The First Amusement Col. Mayo Remembers

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


As this history of Edgar County was published in 1879, "fifty or sixty years ago" would put the playing of town ball in Paris, Illinois, at sometime in the 1820s.  Col. Jonathan Mayo moved to Paris Township in 1827, although it appears that he moved to Edgar County in 1817.  If we could date the reference to the sale of public lots in Paris, we'd have a better idea of when this game was played. 

And, again, this reference speaks to the ball-playing culture that existed in central Illinois in the decades prior to the Civil War.    

Town Ball In Pocahontas, Illinois

Football and baseball, as played today, 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.

-Illinois in the Fifties, or, A decade of Development, 1851-1860


References to town ball, like the one above, are fairly common.  They come from a variety of histories that were written in the last quarter of the 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century and are based on the recollections of people who were children during the settlement period of the Trans-Appalachian frontier.  So many of these references revolve around the subject's school days that it's fairly well established that town ball was one of the most popular games played by school children during the first half of the 19th century.  Sadly, most of the historical references to town ball come from these secondary sources and primary source references to the game, outside of Philadelphia, are rare.

I've collected a lot of these town ball references from secondary source material but this one stands out for one reason.  The writer, Charles Beneulyn Johnson, was writing about his childhood in Pocahontas, Illinois, which is maybe fifty miles east of St. Louis, and this is the first reference to town ball that I've seen from the area.  While there are not many primary source references to bat and ball games in St. Louis prior to 1859, I have found several references to games within a fifty to a hundred mile radius during the 1820-1850 period and I think that's significant.  If these games were being played in the general region, I would argue that this is evidence that they were being played in St. Louis.  It's not the conclusive evidence I'm looking for but it helps.

Also, I like Pocahontas.  It's a nice little town.  If you're ever there, stop at the Powhaten and get something to eat.  They have great food.           

The Young People Had Formed A Base Ball Club (And Enjoyed Themselves)

Our “Traveling Correspondent,” W.H. P., who is also a traveling correspondent of the New York Spirit of the Times, in a recent letter to that paper dated Havana, Ill., thus speaks of the excitement there on the “Base Ball” question:

I found the young people had formed a base ball club, and enjoyed themselves three times a week at the sport.  There were some good, and even expert players, and two or three would rank with the best at the North.  Among the members were the principal bankers, lawyers and merchants.  One evening last week an exciting match took place, playing commencing at four o’clock.  The court was in session, an important case was on; twenty-four hours had been occupied in selecting a jury, and among them was two members of the club.  The principal counsel was also a member, and all were itching to be out of the courtroom on the ground.  Every few minutes some one would come into court with a slip of paper of the game.  The excitement increased as cheers from the outside arose.  The solicitor could no longer withstand it and throwing down his “brief,” exclaimed, “Gentleman of the jury, d—m the case; I must see that base ball game played.”  The judge coincided and adjourned till candlelight, and all were soon on the ground, the jury being under the charge of the sheriff, were escorted to good position, the members being allowed to take part, and the game was finished satisfactorily. 

-Davenport Daily Gazette, April 10, 1861 

Havana is located on the Illinois River, about a hundred miles or so north of St. Louis, in Mason County.  

This is a real interesting reference that raises questions pertaining to how baseball spread across the United States.  We know that there was an active ball-playing community in Mason County, going back to the 1820s, and that town ball was a popular activity in the area.  So it's entirely possible that this is a town ball reference, with the local Havana variant simply being called "base ball."  However, the regulation game had reached Chicago and eastern Iowa by 1858 and St. Louis by 1859 so its possible that this is a reference to the regulation game being played in a small, rural, central Illinois town in 1861, as the Civil War was just breaking out.  The fact that the report appeared in Spirit of the Times, I think, supports the idea that this was the regulation game.     

And the idea that this was the regulation game fascinates me.  I think it's generally accepted that the regulation game spread far and wide before the Civil War but, for the most part, the spread was limited (outside of the Northeast) to the larger urban areas and that the game didn't reach the more rural areas until after the war.  St. Louis, Chicago and Davenport have the regulation game prior to the war but it doesn't reach Quincy, Illinois or Decatur until after the war.  That's the pattern of spread that's supported by the evidence that I've seen.  But this reference runs contrary to that general pattern.  Is our thinking wrong about when the game reached the rural West or is this just an outlier?  It's impossible to say but it's not out of the realm of possibility that they were playing the New York game in Havana in 1861.  Stranger things have happened. 

