Historic Pelham

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

What Was Travers Island Like in 1888 Before the New York Athletic Club Built its First Clubhouse?

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.
Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.
Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."

Travers Island has been known by many, many names. It has been known as Hog Island, Hogg Island, Sheffield Island, Mills Island, Emmet Island, Emmett Island, Sedgemere and, finally, Travers Island.

In the 1880s, the New York Athletic Club leased country grounds for outdoor activities in Mott Haven, now part of the Bronx. During that time, William R. Travers, who served as President of the club beginning in 1883 until the time of his death in 1886, pushed the club to purchase a suitable second home in the country for the club. With the lease for the Mott Haven grounds expiring, in 1886, the New York Athletic Club formed a special committee to find a site for the club's second home. The committee settled on an idyllic and beautiful island off the shore of Pelham Manor that was, at the time, attached to the mainland only by a simple, narrow causeway. At the time, the island was most frequently referred to locally as "Mills Island," "Emmet's Island," and as "Sedgemere."

1884 Advertisement Offering the Two Principal Cottages on

"Mills Island" (Today's Travers Island) For Rent. Source:

TO RENT -- MILLS ISLAND, The Evening Post [NY, NY],

May 5, 1884, p. 2, col. 9. NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

As the work of the New York Athletic Club's Historian for Travers Island, Mark Gaffney, has shown, no one named Mills nor Emmet ever owned the island. Rather, people of those names leased the two principal structures on the island for a number of years. It seems that after John Hunter acquired the island in 1836, the Hunter family began leasing it while living on (and near) Hunter's Island. There was a cottage on the island that was located on land now covered by a portion of the clubhouse that stands on today's Travers Island. That home was leased to Robert Edgar, then to William S. Hoyt, and to Edward T. Potter, a well-known architect and musical composer. The cottage thus became known as the Potter House.

In about 1867, William Jenkins Emmet (a collateral descendant of famed Irish Patriot Robert Emmet), bought the home that still stands at 145 Shore Road overlooking a portion of Travers Island. Emmet also leased the Potter House and maintained that lease during the 1860s and 1870s. Members of the Emmet family referred to the island as "Sedgemere." Others began referring to it as Emmet Island and Emmet's Island.

"THE POTTER HOUSE." Source: Hackett, Owen, THE

ISLAND HOME OF ATHLETICS, Munsey's Magazine, Vol. VII,

No. 10, p. 392 (Jul. 1892). NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

"ORIGINAL WELL-BEFALL HALL." in the Potter House. Source:

Hackett, Owen, THE ISLAND HOME OF ATHLETICS, Munsey's

Magazine, Vol. VII, No. 10, p. 393 (Jul. 1892). NOTE: Click on

Image to Enlarge.

At the time of his death, John Hunter bequeathed to his widowed daughter, Mary Mills, a life estate to the island (hence Mills Island). After the death of Mills in the 1870s, and the expirations of the last remaining leases to any property interests on the island in the early 1880s, the Hunter family was ready to sell the island although -- as the real estate advertisement set forth above shows -- the family made occasional efforts to lease the two cottages on the island.

The N.Y.A.C. Special Committee appointed to find a suitable second home for the club finally settled on Sedgemere Island. Members of the club voted in 1887 to acquire the island. The club completed its purchase of the island on January 13, 1888 for $58,500 and, initially, toyed with the idea of using the name "Sedgemere Island" for the site. With the recent death of club President William R. Travers, however, the club decided to name the island in his honor.

What was it like on Travers Island in the first few months of 1888, before the Club built its first clubhouse? In addition to the Potter House pictured above, there was a second cottage known as the Hunter House. The Hunter House was named after John Hunter who remodeled the structure, reportedly built in the early 19th century, after he first bought the island in 1836. On April 4, 1889, a tragic fire burned the lovely Old Hunter House. The New York Athletic Club was still developing Travers Island at the time and the old home had been converted into apartments. Among those living there was Thomas Toby, the island superintendent who oversaw laborers working on the island. I have written about that fire before. See:

Fri., Nov. 18, 2016: Photographs of the Old Hunter House on Travers Island Before it Burned in 1889.

Wed., Nov. 16, 2016: More on the 1889 Fire that Destroyed the Hunter House on Travers Island.

Thu., Feb. 19, 2009: The Old Hunter House Burns to the Ground in an Arson Incident on Travers Island on April 4, 1889.

