Scott Green sent me this interesting piece on Gratz Moses of the Cyclone Club from volume 51 of The Medical Record in 1897. What is fascinating about it is that the piece has Moses being born around 1813, meaning he would have been forty-seven years old in 1860.
If Moses was forty-seven in 1860, he almost certainly would have been the oldest member of the Cyclones. For the most part the members of the club were in their early to mid-twenties. Baseball was, and is still, a young man's game. While Moses' age doesn't necessarily rule him out as a member of the club, it certainly raises some questions. Is this the right Gratz Moses? Was Moses really a member of the club? Was he a non-playing member?
I believe that this is the Gratz Moses of the Cyclone Club. The name is too unique and according to the 1860 St. Louis city directory, there was only one Dr. S. Gratz Moses living in St. Louis at the time. Certainly nothing conclusive and more research needs to be done but I think we have our man.
2 comments:
During my web surf I found your intereting comment on S. Gratz Moses.
While I was reading an article concerning Dr. Joseph Nash McDolwell and his establishment of medical college in 1840's, I came across the name S. Gratz Moses.
I would quote the related portion below from the article:
"The new additions to the faculty indicate the success of the school. William Carr Lane, the first mayor of St. Louis, had advocated the institution of a Board of Health in his inaugural address in 1823, and was a distinguished citizen. S. Gratz Moses had just come to the city from France, where he was personal physician to Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon; he was one of the founders of the first free clinic in St. Louis, originally conducted in rooms given by William G. Eliot in the basement of the Unitarian Church." (Marjorie E. Fox Grisham, "Joseph Nash McDowell and the Medical Department of Kemper College, 1840-1845", Bulletin of Missouri Historical Society, July, 1956.)
I hope you the passage of some interest to you and your friends.
Best regards,
Tatsushi Narita
Tatsushi-
Thanks for the information and it is rather interesting. Simon Gratz Moses was the father of Gratz A. Moses, who played with the Cyclone Base Ball Club of StL in 1860, and wasn't actually a baseball player himself. However, what's interesting about the information you send along is that all of the people mentioned in the piece had ballplayers in their family during the 1860's.
William Greenleaf Eliot was one of the founders of Washington University in StL and two of his relatives played with the Union Base Ball Club after the Civil War. William Carr Lane also had a few relatives playing with the Union Club. The Union Club had several members who were also members of some of the most prominent families in StL and this is more evidence of that.
Thanks again for stopping by the blog and taking the time to share the information.
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