One thing I should point out is the possibility that the story is not true.  The whole thing seems to be a tall tale and I have serious doubts about most of the facts reported in the story.  That doesn't necessarily mean that the report of a baseball club in Havana is false and it may have just been the device upon which the writer hung his tale.  But the rest of it just seems like a country bumpkin story told to entertain New Yorkers.          

Town Ball In Ste. Genevieve During The Civil War

The acting Coroner of this county was called upon, on Friday last, to hold an inquest upon the body of Eli La Rose, who was most cruelly murdered on the day before by John Criswell of this county. The circumstances as appears by the weight of testimony before the inquest were about these: Young La Rose was engaged playing a game of town ball, on an old field in the town of New Bourbon, with nearly all the men and boys of the town. Having run until he was somewhat exhausted, threw himself down on the grass to rest. Lying upon his right side, he placed his elbow upon the ground and rested his head upon the palm of his hand. In this position, Criswell approached him from the rear and commenced his blow with a stick, with such rapidity, that three blows had been struck before he could be reached by those nearest to them. The blows fell upon the left temple, first of which most likely done the work; and most strange to say, that the skull was neither broken, nor the head moved from the position on the hand. Death ensued from concussion of the brain...He lived about fourteen hours.  

It seems that on two former occasions there had been difficulties between the them. The last time it came to blows, when the deceased knocked Criswell down, both being somewhat intoxicated. When the death blows were struck, the other day, Criswell rather exultingly said, "you are the fellow I have been after this long while. Let that learn you know how to strike a drunk man with a slug shot."   

The murderer is yet at large. He took with him his only son, a boy about ten or twelve years old.--[Ste. Genevieve Plaindealer.]

-Missouri Republican, June 8, 1862


I was going through my notes and found this rather horrific story about a murder that took place just outside of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, which is about fifty miles south of St. Louis and was the first city founded by Europeans west of the Mississippi.  Obviously, the point of all of this is not the murder but the setting of the murder - a Civil War era town ball game in Ste. Gen.

The continued popularity of town ball during this era is rather interesting.  The regulation game had taken roots in the major urban centers of the West in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of the war but town ball was still being played in St. Louis through the war years.  I spent a lot of time searching through Civil War journals and letters and there were substantially more references to games of town ball than there was to baseball.  This, I think, speaks to the popularity of bat and ball games in the United States in the antebellum era and, also, to the idea that the regulation game had not penetrated much past the major urban areas of the West.  That fact has always led me to think that the war disrupted the natural evolutionary spread of the regulation game and that baseball would have reached the more rural areas of the West in the early 1860s if the war had not broken out.

Also, this goes to the idea that there was nothing predetermined about the spread of the regulation game - people across the nation had their own bat and ball games that they played and enjoyed and they did not have to give those up for baseball.  That they did so is fascinating and something that demands a great deal more research and study.    
 

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.        

The Lincoln Baseball Legend: The Great Ball Player

Sometimes on sunny afternoons, such as those in early June [1856,] Ben McQueston, a clerk at J.W. Matheny's store, would call up the stairway to the law office, "Mr. Lincoln, we are going to play ball." Unless something very pressing was on the table, Lincoln gladly trotted down to a field with the others and played whatever game was on, often a version of "town ball" or rudimentary baseball. "Everybody played ball," McQuestion said. "There was nothing incongruous about a leading lawyer like Lincoln joining in with tradesmen, clerks, and professional men for an afternoon's amusement. Everyone had time for recreation and business did not suffer."

-The Case of Abraham Lincoln

The source for this story, which appears in a book about one of Lincoln's more interesting legal cases, was a newspaper article in the February 18, 1920 Weekly Kansas City Star that was entitled "Fought Fires with Lincoln Sixty-Five Years Ago." McQueston, a resident of Springfield, was a member of a volunteer fire company, serving with Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln Great Ball Player

Decatur, Ills., February 16.-That Abraham Lincoln was a great ball player as the game was played in those days, is the statement of Mrs. Rachel Billington, who on February 12 celebrated her ninetieth birthday. Mrs. Billington lived only a few doors away from the Lincoln family at Springfield and also knew the statesmen later as a lawyer in Decatur. "In those days," says Mrs. Billington, "the batter stood with his back to a wall and Lincoln could hit the ball every time it was pitched to him."