"'HUNTER HOUSE.' Travers Island Club House in 1888."

Source: HUNTER HOUSE, The Winged Foot, Jul. 1913, p. 9,

cols. 1-2. NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

An informative article published in the May 6, 1888 issue of the New York Herald paints an entertaining and informative picture of what Travers Island was like in the first few months it was owned by the New York Athletic Club. Clearly lively and chaotic was construction underway with men using horses as beasts of burden to transform the contours of the land and shape it to suit the club's needs. A one-fifth mile track was under construction.

By early May, a baseball field had been constructed. According to the article:

"There is also a ball ground like a saucer. Two of its sides are surrounded with trees and big rocks, affording an elevation -- in the shade, too -- that will make a delightful coign of vantage for the spectators at a game."

"THE BALL FIELD"

Source: ON TRAVERS ISLAND -- SUMMER HOME OF THE NEW

YORK ATHLETIC CLUB, The Daily Graphic [New York, NY],

Jun. 8, 1889, cols. 1-5. NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

The club also quickly built tennis courts on the elevated hillside overlooking the baseball field. The New York Herald article mentioned plans to light the tennis courts with electric lights.

In these early months, as the club shaped the contours of the new grounds and prepared the landscape on which to begin building its new clubhouse after the summer recreation season ended, there still were beautiful vestiges of the lovely estates that once had been cultivated as homes on the island. Gravel walkways crossed the grounds. Beautiful flowers throughout the island included wild violets, lovely roses, and snowdrops. Spectacular Box Hedges (Bruxus), considered "relics of Colonial days" when formal gardens may have dotted the grounds, could be found in many spots. There were many examples of the "Bluebottle Flower," also known as the Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), a lovely flower native to Europe. Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens), an aromatic evergreen creeping vine, added beauty to the island as well.

In short, in the first three months of 1888, Travers Island was changing from a quaint, beautiful, and idyllic island setting to an lovely country club setting for outdoor -- and indoor -- athletics. As one might expect, in those early cold weeks of the year, the island was lively with the activity of laborers preparing the grounds for summer athletes who would use the two cottages during training and athletics until the new clubhouse could be completed and opened the following year.

* * * * *

Below is the text of the New York Herald article referenced in today's posting to the Historic Pelham Blog. The text is followed by a citation and link to its source.

"THE ATHLETES' SUMMER HOME.
'TRAVERS' ISLAND' TO RING WITH THE SHOUTS OF MEN OF MUSCLE.

Around a beautiful promontory in Westchester county flow the waters of the Sound. From the shores of Pelham, about ten miles out from New York, the scene it presents is one of the liveliest; men and horses busily engaged in ripping up the vivid turf and laying bare and raw, like the surgeon's scalpel on the arm of a giant, the under strata of clay. Rocks and trees appear to have been rent and uprooted, and yet withal out of the chaos there are cropping signs of a wonderful improvement. At present the place is known as Emmet Island. In a few weeks it will be rechristened Travers Island, in commemoration of the late William R. Travers, and thenceforth it shall be the country home of the New York Athletic Club.

A town house for all time and a rural seat for the summer is what this renowned athletic organization proposes to boast just as soon as the workmen have completed their task of renovation at the lovely spot the men of muscle have selected up amid the fields and forests and warring waters of the annexed district, Ex-Commissioner of Education Eugene H. ('Pop') Pomeroy is chairman of the Island Committee having the alterations in charge -- a committee composed of Jennings S. Cox, A. T. Sullivan, Otto Ruhl, R. W. Rathborn and W. G. Schuyler. Away back in the numeral days, when the century and the country were alike in their infancy, the island was known as Hogg Island; then it became 'to all men by these presents' Sheffield Island, after Captain Sheffield, a shipbuilder; and next, when Mary Mills obtained it, the gallant trees and stones and lands assumed her name. Thomas Addison Emmet acquired the ground and lived upon it for twenty years on a lease from old John Hunter, and hence came the title under which the island has, in latter years, braved the storms and smiles of all kinds of weather, and from which the New York Athletic Club has claimed it at a purchase price of $60,000.

'WELL BEFALL.'

