The Best Place Of Resort

Lafayette Park.

Forty Acres Of Ground As The First City Park, highly improved and open to the public every day - the best place of resort.

This Beautiful Park is becoming more and ore a favorite place of resort, and really there is not another Park about St. Louis where a better fresh air, a finer breeze, and equal accommodations for visitors can be found.  The grounds are extensive, highly improved, and planted with rare shade trees.  The lawns are large enough to give ample play-room for all the children of St. Louis.  The mammoth Tent in the centre of the Park covers about half an acre of ground, decorated with an abundance of rare exotic plants, the air cooled by a large showy fountain.  Commodious seats are inviting the visitor to try the refreshments offered at this place.  No distilled liquors or beer allowed to be used or sold at the Park.  All other refreshments, as Ice Cream, Lemonades, Native Wines, Coffee, Chocolate, &c., are always on hand, and of best qualities.

Every Sunday afternoon a complete Orchestra will execute the best opera music.

Admission charged at the gate during the Concert.  The Tent is lighted up with gas every night.  Omnibuses running always from the Court House to the gate of the Park.

Edward C. Krausnick,
Superintendent of the Lafayette Park.

-Missouri Republican, August 14, 1859


First, it sounds like a rather nice place to play a baseball game.  Second, the mention of the "mammoth Tent" is significant because it explains this picture:

I had speculated that the tent in the picture could have been baseball related but now we know better.

The Commercial Club At Gamble Lawn

The Commercial Base Ball Club have their regular field exercise on Gamble Lawn this Saturday afternoon.  Members are requested to be prompt in attendance, and Base Ball players generally are invited to the field.

-Missouri Republican, June 18, 1864


This is really interesting.  One of the last references to the Commercial Club in the Republican was in 1863 and it was in regards to their trying to get a clubhouse built at Lafayette Park.  That request was taken to the Common Council, where it was placed in the hands of a subcommittee who forwarded it to the Board of Improvements.  I'm not sure what happened after that.  However, here we find the club holding their practice days at Gamble Lawn and that leads me to believe that the club's request was turned down.  If they had been allowed to build a clubhouse at Lafayette Park, they would be playing at Lafayette Park.  But they're not.

Also of interest is the general invitation that the club extended to all ball players.  Why would they do that?  Was the club short players?  Was the war having a negative effect on the number of players in the city?  Or was it just courtesy?  Maybe they were just being nice but I'm not sure if I've ever seen an open invitation like that to a club's practice day.        

For The Purpose Of Securing Their Clothing While Playing Base Ball

Mr. Dailey presented a petition from members of the Commercial Base Ball Club, asking the passage of an ordinance granting them permission to erect a building at Lafayette Park for the purpose of securing their clothing while playing base ball.  Referred to special committee of three.

-Missouri Democrat, June 13, 1863


A couple of months ago, I posted a little something about this but this piece from the Missouri Democrat gives us the added details about the building the Commercials wanted to put up at the park.  Again, I have to point out that this is an unexpected expansion of baseball activity at a time when our general thinking about the effects of the Civil War on baseball activity would lead us to think that there would be a contraction in the number of clubs and games being played.  If the war had a negative effect on the health of the game, you wouldn't expect to see the Commercial Club wanting to build a clubhouse at Lafayette Park in 1863.

The question of what kind of effect the Civil War had on baseball is an interesting one and now is not really the time to get into it.  But the old conventional wisdom that the war helped spread the game is, to say the least, unsupported by evidence.  There is substantially more evidence that the growth of the game was hindered by the war.  However, the evidence that I'm finding for Civil War-era St. Louis doesn't seem to fit into either one of those two categories.  The war did not influence the spread of the game to St. Louis because it was already being played here before the war broke out.  On the other hand, the war doesn't seem to have hindered it's growth or popularity much.  Yes, there were clubs that broke up due to the war.  Yes, we see much more activity among junior clubs than senior clubs.  But it appears that there were more clubs active in St. Louis in any given year of the war than there were in 1859 or 1860.  The game continued to grow in St. Louis during the war.  And that is not what I expected to find when I started looking through the Civil War newspapers.