-Sporting Life, February 21, 1914

The most interesting thing to me here is that the game that Mrs. Billington saw played had the batter standing against the wall. When I was a kid, many of the versions of ball that we played, most notably corkball, was played with the batter hitting in front of a wall. You didn't need a catcher that way and you could also chalk out the strike zone on the wall. In fact, the old Illinois Bell building in downtown Granite City, Illinois (in whose parking lot many a games of corkball were played) for a long time had a spray-painted strike zone on the wall (the work, I imagine, of some baseball-playing vandal; and, no, it wasn't me).

As I've mentioned before, Lincoln, when he moved to Illinois, arrived in a community that had a vibrant ballplaying culture. A baseball variant, that the locals specifically remembered as being called town ball, was played in central Illinois in the 1820s and 1830s. Other ball games that were played during the antebellum era included bullpen, cross out and long town. I mentioned in a previous post that Lincoln had a reputation as a being a good fives player. Ball playing was a large part of the culture of central Illinois and it would have been atypical of Lincoln not to take part in these games.

Lincoln was a large man, standing six foot four, and was uncommonly tall for his time. While thin, he was a solidly built man, having spent his youth as a farmer and laborer, and was known for having great strength. Andrew Kirk, who was interviewed by Herndon in 1887, remembered Lincoln picking up and throwing a cannon ball. There's a famous story about the young Lincoln arriving in New Salem and engaging in and winning a wrestling match with the strongest and toughest young man in the area. There are also plenty of stories about Lincoln winning foot races. What one has to take away from all the evidence is that Lincoln was a very good, natural athlete.

A good athlete and living in a community of ball players, it's almost unthinkable that Lincoln would not have played baseball and, as I've shown above, there is plenty of evidence that he did. Lincoln's friends and neighbors were unambiguous on that point:

I knew Lincoln as early as 1834...We played old fashioned town ball...Lincoln played town ball...Lincoln was a good player-could catch a ball...

-James Gourly, interviewed by William Herndon in 1865 and 1866

Did Lincoln play the New York version of baseball that became all the rage in the late 1850s? There is no evidence to suggest that he did and it's highly unlikely. It's possible that he saw the game played in Illinois in the late 1850s and likely that he saw the game when he lived in Washington but there is no evidence that he ever played the New York game. However, Lincoln did play a local version of baseball that the people of central Illinois called town ball. There is plenty of evidence that Lincoln was a ballplayer and that he was a rather good one.

One more thing I should mention: There's a great deal of evidence of ballplaying in Illinois before Lincoln arrived and while he was living there. Having looked at a lot of the sources, it's easy to speak intelligently about that. There is much less evidence of ballplaying in Indiana and Kentucky during Lincoln's youth. I've looked at some of the local histories and haven't found much and what little I did find was about southwestern Indiana. However, in 1866, Herndon interviewed Burnbry B. Lloyd, who appears to have known the Lincolns while they lived in Kentucky. Lloyd mentioned that people in Kentucky, during that time, played ball and specifically mentioned "corner ball, called bullpen, cat & town ball."

This is significant for two reasons. First, this is evidence that Lincoln was exposed to ball games from a very young age and may have participated in these games while a child in Kentucky. More importantly, if Lloyd is speaking about Kentucky during the time when Lincoln lived there, as he appears to be doing, then this is evidence of ballplaying in western Kentucky prior to 1816. This would be the earliest reference to baseball in the West that I've seen and, combined with the Gratiot reference, presents a portrait of a ballplaying culture in the West that goes back to the 18th century. I'll have to put up a specific post on this once I do some more digging. But I'm very intrigued by the Lloyd reference.

The Lincoln Baseball Legend: Postville

A fire in 1857 destroyed Logan County's records, so little is known about the cases Lincoln handled at Postville. Once, when Lincoln was absent from a court session, Judge Treat sent the sheriff, Dr. Deskins, to find him. Deskins finally found Lincoln in Postville Park, "playing town ball with the boys."

-In Lincoln's Footsteps

Postville, Illinois was the county seat of Logan County and was part of the Eighth Judicial Circuit that Lincoln travelled while practicing law. Riding the circuit, Lincoln would have been in Postville twice a year from 1839 to 1847. Among all the Lincoln baseball stories that have been collected, the Postville reference was new to me and, considering that I found it in a book published in 2002, I was rather skeptical about it.

