Monday, July 31, 2023

Princeton Football Tintype C.T. Wood c.1891


 Sized somewhere between a ninth and a sixteenth plate, this somewhat smaller tintype exemplifies rarity. As we have pointed out in other posts in this blog, football tintypes are difficult to find, and those with identifiable sitters are exceedingly rare.

This tintype pictures Clinton Tyler Wood, Princeton ’92, who played for the University Eleven in 1889, ‘90 and ’91. In 1889 he was listed as a rusher, left tackle and right tackle in various game rosters. In 1890 he was listed as a left tackle and in 1891 as a halfback.

A wonderfully clear image.

Please see related blog entries dated August 11, 2013, November 3, 2014, October 19, 2016, October 25, 2019.

Thursday, July 27, 2023

1899 Harvard Freshman Football Team Photo - Class Of 1903

 

This is an unusual class football photo in that nine of it’s sitters went on to play for the varsity.  Usually one might see just two or three. I labelled most of those that went on to play for the University Eleven in this wonderful oversized (16” x 20”, with mat) Pach Bros albumin photo. On the mat is the score against the Yale freshman team; Harvard 54, Yale 0, the game having taken place November 25th, 1899.

Edward Bowditch, played on the varsity in ’00, ’01, ’02 and ’03. In 1901 he was a second team All-American and in 1902 and 1903 he was a first team All-American. He was also named to the exclusive Harvard All-Time Player Squad, as an end, in 1903. Bowdich's father, also Edward, Harvard class of 1869, was a founding member of the Oneida Football Club, and one of the seven surviving members when the Oneida Football Monument was placed in the Boston public Garden in 1923. "Walter camp of Yale, football authority, acknowledged the Oneida were the first to organize football in this country. Parke Davis, Princeton '93, in his exhaustive book on football, published in 1911 gives the earliest date of an intercollegiate game as 1869, the game between Princeton and Rutgers, seven years after the organization of the Oneida club." (quote from The Boston Globe, November 7, 1923).

Thomas Hetherington Graydon played for the varsity in ’00, ’01 and ’02, and was a first team All-American in 1901 and 1902.

Daniel Knowlton played for the varsity in ’02, ’03 and ’05, when he was acting captain. Knowlton was a second team All-American in 1902 and a first team All-American in 1903. He was also named to the exclusive Harvard All-Time Players Squad, as a tackle, in 1903. Knowlton was on the Committee of Football H Men, and was heavily involved in contributing to and distributing Morris Bealle’s book “The History of Football at Harvard". Knowlton is pictured in this book opposite page 512. We have more than a passing interest in Knowlton as he and his family were from the small town in Massachusetts that I raised my sons in.

Walter Smith Sugden, played for the varsity in 1902.

John Dudley Clark, played for the varsity in 1900 and 1902.

David Alonzo Baldwin played for the varsity in 1901.

Leo Jameson Daly, played for the varsity in 1902.

Alfred Stillman, played for the varsity in 1900 and 1902. He also played varsity baseball in 1900, 1901, 1902 and 1903.

Guy Lincoln Jones, played for the varsity in 1901.

Additional class football team members include:

McGrew

Hersey

Derby

Sprague

McDonald

Randolph

Riggs

Fox

Waterbury

Knowles