boys in the field.”

Graves believed that Abner Doubleday was 16 or 17 years old when he saw him lay out his improved game (in fact, Doubleday was 20 in 1839, and was a student at West Point). Graves himself declined to fix a year to the Doubleday plan, suggesting that it might have occurred in 1839, 1840, or 1841. In choosing 1839, the Commission rested its story on the memory of a boy who was then 5 years old.

Letters from Abner Graves to the Mills Commission, April 3, 1905 and November 17, 1905. To read them, go to item #1839.1 of the main Protoball Chronology.

1840c.17 -- Town Ball and Ballmaking in OH

“Among the favorite games engaged in my the larger boys, special mention may be made of ‘Three Corner Cat,’ and of ‘Town ball,’ the latter sport being a simple form of what has developed into the national game of baseball. Improvised playing-balls were made, not unusually, by winding strong woolen yarn tightly around a central mass of India-rubber, and covering the compact sphere with soft, tough leather cut to the proper shape by a shoemaker.”

W. H. Venable, A Buckeye Boyhood [publisher? Date?], page 126. Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.

1840.19 -- Baseball Arrives in Saint John, New Brunswick

“The story of baseball in Saint John has a Spalding-Chadwick twist to it. As early as the year 1840, there have been mentions of the sport of baseball in the Port City. As D. R. Jack noted in his Centennial Prize Essay (1783-1883): ‘It was a common practice with many of the leading merchants of St. John to assemble each fine summer afternoon after the business day was over . . . where a fine playground has been prepared, and engage in a game of cricket or baseball. This practice was continued until about 1840.’ Whether of not this was actually the game of “Rounders” or “Town ball” is debatable.’

Brian Flood, Saint John: A Sporting Tradition 1785-1985 [Henry Flood, 1985], pages 18-19.

1840s.41 – Town Ball Recalled in Central IL

“Men had the hunt, the chase, the horse-race, foot-race, the jolly meetings at rude elections . . . pitching horseshoes – instead of quoits, town-ball and bull-pen.”

James Haines, “Social Life and Scenes in the Early Settlement of Central Illinois,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1905(Illinois State Journal Co, Springfield, 1906), page 38. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, January 31, 2010. Accessed 2/9/10 via Google Books search ("quoits, town-ball and"). The author addressed local amusements before 1850.

1840s.42 – Town Ball Club Finds Spot in NYC for Playing

“In the early ‘40s a town ball club arranged to hold its games on a vacant plot across from the Harlem Railroad depot on 27^th and Fourth.”

Randall Brown, “How Baseball Began,” The National Pastime, 2004, page 53. Brown does not give a source. Query: do we know of other references to town ball in New York? Can we find the source for this entry?

1842c.7 -- Cricket and Town Ball Recalled in Philadelphia PA

“The first cricket I ever saw was on a field near Logan Station . . . about 1842. The hosiery weavers at Wakefield Mills [cf #1841.8 above] near by had formed a club under the leadership of Lindley Fisher, a Haverford cricketer. . . . [My brother and I] had played Town ball, the forerunner of baseball today, at Germantown Academy, and our handling of the ball was appreciated by the Englishmen.

John Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [UPenn Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page 9. Lester does not provide a source here, but his bibliography lists: Wister, William Rotch, Some Reminiscences of Cricket I Philadelphia Before 1861 [Allen, Philadelphia, 1904].

1843.2 -- NY’s Washington Club:” Playing Base Ball Before the Knickerbockers?

“The honors for the place of birth of baseball are divided. Philadelphia claims that her ‘town ball’ was practically baseball and that it was played by the Olympic Club from 1833 to 1859. It is also claimed that the Washington Club in 1843 was the first to play the game. Certainly the New York Knickerbocker Club, founded in 1845, was the first to establish a code of rules.”

Reeve, Arthur B., Beginnings of Our Great Games, Outing Magazine, April 1910, page 49, per John Thorn, 19CBB posting, 6/17/05. Reeve evidently does not provide a source for the Washington Club claim . . . nor his assertion that it had no “code of rules.” John notes that Outing appeared from 1906 to 1911. Note: It would be good to have evidence on whether this club played the New York game or another variation of early base ball.

