December 10, 1884: Mark Twain Publishes "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"

December 10, 1884: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, under his pen name, Mark Twain.

He had been born on November 30, 1835, in Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River, while Halley's Comet was making its closest pass to Earth on its 75 1/2-year trip around the Sun. Sam Clemens would go on to do a lot of things with his life, including work on riverboats, drive a wagon on a westward wagon train, and write for newspapers from coast to coast.

From his work on riverboats, he took the pen name Mark Twain. "Mark" meaning distance and "Twain" meaning "two," the combined meaning of "Mark Twain" was, roughly, the point at which water became safe to travel -- or unsafe. And he did often seem to live his life on the border between safe and unsafe -- but also on the border between America's slaveholding South and its abolitionist North, and on the border between its established East and its then-wide-open, freewheeling "Wild West."

William Faulkner called him "The Father of American Literature," based mainly on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, the 1st major American novel written on a typewriter; and its sort-of sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, published in 1884.

Tom Sawyer was set in St. Petersburg, Missouri, based on Hannibal, in the 1840s, before the American Civil War. Slavery was still in effect. One day, Tom, about 12 years old at the time, skips school to go swimming, and is made to whitewash his mean old Aunt Polly's fence for the entirety of the next day, Saturday, as punishment. He cons the other neighborhood kids, who adore him, into doing it for him -- perhaps inspiring the late 20th Century character Ferris Bueller. And, just as Ferris faked having a terrible, if ill-defined, illness, Tom fakes his own death, and attends his own funeral, before he's discovered to be alive.

He meets Becky Thatcher, a girl who has just moved to town with her father, a circuit-riding judge. And his best friend is Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, whose father is the town drunk, but all the other boys in school seem to like him.

The narrator of Tom Sawyer is omniscient. Every subsequent work featuring Tom and Huck is narrated by Huck, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which opens with this warning by the author: "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."

Then the story opens, with Huck saying, "You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly."

In this 2nd novel, Huck is now 13 (as is Tom), and runs away from his abusive father, and rides a raft down the river, landing on an island where he finds Jim, a runaway slave. Huck has been told that helping a runaway slave means going to Hell, but when it looks like Jim will be captured, Huck says, "All right, then, I'll go to Hell," and rescues Jim.

They are found by Tom's relatives, and Tom tells them that Jim's owner has died and freed him in her will, and that Huck's father has also died, so Huck is "free" as well. Tom's relatives offer to adopt Huck, but he runs away, saying he's going to "light out for the Indian Territory," present-day Oklahoma.

Huckleberry Finn remains one of the most beloved American novels. Ernest Hemingway declared that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." T. S. Eliot, Twain's fellow Missourian, called it a "masterpiece."

But it also remains one of the most controversial. Liberals criticize it for Twain's use of local speech, including racial slurs. Conservatives criticize it for being anti-racism.

Less-remembered are 2 more sequels, both narrated by Huck. In 1894, Twain published Tom Sawyer Abroad, a parody of Jules Verne's "scientific novels," with Tom and Huck traveling to Africa in a hot air balloon, and having adventures in Egypt and the jungle. In 1896, Twain published Tom Sawyer, Detective, in which Tom, now a teenager, solves a murder. 

Twain became America's leading lecture-circuit figure, unafraid to mock the high and the mighty and point out that their foibles were much the same as those of the low and the powerless. As has been said of journalists since, he sought to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.

Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, at Stormfield, his home in Redding, Connecticut. (The house burned down in 1923, and a replica was built on the site.) It was the day after Halley's Comet had made its closest approach to Earth. A year before, knowing the comet was coming, Twain predicted that, just as he came in with it, he would go out with it. He was right.

He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York. So were Hal Roach, producer of the Laurel & Hardy and Our Gang films; and Ernie Davis, the 1st black Heisman Trophy winner.

In 1985, William Hauptman and country singer Roger Miller wrote a musical titled Big River, based on Huck's novel, and it won Tony Awards. Many later movies and TV shows were based on imagined later adventures of Tom and Huck, but still depict them as boys, as teenagers at the oldest. Few have dared to show what they were like as grown men.

In 1983, Greg Matthews published a novel, The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck and Jim "light out for the territory," but go well past Oklahoma, participating in the California Gold Rush of 1849. So, in this one, Huck is still just a kid.

In 1968, Robert Coover published a novel about a man who created, and becomes obsessed with, a version of what would now be called "fantasy baseball": The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. In 2017, Coover published Huck Out West, imagining Huck's adventures during the Civil War, when he and Tom would have been in their late 20s.

The 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen cast Shane West as a now-grown Tom, a U.S. Secret Service agent. The character was not in the original graphic novel. But West was 25 years old at the time. Since the story takes place in 1899, Tom, had he lived to that point, was more likely to have been at least twice that old.

The 2015 film Band of Robbers puts the characters in the present day, as young adults, with the trope of two boys in trouble, one got caught and went to jail (Huck), and the other got away and cleaned up his act (Tom). But when Huck is released, it turns out Tom, now a cop, still has dreams of being a Robin Hood type, stealing from criminals and giving back the stole property.

In 1981, Bernard Sabath wrote a play, The Boys in Autumn. It's set in the 1920s, and after a long life away, Tom returns to Hannibal. Tom became a vaudeville performer, and Huck, to the much greater surprise, became a respectable gentleman, now a grumpy old man. Frank Rich, then the Broadway columnist for The New York Times, ripped the original production, starring John Cullum (later Holling on Northern Exposure) as Tom and George C. Scott as Huck, angry that Sabath had "given the men lurid secrets that reduce two of the most beloved characters in our cultural heritage to extras in a Harold Robbins novel."

As if that wasn't just the kind of thing that Twain himself wouldn't have applauded! After all, on August 31, 1884, as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was heading for the printing press, Twain wrote a letter to fellow novelist William Dean Howells, saying, "Isn't human nature the most consummate sham & lie that was ever invented?"  

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December 10, 1884 was a Wednesday. Baseball and football season were over. Hockey was barely organized. And basketball hadn't even been invented. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 18, 1883: Standard Time Is Established

November 18, 1883: Standard Time takes effect throughout the United States of America, with 4 time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific.

In 1675, the Royal Observatory was founded in Greenwich, just to the east of central London, now part of the city (but not "The City of London"), in postcode SE10. It was set as the "Prime Meridian": Zero degrees latitude, everything to its east being east latitude, and everything to its west being west latitude, until meeting over the Pacific Ocean at what became the International Date Line (which was later adjusted in some places, for various reasons).