There are two houses already on the island, containing respectively eighteen and twenty rooms, and holding the proud record of having been the residence of Mr. Hunter and Mr. E. C. Potter. With the wild violets that hold up their lips to the dew, lining the gravel walks; the tiny petaled snowdrops, lining the hedges of box, relics of Colonial days, the almost extinct bluebottle flower and the vines of trailing arbutus, these old manor mansions will be restored and preserved and held for occupancy until time claims their dust. In one of them is a big chimney that once the forge of a smithy around which, 'tis said, the house was erected, and by craning the neck into the fireplace and turning the eyes upward can be seen the azure dome of heaven. 'Well befall hearth and hall,' the motto on the fireplace at the Queen's home at Balmoral, is plainly inscribed on the chimney pieces, and in perpetuation of the antiquity Mr. Pomeroy, with a poetic spirit that is refreshing, has given the house the name 'Well Befall.' Wherever it is possible the natural beauty of the island will be maintained in bowlder, shrub and grove.

A PERMANENT TRACK.

'What we aim to get,' said Mr. Pomeroy, as he picked up a wild rose bush and looked at it, with a regretful glance at the ploughshare nearby, 'is a real, genuine country home. In a few years there will be no track available in New York, as the land must become too valuable for such a use. Now we shall be possessed of a permanent ground, opposite the new Pelham Park, where we can enjoy ourselves for all time unmolested by trade or commerce. Travers Island is only one hour and ten minutes from the City Hall in New York and it will be easily accessible by cars or boats, coach, horseback or yacht or scull. It is proposed to spend $100,000 in improvements. House and field will be lighted by electricity, so that, if desirable, a game of tennis may be played at night. No, we will not make our own electricity; it will be obtained, with the water, from New Rochelle.

'Do you intend to build a new club house?' was asked as Mr. Ruhl came along with Sinclair Myers, who held bouquets of white and yellow blossoms in their clay-covered hands.

'Yes, but we don't think it wise to begin until late in the season, so as not to break up the summer sport. These workmen are excavating a track one-fifth of a mile long at a cost of $15,000. There is also a ball ground like a saucer. Two of its sides are surrounded with trees and big rocks, affording an elevation -- in the shade, too -- that will make a delightful coign of vantage for the spectators at a game. There is new tennis court on top of that hill -- an exquisite spot in a grove of trees, something like the ring at the bottom of a bowl. The Hunter House is to be at the head of the race track, as you see, and in front of it those trees there are the handsomest white oaks in New York State.'

A NEW STYLE ARCHITECTURE.

Going up to the New Rochelle end of the island Mr. Pomeroy impersonated the tempter. And well he might in such surroundings. Forty feet above high water were seven acres of the loveliest and most luxurious verdure studded with diamond sparkling rocks, whence could be obtained an unobstructed view into the misty distances of the upper Sound.

'We are going to have a band of music play for us all summer,' said Mr. Pomeroy, with a humorous twinkle.

'What!' exclaimed Harvey Kennedy, the 'Byronic Apollo' of the club.

'Yes. Don't you hear it? The David's Island band.'

Mr. Pomeroy was decorated like unto poor old King Lear by the young men he had fooled, but they love him so that he could not object. There were sounds of a bugle; sounds, broken by the space between, like the peevish crying of a child.

'A rowing course, good in all weather, will be laid out around this end of the island,' resumed Mr. Pomeroy. 'At high tide it will be two miles straight ahead. A boat house is to be erected in the cove, on dry land, supported on piers. It will be just 100 feet square, with five compartments for shells, &c., and two stories high, and contain six hundred lockers, each provided with a combination lock. A shop for boat building and repairs is to be included. In front of the boat house there will be a float, 100 by 25 feet, and at the very lowest tide the water at its edge is sixteen feet deep.'

'What style of architecture?'

'Square style.'

WHAT MORE DOES A MAN WANT.

The new club house will stand on the Pelham end of the island on a rocky prominence, also forty feet above the water level. It will be T shaped and cut up into bowling alleys, billiard rooms and sleeping rooms in the T wing, which will be 60 by 30 feet, and in the main house, 60 by 80 feet, there will be a cafe, 30 by 60 feet, running straight through the house; a reception room, an office, committee and reading rooms, hat rooms, a barroom, kitchen and dormitories and sleeping rooms. Eighteen sleeping rooms in the T wing and seventy-two in the main house will be provided for members, exclusive of the dormitories for servants and athletes. A dressing house for athletes will be built at the race track, which, by the way, will be commanded by the windows of the club building so that, as 'Pop' says, 'I can sit in my own room, furnished with antique furniture, sip a lemonade, see the boys on the track, the girls on the lawn and the ships and steamers on the sea. What more does a fellow want?' A dock is to be erected for the accommodation of excursion steamers; stages will connect with the trains on the Harlem branch of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and boats will ferry back and forth to and from Glen Island. Every provision for fishing, yachting and rowing has been made already, and as soon as the weather becomes warm, or after the first of June, when the place is usually opened, the ground will abound with swings and hammocks.