1845.1 – Knicks Adopt Club and Playing Rules on September 23

Led by Alexander Cartwright, the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York City organizes and adopts twenty rules for baseball (six organizational, fourteen playing). This rule book is later seen as the basis for the game we now call baseball. The Knickerbockers are credited with establishing foul lines; abolishing the plug (throwing the ball at the runner to make an out); and instituting the tag and force-out. However, the Knickerbocker rules do not specify a pitching distance or a baseline distance. The distance from home to second base and from first to third base is set at forty-two paces. In 1845 the “pace” was understood either as a variable measure or as precisely two-and-a-half feet, in which case the distance from home to second would have been 105 feet and the “Cartwright base paths” would have been 74.25 feet. The “pace” of 1845 could not have been interpreted as the equivalent of three feet. [XXXXX Explain why?] The Knickerbocker rules provide that a winner will be declared when twenty-one aces are scored but each team must have an equal number of turns at bat; the style of delivery is underhand in contrast to the overhand delivery typical in town ball; balls hit beyond the field limits in fair territory (home run in modern baseball) are limited to one base. The Knickerbocker rules become known as the New York Game in contrast to the Massachusetts Game favored in and around the Boston area. ||54||

1846.9 – Town Ball in Rockford IL

“I came West 59 years ago, in 1846, and found “Town ball” a popular game at all Town meetings. I do not recall an instance of a money bet on the game; but, at Town meeting, the side losing had to buy the ginger bread and cider.” [July]

“[Town ball] was so named because it was mostly played at “Town Meetings.” It had as many players on a side as chose to play; but the principal players were “Thrower” and “Catcher.” There were three bases and a home plate. The players were put out by being touched with ball [sic] or hit with thrown ball, when off the base. You can readily see that the present game [1900’s baseball] is an evolution from Town ball.” [April]

Letters from H. H. Waldo, Rockford IL, to the Mills Commission, April 8 and July 7, 1905.

1848c.9 -- Young Benjamin Harrison Plays Town Ball, Baste in OH

[As a teenage student at Farmer’s College, near Cincinnati OH, Harrison] “[w]hile closely applying himself to study, always standing fair in his classes, respected by instructors and popular with his associates, prompt in recitation and obedient to rules, nevertheless he found time for amusement and sport, such as snow-balling, town-ball, bull-pen, shinny, and baste, all more familiar to lads in that day than this.”

Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison [Sedgewood Publishing Company, 1892], page 53.

1850s.20 – Town-Ball Played in Ohio

“Town-ball was base-ball in the rough. I recall some distinctive features: If a batter missed a ball and the catcher behind took it, he was ‘caught out.’ Three ‘nips’ also put him out. He might be caught out on ‘first bounce.’ If the ball were thrown across his path while running base, he was out. One peculiar feature was that the last batter on a side might bring his whole side in by successfully running to first base and back six times in succession, touching first base with his bat after batting. This was not often, but sometimes done; and we were apt to hold back our best batter to the last, which we called ‘saving up for six-maker.’ This phrase became a general proverb for some large undertaking; and to say of one ‘he's a six-maker,’ meant that he was a tip-top fellow in whatever he undertook, and no higher compliment could be passed."

Source: Henry C. McCook, The Senator: A Threnody (George W. Jacobs, Philadelphia, 1905), page 208. This passage is excerpted from the annotations to a long poem written in honor the memory of Senator Marcus Hanna of OH. The verse itself: “Shinny and marbles, flying kite and ball, / Hat-ball and hand-ball and, best loved of all!--/ Town-ball, that fine field sport, that soon/ By natural growth and skilful change, became/ Baseball, by use and popular acclaim/ Our nation’s favorite game” [Ibid. page 54]. Provided via Email from Richard Hershberger, August 2007. McCook’s note describes hat-ball as a plugging game, and hand-ball as a game for one sides of one, two, or three boys that was played “against a windowless brick gable wall.” Note: were “nips” foul tips?

1850s.30 – Town Ball Well Known in Illinois

“Football and baseball, as played today [1918], were unknown games. What was known as townball, however, was a popular sport. This was played with a yarn ball covered with leather, or a hollow, inflated rubber ball, both of which were soft and yielding and not likely to inflict injury as is so common today in baseball. Townball was much played in the schoolhouse yard during recess and at the noon hour.”

Charles B. Johnson, Illinois in he Fifties (Flanigan–Pearson co, Champaign IL, 1918), page 79. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, January 31, 2010. Accessed 2/10/10 via Google Books search ("illinois in the fifties"). Jeff notes that, while describing Illinois pastimes generally, the author was from Pocahontas, IL, in southeast IL, about 50 miles east of St. Louis.

1850s.31 – Town Ball Played in Southeast MO

“The men found amusement . . . in such humble sports as marbles and pitching horseshoes. There were also certain athletic contests, and it was no uncommon thing for the men of the neighborhood to engage in wrestling and in the jumping match. This was before the day of baseball, but the men had a game, out of which baseball probably developed, which was called ‘town ball.’”

Robert S. Douglass, History of Southeast Missouri (Lewis Publishing, 1912), page 441. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, January 31, 2010. Accessed 2/10/10 via Google Books search (douglass southeast). Jeff notes that Douglass is not explicit about the period referenced here, but that it is before the Civil War.