That worked for a while. But with the rise of railroads in the mid-19th Century, "solar time" was becoming less reliable. Cities had set time by making 12:00 Noon the time when the Sun was at its highest position over the city.

But the spherical shape of Earth means there's a variation, which corresponds to 4 minutes of time for every degree of longitude. For example: Bristol, in the West County of England, is about 2.5 degrees to the west of the national capital of London. Therefore, when it was 12:00 Noon in London, it was 11:50 AM in Bristol.

And in America, railroad stations would often use the time of their railroad's headquarters. Which didn't work, depending on both latitude and longitude. On the New York Central Railroad, when it was 12:00 Noon in Manhattan, it was 11:36 AM in Buffalo. On the Pennsylvania Railroad, when it was 12:00 Noon in Philadelphia, it was 11:37 AM in Pittsburgh... and 12:03 PM in Jersey City, where the PRR terminated before the construction of the tunnels connecting it to Manhattan; and 12:06 at another PRR terminus, in Washington, D.C.

Clearly, "Railway Time" was not going to work. Finally, Congress passed, and President Chester Arthur signed, a law creating official time zones for the country, to take effect on Sunday, November 18, 1833 -- "The Day of Two Noons." The boundaries required some adjustments, and the current ones were set by the Standard Time Act on March 19, 1918.

The system still isn't perfect. For example, on November 18, 2022, sunrise will be at 6:39 AM in Boston, and at 7:33 in Indianapolis -- and yet, both of these cities are in the Eastern Time Zone. But it's the best system we've had yet, and no one really wants to break America's time zones up any further.j

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November 18, 1883 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. Basketball wasn't invented yet. Hockey was all-amateur. And no college football games were played. So there were no scores on this historic day.

This was, however, the birthdate of Carl Vinson, a Democratic Congressman from Georgia, and a longtime advocate for the U.S. Navy, which named an aircraft carrier for him.

November 4, 1884: Cleveland vs. Blaine, the Era's Nastiest Election

November 4, 1884: One of the closest and nastiest elections in American history ends. Grover Cleveland was the Democratic nominee. At age 47, he was the Governor of New York, and had previously been the Mayor of Buffalo and the Sheriff of Erie County.

The New York World endorsed him for 4 reasons, according to its publisher, Joseph Pulitzer: "1. He is an honest man. 2. He is an honest man. 3. He is an honest man. 4. He is an honest man." How honest was he? He managed to win public offices in the State of New York despite resisting the efforts of Tammany Hall, the State's Manhattan-based Democratic political machine.

At the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Representative Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin, who had been a Union General during the Civil War, told the delegates, "They love him, gentlemen, and they respect him, not only for himself, for his character, for his integrity and judgment and iron will. But they love him most of all for the enemies he has made."

Apparently, he made enemies at the Buffalo Evening Telegraph. On July 21, that newspaper published a story that he had fathered a child out of wedlock, institutionalizing the mother to keep her quiet, and putting the kid up for adoption. Republicans began singing, "Ma! Ma! Where's my Pa?" And political cartoons lampooned the father/mother/son relationship.

Note the "Grover the Good" tag on Cleveland's coat,

as the kid screams, "I want my Pa!"

Presumably, irony on the part of the artist.

Cleveland's advisers asked him what to do. He said, "Above all, tell the truth." Given that this answer was completely vague, they did the wisest possible thing with it: They said nothing, and let the charge flow, implying that it was true.

In contrast, the Republican nominee was, as the song went, "Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine! The continental liar from the State of Maine!" At 54, he was a U.S. Senator, and had been Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Secretary of State under President James Garfield. Indeed, he was standing next to Garfield when he was shot. Had shooter Charles Guiteau's aim been a little off, Garfield would likely have been running for re-election against Cleveland, and, without Blaine's many scandals (which had nothing to do with Garfield), Garfield might have won easily.

James Gillespie Blaine

In spite of Blaine being, most likely, the American politician who had the most of what would now be called "political IOUs," many Republicans really wanted General William Tecumseh Sherman, hero of the Civil War, and brother of an 1880 candidate, Senator John Sherman of Ohio. He flat-out refused: "I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected." What became known as a "Shermaneseque Declaration" is sometimes incorrectly written as, "If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve."

William Tecumseh Sherman, circa 1884

Cleveland's Vice Presidential nominee was Thomas A. Hendricks, who served Indiana as Governor and in both houses of Congress, and had been Samuel Tilden's Vice Presidential nominee in 1876. Blaine's running mate was John A. Logan, a Civil War General and a U.S. Senator from Illinois.

Mark Twain, the most popular author in America, was weeks away from publishing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was well-known to be a Republican, but, this time, he was one of the "Mugwumps": Republicans supporting Cleveland, because, for them, Blaine's corruption had gone too far. He said:

This present campaign is too delicious for anything. To see grown men, apparently in their right mind, seriously arguing against a bachelor's fitness for President because he has had private intercourse with a consenting widow! These grown men know what the bachelor's other alternative was -- & tacitly they seem to prefer that to the widow. Isn't human nature the most consummate sham & lie that was ever invented?

Moorfield Storey, a prominent Boston lawyer who later served as President of the American Bar Association, and as the 1st President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (though he was white), noted:

We are told that Mr. Blaine has been delinquent in office but blameless in private life; while Mr. Cleveland has been a model of official integrity, but culpable in his personal relations. We should therefore elect Mr. Cleveland to the public office which he is so well qualified to fill, and remand Mr. Blaine to the private station which he is admirably fitted to adorn.

(Historians seem to disagree on whether Blaine was faithful to this wife, Harriet Stanwood.)

On October 29, 6 days before the election, Blaine had attended a dinner at the famed Delmonico's restaurant in Lower Manhattan. One of the speakers, a Presbyterian minister named Samuel Burchard, called the Democrats "the Party of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion!"

In other words: They were against the movement for the Prohibition of alcohol, they had great support among Roman Catholics (and thus, it was believed, would be puppets of the Pope in a country dominated by Protestants), and supported slavery and the South during the Civil War.

That line hit the newspapers, including Pulitzer's World. If Rev. Burchard intended it as a hit piece, what would now be called an "October Surprise," it backfired completely: It cost Blaine the State of New York, which had a lot of Catholic and anti-Prohibition voters, and was wobbling on Cleveland, even though he had been popular as Governor and as Mayor of Buffalo.

And the speech hitting the papers made all the difference: By winning New York, Cleveland took the Electoral Vote, 219 to 182. He won just 48.9 percent of the popular vote, to Blaine's 48.3. In fact, Cleveland ran for President 3 times, and won the popular vote all 3 times (though he lost the Electoral Vote in 1888, winning it again in 1892), but on none of those occasions did he win a majority of it.

