1894 Gold Championship Charm - A.N. Jerrems, Yale

1894 championship gold charm belonging to A.N. Jerrems of Yale. The 1894 Yale team was unbeaten and untied. What makes this charm intriguing is that it has engraved on it the scores for that year of the Yale - Princeton game (24 to 0) and importantly the Yale -  Harvard game (12 to 4), better known as the “Bloodbath at Hampden Park”. This game, one of the most notable and most violent games of the nineteenth century resulted in a cessation of play between H and Y for the next two years. Varying accounts of the game had at least six players hurt seriously enough to be taken from the game and two players removed for slugging.

Some of the more significant injuries included:  

Wrightington, broken collar bone (kneed by Louis (not Frank) Hinkey)

Hallowell broken nose (care of Fred Murphy)

Fred Murphy head injury (taken from the field on a cot),

Charles Brewer broken leg

Al Jerrems head injury

Butterworth head injury (poked in eye by Bert Waters)

Slugging Hayes and Armstrong 

Reading the accounts of the injuries, Jerrems is usually listed as suffering a head injury, but a unique account in “Outlook”, Dec 1, 1894 in an article entitled “The Harvard – Yale Game”, a firsthand account is as follows: “I had a near view of Jerrems (Yale) who was writhing about suffering from a kick to the groin, which will probably prevent his playing again this year, if ever.” Jerrems did return to play for Yale the following year.

A neat and rare memento inclusive of the Harvard-Yale game of 1894.

Some of the blue enamel is the worse for wear, likely caused by years of use and cleaning and polishing.