A BIG ORGANIZATION.

The New York Athletic Club is perhaps one of the biggest institutions of the kind in the world, and financially it is unequalled. It has 2,000 regular members, 200 life members, 300 non-resident members and 700 men on the waiting list, with applications for admission at an average rate of two per day. The officers are: -- President, A. V. Golcouria; Vice President, Jennings S. Cox; Treasurer, Henry A. Rogers; Secretary, Otto Ruhl, and Chairman House Committee, Eugene H. Pomeroy.

Cottages are to be built for members in the near future on the main land of the property acquired."

Source: THE ATHLETES' SUMMER HOME -- "TRAVERS' ISLAND" TO RING WITH THE SHOUTS OF MEN OF MUSCLE, New York Herald, May 6, 1888, No. 18885, p. 10, cols. 4-5.

"Club House, Travers Island."

Source: "Forty-Sixth Games of the New York

Athletic Club" [Program], Jun. 13, 1891 (NY, NY:

New York Athletic Club, 1891).

NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

"Boat Houses, Travers Island."

Source: "Forty-Sixth Games of the New York Athletic

Club" [Program], Jun. 13, 1891 (NY, NY: New York

Athletic Club, 1891). NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.

Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."

Labels: 1888, Emmet's Island, Hog Island, Hogg Island, Hunter House, Mills Island, New York Athletic Club, Old Hunter House, Potter House, Sedgemere, Sheffield Island, Travers Island

Monday, June 16, 2014

1892 Images of Travers Island NYAC with an Important Description of the Clubhouse and Facilities

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.
Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.
Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."

In 1892, Munsey's Magazine published an extensive description of the New York Athletic Club facilities on Travers Island and included many images including rare imagesof "the Hall" of the main clubhouse and the old Potter house that stood nearby. Less than a decade later, the main clubhouse was destroyed by a tragic fire.

I have written on many occasions about Travers Island and the New York Athletic Club facilities located on that island. For a few of the many examples, with links to the articles, see the citation list at the end of today's posting.

Today's posting to the Historic Pelham blog transcribes the entire article from Munsey's Magazine and includes many of the images that appeared in the article.

"THE ISLAND HOME OF ATHLETICS.

By Owen Hackett.

ENERVATING luxury follows wealth apace, and we, who have grown suddenly rich, would seem to be in danger, if the moralizers of history are to be believed. But as yet our wealth, so new, seems to tend rather toward our development than our enfeeblement -- a reflection peculiarly applicable to a vital trend of the time.

While England has long been regarded as an 'athletic' nation, it is only within the past decade that we could have merited the epithet; but the remarkable extension of the taste for manly exercises within that period fully justifies its application now, and, helped by our widely diffused wealth and stimulated by our own national propensity to excel, we have been impelled toward a development of the athletic idea hitherto unequaled.

It has encroached upon the field of general clubdom, not only in New York, where, it is true, it has made its most complete appropriation; but in several of the larger cities, and in [Text continues after image below.]

[Page 389 / Page 390]

many of the suburban or rural colonies of the better classes, the athletic cult has erected to itself a domiciliary as well as a social edifice.

This excursion beyond its true [image of Bartow S. Weeks, President of the New York Athletic Club omitted] scope has paradoxically promoted the very thing it might have been prophesied to weaken. It has set the stamp of fashion on manly sports, and their luxurious environments have advertised them and rendered attractive pursuits which, alone, would have appeared to many unalloyed labor. It has also furnished the means of extening the range of physical exercise within a single organization to a degree of universality that insures the pleasing of every taste.

The largest expansion of the athletic fad (if, indeed, that term be just) has been attained by the New York Athletic Club, which has also the more venerable honor of being the first native organization on record in its department.

Not content with being the first to build for itself an opulent metropolitan clubhouse, it transferred its athletic field, with its adjuncts, beyond the city limits, and there erected a spacious summer home amid the charms of land and water scenery, where reinvigoration is wafted with every pure breeze.