St. Louis certainly has a unique place in baseball history, as well as American history in general, so I don't think it's possible to say that what we find in St. Louis during the war applies to the rest of the nation.  However, what was taking place in St. Louis must be accounted for.  It's impossible to say now that the war had an overall negative effect on the spread and growth of the game because the war seemed to have little effect on the growth of the game in St. Louis, where it was new and had just taken root.  The only way to argue that the war had a negative effect on the growth of the game in St. Louis is to say that it would have grown more than it did from 1861 to 1865 if not for the war.  I think you may be able to argue that but then you're arguing hypotheticals and degrees and things that can never be proven.

The bottom line is that no currant interpretation of the effect of the Civil War on the spread and growth of baseball fits the evidence that we find in Civil War-era St. Louis.                     

July 4, 1863

There will be an interesting game of Base Ball during the afternoon of the 4th, on the grounds of the Commercial Club, in Lafayette Park.  We understand the game is to be composed of representatives from the various Clubs of the city, and will undoubtedly be an exciting one.  

-Missouri Democrat, July 3, 1863


I looked high and low for more information about this game but, sadly, couldn't find anything.  I really want the box score from this game.  I want to know who played in the game and what clubs were represented.  I want to know how big the crowd was.  I want to know everything there is to know about this game.

Because this game took place on one of the most extraordinary days in the history of the United States.  Gettysburg ended with a Union victory the day before and Vicksburg surrendered that day.  Two days earlier, the outcome of the Civil War was still in doubt.  But, by the Fourth of July, 1863, as St. Louis celebrated the holiday by watching a baseball game in Lafayette Park, the war had reached its turning point and the Union would move surely, although slowly and with great cost, onward to victory.

What continues to amaze me about baseball in St. Louis during the Civil War is that these great and terrible events transpire in parallel to the commonplace.  It's things like this game taking place the day after Pickett's Charge and the day of the fall of Vicksburg.  It's the Empire Club having to postpone their anniversary game in 1865 because of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  It's a game being played in St. Louis the day Stonewall Jackson died.  You study the Civil War and ready the histories and spend decades of your life trying to learn about and understand the events of the era but it's almost impossible to understand what life was truly like for the people who lived through it.  You can read the diaries and memoirs and still never come close to understanding what life was like during the Civil War.

For me, that's why the study of 19th century baseball is so important.  It's the common, everyday stuff of life that we can all relate to and understand.  We use baseball, something that we love and understand, as a conduit into the lives of people that are so far removed from us.  Baseball is the common ground and the common language that we can use to try, just a bit, to understand what life was like in 1863.  We really can't understand what people felt upon hearing the news about Gettysburg and Vicksburg but I know what it's like to play in a baseball game on the Fourth of July.  I know what it's like to watch a game on the Fourth.  And in that sense, I can put myself in the place of the people who played in and watched the game at Lafayette Park on July 4, 1863.  In that sense, I can get a bit closer in understanding what their life was like.  

Praying The Privilege

Lafayette Park

The Special Committee to whom was referred the petition of the Commercial Base Ball Club praying the privilege of erecting a building at Lafayette Park reported the same back and recommended that it be referred to the Board of Improvements of Lafayette Park.  Report adopted.

-Missouri Republican, June 27, 1863


Not only was the Commercial Club active during the war but they were in a position to attempt to make improvements to their grounds at Lafayette Park.  I think this speaks to the possibility that not only was a great deal of baseball being played in St. Louis during the Civil War but it was thriving and growing to the point were the Commercials wanted to build a permanent clubhouse on their grounds.  Also, the environment in St. Louis was such that this was possible.

I think it's interesting to compare this petition to the Common Council to the ones in 1861, when both the Cyclones and Commercials were presenting petitions for the use of Lafayette Park as a baseball ground and for permission to improve the grounds.  That was just before the war broke out.  Here we see pretty much the exact same process taking place at the height of the war.  This report was adopted a few days before Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg.  So, at a moment when the war was raging and still in doubt, the Commercials were looking to make improvements to the grounds at Lafayette Park.