When Cleveland was beaten in 1888, under dubious circumstances, his opponent, Benjamin Harrison, returned Blaine to the State Department, but he resigned due to ill health in 1892, and died just before the term ended in 1893.

Had Burchard -- not related to another Republican activist by that name, a Congressman from Wisconsin -- kept his mouth shut at that dinner late in the 1884 campaign, Blaine would have become the 22nd President of the United States, and Cleveland would only be remembered for, "Ma! Ma! Where's my Pa?" Instead, the Democrats' answer was, "Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!"

So what was the truth? In 1874, between offices and in private law practice (he had been Sheriff, but not yet Mayor), Cleveland paid child support for Maria Halpin and her son, named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Maria was, apparently, mentally ill, and was indeed institutionalized, though there is no evidence that it was on Cleveland's request. The boy was adopted, was given the name James E. King Jr., and became a doctor like his adoptive father.

The thing was, in those days, long before DNA or even blood tests would have shed some light on the subject, Grover Cleveland was not the only possible father. Another possible father was Cleveland's law partner, whose name was... Oscar Folsom. But of the several possible fathers, Cleveland was the only one who was not married at the time, and thus would be the one least scandalized if the story got out -- or so he thought.

By today's standards, we would find what Cleveland did next to be much worse: He married Frances Folsom, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, who had died and left her guardianship to him. She was 21 when they married in 1886, making her easily the youngest First Lady ever (next is Julia Tyler, 24), and their wedding ceremony was the 1st ever held in the White House itself.

But as icky as their relationship sounds, it lasted for the rest of his life, until 1908. Grover and Frances Cleveland had 5 children: Ruth, Esther, Marion, Richard and Francis. Ruth was not, as the legend says, the namesake of the Baby Ruth candy bar. She died of diphtheria at age 12. The rest all lived until at least 1974, and Francis lived until 1995, 111 years after his father was first elected President. (It would be as if, in 2022, a child of Woodrow Wilson were still alive, or if Malia or Sasha Obama were to live until 2119.)

Rev. Burchard died in 1891, Blaine in 1893, and Harrison in 1901. Frances Cleveland died in 1947 -- as did Oscar Folsom Cleveland/Dr. James E. King Jr.

Cleveland and the other President who lived most of his life in Buffalo, Millard Fillmore, both have statues in front of City Hall, facing Niagara Square. The Square's centerpiece is the McKinley Monument, a memorial to President William McKinley, who was assassinated there.

Cleveland statue at Buffalo City Hall

There are high schools named for Cleveland in his birthplace of Caldwell, New Jersey; in Ridgewood, Queens, New York City; in his adopted hometown of Buffalo, New York; and in St. Louis, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle. In 1928 and 1934, gold certificates standing in for $1,000 bills were issued with Cleveland's portrait. These would be America's last bills with a value above $100.

Cleveland remains the only President born in New Jersey, although he lived most of his life in New York State, before returning to New Jersey, to Princeton, where he lived his post-Presidential life.

Cleveland has been played by Stuart Holmes in The Monroe Doctrine and The Oklahoma Kid, both in 1939; William Davidson in Lillian Russell in 1940; Carroll O'Connor in Profiles in Courage in 1965; Pat McCormick in Buffalo Bill and the Indians in 1976; A.J. Freeman in Timestalkers in 1987; and Richard Herd in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. in 1994.

William Hoke Smith, usually known by his middle name, served as Secretary of the Interior during Cleveland's 2nd term. Hoke Smith was publisher of the Atlanta Journal, the South's largest newspaper, and promoted Cleveland's candidacy in 1892. So the Cabinet appointment was basically a payoff for his support, something that seems out of character for Cleveland. Smith was a progressive on many issues, but, like most major Southern politicians of his time, he was a white supremacist. He turned out to be the last surviving member of Cleveland's Cabinet, living until 1931.

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November 4, 1884 was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. There were no college football games played that day. Hockey was still all-amateur and all in Canada. And basketball hadn't been invented yet. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 1, 1884: The Gaelic Athletic Association Is Founded

November 1, 1884: The Gaelic Athletic Association is founded at Hayes's Hotel in Thurles, County Tipperary, in what's now the Republic of Ireland. The GAA governs the traditional Irish sports such as hurling and Gaelic football -- but not Irish soccer, which is governed by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI). The Northern Ireland equivalent is the Irish Football Association (IFA).

For decades, Irish athletes resisted the sports that England were first to organize: Association football (soccer), rugby, and cricket. So they developed their own version of football, and rounders (a baseball-like game then less popular in England than cricket), and hurling. For girls, the game of canogie was invented, sort of a cross between field hockey and lacrosse.

By the 1960s, the growth of television allowed Irish people to see English sports more easily, and they decided to try to, literally, beat the English at their own games. An Ireland rugby team, made up of both Republic of Ireland players and Norther Ireland players, has been very successful. In soccer, though the Republic team (run by the Football Association of Ireland, or FAI) and the Northern Ireland team (run by the Irish Football Association, or IFA) remain separate, and tend not to do well.

The GAA also promotes Irish music and dance, as well as the Irish language, and it also promotes environmental stewardship through its Green Clubs initiative. Today, it is headquartered at Croke Park, the 82,300-seat national stadium, in Dublin. A GAA museum is at the stadium.

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November 1, 1884 was a Saturday. In America, baseball was the most popular sport, especially among its many Irish immigrants, but the season was over. But some Irish turned to American-style football, due to its closer to resemblance to the Gaelic version and rugby than to English soccer. These were still the early days of college football, and only 4 games were played that day:

* Wesleyan University, of Middletown, Connecticut, beat Harvard, 16-0 at the Hartford Ball Club Grounds in Hartford, Connecticut.

* Rutgers beat Lehigh, 61-0 at College Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

* The College of New Jersey, renamed Princeton University in 1896, beat Stevens Institute of Technology, of Hoboken, New Jersey, at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

* And the University of Pennsylvania beat Lafayette, 21-0 at the University Athletic Grounds in Philadelphia.

October 26, 1881: The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

October 26, 1881: The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is fought in Tombstone, Arizona Territory.

While the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday were no angels -- by the standards of the time, the Earps were a lot like a Mob family (just as Henry McCarty, a.k.a. William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, killed in the New Mexico Territory earlier that year, was essentially a hitman) -- the Clanton Gang, a.k.a. "The Cowboys," was worse. So if there were any "good guys" in this fight, it was the Earps.

