Sports and Recreation - Football - 1911

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Title: Sports and Recreation - Football - 1911
Photographer: Carl Silven
Subject Headings: Manners and Customs - Recreation - Sports - Ball Games - Football, Persons, Ethnology - Ethnic Groups
Condition: Good
Description: Here is the much famed and renowned Quincy One and All Football Team, the champions of the Upper Peninsula in 1911, two years before the eventful Copper Country strike. Featuring all Cousin Jacks, according to Bill Towsey of Hancock, a native of Cornwall himself, the unit at varied times had as many as five mining captains in its makeup. FROM LEFT, UPPER: F. Osborne, Captain C. Kenall, T. Crocker, A. Marshall, A Murtaugh and Captain T. Maunders. SECOND ROW: W. Commons, Captain Jacobs, C. Gilbert, S. Whale, T. Prout and Captain W. Sampson. THIRD ROW: W. Mead, R. Allen, C. Roberts, H. Hancock, T. Nicholls and P. Hoare. The photo was the product of the Hancock Furniture Co. of 123 Quincy St., Hancock. [Studio portrait of the team. See comment section for more information.]
Source of Description: Daily Mining Gazette Article [Cataloger]
Institution: Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections
Donor: Robert Skuggen
Date of Photo: July 1 1972 Green Sheet Edition
Medium: still image
Color: black and white
Size: 19.2 cm x 22.2 cm
Polarity: Positive
Image No: MS051-038-002-001
Collection Name: Daily Mining Gazette Photograph Collection
Terms of Use: Rights to reproduce and distribute this image may be restricted. Contact the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections for further information.
User Comments:
• One of the most formidable football teams ever sponsored by an independent organization in the Copper Country was the Quincy One and All Football squad of 1911. What is notable about the group, according to William Towsey of Hancock, the former Quincy miner who owns the picture from which the newspaper photo was taken, is that the entire team was composed of former residents of Cornwall or persons who were descendents of native Cornwallian ancestry.Some sixty years ago, Bill Towsey was a member of this organization, the reason for his possessing the picture.He recalls that it was Carl Silven who took the picture and that at one time he had his studio on Reservation Street, approximately where the Gartner warehouse is now, the former Venice Cafe. All members of the Quincy team worked for the Old Reliable Co. They were mainly underground employees but working in the shops or on surface was no deterrent to belonging.Actually the game played was a sort of English soccer. Towsey recalls that there were five teams which made up the football league of the day. These were Mohawk, Calumet, Baltic and Painesdale. Towsey says the that mining companies did not sponsor the squads, but the incentive to start and maintain a team had to come from the unit or community itself.On various occasions there were six mining captains who were members of the squad, Kendall, Jacobs, Mauders, Sampson, Francis and Williams. [Excerpt from a Daily Mining Gazette Greensheet Article - July 1, 1972.]
2/12/2009 1:19:46 PM by Christine Holland, Archives