1852.7 -- San Francisco Plaza Again Active, This Time with “Town Ball;” Cricket Club Also Formed

“For the last two or three evenings the Plaza has been filled with full grown persons engaged very industriously in the game known as ‘town ball.’ The amusement is very innocent and healthful . . . . The scenes are extremely interesting and amusing.”

“Public Play Ground,” Alta California, January 14, 1852. Submitted by Angus McFarland. Note: In the prior year [see item #1851.2] the game at the Plaza had been called base ball in two news accounts, and town ball in none that we now have.

Angus also notes on 1/27/2007 that a cricket club was formed in SF in 1852.

1852.8 -- Adult Town Ball Seen in on a Sunday in IL

“[N]ot a great while ago, [I] saw a number of grown men, on a Sabbath morning, playing town-ball.”

Rev. E. B. Olmsted, The Home Missionary [Office of the American Home Missionary Society] Volume 24, Number 1 [May 1852], page 188

1855c.1 – “Massachusetts Run-Around” Recalled

“This [Massachusetts Run-Around] was ever a popular game with us young men, and especially on Town Meeting days when there were great contests held between different districts, or between the married and unmarried men, and was sometimes called Town ball because of its association with Town Meeting day.”

“It was an extremely convenient game because it required as a minimum only four on a side to play it, and yet you could play it equally as well with seven or eight. . . . There were no men on the bases; the batter having to make his bases the best he could, and with perfect freedom to run when and as he chose to, subject all the time to being plugged by the ball from the hand of anyone. It was lively jumping squatting and ducking in all shapes with the runner who was trying to escape being plugged. When he got around without having been hit by the ball, it counted a run. The delivery of the ball was distinctly a throw, not an under-hand delivery as was later the case for Base Ball. The batter was allowed three strikes at the ball. In my younger days it was extremely popular, and indulged in by everyone, young and old.”

T. King, letter to the Mills Commission, November 24, 1905; accessed at the Giamatti Center, HOF.

1855.2 – Town Ball Played in South Carolina

A woman in South Carolina remembers: “The first school I attended with other pupils was in 1855. Our teacher was a kind man, Mr. John Chisholm. The schoolhouse was the old Covenanter brick church. We had a long school day. We commenced early in the morning and ended just before sundown. We had an hour’s intermission for dinner and recreation. The boys played town ball and shot marbles, and the few girls in school looked on, enjoyed, and applauded the fine plays.”

Remarks of Mrs. Cynthia Miller Coleman, Ridgeway, SC, at loc.gov oral history website. Note: need full URL.

1857.16 -- Early Use of “Town Ball” in NY Clipper

The article reported a “Game of Town ball” in Germantown PA.

New York Clipper, September 19, 1857. Information posted by David Block to 19CBB 11/1/2002. David writes that this is the earliest “town ball” game account he knows of.

1857.29 – Six-Player Town-ball Teams Play for Gold in Philly

“TOWN BALL. – The young men of Philadelphia are determined to keep the ball rolling . . . On Friday, 20^th ult. [10/20/1857 we think] the United Stats Club met on their grounds, corner of 61^st and Hazel streets . . . each individual did his utmost to gain the prize, at handsome gold ring, which was eventually awarded to Mr. T. W. Taylor, his score of 26 being the highest.” Each team had six players, and the team Taylor played on won, 117 to 82. New York Clipper (November [as handwritten in clipping collection; no date is given] 1857). Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.

1858.7 -- Newly Reformed Game of Town Ball Played in Cincinnati OH

Clippings from Cincinnati in 1858 report on the Gymnasts’ Town ball Club match of July 22, 1858: “They played for the first time under their new code of bye laws, which are more stringent than the old rules.” The game has five corners [plus a batter’s position, making the basepaths a rhombus in general shape], sixty feet apart, meaning 360 feet to score. The fly rule was in effect, and plugging was disallowed, and the rules carefully require that a batsman run every time he hits the ball.

The Clipper carried at least four reports of Cincinnati town ball play between June and October of 1858. The earliest is in the edition of June 26, 1858 – Volume 6, number 10, page 76. Coverage suggests that teams of eight players were not uncommon, although teams of 13 and 11 were also reported. Note: An oddity: in a July intramural contest, batter Bickham claimed 58 runs of his team’s 190 total, while the second most productive batsman mate scored 30, and 5 of his 10 teammates scored fewer than 6 runs each. One wonders what rule, or what typo, would lead to that result.

1860.13 – Town Ball Still Being Played in Philadelphia

Clipper, August 11, 1860, page 132. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Seymour’s note also says “Wiley Note says so too.” Note: “Wiley?”

1860.20 -- Lincoln Awaits Nomination, Plays Town ball?

“During the settling on the convention Lincoln had been trying, in one way and another, to keep down the excitement . . . playing billiard a little, town ball a little, and story-telling a little.”

Henry C. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen [Current Literature Publishing, 1907], page 292.