The participants:

First, on the side of the law:

* Virgil Earp, 38, from Pella, Iowa, Town Marshal of Tombstone.

* Wyatt Earp, 33, appointed a Special Policeman by his brother.

* Morgan Earp, 30, also appointed a Special Policeman by brother Virgil.

* Dr. John Henry Holliday, 30, from Griffin, Georgia, a dentist, so "Doc" wasn't just a nickname. Also appointed a Special Policeman.

Doc Holliday

And, on the side of "The Cowboys":

* Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton, 34, from Fulton, Missouri.

* Billy Clanton, 19, Ike's brother.

* Frank McLaury, 32, from Belle Plaine, Iowa.

* Tom McLaury, 28, Frank's brother.

* Billy Claiborne, 21, from somewhere in Texas.

All of the Cowboys had tried other professions, but, by 1881, were ranchers outside Tombstone. And they were rustlers, stealing livestock on both sides of the border: Tombstone is 184 miles southeast of Phoenix, 70 miles southeast of Tucson, and 35 miles north of the Mexican border.

What's more, they had no problem taking guns inside the city limits of Tombstone. That was illegal: Contrary to the image of the "Wild West," many Western towns had strict control laws. And the Earps were determined to enforce them, against all comers.

(On the TV show Gunsmoke, Marshal Matt Dillon, played by James Arness, forced all men coming into the Longbranch Saloon to turned their firearms over to him. And since Arness, and therefore Dillon, was 6-foot-6, nobody refused. This reflected the reality in the show's setting, the real-life town of Dodge City, Kansas, where there was, on the average, one or two street gunfights a year.)

Virgil Earp got this law passed:

To Provide against Carrying of Deadly Weapons

Section 1. It is hereby declared unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.

Section 2: This prohibition does not extend to persons immediately leaving or entering the city, who, with good faith, and within reasonable time are proceeding to deposit, or take from the place of deposit such deadly weapon.

Section 3: All fire-arms of every description, and bowie knives and dirks, are included within the prohibition of this ordinance.

— Tombstone City Ordinance Number 9 Effective April 19, 1881.

A "dirk" is "a long-bladed thrusting dagger." It was often used by pirates, and was popular in Scottish Highlander units of the British Army.

The Earps and Holliday were ready to enforce the Ordinance. The Clanton Gang were ready to disobey it. And so, at 3:00 PM -- not 5:00, as seen in "Spectre of the Gun" -- on October 26, 1881, they convened on Fremont Street, a couple of blocks from the O.K. Corral (the initials stood for "Old Kindersley"), in front of the C.S. Fly photography studio.

Virgil yelled out, "Throw up your hands! I want your guns!" But Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury drew their revolvers, and Virgil yelled, "Hold! I don't mean that!" And then, 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds.

For the record:

* Wyatt Earp was not hit.

* Morgan Earp was hit in the shoulder, but recovered quickly.

* Virgil Earp was shot through the calf, and also recovered quickly.

* Doc Holliday was saved when a bullet, fired by Frank McLaury, hit his holster, allowing him to survive with only a bruise.

* Ike Clanton, despite months of threats that he was going to kill the Earps, was unarmed, and ran away from the scene, without being hit.

* Billy Claiborne was also unarmed, and ran away from the scene, without being hit.

* Frank McLaury was shot in the stomach, by Wyatt, struggled to keep firing, and was shot in the head, and was killed. It's not clear which lawman fired the fatal shot, but an investigation narrowed it down to Wyatt or Morgan.

* Tom McLaury was shot in the chest, by Holliday, and was killed.

* Billy Clanton was shot in the wrist, by Morgan. Billy switched to his uninjured left hand, and kept firing. He was shot in the chest and abdomen, and was killed. It's not clear which lawman fired the fatal shot, but both bullets he took after the wound to his wrist would likely have killed him. Nevertheless, of those who were shot, he was the only one who lived longest to give any kind of account of the fight.

As was the case in the major cities of the East in those days, there was a partisan divide reflected in competing newspapers. The Tombstone Nugget took the Cowboys' side, saying, "Blood flowed as water, and human life was held as a shuttle cock." The Tombstone Epitaph (one of the best newspaper names ever) took the Earps' side, saying, "The feeling among the best class of our citizens is that the Marshal was entirely justified in his efforts to disarm these men, and that being fired upon they had to defend themselves which they did most bravely."

Since the Epitaph had gotten the sanction of the Associated Press, that's the version that the public outside Arizona would come to accept as the truth. The coroner's report backed it up, essentially proving that Billy Clanton did not have his hands raised, thus making Ike Clanton a liar when he said Billy was trying to surrender, thus vindicating the Earps from the charge that it was murder instead of self-defense.

It didn't help the Cowboys' case that none of them lived past 1887. Ike was shot that year, while resisting arrest for stealing a horse, age 40. Billy Claiborne was killed by Frank Leslie in 1882, just 22). In contrast, both Wyatt and Virgil Earp lived into the 20th Century, with Wyatt spreading tall tales about his deeds all the way up to his death in 1929, 48 years after the shootout. He was 80. Virgil died in 1905, age 62.

And while there would be setbacks -- in the next year, Morgan would be killed (30) and Virgil badly wounded -- today, the Clantons would be forgotten if things had been settled peacefully. Then again, so might the Earps and Doc Holliday.

The Doc was already suffering from tuberculosis, and died in 1887, age 36. His last words were a comment on the fact that he was dying in bed, with bare feet, rather than in a gunfight with his boots on: "This is funny."

The incident inspired the films My Darling Clementine in 1946, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1957, and both Wyatt Earp and Tombstone in 1994. It also inspired, ironically, TV science fiction, first with an episode of Doctor Who in 1966; and, from 2016 to 2021, with Wynonna Earp, with a supernaturally-immortal Holliday helping Wyatt's great-great-granddaughters fight monsters -- and having a baby with the titular Wynonna, a choice forced on the scriptwriters by star Melanie Scrofano's real-life pregnancy.

In the 1983-84 TV season, NBC aired a series titled The Rousters, starring Chad Everett as Wyatt Earp III, who ran both a carnival and a bounty-hunting business. In spite of that show and the later Wynonna Earp, in real life, Wyatt is not known to have had any children, and thus has no descendants. The only child born to any of the Earp brothers is a daughter born to Virgil. There are living descendants of Earp siblings not involved in the gunfight.