This is the far famed Travers Island, a modification of the fashionable country club. It has proved immensely popular by reason of its manifold allurements, and has its appropriate uses for various tastes and various seasons. In winter the clubhouse proper is closed, but riders and shooting parties can find welcome entertainment by prearrangement at the small dwelling house which stands beside the other as a useful dependency, and is known as the Potter house, from its former residents of that name.

Travers Island, united by a causeway to the strip of mainland also owned by the club, comprises a tract of thirty acres on the shore of Westchester County, about half a mile from the station of Pelham Manor.

Unnamed on the maps of Long Island Sound, it was originally called Sheffield Island, and lies just north of Hunter's Island. Besides the Potter house, a Hunter mansion was formerly located here, and this the club occupied as its general house at first, but not before many thousands of dollars had been spent in the reduction of some of the island's hills and the leveling of an ample field space around which as many as six [Text continues after image below]

[Page 390 / Page 391]

thousand people have been gathered on the occasion of the club games.

Shortly after the property was purchased, in 1887, the Hunter house was burned to the ground. The present elaborate clubhouse was speedily built, and the formal opening took place in 1888. Since then the most careful improvements and the addition of the most perfect athletic facilities have served only to suggest greater needs.

A proposal has long been under advisement to fill in a wide waste of tidal land, comprising several acres, which will form a needed baseball and football field and further unite the island to a natural hillside ampitheater on the mainland for the accomodation of spectators.

The present field, occupying what is largely made ground between the shore hills and the island proper, is bounded by the running path of five laps to the mile, with a hundred yards' straightaway along its westerly side. It required an expenditure of twenty thousand dollars to bring this to perfection, and it is claimed to be the fastest track in the country both for foot and wheel. Certainly to the practiced eye its appearance justifies the claim. Hard, elastic, fine grained, smooth, rolled, and drained at short intervals beyond the suspicion of a single 'soft' spot, it is positively tempting to the active and fleet of foot.

Vantage poins for spectators are to be found on the side of the northern ridge of the island, on the top of which the tennis courts have been leveled; in the open stretches bordering the field, and on the inner side of the elevation capped by the clubhouse.

The house is an ample three story building of wood, of that nonde- [Text continues after image below]

[Page 391 / Page 392]

script style of architecture which finds refuge in the title of 'country house.' Features of its exterior are a tall stone chimney, its bulging circular tower and its generous verandah.

the hall is the gem of the house, with its warm redwood finish and its cool sweep of air from front to back, where the blue waters and the green woods offer vying prospects; with its great brick fireplace filled with the sacred ashes of springtime fires and crowned by Siddons Mowbray's panel in the entablature 'The Month of Roses' ; and, most conspicuous of all, its central, semi-classic bronze figure of a victorious runner, which a wag has entitled 'Claiming a Foul.'

[Page 392 / Page 393]

Offices, dining, billiard and committee rooms are on this floor, and all above is devoted to cozy sleeping rooms and that greatest luxury of the athlete, the shower baths.

Screened from the view of the clubhouse by the north hill is the capacious boathouse, filled with every species of hand craft, from the lumbering eight oared 'Travers' to the daintiest paper shell or birch bark canoe, and supplemented by a forest of spoonblade oars.

The rowing course, which disappears at low tide, is a straight mile of water, sheltered by the outlying islands, with its finish abreast of the clubhouse. Just beside the boathouse a yachting station is in course of construction, where club owners and visitors from the yacht clubs of the Sound find a safe anchorage.

These are the island's chief features. The really remarkable points of the establishment are such minute details as the appointments and service at the clubhouse, the care and advanced perfection of the athletic facilities, and the methods of organized training pursued with individuals and teams, second only to the 'athletic' colleges for devotion to the banners of the association.

But to non athletic memebers -- and there are very many such among the membership of twenty five hundred -- the leading attraction must be the convenient, complete and delightful change from the heat and fatigue of labor in a summer city to the al fresco luxury of the true countryside.

It is delicious to sit beneath the roof of the tower piazza an hour after ruling the last line of the balance sheet, and, with whatever extraneous refreshments you please at one's elbow, to follow with the eye the western beams that glint on breezy waters -- to follow them over and beyond the archipelago of soft green islands and across the Sound, to watch the golden sails that seem hardly to move, yet come and go mysteriously, and to stray from land to sky, where the dark hills of Long Island, miles away, surmount a narrow ribbon of pearly sand.

