1878 Tecumseh, London ON (Tecumsehs)
This rendering is based on visual documentation for uniform style only. An educated guess is made on uniform color based on documentation from a related year. Important details may be missing or difficult to determine.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
One beautiful (and enigmatic) baseball image.
I love it when SABR members send me things. The other day I received the image below. It is a composite image (half photo/half illustration) depicting an 1878 game, and an image not often found in circulation. The setting is Tecumseh Park in London, Ontario. The teams: Tecumseh and Star of Syracuse, both of the International Association. The IA, in its second year of existence, was considered a near equal to the National League at this time.
If you have a few minutes, let’s see what this image can, and cannot, tell us.
Dated 1878. This amazing game scene featured the home team, Tecumseh, at bat and the visiting Syracuse team in the field. The grandstand and press box(?) to the left were situated at the north end of the grounds. Beyond the grandstand ran the Thames River, hidden from view. In the left field corner stood the lighthouse-like Sulphur Springs Bath House, located on the river’s edge. Beyond the ballpark, high on a bluff, loomed the formidable Middlesex County Courthouse. Image scan, image date, and identity of teams from the Library and Archives Canada, item PA-031482, which holds a black-and-white print of the original artwork.
Dated 1878, detail view of the photo. Note both the Tecumseh player and coach on the third base line. They were depicted wearing light gray uniforms (the Syracuse pitcher wore white). The front of the Tecumseh shirt displayed a small letter T, possibly positioned on a wide button placket. To date, no color description of the 1878 Tecumseh uniform has been found, however it is likely the stockings were red, the team’s traditional color.
Dated 1878, another detail view of the photo. This view zooms-in on the Tecumseh bench and, apparently, a super-focused umpire near home plate.
What makes this artwork remarkable is the amount of handwork that went into its creation. By my count there are 54 Londoners depicted in the foreground alone, each in various stages of conversation and game-watching. The grandstand behind the players held still many more patrons.
Dated 1878, another detail view of the photo. These men were positioned between home and first base.
I believe all of the players and spectators in this composite were photographic images, not illustrations. These individuals, over 100 in total, were likely photographed separately in studio. The prints were then carefully sized, cutout and positioned upon a large-scale illustration of the ballpark. The entire composition was then re-photographed. I wonder if the original artwork has survived. Does anyone know?
The composite was the creation of the Edy Brothers of London, Ontario: James N. (1843-1890), William D. (1832-1916) and William’s son, Eli (1864-1919). Their photography business began in Brantford, Ontario, and relocated to Dundas Street in London in 1878, the very year the composite print was made. (One source says the brothers came to London in 1879, another says the early 1880s.) At a Toronto exhibit in 1884, the judges pronounced the work of the Edy Bros. as “the finest in Canada.” In a business profile from 1890, the studio was proclaimed to have won “all the prizes at the London and Provincial Exhibitions during the last nine years.”
However, no specific mention of the Tecumseh Park print can be found in contemporary newspaper accounts. There were no reports, it seems, of local dignitaries being photographed, and no mention of the print being shown at the annual London exhibit. There was no listing of the image for sale at the photographer’s gallery, and no report of it on display in a local shop window. Over the last few weeks, several “Threads” researchers have looked for a mention, but no reports have surfaced. It is odd that an amazing piece of baseball art like this had no paper trail.
As accomplished as the print is, it is also charmingly quirky. The scale of the overall composition is clearly off — the players are too crowded together and also too big for the size of the diamond. The first basemen and right fielder seem to be standing in foul territory looking at the player’s bench. The bases look more like boulders than bases.
With no contemporary mention of the print, I began to wonder about the date of its creation. Was the given date of 1878 correct? London rejoined the International Association ten years later, in 1888 and 1889, and when Syracuse was also a member. Could this print be from then? To further this point, at the London Exhibition of September 1888, the London Advertiser noted that the Edy Bros. were responsible for “the finest display of photographic art ever made.” Was this the Tecumseh Park print?
How else could we date this photo? Sadly, the quality of the scan does not allow us to identify any of the players. The configuration of the grandstand matched a rendering of the park from the previous year of 1877. However, that led to a dead end as no known visuals of the park from later years exist. What about the courthouse? Coincidently, the building was expanded in size in 1878, the same year of our print. However (and strangely), the artist’s rendition of the building did not match photos from before or after the construction. Another dead end. We next studied bird’s-eye-view maps depicting the bath house in both 1872 and 1890. Results, inconclusive.
We were down to our last strike. That’s when the Thames River came swooshing by to provide a possible answer. Torrential summer rains on July 10-11, 1883, forced the river to overflow her banks, a regular occurrence according to newspapers of the period. The flood of 1883 was particularly vicious, killing at least 17 people. By one account in London, “cottages, fences, bridges, trees, horses, cattle and chickens were carried down the turbulent Thames.” The nearby ballpark was not spared.
A newspaper on July 11 reported that “the whole of Tecumseh Park, fences, stands, and houses, together with Massie’s boat house, all went down the river.” Another report stated, “all the effects of the London, Ontario, lacrosse club were swept away by the flood, including sticks, clubs, balls, etc. They were stored in Tecumseh Park, and were carried away with the buildings.” It seems that everything depicted in our print was washed away in 1883.
By late 1887, Tecumseh Park had been rebuilt. Newspapers tell us a football game was played there on October 15, 1887. On May 15, 1888, the park was rededicated as Tecumseh Athletic Park at the opening of the International Association season. However, par for the course, newspaper descriptions of the rebuilt park do not tell us much.
Chip Martin, author of The Tecumsehs of the International Association (2013), has written that after the 1883 flood, “home plate was relocated away from the river, to the westerly end of the ballpark,” and that any visual of the park where “home plate is at the northerly part of park would predate 1883.”
Yes, the details behind this image are certainly hard to come by — she holds her secrets well. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Tecumseh print is a true baseball treasure. If you have further details to share on this image, please send them my way.
Thank you for your time.
—Thanks to Bob Bailey for making me aware of the image, and to Chip Martin, Bill Humber, Steve Rennie, Robert K. Barney, Riley Nowokowski, Andy Terrick, Ed Morton and Barry Gray for their insights on the scene. Info on the Edy Brothers from photographersofontario.com and historiccamera.com. Report on “finest display” from the London Advertiser, September 29, 1888. Reports on the 1883 flood from the London Advertiser, July 11, 1883, and the Toronto Star, March 6, 1937. Report of lacrosse loss from the Ottawa Daily Citizen, July 21, 1883. Rebuilt park dedication from the Buffalo Express, May 16, 1888.
Visual documentation on this uniform:
See above
Written documentation on this uniform:
None
Team genealogy: Coming soon
Rendering posted: August 4, 2024
Diggers on this uniform: Andy Terrick, Chip Martin, Ed Morton, Steve Rennie,