DeForest Kelley played Ike Clanton in a TV version of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on a 1955 episode of You Are There, played Morgan Earp in the 1957 film adaptation, and in the Star Trek episode "Spectre of the Gun," his Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy was forced by an alien to stand in for Tom McLaury.

From the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Left to right:

Kirk Douglas as Holliday, Burt Lancaster as Wyatt,

John Hudson as Virgil, and DeForest Kelley as Morgan.

That episode nearly aired on the anniversary: October 25, 1968. Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) was forced to stand in for Ike Clanton, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) as the considerably younger Billy Clanton, Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) as Frank McLaury, and Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) as Billy Claiborne.

From "Spectre of the Gun." Left to right:

Charles Maxwell as Virgil, Rex Holman as Morgan,

Ron Soble as Wyatt, and Sam Gilman as Holliday.

Tombstone, founded in 1879, was a frontier boomtown, due to nearby silver mines, with a population of about 14,000 by the time of the gunfight -- a huge amount for a town in the West in that era. An 1886 fire ended the boomtown status, but its status as a County Seat saved it from being completely abandoned by the time Arizona gained Statehood in 1912.

From the 1994 film Tombstone, probably the most accurate

pop-culture version of the story. Left to right:
Val Kilmer as Holliday, Sam Elliott as Virgil,

Kurt Russell as Wyatt, and Bill Paxton as Morgan.

In 1964, Detroit-based investors bought the Corral and several other historic buildings, and turned Tombstone into a "living history museum," a Wild West counterpart to Colonial Williamsburg. They also bought The Tombstone Epitaph. In 1975, the daily paper was converted into a weekly. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Arizona.

Today, the population of "The Town Too Tough to Die" is listed as 1,308 -- and they may get that population doubled in tourists.

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October 26, 1881 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. No college football games were played that day. Hockey barely existed. And basketball wouldn't be invented for another 10 years. So there were no scores on that historic day. There was, however, a notable birth on this date: British actress Margaret Wycherly.

October 24, 1884: Providence, World Champions

The 1884 Providence Grays. Old Hoss is at the far left,

holding a bat despite his fame coming as a pitcher.

October 24, 1884: The New York Mets lose the World Series. Well, not exactly.

The Providence Grays, Champions of the National League, defeat the New York Metropolitans -- and, yes, this early franchise was called the Mets for short -- 3-1, behind the pitching of future Hall-of-Famer Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourn, at the Polo Grounds in New York. This gives the Grays the first-ever postseason series between champions of 2 major professional baseball leagues, a series that was officially called the "World's Series."

In those days, pitching was mostly done underhanded, and most teams had as few as 2 pitchers. The Grays had 2: Radbourn and Charlie Sweeney. But they hated each other, and even fought in the clubhouse. Following a drunken incident on July 22, Sweeney left the team.

Radbourn had pitched 76 of the team's last 98 games in 1883, and offered to pitch every game for the rest of the season. Of the remaining 43, he ended up starting 40 and winning 36. His final won-lost record was 60-12 -- or 59-12, depending on whose rules and accounting you go by. (The criteria for which pitcher to credit with a win had yet to be standardized.) Either way, it's an all-time record that was never seriously challenged even before 1893, when the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate was increased from 50 feet to 60 feet, 6 inches.

A Game 3 was played, for charity, and the Grays won that, too. The Grays had won the NL Pennant in 1879, too, but would go out of business after the 1885 season. Radbourn went on to the Grays' arch-rivals, the Boston Beaneaters (forerunners of the Atlanta Braves), probably because they could pay the most. In an 1886 team photo, he raised his middle finger, and this is believed to be the earliest photographic evidence of anyone "flipping the bird," although the gesture goes back at least as far as ancient Rome.

He stayed in the majors through the 1891 season, retired with a record of 310-194, ran a billiard parlor, and died in 1897, possibly of the effects of syphilis. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, but his plaque reads "CHARLIE RADBOURNE," with an extra E on the end. His tombstone in Bloomington, Illinois also puts the extra E on the end.

The last survivor of the 1884 Providence Grays was outfielder Paul Radford, who lived until 1945 -- 61 years, 10 States and 11 Presidents later.

Aside from teams known as the the Providence Steam Rollers in the NFL (1920-1931, 1928 Champions) and the NBA (only the inaugural 1946-47 season), the State of Rhode Island has never had another major league sports team -- the New England Patriots, who play 25 miles from downtown Providence in Foxboro, Massachusetts, don't count.

The Grays had previously won the NL Pennant, and thus became de facto World Champions, in 1879. With a population of about 105,000 in 1884, Providence remains the smallest city ever to be home to the World Champions of baseball. Today, the population is nearly double that, about 191,000, but still much too small to be home to a major league sports team. The Grays' home, the Messer Street Grounds, had a suburban-style housing development built on it.

*

October 24, 1884 was a Friday. No other baseball games were played. No college football games were played, although a few were played the next day. Hockey was still all-amateur and all in Canada. And basketball wouldn't be invented for another 7 years. So, no other scores on this historic day.

October 6, 1882: Not Quite the World Series

The 1882 Cincinnati Red Stockings

October 6, 1882: In the 1st postseason matchup between the Champions of 2 different major leagues in baseball, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, Champions of the American Association, shut out the Chicago White Stockings, Champions of the National League, 4-0 behind the pitching of Will White.

The next day, Chicago returns the favor by blanking Cincinnati 2-0. At this point, Cincinnati‚ under pressure from the AA‚ reluctantly cancels the exhibition series to avoid expulsion from the league. So, with the NL still the unquestioned superior league, the White Stockings are the unofficial World Champions, for the 3rd year in a row.

At the time, nobody is calling this "the World Series," or even "the World's Series." It is not officially recognized as such now: The establishment of Major League Baseball recognizes the 1903 contest between the NL's Pittsburgh Pirates and the American League's Boston Americans (Red Sox) as the first official World Series.

This was the 3rd straight Pennant for the White Stockings, who lost their founding owner when William Hulbert right before the season began. Al Spalding, once a great pitcher and by this point what would now be called the general manager, became the owner, and held ownership until 1902.

The Red Stockings joined the NL and changed their name to the Cincinnati Reds, both in 1890. The White Stockings went through a few name changes before becoming the Chicago Cubs in 1903.

UPDATE: The Cubs have a team Hall of Fame. Inducted from their 1880s Pennant winners have been Hulbert, Spalding, and catcher Mike "King" Kelly. Pitcher John Clarkson would join Kelly on the 1885 and 1886 Pennant winners. From the 1890s, they have inducted pitcher Clark Griffith (better known as the later owner and stadium namesake of the Washington Senators), and outfielders Jimmy Ryan and Bill Lange.