Not twenty rods away from the clubhouse steps is the southernmost of the chain of islands joined by enterprising capital under the general title of Glen Island. 'Little Germany,' is directly opposite the boat [image of Eugene J. Gianini, Captain of the New York Athletic Club omitted] house and its absurd imitations of plaster and wood ribbed peasant houses are not without their pleasing effect in the landscape. The crowds, too, that subdivide themselves over these various islands on summer days add a pleasant life to the prospect, thanks to the consciousness of complete separation.

Out between the open spaces of this fringe of young verdure one can see the great tower of David's Island, from which the evening bugle call comes, subdued to melody. Many who are now middle aged members have danced innumerable mazy waltzes in former years where, a mile above, the time honored Neptune House used to overlook New Rochelle Bay and exclusive Davenport's Neck. And City Island still offers its tempting clam bakes, a short sail around the extremity of Hunter's Island toward the south.

Few, perhaps, give thought to the historic ground through which they pass to reach this favored spot. It is the domain of 'Lord John Pell,' son [sic] of that 'gentleman of the bed chamber to King Charles I' who bought from the Indians the great tract hereabouts which they had previously sold to the Dutch.

It was the seat, also, of the emigres Huguenots, who purchased and founded here their New Rochelle, and it is further sacred to liberty of conscience from the near by haven which the English lord of the manor [sic] permitted controversial Ann Hutchinson to find, after her expulsion from Boston, only to meet a terrible death at the hands of the persecuted Indians. Hard by, too, are the scenes of a puerile naval engagement, a patriotic piracy of the Yankees, a British landing and various sharp skirmishes of Revolutionary times.

Almost at the portals of Travers Island stands the half century old Christ Church, founded by the Rev. Robert Bolton, about 1838. He has the honorable distinction of being a pioneer of the Episcopal Church in the county, as well as a very minute and churchly historian of the neighborhood. It was his daughter, Miss Nanette, who built up the once famous school for girls at Bolton Priory. The Priory still stands on its commanding hill just off the road from station to club, and is now inhabited by the descendants of the [Text continues after images below]

[Page 394 / Page 395]

[Image of New York Athletic Club Water Polo Team Omitted.]

[Page 395 / Page 396]

Knickerbocker family of Van Cortlandt, but one of the many names still peopling these shores which can be traced back quite two centuries to their respective Dutch, English or French settler origin.

This luxurious development of athleticism attained by the New York Athletic Club would hardly receive full justice if not contrasted with the exceeding small beginnings which it fathered. The history of athletics in America is virtually that of the Mercury Foot.

Four or five young men of muscle, of whom William B. Curtis and Henry E. Buermeyer still remain conspicuous, were devotedly attached to all kinds of athletic exercises in the early Sixties, when Caledonian clubs, composed of foreigners, were the only semblance of organized sport. This company of American amateurs were in the habit of meet- [Text continues below image]

[Page 396 / Page 397]

ing weekly at Mr. Curtis's residence, a site now occupied by Macy's universal mart. It speaks significantly for that gentleman's attachment to physical cultivation that the back parlor as such had no sacredness as opposed to athletics, for that apartment was fitted up as a gymnasium.

[Image of William B. Curtis, Founder of the New York Athletic Club, omitted]

On Saturday afternoons, in the fine seasons, they resorted to the 'Red House' at the head of Harlem Lane, where they could add running and jumping to the usual indoor weight lifting. They attained such prominence in feats of strength that the back parlor aforesaid was a Mecca of pilgramage, even from other States, for divers [sic] strong men in search of further conquest; and the original four or five, seldom if ever vanquished, gained a wide reputation.

So deeply were they imbued with admiration for these classic pastimes that they were moved to issue a call in 1868 to all who were interested in 'promoting and fostering' an interest in manly sports, and, after some disappointment and much devoted work, they succeeded in forming the New York Athletic Club, which gave the country's first general athletic games for native amateurs.

The club, unlike most firstlings of an order, has been the reverse of conservative. It has been a pioneer throughout all its history, the leader in reforms and in progress. It has suffered its reverses, and it was at the period of its lowest ebb of life, in 1883, when the late celebrated William R. Travers was fortunately elected president. To him is due not only the rejuvenation of the club, but also the credit of being the founder of the modern athletic association. He secured the interest of bankers, brokers, business and professional men -- people of real substance -- and with their support athletics entered the field of general clubdom.