The earliest reference to Lincoln playing town ball in Postville that I've found occurs in a footnote in Honest Abe by Alonzo and John Rothschild, which was published in 1911. Supposedly, Lincoln was representing a client in Postville who, while testifying, was caught in lie. When his client was proven to have been untruthful, Lincoln got up and left the courtroom. When Judge Treat noticed Lincoln's absence, he sent the sheriff to go find him and bring him back. The sheriff, according to the main text of Honest Abe, found Lincoln in a tavern across the street from the courthouse, with his feet up on the stove. When informed that the judge wanted him back in the courtroom, Lincoln answered that he couldn't return. "My hands are dirty and I came over here to clean them," Lincoln was reported to have said.

This, of course, is an anecdote about Lincoln's character and honesty. The saintly Lincoln could not abide representing a client who would lie on the stand and he felt personally sullied by doing so. Another version of the story states that when Judge Treat heard what Lincoln had said, he exclaimed "Honest Abe" thus coining a nickname. The figure of speech that Lincoln used in responding to the sheriff may have been first attributed to Horace Binney, a prominent 19th century lawyer from Philadelphia, and then later incorporated into the Lincoln legend. In the notes, the story is attributed to Ward Lamon, one of Lincoln's law partners, and Francis F. Browne, whose Lincoln biography was published in 1914.

Also in the notes, however, it states that "According to [Stringer,] Lincoln was found, not at the tavern, but in the Postville Park, playing townball with the boys." "Stringer," although not mentioned in the bibliography, is most likely Lawrence Stringer, who wrote a history of Logan County that was published in 1911 and included a chapter on Lincoln. I haven't had an opportunity to check Stringer's history and can't say what his source is.

The Postville town ball story simply does not have the ring of truth about it. Abraham Lincoln walked out on a case because he was morally upset about his client's lack of veracity and then a short while later was found playing town ball. I don't buy it. The fact that there are multiple versions of the story that contradict each other also adds to my skepticism as does the fact that the entire story seems to have been constructed to support the image of the saintly Lincoln. The entire thing smells of Lincoln the legend rather than Lincoln the man.

However, I don't discount completely the possibility that Lincoln may have played town ball in Postville. It was not out of character for Lincoln, even after becoming a successful attorney, to do so. Tomorrow, I'll present some of the evidence that supports the idea that Lincoln played town ball. But as far as this specific Postville reference is concerned, I believe that it's a piece of myth-making.

The Lincoln Baseball Legend: The Notification Story

How Lincoln Received The Nomination.-When the news of Lincoln's nominations 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 tall Sucker went home to think of his chances.

-Daily Evening Bulletin, June 16, 1860

During the sitting of the convention Lincoln had been trying, in one way and another, to keep down the excitement which was pent up within him, playing billiards a little, town ball a little, and story-telling a little.

-Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1

A while back I picked up a copy of David Herbert Donald's biography of Abraham Lincoln. It was recommended to me as the best modern biography of our sixteenth president and I agree that it's a fine work. With my interest in 19th century baseball, I read the book with one eye on anything baseball related and while there is nothing specifically baseball related mentioned, there were a few things that I thought were of interest.

One of the more interesting things was Donald's description of the process by which Lincoln gained the 1860 Republican presidential nomination and what Lincoln was doing while the convention was in session:

While the Republican National Convention was in session, Lincoln went quietly about his business in Springfield, but he eagerly sought to learn what was going on in Chicago. Up early on Friday, May 18, the day when nominations were to be made, he passed some time playing "fives"-a variety of handball-with some other men in a vacant lot next to the Illinois State Journal office. Learning that James C. Conkling had unexpectedly returned from Chicago, he went over to his law office to hear the latest news from the convention. Stretched out on an old settee, so short that his feet stuck out over the end, he listened to Conkling's prediction that Seward could not be nominated and that the convention would choose Lincoln. Lincoln demurred, unwilling to tempt fate by being overoptimistic, and said that either Bates or Chase would probably be the choice. Getting up, he announced: "Well, Conkling, I believe I will go back to by office and practice law.

At the Lincoln & Herndon office Baker, of the Illinois State Journal, came in with telegrams announcing that the names of the candidates had been placed in nomination and that Lincoln's was received with great enthusiasm. Shortly afterward, a new telegram announced the result of the first ballot...Giving no indication of his feelings, Lincoln went over to the telegraph office, where a report on the second ballot was just coming in...Lincoln then awaited the results of the third ballot in the Journal office. As he had anticipated this was the last ballot. Seward retained most of his strength, but nearly all the other delegates flocked to Lincoln...