Also, it should be noted that I thought Lafayette Park was not being used for baseball during the war.  The secondary sources stated that the park was seized by the military and used as an encampment for troops.  Now that did happen and the Union army was using the park by the summer of 1861.  But it also appears that the Commercials were also using the park in 1862 and 1863.  If you're looking for evidence that soldiers, unfamiliar with the Regulation game, was exposed to baseball during the war, here's a place you should look.  It seems very possible that both the army and the Commercials were using Lafayette Park at the same time.  If that's true, the Commercials must have been getting great crowds for their games, as I'm sure the soldiers, bored with camp life, were looking for any form of entertainment and wandered over to see some baseball.  While I'm still not particularly convinced that the war helped to spread the game (and by not particularly convinced, I mean not convinced at all), I can see the possibility here to gather evidence in support of that argument.    

Known Unknowns

John W. O'Connell...and J.D. Fitzgibbon...say the game was brought here by men who had played baseball in the East, but that the first game ever played here took place in what was then Northwest St. Louis and on the ground now occupied by Carr Square Park.

-The National Game



I can't tell you how many times I've read the above sentence but last night, as I looked at it again, it held new meaning for me.

With the discovery of new primary source material from the Missouri Republican, I've begun to re-evaluate some of the things I believe about the origins of the game in St. Louis and how the game developed in the city from 1859 to 1865.  I've found evidence that conflicts with some of the more important secondary sources and evidence that conflicts with some of the conclusions I've reach after years of research.  I think it's important for me to remember that there are a lot of things that I don't know with any degree of certainty about baseball in St. Louis in the antebellum and Civil War eras.  All I can do is gather all the evidence that I can, weigh that evidence and try to reach logical conclusions.

One of the things that I believed, up until the last week or so, was that the first baseball game was played by the Cyclone Club at Lafayette Park sometime during the summer of 1859.  The weight of the evidence that I had seen supported that idea.  Now, after looking through the Republican, I can say that there is evidence to suggest that the first game wasn't played at Lafayette Park.  O'Connell and Fitzgibbons, two pioneer era players, stated to Al Spink that the first game was played at Carr Park and that testimony is very important.  Why did I dismiss it?

Carr Park was the playing grounds of the Morning Star Club, who we believe were playing town ball at the park as early as 1857.  Richard Perry, a member of the Morning Stars, stated in 1887 that his club was the first to play baseball in St. Louis.  Interestingly, the earliest reference I have to a St. Louis baseball club comes from the St. Louis Daily Bulletin of June 6, 1860, and mentions the organization of the Morning Stars.  The Protoball Chronology has a reference to an unnamed club in September of 1859, that is neither the Cyclones nor the Morning Stars.  I have some problems with the sourcing of that reference but it comes from Craig Waff and therefore should be taken seriously.

My point is that if we just relied on the primary source material, we'd have to argue that either the Morning Stars or Waff's unnamed club was the first baseball team in St. Louis, rather than the Cyclones.  I've yet to find a reference to the Cyclone Club prior to August 1860 and believe me when I tell you that I've looked.  That doesn't mean that the evidence to support my conclusions doesn't exist or that I've exhausted every source but it does mean that I don't have a lot of evidence to support my conclusions other than some secondary sources and logic.  And now I'm finding primary source evidence that is poking holes in my logic.

Another thing: I believe that town ball was played in St. Louis in the 1840s, at the latest.  I have absolutely no primary source evidence of that.  The earliest town ball reference I have for St. Louis comes from 1860.  There are insinuations in the contemporary press and exertions in the secondary sources that support or imply that town ball was played much earlier.  Also, I have plenty of evidence to support the idea that town ball was played in the region as early as the 1820s, so it's not a great leap to believe that it was played in St. Louis at the same time.  But I can't prove it.