The Reds also have a team Hall of Fame. Inducted from this 1882 team have been pitcher Will White, 1st baseman John Reilly, and 2nd baseman John "Bid" McPhee. From the rest of the 19th Century, they have inducted pitcher Tony Mullane and deaf center fielder William "Dummy" Hoy.

And for the early 20th Century, they have inducted outfielders Sam Crawford, Cy Seymour and Bob Ewing; and pitcher Frank "Noodles" Hahn.

*

October 6, 1882 was a Friday. There were no other baseball games played on this day. There were no college football games played. Basketball did not yet exist. And hockey barely did. So there were no other scores on this historic day.

September 28, 1884: Anfield Opens

September 28, 1884: Anfield opens on the edge of Stanley Park in Liverpool, England. The home team wins.

Present-day fans of Liverpool Football Club will not be surprised to learn this. But they may be surprised to learn that the home team was Everton Football Club. The "Toffees" beat nearby team Earlestown, 5-0, and went on to use Anfield as their home ground until 1892, when Goodison Park opened, a mile away on another side of Stanley Park.

Imagine if, instead of at their actual locations in The Bronx and Queens, respectively, Yankee Stadium had been built where the American Museum of Natural History is, at 79th Street and Central Park West; and Shea Stadium had been built across Central Park, 1 mile away, where the Metropolitan Museum of Art is, at 81st Street and 5th Avenue. That's how close Anfield and Goodison Park are.

The stadium is named after the surrounding area. The word "Anfield" originated in the combination of Old English and Middle English words, which mean "a field on a slope." An alternate explanation is that the name is linked to the influx of people fleeing the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, crossing the Irish sea from Dublin to Liverpool, and was associated with Annefield, outside New Ross, County Wexford.

A dispute between Everton and the land's owner, John Houlding, led to them moving to Goodison. Houlding was left with an empty stadium, and decided to form a new club to occupy it. Liverpool F.C.'s 1st game there was played on September 1, 1892, and they beat South Yorkshire team Rotherham Town, 7-1.

Seating capacity was originally 8,000, and was expanded to 11,000 in 1895. In 1906, a new stand was built along Walton Breck Road. Ernest Edwards, the sports editor of newspapers the Liverpool Daily Post (which went out of business in 2013) and the Liverpool Echo (still in business), named it the Spion Kop, after a famous hill in South Africa where a local regiment had suffered heavy losses during the Boer War in 1900. More than 300 men had died, many of them from Liverpool, as the British army attempted to capture the strategic hilltop. While many soccer stadiums would call one of their end sections the Spion Kop, most, like Liverpool's have been "The Kop" for short.

In 1928, the Kop was redesigned and extended, to hold 30,000 spectators, all standing. A roof was erected as well. The stadium got lights in 1957. In 1963, the old Kemlyn Road Stand was replaced by a cantilevered stand, accommodating 6,700 spectators. Two years later, responding to the demand for tickets following Liverpool's 1964 Football League title and 1965 FA Cup win, alterations were made at the Anfield Road Stand, turning it into a larger covered standing area with refreshments under the structure.

The biggest redevelopment came in 1973, when the old Main Stand was partially demolished and extended backwards with a new roof. In the 1980s the paddock in front of the Main Stand was turned into seating, and in 1982 seats were introduced at the Anfield Road Stand. The Shankly Gates were erected in 1982, a tribute to former manager Bill Shankly.

Across the Shankly Gates are the words "You'll Never Walk Alone." In the 1960s, at Anfield, games would be preceded by the public address system playing the Top 10 songs in the country. Gerry & The Pacemakers' version of "You'll Never Walk Alone," from the 1945 Broadway musical Carousel, debuted in the Top 10 on October 19, 1963, and so it was played at Anfield for the 1st time. It hit Number 1 in Britain. (It was not a hit in America.)

But when it fell out of the Top 10, Liverpool fans demanded that it be played at Anfield, anyway, just before the team walked onto the pitch. This was done, and Liverpool, managed by Shankly, won the Football League in 1964. After that, in England, the song was considered a good-luck charm by fans of the Mersey Reds, and was irrevocably tied to the team. Everton fans would become sick of the song, and one of their fans' slogans is "I'd rather walk alone."

Shankly retired after the 1973-74 season, but under his right-hand man, Bob Paisley, they actually got better. I've often compared Liverpool to American football's Pittsburgh Steelers: A "football" team from a hardscrabble, hardworking town, with the loss of so much industry casting a pall over the era, starts winning, dominating their league in the decade, and becomes everything to the people, many of them of Irish descent. The biggest difference between the teams is that, unlike the Steelers, the Mersey Reds did have some success before the 1970s.

In fact, they won 18 titles in the Football League Division One: 1901, 1906, 1922, 1923, 1947, 1964, 1966, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1990. The Premier League was founded in 1992, and, infamously, it took them until the COVID season of 2019-20 for them to win it, as Manchester United surpassed them with a 19th and a 20th title, in 2011 and 2013, respectively.

They've also won the FA Cup, English soccer's season-long national tournament, 8 times: 1965, 1974, 1986, 1989, 1992, 2001, 2006 and 2022. And they've won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League 6 times, more than any other British team: 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005 and 2019. The 1985-86 season remains the only one in which they've won both the League and the Cup, known in England as "doing The Double."

They almost did it again in 1989. In the FA Cup Semifinal, they were playing Nottingham Forest, on neutral ground at Hillsborough Stadium in South Yorkshire, home of Sheffield Wednesday. A mistake in opening the gates led to the deaths of 97 people. The game was replayed, Liverpool won, and, as in 1986, they beat Everton in an All-Merseyside Final.

And with North London team Arsenal having blown a lead for the League title, all Liverpool had to do to win the League was avoid losing the last game of the season, home to Arsenal, by more than 1 goal. Arsenal hadn't won at Anfield in 15 years. With the home fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" with more emotion than ever, giving hope to a grieving city over the last few weeks, it seemed impossible for Arsenal to do what needed to be done. But a goal by Michael Thomas in stoppage time gave Arsenal a 2-0 win.

The Hillsborough Disaster led to, among other things, the conversion of English stadiums to all-seater. This would reduce capacity, without more building. The Kemlyn Road Stand was double-decked, and renamed the Cenentary Stand in 1992, in connection with the team's 100th Anniversary. The Kop was demolished and rebuilt in 1994, its capacity reduced to 12,390, but still the most intimidating stand in the sport. Overall, the stadium's seating capacity was down to 35,000. In 1998, a new, 2-tier Anfield Road Stand was opened, bringing capacity back up to 44,736.

