New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Not so fast, Boston. First American marathon started in Connecticut
Back it up Boston Marathon, you’re drafting.
Beantown likes to crow about being the oldest annual marathon in America. It can chew Connecticut’s dust.
Edit out “annual,” and Connecticut and New York lead the pack.
John J. McDermott won the first Boston Marathon April 19, 1897. Seven months earlier, though, McDermott collected a gold medal in America’s first marathon — which started in Stamford and ended in the Bronx, N.Y.
It was the result of Olympic fever (which was considerably more spirited than this winter’s edition). Members of regional running clubs attended the first modern Games in Greece that spring (not summer) and decided to bring a marathon to the United States. The finish line would be at the Columbia Oval in Williamsbridge (near Gun Hill Road).
Stamford was chosen for the starting line for two good reasons: 1) It was about 25 miles away. 2) The course to the oval had hills just like the road from Marathon to Athens.
Most of the 26 runners hailed from patrician clubs. McDermott, notably, was a lithographer whose Pastime Athletic Club lacked social class mandates. Others came from Manhattan, New Jersey, Harlem, etc., along with a couple of local favorites from Stamford.
With no real template to follow, the starting time was set for “as near twelve o’clock as possible” on Saturday, Sept. 19, 1896. The runners were told to arrive in “ordinary clothes” before changing into running gear in the Stamford Armory. Each was told to bring a friend so they didn’t have to run with their garments.
To ensure the athletes’ safety, physicians were on hand along the route and members of the Harlem Cycling Club were assigned to shadow them.
Main Street crowds cheered when the runners arrived at 12:20 p.m. Six minutes later, they were off, “starting in an easy lope, passing between the rows of wagons like a pack of hounds just let off the leash,” the Stamford Advocate reported.
They vanished from the reporter’s sight near Richmond Hill Avenue. Homeowners along the route offered refreshments as they weaved into Greenwich, up the daunting Put’s Hill and onward to cross the New York border into Port Chester.
They followed cards bearing images of cherry diamonds and
What could go wrong? Well, it was 1896. Did I forgot to mention that rainfall turned the dirt roads into slop?
hands pointing the right direction (lest they drift to Boston). What could go wrong? Well, it was 1896. Did I forgot to mention that rainfall turned the dirt roads into slop?
The signs weren’t neon either. And not enough Harlem Wheelmen turned up. The ones who did provided the occasional leg rub or sip of tea. But the man paired with Michael Regan, who was among the early leaders, missed a sign and rode 10 miles in the wrong direction. Regan dropped out.
The pre-race favorite was D.C. Hall of Boston, who kept sprinting through Rye, Mamaroneck and Larchmont while others took breaks to walk (and, you know, sip tea).
Then Hall dropped to the mud in New Rochelle.
“He breathed hard for a minute, and then, struggling to his feet, put in a slow and torturing mile,” the New York Times reported. “He fell again, but his heart was good, and after a few sips of water, he was up and away ...”
But not quite up, up and away, a la Superman. Hall was out for good in another half mile.
McDermott surrendered to the conditions at times as well, slowing to a walk, but took the lead in New Rochelle. Mount Vernon offered something even less inviting than mud for a runner: a high hill of cobblestones. These guys weren’t exactly wearing footwear with words such as “Vaporfly” or “Fuelcell Rebel” in their names.
The 18 runners who did complete the course jogged a couple quarter-mile laps in the Columbia Oval before crossing the finish line. McDermott won with a time of 3:25.55. He was followed more than 2 1⁄2 minutes later by Hamilton Gray of the St. George Athletic Club (3:28.27).
In Boston seven months later, McDermott topped the field of 24 runners. Mud was not an obstacle that day, though he did run into a funeral procession on Massachusetts Avenue.
Sometimes the most interesting story at a marathon isn’t about the winner. I was intrigued by the theme of the Advocate’s follow-up on the fifth-place finish by Stamford runner E.H. Baynes. The article lavished praise on Baynes for doing better than he predicted. Apparently, his best hope was to finish, which he did in 3:55.
“To copy an old saw, ‘Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is better,’ ” the article noted as a compliment to Baynes’ modesty.
You just don’t see enough “Henry V” and Charles Dickens callouts in the paper anymore.
I suspected Baynes got some extra attention because he was a former “camp correspondent” for the paper. But the “E.H. Baynes” byline seemed to cloak his supporting role in America’s first marathon when he later gained fame using his full name.
Ernest Harold Baynes is described by the New England Historical Society as “the closest thing New England, and the world for that matter, will ever get to a real-life Dr. Doolittle ...”
The nature column the Advocate vaguely referenced was syndicated. He recovered from typhoid fever at Stamford Hospital in 1898 and went on to dedicate his life to celebrating and preserving animals.
Baynes was founder of the American Bison Society, which had an honorary chairman named President Theodore Roosevelt, and led the successful movement to revive the bison population. He wrote books about bears, crows, foxes, birds and eskimo dogs, filling his property with animals. He rode a cart pulled by bison and founded a bird society.
It took 90 years for Stamford to host another marathon (in 1986). That event faded to a half marathon before dropping out for good after the 1993 edition.
The Boston Marathon, meanwhile, can celebrate its return to Patriots Day this year for the first time since 2019.
It’s reassuring to see the Boston Marathon sprint into the future. But it can never catch up with the past. As any runner knows, there’s only one first. And the first marathon footprint on American soil will always be in Connecticut.