1893 Franklin & Marshall Varsity Eleven

    Team roster : G.W. Hartman, '95, Left Tackle, T.F. Hermann, '95, Left Guard, A.H. Ginder, '96, Center, K.H. Stover, '97, Right Guard, T.H. Krick, '95, Right Tackle, M.E. Strour, '95, Right End, E.A. Cremer, '96, Quarterback, E.D. Lantz, '94, Right Half Back, J.B. Long, '97, Left Half Back, J.W.  Baker, '95, Full Back and Eugene P. Skyles, '95, Left End. Substitutes include C.E. Hower, '97,   J.P. Bachman, '96, R.F. Main, '94, J.F. Dechant, '96, W.E. Schaak, '96 and M.A. Kieffer, '96.

  Manager, J.T. Evans, '94.

The 1893 schedule of eight games (occurring September through November) included U Penn, Bucknell, Gettysburg, Dickinson, Haverford, Swarthmore, the Annapolis Cadets and the Second Eleven. The season tally was 5 wins, 2 losses and 1 tie. The losses were to U Penn (48 to 0) and to Annapolis (34 to 6), U Penn using F&M to bolster its number of total wins.

    

 One of the first early team football photos we ever picked up. An unusual vignette style photo; exceedingly rare to see the white background on a sports related cabinet photo of this period, which is indicative of a gelatin or collodion paper, rather than a  paper using an albumin binder (resulting in the brownish or sepia tones we are all used to seeing). Also of interest due to the inset photo of Captain Eugene P. Skyles, '95 and for the ribbon attached to the lower left of the mat.
   Photo measures 11 x 14 inches and the mat measures 18 x 22 inches.

 

                                                        Close up of team Captain Skyles.

                                                 
                                                           Close up of the ribbon

1891 Photo Of The Princeton Class of 1895 Freshman Football Team

Pach Bros. 1891 albumin of the freshman football team, Princeton class of 1895.

Some players of interest:

At the front of the grouping, lying on the ground is Thomas “Doggie” Gawthrop Trenchard. Trenchard prepared at Lawrenceville (see blog entries July 7, 2013, November 2, 2014 and January 18, 2016). He played on both the freshman baseball and football teams, and played varsity football for three years, captaining the Tigers in 1893 and 1894. He was named an All - American in 1893. After Princeton he went on to play for the Latrobe and Allegheny Athletic Associations.

Sitting behind Trenchard, holding the ball is Darwin “Jesse” Rush James, Jr. James captained the freshman football team and was a substitute for the varsity eleven. He also captained the University track team. He is well known to some of us for being in a photo with Johnny Poe and “Beef” Wheeler, all three  pretty banged up after a snowball fight with members of the class of ’94. Apparently the snowballs were formed around rocks.  A copy of that photo appears below, taken from the twenty-fifth year record of the class of 1895.

Back row, standing to the right is a Arthur “Beef” Ledlie Wheeler, who although a member of the class of ’95 graduated in 1896. He played on the varsity football team for four years, 1891-1894.

In the back row, 3^rd from the left is the mustached Lewis “PoP” Frederick Pease. Pease played for four years on the freshman team as well as the freshman scrub team.  We have never researched someone who belonged to more clubs and teams at college than Pease; he was a member of no less than fourteen.

Trenchard and Wheeler were two of the Princeton players featured on the 1894 Mayo Cut Plug card series.

Photo 10 x 13 1/2. This is the only example of this photo we have come across.

Brown University Class of 1899 and 1900 Freshman Football Teams

It turns out that many Brown teams had their photograph taken by Horton Bros., in Providence, Rhode Island. The identical painted background (as seen in this photo) was utilized in many of these photos from the mid 1890s. A number of those pictured in this photo went on to play with the varsity football team.

Measuring 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches.

Another Horton Bros. photo taken in 1895 of the 1899 Brown Freshman football team. This photo has the owner and team roster identified on the reverse. Photo measures approximately                       8 1/4" x 6 1/4".

1886 University of California Berkeley Football Team

Early UC football photos are virtually non-existent. This is due in part to football only being introduced in the 1880s, and 1886 being the first year football as we know it existed rather than variations of rugby played primarily against local clubs. Various sources cite different players as captaining the team, however the 1887 Blue and Gold, published in 1886 lists P.S. Woolsey as Captain. The team is made up of Rushers, Rothganger, Moffitt, O.S. Howard, Shoaf, Merrill and Wilbur, Quarterback, Bosse, Half-backs Turner and Woolsey, Three-Quarter Back Magee and Back, Blanchard.

This albumin photo measuring approximately 4 ¼” x 6” was actually set directly into the 1887 volume of the Blue & Gold, and is likely the earliest known UC football photo. This photo is earlier than anything pictured in either "66 Years of the California Gridiron", by Brodie, published in 1949, or in "100 Years of Blue & Gold", by Peters, published in 1982.

S.S. John P. Poe Liberty Ship Life Preserver

WW II Liberty ship life preserver from the S.S. John P. Poe, named for John Prentiss Poe Sr., Democratic political power and Attorney General of Maryland from 1891 to 1895. Poe was father to six sons who all played football while at Princeton (referenced throughout posts on this blog), several being named as All-American. His sons took part in and made their mark in other sports as well, including lacrosse, hockey and wrestling.

When researching the history of the Liberty Ships, we found it to be an absolutely fascinating subject. At the beginning of the 1940s, there was a critical need for cargo vessels to carry troops, vehicles, guns and munitions and other war related cargo. An emergency program was put in place to build a fleet of ships following the general rules of mass production, and 2710 ships were built in this fashion from 1941 to 1945 (one burned during construction, or the total would be 2711).

The largest of the shipyards manufacturing these ships was the Bethlehem – Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, where the S.S. John P. Poe was built, launching on July 25, 1942, hull number 0054. The Poe was scraped in 1972, which was later than most.

Only three of the Liberty Ships still exist, most having been scraped. During the war over two hundred of these ships were lost. The majority of the records show that this was due to causes such as torpedoes, bombardment, kamikazes, explosions and wrecks.

A very unusual find, and a fitting addition to our collection, this life preserver was found in St. Petersburg, Florida and was identified simply as “Original Antique Life Maritime Life Preserver Baltimore” - we were lucky to have come across it.

Wonderful New Website On Frank Hinkey

It is not often that we find what we consider a great football site, especially  from the perspective of bringing to light well executed historical research.

One such site, that is new to the internet, can be found at https://www.frankhinkey.com/ .  Well researched, photographed and scanned, it gives the reader information that cannot be found elsewhere. We greatly appreciate a researcher that shares such knowledge and does so on a subject that is of interest to all of us that collect, research or follow the early history of football, Frank Hinkey.

This is a wonderful site that we wholeheartedly recommend and we look forward to the updates as they are made.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Championship Team Photo 1888

MIT won the Eastern Inter-Collegiate Football Association title in 1887 and 1888 (co-winning in 1888 with Dartmouth who had the same win - loss record in league play).

Back row standing, left to right:  Charles Garrison, ’91, William M. Duane, ’89, Odin B. Roberts, ’88, Frank L. Dame, ’88, Richard Devens, ‘88

Middle row, seated: F. Goodhue, Jr., ’90, Edgar L. Hamilton, ’90, Frank M. Ladd, ’88, Robert C. Mitchell, ’91, Edward W. Herrick, ’88, P.H. Tracy, ’90, Clarence B. Vorce, ‘88

Front row, seated on ground: Frederick E. Ellis, ’88, Otto Germer Jr., ‘91

Photo approximately 10" x 15"

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