In 2017, the Centenary Stand was renamed the Kenny Dalglish Stand, for the team's all-time greatest player, who had managed them to the 1986 Double while still playing.

Since the 2010 purchase of the team by Fenway Sports Group, owners of the Boston Red Sox, the stadium has been redeveloped and modernized. Unlike a ballpark, a four-sided soccer stadium can have parts demolished and rebuilt without the team having to leave. The new Main Stand (southeast) opened in 2016, raising capacity to 54,074. The new Anfield Road Stand (northeast) is set to open in 2023, raising capacity to 60,725. (UPDATE: It took until February 10, 2024.)

As of September 28, 2022, there are no plans to redevelop the Kop (southwest) or the Kenny Dalglish Stand (southeast, and as a 1992 construction the oldest current part of the stadium). 

Outside the stadium are a bust of builder John Houlding, statues of managers Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, and a memorial to the victims of Hillsborough.

*

September 28, 1884 was a Sunday. In America, the only league sport of the time was baseball, and the National League prohibited its teams from playing on Sundays. The American Association allowed it, but had no games scheduled for the day. The Union Association, which played only in this season before folding, allowed Sunday ball, and 3 games were played:

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Washington Nationals, 5-0 at the Wright Street Grounds in Milwaukee. Both of these teams folded with the UA, and have no connection to the present-day National League teams of the same names.

* The St. Louis Maroons beat the Baltimore Monumentals, 12-1 at Union Base Ball Park in St. Louis. In those days, the sport's name was usually written as 2 words, "base ball." The Maroons were run by Henry V. Lucas, a St. Louis businessman and founder of the league. Naturally, he favored his team, and they ran away with the Pennant. That dominance, producing the feeling throughout the league that everybody else's games were meaningless, was a big reason for its demise.

* And the Kansas City Unions beat the Boston Reds, 6-1 at Athletic Park in Kansas City.

September 19, 1881: President James Garfield Dies

September 19, 1881: President James A. Garfield dies at Francklyn Cottage, on the beach at Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey, 79 days after being shot. He was 49 years old.

James Abram Garfield was elected President in 1880, after being nominated by the Republican Party. A Representative from Ohio since the 1862 election, he was a compromise candidate, after the the Convention couldn't come to agreement.

The "Stalwarts" wanted former President Ulysses S. Grant -- more than Grant wanted it himself. The "Half-Breeds" wanted James G. Blaine, Senator from Maine and former Speaker of the House. Each group rejected the other's choice, due to corruption. Garfield, as far as anyone knew at the time, was clean. The Stalwarts managed to get one of their own into the Vice Presidential nomination: Chester Alan Arthur, Collector of the Port of New York. 

Garfield won a very close election, over the Democratic nominee, Winfield Scott Hancock, a hero General of the Union Army in the Civil War. With 185 Electoral Votes being necessary, Garfield won 214, to Hancock's 155; and got 48.32 percent of the popular vote, to Hancock's 48.21 percent. Not that the popular vote mattered, but Garfield won it by 10,364 votes, and by 0.11 percent, in each case the closest ever.

He was inaugurated as the 20th President of the United States on March 4, 1881, and one of his pet projects was civil service reform. That upset the Stalwarts, who, thinking they were responsible for Garfield's election, wanted the "spoils system" maintained.

And one of the Stalwarts who expected to be rewarded for his role in getting Garfield elected was Charles Julius Guiteau. He actually had nothing to do with it, but he thought he was instrumental in it. This was because he was insane. His family had committed him to a psychiatric asylum in 1875, but he escaped.

Does this look like a sane man to you?

It sure doesn't look like a sane man to me.

He kept visiting the White House, hoping to see Garfield, or at least Blaine, who, as a bone thrown to the Half-Breeds, was appointed Secretary of State. As a bone thrown to them, he was given the leading job in the Cabinet. Guiteau wanted to be named Consul to Vienna, but was willing to "settle" for Paris. He got banned from the White House, but managed to confront Blaine, who told him, "Never again speak to me on the Paris consulship, as long as you live."

So Guiteau bought a .442 Webley British Bulldog revolver, with an ivory handle. He chose it because he thought that, after the assassination, he would be hailed as a hero for getting rid of the corrupt Garfield, and that that particular gun would look great in a museum. Did I mention that he was nuts?

Guiteau gave Garfield one last chance: He wrote a letter saying Garfield should fire Blaine, or "you and the Republican Party will come to grief." Like everything else he sent to the White House, this letter was thrown away without being opened.

And, unintentionally, Guiteau gave Garfield one more "last chance": Knowing that Garfield liked to vacation in Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey, one of America's earliest shore resorts, he followed Garfield to the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, on the southwest corner of 6th Street and B Street Northwest, intending to shoot him there.

But the First Lady, Lucretia Garfield, was with him, and Guiteau didn't want her to see her husband shot dead in broad daylight. Perhaps he remembered how Abraham Lincoln had been shot in the presence of his wife (albeit indoors and at night). John Wilkes Booth didn't care. Nor did Lee Harvey Oswald, decades later, care that Jacqueline Kennedy was with her husband. (That is, if you believe that Oswald did it. Ida McKinley was a few miles away from her husband William when he was shot.)

Washington can get very hot in the Summer. On July 2, the newspapers reported that Garfield was heading off to Long Branch again -- and, this time, Lucretia would not be with him as he left: She had contracted malaria, and had been sent to Long Branch without him to recover.

Who was with him at the Station? His sons, James Rudolph Garfield and Harry Augustus Garfield. And Blaine. Also there, but not going with him like the others, his Secretary of War -- Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the only President who had been assassinated to that point. There was no bodyguard or security detail, and, up to that point in Presidential history, that was not unusual.

At 9:20 AM, Guiteau saw Garfield and Blaine walk in. He waited until they were about 6 feet in front of him, and fired. The shot only grazed Garfield's shoulder. A General in the Union Army, he knew gunfire when he heard it, and called out, "My God, what is that?" No one saw the shot, giving Guiteau the chance to fire again. This bullet lodged in Garfield's back, and he went down.

Artist's depiction of the shooting.

Blaine is the bearded man in the top hat.

Guiteau, unusually for him, was calm throughout the event. He turned to walk out and head for the hansom cab that was waiting for him. But he bumped into a policeman, Patrick Kearney, who had gone into the station after hearing the first shot. As he was carried off to jail, Guiteau yelled out, "I am a Stalwart, and now, Arthur is President!"