And there, as they say, is the rub.  There's a lot of stuff that I believe about the origins and development of the game in St. Louis that I can't prove.  I can argue for a certain conclusion and show you all the evidence that I have that leads me to reach such a conclusion but argument is not proof.  I can argue that O'Connell and Fitzgibbons, when they said baseball was first played at Carr Park, were talking about town ball and the Morning Star Club but I can't prove that.  Somebody else can look at their statement and conclude that they were talking about the New York game.  That argument would be just as valid as mine.  

What I have to accept is the fact that this is a process.  I can sit down right now and write a three volume history of 19th century baseball in St. Louis but the first volume would be out of date by the time I finished writing it.  The research is ongoing and continuing to bear fruit.  It doesn't matter to me that new evidence changes what I believe because my goal is to find the truth.  I will change my beliefs and conclusions to fit the facts that I discover, regardless of whether or not those changes conflict with previously held beliefs and conclusions.  My commitment is to the truth rather than to my own ego or to any historical school of thought.

Our understanding of what was happening in St. Louis during the pioneer era is much, much greater than it was just two years ago.  I've discovered all kinds of primary source evidence over the last few years that have really shed light on the subject and have enabled us to work with facts rather than supposition.  If I was writing the St. Louis chapter of the Base Ball Pioneer book today, it would be a bit different than the one I submitted two years ago.  And I think it would be different again if I was writing it two years from now.  The research is ongoing and my shifting of the evidence never stops.

In the end, I have to continuously remember what I know and what I know I don't know.  I have to remember that there is fact and there is supposition.  At the moment fact and truth are destroying some of my suppositions and assumptions.  And that is a good thing.  Does it mean that I have to go back and rewrite a bunch of stuff that I thought I was finished with?  Yes, it does.  But that's okay because I'm just trying to get the thing right.        

Interesting To Many Of Our Citizens

There will be a friendly match of Base Ball between the Commercial and Cyclone Base Ball Clubs, on Wednesday, September 4th, at 4 o'clock, P.M., on the Empire's Ground.  The game will be according to the United States Convention rules, now so extensively played in all our principal cities, and will undoubtedly be very interesting to many of our citizens who have never seen the game.  Were there a suitable ground in some of our public parks, it would be much more agreeable to lady spectators, and it is to be hoped our Common Council, or Park Commissioners, will give this their early attention.  Players will take the market street cars at a quarter after three o'clock and go to Twenty fourth or Twenty sixth street, thence south five blocks.

-Missouri Republican, August 26, 1860


Why wasn't this game played at Lafayette Park?  If the Cyclones had been playing at the park since their inception, one would think that the game would have been played on their grounds.  Why did they play it on the Empires' ground?

As I talked about last week, there's the very real possibility that Lafayette Park was not used as a baseball grounds until 1861 and I think this supports that idea.  The Republican writes about the need for a suitable baseball grounds in the public parks and, if the Lafayette Grounds existed in 1860, wouldn't that have been suitable for the lady spectators?

At this point, I'm not sure what to think.      

Choice Of Ground

Lafayette Park in 1859 or 1860

Mr. Chester presented the petition of the "Cyclone Base Ball Club," praying the Council to grant them the privilege of using for their playground the vacant space formerly reserved for the military at Lafayette Park, and also the right of leveling and smoothing the same for that purpose... 

[Mr. Wells] presented petition of C.L. Kretschmar, W. Delafield, et. al., members of the Commercial Base Ball Club, asking permission to use the grounds in Lafayette Park, as petitioned for by the Cyclone Club.

-Missouri Republican, March 5, 1861

Mr. Nelson from Special Committee, to whom was referred the petitions of certain Base Ball Clubs, asking permission to use Lafayette Park grounds for the purpose of playing, reported that the Cyclone have choice of ground and are permitted the first use of the ground, provided they make the improvements necessary for the game at their own expense.  The other club can have the second choice of ground.  Report accepted.

-Missouri Republican, March 9, 1861

Base Ball.--The Commercial and Cyclone Base Ball Clubs have, at a considerable expense, fitted up their play ground in Lafayette Park, and will commence playing the coming week.  The Commercials practice Mondays and Thursdays; the Cyclone Tuesdays and Fridays of each week, at 4 o'clock.  The first day of their season of the new ground (Monday) both clubs will be out and play a friendly game, to commence at half past three o'clock.