The city house, built in 1884, was considered a marvel of its kind, until the fierce rivalry of the oft victorious Manhattan Athletic Club impelled the latter to enter the same field and erect its palatial establishment.

Its predecessor of the Winged Foot long writhed under this overshadowing until forced to begin the present active preparations to build an urban home at Sixth Avenue and Fifty Ninth Street, which, it is promised, will have few peers in all the club world.

Be it as costly or superb as it may, it will hardly deserve the admiration that attaches to its humbler but more truly sensible idea of the healthful, restful home at Travers Island."

Source: Hackett, Owen, THE ISLAND HOME OF ATHLETICS, Munsey's Magazine, Vol. VII, No. 10, pp. 389-97(Jul. 1892).

* * * * *

I previously have written about the New York Athletic Club facilities on Travers Island. Below is a linked listing of such writings.

Thu., Jan. 23, 2014: Another Account of the Devastating Fire that Destroyed the Travers Island Clubhouse of New York Athletic Club in 1901.

Fri., Sep. 4, 2009: 1901 Newspaper Article About Fire That Burned New York Athletic Club Clubhouse on Travers Island.

Thu., Apr. 28, 2005: Ladies' Day on Travers Island in the 19th Century.

Thu., May 26, 2005: The New York Athletic Club's Opening of the 'New Summer Home' on Travers Island in 1889.

Tue., Jun. 21, 2005: Life at Travers Island in the 1890s.

Thu., Aug. 11, 2005: How Dry I Am: Pelham Goes Dry in the 1890s and Travers Island Is At the Center of a Storm.

Wed., Dec. 21, 2005: An Early Sketch of the First Clubhouse of the New York Athletic Club on Travers Island in Pelham.

Thu., Jul. 19, 2007: Members of the New York Athletic Club Were Duped Into Believing the Club Created a Small Nine-Hole Golf Course in Pelham Manor in 1897.

Fri., Jul. 20, 2007: Account of Early Baseball in Pelham: Pelham vs. the New York Athletic Club on Travers Island in 1897.

Wed., Nov. 21, 2007: Baseball on Travers Island During the Summer of 1897.

Thu., Nov. 22, 2007: August 1896 Description of Cycle Route to Travers Island in Pelham Manor.

Fri., Nov. 23, 2007: The Festivities of the Huckleberry Indians of the New York Athletic Club Off the Shore of Pelham Manor on July 12, 1896.

Mon., Nov. 26, 2007: Box Score of a Baseball Game Played on Travers Island in Pelham Manor in July 1896.

Thu., Feb. 7, 2008: Village Elections in Pelham in 1900 - New York Athletic Club Members Campaign Against the Prohibition Ticket in Pelham Manor.

Mon., Jan. 19, 2009: Photograph of Members of the New York Athletic Club Shooting Traps on Travers Island in 1911.

Tue., Feb. 17, 2009: The New York Athletic Club Opens Its New Clubhouse on Travers Island in Pelham in 1888.

Wed., Feb. 18, 2009: The New York Athletic Club Opens Its New Travers Island Boathouse in 1888.

Thu., Feb. 19, 2009: The Old Hunter House Burns to the Ground in an Arson Incident on Travers Island on April 4, 1889.

Wed., Mar. 4, 2009: "Ladies' Day" on Travers Island in Pelham Manor in 1894.

Tue., Mar. 24, 2009: 1897 Photograph of Visitors Streaming to Athletic Outing on Travers Island in Pelham Manor.

Wed., Oct. 28, 2009: Article About the June 10, 1888 Opening of Travers Island Facility of the New York Athletic Club.

Tue., Aug. 18, 2009: New York Athletic Club Board of Governors Decided to Mortgage Travers Island in 1895.

Mon., Apr. 12, 2010: New York Athletic Club Stage Coach Accident Leads to Death of Pelham Manor Man.

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.
Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.
Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."

Labels: 1892, New York Athletic Club, NYAC, Recreation, Sheffield Island, Sports, Travers Island

Historic Pelham

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

What Was Travers Island Like in 1888 Before the New York Athletic Club Built its First Clubhouse?

Monday, June 16, 2014

1892 Images of Travers Island NYAC with an Important Description of the Clubhouse and Facilities

About Me

Previous Posts

Archives