A story circulated that he was playing ball when he learning of his nomination: “When the news of Lincoln’s nomination reached Springfield, his friends were greatly excited, and hastened to inform ‘Old Abe’ of it. He could not be found at his office or at home, but after some minutes the messenger discovered him out in a field with a parcel of boys, having a pleasant game of town-ball. All his comrades immediately threw up their hats and commenced to hurrah. Abe grinned considerably, scratched his head and said ‘Go on boys; don’t let such nonsense spoil a good game.’ The boys did go on with their bawling, but not with the game of ball. They got out an old rusty cannon and made it ring, while the [illegible: Rail Splitter?] went home to think on his chances.” Caveat: Richard Hershberger and others doubt the veracity of this story. He says [email of 1/30/2008] that one other account of that day says that Abe played hand-ball, and there is mention of this being the only athletic game that Abe was ever seen to indulge in.

“How Lincoln Received the Nomination,” [San Francisco CA] Daily Evening Bulletin vol.10 number 60 (Saturday, June 16, 1860), page 2 column 3. Provided by email of 7/18/07 by Craig Waff. Craig adds that the piece may be a reprint of an Eastern article.

A political cartoon of the day showed Lincoln playing ball with other candidates. It can be viewed at http://www.scvbb.org/images/image7/. Thanks to Kyle DeCicco-Carey for the link.

1860.35 –All-Out-Side-Out Town Ball Played in Indiana

“Town ball at Evansville, Ind. – A match of Town ball was contested between the married and single members of the Evansville [IN] Town ball Club, on the 26^th ult. [5-inning box score is presented.] The correspondent to whom we are indebted for the above report, says that the rules and regulations of the game of town ball, vary a great deal. There, an innings is not concluded until all are out . . . The club, it is thought, will adopt base ball rules, such as are played in the East.” New York Clipper (date omitted from scrapbook source; a rough date of May 1860 is inferred from placement of item in scrapbook [page 27]). Facsimile from the Mears Collection provided by Craig Waff, September 2008. Evansville is in southernmost IN, near the Kentucky border.

1860.53 – Organized Town Ball in St. Louis

“Town ball. – All the Deputy Sheriff’s, Marshall’s and some of the clerks at the Court House went out on Franklin Avenue, in Leffingwell Avenue, yesterday afternoon, and had a spirited game of old town ball. We are glad to know that this pleasant game has been revived this season. A regular club has been organized, and will meet once a week during the season.”

St. Louis Daily Bulletin, Friday, May 4, 1860. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, April 9, 2009.

1861c.3 – Town ball in Maryland: Mr. Lincoln Faces Friendly Fire

“We boys, for hours at a time, played “town ball” [at my grandfather’s estate] on the vast lawn, and Mr. [Abe] Lincoln would join ardently in the sport. I remember vividly how he ran with the children; how long were his strides, and how far his coat-tails stuck out behind, and how we tried to hit him with the ball, as he ran the bases.” Recollection [c.1890?] of Frank P. Blair III, as carried in Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 (Lincoln Memorial Association, New York, 1900), page 88.

Blair, whose grandfather was Lincoln’s Postmaster General, lived in MD just outside Washington. Note: We need to establish a date for this reported event. Blair [ibid.] says Lincoln’s visits happened “during the war,” occurred “frequently,” and took place when he was seven or eight years old. We know his older brother James was born in 1854, but not when he showed up on earth.

1861.20 -- Confederate Soldier’s Diary Reports on Town Ball Playing, 1861-1863

December 1861 (Texas?): “There is nothing unusual transpiring in Camp. The boys are passing the time playing Town-Ball.”

January 1862 (Texas?): “All rocking along finely, Boys playing Town-Ball”

March 1863 (USA prison camp, IL?): The Rebels have at last found something to employ both mind and body; as the parade ground has dried up considerably in the past few days, Town Ball is in full blast, and it is a blessing for the men.”

March 1863 (USA prison camp, IL?): “Raining this morning, which will interfere with ball playing, but the manufacture of rings ‘goes bravely on,’ and I might say receives a fresh impetus by the failure of the ‘Town-ball’ business.”

Source: W. W. Heartsill, Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army: A Journal Kept by W. W. Heartsill: Day-by-Day, of the W. P. Lane (Texas) Rangers, from April 19^th 1861 to May 20^th 1865. Submitted by Jeff Kittel, 5/12/09. Available online at The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries Database, at http://solomon.cwld.alexanderstreet.com/. Heartsill joined Lane’s Texas Rangers early in the War at age 21. He was taken prisoner in Arkansas in early 1862, and exchanged for Union prisoners in April 1863. He then joined Bragg’s Army in Tennessee, and assigned to a unit put in charge of a Texas prison camp of Union soldiers. There are no references to ballplaying after 1863. Query: “manufacture of rings?” PBall file: CW10.

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