-Missouri Republican, April 28, 1861


It has always been my understanding that the Cyclones played in Lafayette Park starting in 1859 and that the park was most likely the site of the first Regulation game of baseball in St. Louis.  Obviously, other bat and ball games had been played in St. Louis prior to the advent of the Cyclones (the Morning Stars, for example, were playing town ball at Carr Park by 1858, at the latest, and town ball was most likely being played in the city by the 1840s) but the Cyclones were the first to play the New York game and, according to most sources, there grounds were located at Lafayette Park.  While they played a match game at the Fairgrounds, I've never seen a source mention that their home grounds were anywhere other than Lafayette Park.  The St. Louis Republic of April 21, 1895, quoting former Cyclone members, stated that "The grounds occupied by the club were in the center of Lafayette Park and something like $600 had been expended in putting them in order.  The grand stand was simply a tent which sheltered those who were awaiting their turn at bat or some of the many visitors who came out to see the game."  Several members of the club lived in the Lafayette Park neighborhood and it was a natural place for them to play.

However, the above information from the Republican makes me doubt the idea that the Cyclones always played at Lafayette Park.  My understanding of the source material is that the Cyclones organized in the summer of 1859 and they immediately petitioned for the use of Lafayette Park, making improvements to the grounds to make them suitable for baseball.  But we now know that the club did not petition the Common Council for use of the park until March of 1861.  It's entirely possible that the club used the park prior to this and that the source material confused the issue of when and why the club petitioned the council.  Or it means that baseball wasn't played at the park until 1861.  It's difficult to tell with the information I have at the moment.

My best guess is that the Cyclones played at Lafayette Park prior to 1861 and that the issue before the Common Council was about a dispute between the Cyclones and the Commercials over use of the park.  My reading of the material from the Republican makes me think that, with the growth of the popularity of the game in St. Louis in 1860 and the increase in the number of clubs, there was a conflict over the use of the best grounds.  Specifically, the Commercials wanted to use grounds that were, up to that time, the exclusive territory of the Cyclones.  That conflict was taken before the appropriate government agency and the dispute was settled in favor of the Cyclones, providing the club made certain improvements to the park.  Regardless of the significance of the dispute, it's obvious that it did not hurt the relationship between the two clubs, who played a friendly match at Lafayette Park in late April to open their season.

It should also be mentioned that the information found in the Republican helps us to date the military takeover of Lafayette Park in 1861.  We know that Union troops took over the park sometime in the summer of 1861 and baseball activities there ceased.  Obviously this did not take place prior to the end of April 1861.  The conflict at Camp Jackson didn't take place until May and things really didn't come to a head in Missouri until June.  There is evidence that games were played at Lafayette Park as late as June 7 but games in early July, that normally would have been played there, were being played at Gamble Lawn.  So, if I had to guess, I'd say that Union troops took control of Lafayette Park sometime in June of 1861.            

The Semi-Professional Baltics

The following, from the New York Clipper, indicates that St. Louis will have more than one semi-professional club next season:

The directors of the newly-organized Baltic Club, of St. Louis, Mo., met at the Phoenix Hall December 12, when, a correspondent informs us, six of the nine were selected, as follows: H. Wilson, J.H. Mills and S.T. Bodine, fielders; W.W. Burke, short-stop; Mayne, of Bloomington, Ill., third base; George Stout, Cincinnati, O., second base. Eugene White, of Philadelphia, will fill the position of catcher, providing he can secure a release from the Aetnas of that place. Harry Woodall, of Iowa, will be the pitcher. Malone, of the Irvington (N.Y.) Club will play at first base. None of the players are over nineteen years of age. The directors are negotiating for the Lafayette Park Grounds. The club will probably come East in June.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 24, 1876

A Very Intriguing Picture

After Carolyn Willmore and I had finished exchanging information about Lafayette Park and Civil War-era baseball, she sent me the above picture.