"I knew this would come when I saw the second ballot," Lincoln remarked as he accepted the congratulations of his fellow townsmen. Emerging from the Journal office, he said jokingly to the ball players who broke off their game to congratulate him: "Gentlemen, you had better come up and shake my hand while you can-honors elevate some men." Then he headed for home, explaining: "Well Gentlemen there is a little woman at our house who is probably more interested in this dispatch than I am."

Donald's source for this information comes from Jess Weik's The Real Lincoln. Weik's was also the co-writer of Herndon's Lincoln or, as it's officially titled, Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner at the time of the nomination, did an extraordinary amount of research into Lincoln's life, beginning shortly after the assassination in 1865. Over a twenty year period, he conducted interviews with the people who knew Lincoln (including family, friends, neighbors, enemies, etc.) and it's this collection of primary source material that Weik's transformed into what is probably the most important biography of Lincoln ever written. So Donald, for his story of the Lincoln notification, went, in Weik, to probably the best source he could. While I haven't been able to ascertain whether or not Herndon was an eyewitness to any of this (he and Lincoln had had a bit of a falling out during the campaign), Herndon did know all the people who were with Lincoln on the day of the nomination and interviewed many of them. And Weik was working off of Herndon's notes as well as his own research.

I happen to have a copy of Weik's Lincoln biography. He described Lincoln, on May 18, as being, naturally enough, nervous and restless. He then gives E.L. Baker's account of that day. Baker was the editor of the "Springfield Journal" and was with Lincoln for a great deal of the day:

Met Lincoln and we went to ball alley to play at fives-alley was full-said it was pre-engaged; then went to excellent beer saloon near by to play game of billiards; table was full and we each drank a glass of beer; then went to Journal office expecting to hear result of ballot...

I can go on and on with accounts from people who were with Lincoln on May 18, 1860 and not one person mentions town ball. The Lincoln notification town ball story is simply not true. Lincoln was not playing town ball when he was notified that he had won the Republican nomination for president.

How and why that story developed and spread is rather interesting but is the subject for another time. I am absolutely fascinated by the legend that developed around Lincoln and how that merged with the legends about the origins of baseball. You have apotheosis and myth-making and nationalism and the bloody flag and economic interests all coming together at the same time to create a Lincoln baseball myth. One of the interesting things about it is that there is some reality behind the legend. It wasn't made up out of whole cloth. I'm finding it interesting to separate the facts from the legend and trace the development of the legend. But, again, that's a post another day.

As far as the notification story is concerned, the fact is that Lincoln was not playing town ball that day. He did appear to want to play fives, which he was rather good at, but was unable to because the court was already in use and did play some billiards. So Lincoln did play "ball" on the day of his nomination but it was billiards rather than baseball. Also, there was a delegation that came to Springfield to inform him officially of his nomination (a fact that plays a part in another version of the notification story). They arrived in Springfield on May 19 at seven o'clock in the evening and found Lincoln at his home, where he was officially notified that he was the Republican nominee for president. Again, he was not playing town ball when this happened.

The Lincoln notification story is a legend and did not happen. It appears that there are some facts surrounding the events of May 18, 1860 that were misconstrued and misinterpreted, leading to the creation of the legend. But we have more than sufficient primary source material to reconstruct what Lincoln was doing on the day he was nominated and the bottom line is that he was not playing town ball.

Note: The image at the top of the post comes from the Albert Spalding collection and shows Lincoln being notified of his nomination while playing town ball. Spalding, of course, had a large roll in the creation of the both the Lincoln baseball legend and the baseball origin legend.

A Spirited Game Of Old Town Ball

All the Deputy Sheriff's, Marshall's and some of the clerks at the Court House went out on Franklin avenue, near 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, May 4, 1860

This is the first reference to town ball in a contemporary St. Louis newspaper that I've found.

Edmund Tobias, in his history, mentions that town ball was popular in St. Louis and played in the antebellum period prior to the advent of the New York game in the city.  Also, there's a hint in his writings that the Excelsior Club had previously been a town ball club.  Richard Perry, in 1887, and Merritt Griswold, in 1911, both mentioned that the Morning Star had played town ball.  So we certainly knew that town ball, or some form of base ball, was being played in St. Louis prior to the introduction of the New York game.  Now, however, we have contemporary evidence that the game was being played in 1860 and that it was a "revival" of a game played in the past.  

The extent to which the game was played, how popular it was, and when it was first played in St. Louis remains unknown.