What we see here is the lake at the center of Lafayette Park and, just north of that, the superintendent's cottage. To the right of the cottage are two tents. What makes this picture extraordinarily intriguing is the question of what purpose the tents serve. Why are those tents there? Who's using them?

The picture is labeled "'Lafayette Park' 1859 or 1860' and Carolyn, believing the picture to be mislabeled, thought that these were military tents being used by the troops who were encamped in the park. However, after I had sent her some information on antebellum baseball in the park, see sent me the picture and asked if the tents might have been used by baseball clubs playing in Lafayette Park. If this were true, and the date of the picture is correct, then what we're looking at is a picture of the first baseball grounds in St. Louis.

What evidence is there to support this possibility?

An article in the St. Louis Republican, published on April 21, 1895, gave a brief history of the Cyclone Club based on the recollections of Leonard Matthews, Ferdinand Garesche and Maurice Alexander. The article stated that the Cyclone grounds were located at the center of the park and that the grand stand was "a tent which sheltered those who were awaiting their turn at bat or some of the many visitors who came out to see the game." E.H. Tobias also mentioned the use of tents in this era, stating that they were used as a changing room for players and as a place to serve refreshments. So the Cyclone Club had at least one tent set up near the center of Lafayette Park and may have had two, one used as a grandstand and one used as a club house/changing room. The above picture shows two tents near the center of the park in 1859 or 1860 when the Cyclone Club had their grounds at Lafayette Park and there is no other known reason for why the tents would be there. So it is arguable that the tents shown in the picture where those used by the Cyclone Club and that the playing field lay just north of those tents.

I don't think there is any way to be certain that what we're looking at are tents on the Lafayette Park Grounds in the antebellum era but I believe that it is possible. If it is true than this is the earliest pictorial evidence of baseball in St. Louis and a significant find by Carolyn.

The Gambles And Lafayette Park

More from the Bryan source that was sent to me by Carolyn Willmore:

As soon as the War was over, there was much activity in buying lots in the neighborhood of the Park. Archibald Gamble died in 1866, but his widow, Mrs. Louisa Easton Gamble, continued to lie in the large brick mansion facing what was then called "McNair Avenue" between Geyer and Lafayette (almost facing Geyer on the south).

This peaked my interest because I knew that Archibald Gamble was the father of Cyclone Club members Joseph and Rufus Gamble. The elder Gamble was also a business associate of Edward Bredell, Sr., the father of Cyclone co-founder Edward Bredell, Jr. The elder Bredell was a member of the board of improvements for Lafayette Park and the family lived in the neighborhood. It was this association between the Bredell's and Lafayette Park, I believed, that led the Cyclone Club to establish grounds in the park. But the Bryan source hinted at the idea that the Gambles also may have lived in the Lafayette Park neighborhood in the antebellum era, establishing a stronger link between the club, the neighborhood and the park.

I asked Carolyn about the possibility of the Gambles living in the neighborhood prior to the war and see sent me this information from Lafayette Square: An Urban Renaissance by Timothy G. Conley:

The first residence built on the Square's south side was the Italianate mansion of Archibald Gamble who had retired from his successful law practice in 1842. No construction records are available because the St. Louis city limits at this time extended only to Second Carondelet Avenue or the present Eighteenth Street. We do know that the house was built before 1851 since Virginia Gamble married Charles Gibson there in that year...

So the Gambles, like the Bredell's, were living in the Lafayette Park neighborhood prior to the Civil War, at the same time the Cyclone Club was playing games in the park. This strengthens the argument that the Cyclone Club established their grounds in Lafayette Park because some club members lived in the neighborhood and had an interest in the success of the new park.

The Old And Well Known Commercial Base Ball Club

The old and well known Commercial Base Ball Club having completed their arrangements for the season, will resume their field exercises on Saturday, the 5th inst., at 4 o'clock P.M., on their beautiful grounds in Lafayette Park. Base ball players and all lovers of out-door sports are invited. Regular field days are Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Below will be found a list of officers for the year:

President, E.H. Tobias

Vice President, A.W. Senter

Secretary and Treasurer, H.L. Clark

Directors, C.F. Gauss, P.H. Jacobs and Jas. S. Wilgus

Field Captains, Edwin Fowler, David Hutchinson

-Missouri Democrat, April 4, 1862

This puts the final nail in the idea that the Empire Club was the only active baseball club during the war years. The question remains, however, as to how active the baseball scene was in St. Louis during the 1861-1864 period. Certainly it was not as active as in 1860 or 1865 when there were about a dozen clubs in existence. Without looking through my notes for the period, I'd say that there were four or five clubs active each season. When I'm done posting all this new material, I'll go through it, post some general thoughts and put together a list of Civil War-era clubs.

So where did the idea come from that the Empires were the only active club in St. Louis during the Civil War. Obviously it wasn't Tobias, who probably would have remembered being the president of a war-era club. Looking back through the Tobias material, I found this: "It was in the latter years of the '50's that base ball found a permanent lodgement here and in 1860, 1861, and 1862 it became quite 'the craze...'" I'm sure I've read this before and must have ignored it because it didn't fit with my idea that the St. Louis Civil War-era baseball scene was a relatively barren one. So Tobias, while not giving much in the way of details, did give leave some clues about what was going on.

Al Spink? I just skimmed The National Game and don't see any reference to the Civil War. Spink did give a list of the Empire Club's officers and field captains for the era and this was certainly my basis for stating that the club was active during the war years. But I don't find a statement that the Empires were the only club active.

I don't know where I came up with the idea or what the basis for my thinking was. There might be a record of it somewhere on this blog but I'm too lazy to look for it. The main point here, however, is that I was wrong and there were several clubs active in St. Louis during the Civil War. While the outbreak of war impeded the growth and development of the game in St. Louis, it didn't kill it and it didn't diminish the game to the extent that I had previously believed.

I should also point out the use of Lafayette Park by the Commercial Club. The Cyclones had been using the grounds in the antebellum era and, in 1861, the grounds were commandeered by Federal troops for use as an encampment. This is evidence that the park was being used as a baseball grounds during the war years.

And The Cyclones Became A Thing Of The Past

In the article about the history of the Cyclone Club in the St. Louis Republic on April 21, 1895, it says that the Cyclone grounds at Lafayette Park "were occupied as a camp by General A.J. Smith with a troop of United States soldiers, and the 'Cyclones' became a thing of the past."  Based upon the recollections of Leonard Matthews, Ferdinand Garesche and Maurice Alexander, something like that should be easy enough to run down.  If it were true then Smith (pictured above) would have seized the grounds sometime in the spring or early summer of 1861.  Well...

I can't place Smith in St. Louis until 1869, when he moved to the city and served for a time as postmaster.  At the outbreak of the war, it appears that he was out west although he was named chief of cavalry in the Department of Missouri in 1862.  That's as close as I can get him in time and place to St. Louis.  It's possible that Smith may have moved his command through St. Louis before the Battle of Pilot Knob in 1864 but that's not exactly clear.  But there's no way that Smith could have seized Lafayette Park if he was commanding a unit of cavalry in California in 1861.  

Tobias has a similar story.  The Cyclones "enjoyed the benefit of the grounds for only a brief period as the war of the Rebellion had broken out, soldiers were being recruited and the military powers seized upon it as a fitting spot for an encampment."  I think I had kind of merged these two versions in my head and accepted that Tobias' "military powers" was Smith.  But that doesn't appear to be the fact.    

Louis Gerteis mentions the encampment at Lafayette Park in Civil War St. Louis:

By summer 1861, St. Louis had become the staging ground for federal military operations in the lower Mississippi Valley...The husband of Sarah Hill, a builder by trade, had joined the federal army and served throughout the war as an engineer.  She visited him at his camp in Lafayette Park..."Beautiful Lafayette Park," recalled Hill, "with its brilliant flower beds and stretches of green sward, looking like emerald velvet, was turned into a great military camp."

As I mentioned earlier, Smith moved to St. Louis after the war and he lived out the rest of his life in the city.  It's likely that Matthews, Alexander and/or Garesche knew him and confused the situation thirty five years after the fact.  That's certainly understandable.

The bottom line appears to be that the baseball grounds at Lafayette Park were seized by the military by the summer of 1861.  However, it was not done by the order of General A.J. Smith.

In the end, the seizing of the grounds is not as significant to the breakup of the Cyclone Club as is the outbreak of the war itself.  By May of 1861 and the Camp Jackson affair, you already have Merritt Griswold and Willie Walker serving with the Union forces in the city, Orville Matthews and Alex Crosman in the United States Navy, Basil Duke undertaking secret missions to arm the pro-Southern Missouri militia, Ed Bredell about to join the Confederate Army and Ferdinand Garesche in a Union military prison.  In my mind, Camp Jackson marks the end of the Cyclone Club and it appears that the Union army didn't begin to use Lafayette Park until after that.     

A Little History On Lafayette Park

One of the oldest parks in St. Louis, (Lafayette Park) is situated between Mississippi and Missouri, and Park and Lafayette Avenues. Its location is one and a half miles southwest of the courthouse, and it contains 29.95 acres. It was among the most beautiful and best shaded parks in the city until utterly desolated by the terrific tornado which swept over that portion of the city, May 27, 1896...Lafayette Park was a part of the St. Louis commons authorized by an act of the Legislature, passed in 1835, to be sold, the territory comprising the park having been reserved afterward by the city for that purpose. It was acquired from the city commons in 1844, and was dedicated and established as a park by an ordinance approved November 12, 1851. It was at first designated as Lafayette Square, and was known under that name for several years, until August 23, 1854, when the name was changed to Lafayette Park. Under the same ordinance a board of improvement was provided, which organized February 13, 1852. The first board consisted of Luther M. Kennett, then the mayor of the city; Samuel R. Curtis, city engineer; John C. Rust, Stephen D. Barlow and Edward Bredell. The ordinance made no appropriation, but was to take effect when $5000 should be subscribed and donated to inclose and plant the square. The property owners around the park then raised $8,173, which they paid into the board of improvement. With this money a plain paling fence was built around the park, and a large number of trees planted. In 1859 the city council made its first appropriation for the park, amounting to $2,000, and the same amount was set apart for their use the following year, a portion of which was utilized in laying out eight acres as a parade ground for use of the military companies of the city...

-Encyclopedia of the history of St. Louis


I almost jumped out of my seat when I read that Edward Bredell Sr. was on the board of improvements for Lafayette Park. The park had been used in the antebellum era as one of the earliest baseball grounds in St. Louis by the Cyclone and other clubs. Bredell's son, Edward Bredell Jr., and one of his employees, Merritt Griswold, were the founding members of the Cyclone Club and it seems likely that the elder Bredell may have had a role in steering them towards Lafayette Park as a potential place to play. I've always been interested in the elder Bredell's story. He's an interesting guy and, being a rather prominent citizen of St. Louis, there's a great deal of information about him out there. This piece of information may give me the excuse I've been looking for to write something up on him.

Also of interest to me is the amount of money being raised and the improvements going on around the time the Cyclones would have first been using the park. There are a couple of sources that mention the fact that the Cyclones and the other clubs raised money for improvements to the park to make it suitable for baseball. If memory serves, I believe that the clubs were given permission to use the park under the condition that they made some improvements to it. It seems that this was part of a larger program of improvements going on to the park at the time.

One more thing I should point out is the mention that the park had been originally part of the commons. This is something that I've mentioned before and believe to be rather significant. The availability in St. Louis of large areas of land, I believe, played a large role in the development of the game in the city. There was ample land available to play the game in antebellum St. Louis and this encouraged and enabled the creation of numerous clubs in a short period of time. One thing I've not really touched on but am beginning to look at is the transfer of parts of this common land into a public park system. This was a process that seems to have begun in the late 1830's and you see the results with not only Lafayette Park but Carr Park, the Fairgrounds, and other parks in the late antebellum period.