Garfield did not die quickly. He would have been better off if he had. The doctors who treated him couldn't find the bullet -- no X-ray machines available at the time -- and subjected him to treatments that led to an infection. In other words, for all of Guiteau's planning, it could be argued that he didn't kill Garfield: Garfield's doctors did.

Mrs. Garfield received a telegram about the shooting in Long Branch, and, with some irony, she got on a train to see him, weak but determined. The President lingered on for weeks -- and, until the 25th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1967, there was no mechanism for replacing a President who was alive but incapacitated -- and the First Lady decided to get him out of the hot capital, and put him on a train for Long Branch, with a specially cushioned bed to protect him from the bumpy ride.

Lucretia Garfield

On September 6, he arrived at Francklyn Cottage, in the Elberon section of Long Branch, at the city's southern end. It didn't work: On September 19, 1881, at 10:35 PM, he reached up for a pain in his chest, and called out for his Chief of Staff, David Swaim: "Oh, Swaim, this terrible pain. Press your hand on it." When he did, Garfield's hands went up, and he yelled, "Oh, Swaim? Can't you stop this? Oh, oh, Swaim!" And he died.

He was only 49 years old, 2 months short of turning 50. To this day, only 1 President has had a shorter lifespan: John F. Kennedy was 46 when he was assassinated. (The shortest-lived President who died of natural causes? James Polk was 53.)

It was after midnight by the time Vice President Arthur received the telegram about Garfield's death at his townhouse, at 123 Lexington Avenue, in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan. John R. Brady, a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, came, and administered the Oath of Office to Arthur as the 21st President of the United States, by candlelight, at 2:15 AM on September 20, 1881.

Arthur took a train to Long Branch to pay his respects to the Garfields, and accompanied them on the funeral train to Washington. On September 22, just to make everything official, he was sworn in again at the Capitol Building, by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Morrison Waite.

In the 19th Century, Congress usually adjourned upon the completion of its term on March 3, and then didn't reconvene, except for special occasions, until December 3. This was partly due to the long distances required to travel by horse, or horse-drawn vehicle, or boat during the pre-railroad era; and partly due to the nasty Summers of Washington. It would often be until December that a new leaders of the House and Senate were chosen.

This led to the potential for a huge problem. With Arthur having become President, there was, until the passage of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution in 1967, no legal mechanism for filling the vacancy in the office of Vice President.

According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, the next man in line was the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. "Pro Tempore" is Latin for "For the time being." In other words, the man who sits in for the Vice President when the Vice President is unavailable. In other words, the Vice Vice President. The next man in line was the Speaker of the House. But on September 19, 1881, both of those offices were, officially, vacant. In other words, had something happened to Arthur, there would have been no President!

On October 10, 1881, Congress met, and Senator Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware was appointed President Pro Tempore of the Senate. Now, there was a "next President" in place, in case of emergency. It would take until December 5 for the House to convene, and elect J. Warren Kiefer of Ohio as Speaker.

But then, on October 13, the Senate held a new election for President Pro Tempore. David Davis of Illinois, a former Justice of the Supreme Court. Before that, he was Abraham Lincoln's campaign manager in 1860. He did not run for re-election to the Senate in 1882, so he was next in line until March 3, 1883. When the Senate met the next day, they chose George F. Edmunds of Vermont, and he was next in line for the remainder of the Garfield-Arthur term.

As a result of not wanting to face this potential problem again, Congress acted, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1886 took the leaders of Congress out of the line of succession, and put the members of the Cabinet, in descending order of their department's establishment, in it. Therefore, had the 1886 Act been in place when Arthur was sworn in, Secretary of State Blaine would have been next in line for the Presidency.

In spite of his lack of experience, Arthur is generally regarded to have run a good Administration. He, too, pursued civil service reform, getting the Pendleton Act passed in 1883. And he appears to have completely avoided any action that could have been described as "corrupt." In other words, he governed very little like a Stalwart.

Had Garfield lived, and done as well as Arthur, he would have had less affection than he got from being martyred, but he might have had more respect from history. But Garfield was beloved for his courage in the face of impending death. And Arthur was admired for not running a Stalwart-style corrupt Administration. And, of course, had Garfield had smarter doctors, he might have recovered. In other words, by shooting Garfield, Guiteau accomplished nothing.

Guiteau was formally indicted for murder on October 14, 1881. A psychiatrist testified that Guiteau was a "morbid egotist" with "a tendency to misinterpret the real affairs of life." The District Attorney for the District of Columbia argued, "There's nothing of the mad about Guiteau: He's a cool, calculating blackguard, a polished ruffian."

(Although Garfield was the elected head of the federal government, and was shot in a place of interstate travel and commerce, his assassin's prosecution was handled by the court system of the District of Columbia, not the U.S. Department of Justice. The fact that the DOJ was then headed by Blaine may have had something to do with it: He was a witness, and a potential victim, therefore a walking conflict of interest.)

Guiteau was convicted and sentenced to death on January 25, 1882; and hanged on June 30. He was 40 years old. All through the trial, and up until the moment the black hood was placed over his head for his execution, he lashed out and remained proud of what he had done, believing it to be the will of God. Indeed, his last words were a poem he had written for the occasion: "I am Going to the Lordy."

The gun that Guiteau thought would look so good in a museum? It's not on display in one. In fact, no one knows where it is, or what happened to it. The Smithsonian Institution did have it on display for a while, but it has since been lost.

The pistol that John Wilkes Booth used to assassinate Lincoln -- an event for which it is a little too far back in history to do a "Scores On This Historic Day" entry -- is on display in the basement of Ford's Theatre in Washington, where the assassination happened.

The pistol that Leon Czolgosz used to kill McKinley is in the Buffalo History Museum. And the rifle that Oswald -- as the official story goes -- used to kill Kennedy is in a National Archives Building in College Park, Maryland, just outside D.C., and is not available for public viewing. The one on display in the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas is a replica.

Arthur did not run for a term of his own in 1884: He had Bright's disease, a kidney disorder that is still not curable, but is treatable now, but not then. (That same year, it killed Alice Roosevelt, first wife of future President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1912, it killed Vice President James Sherman. In 1914, it killed Ellen Wilson, the first wife of President Woodrow Wilson. She remains the last First Lady to die "in office.") Arthur died in 1886.

Robert Todd Lincoln had been tired from his Civil War service, and declined to accompany his parents to Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, but he was in Washington and the time of his father's assassination. He had been with Garfield when he was shot. And he was a guest at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901, standing just outside the Temple of Music when William McKinley was shot. He didn't see the shooting, but he heard it.

When the Lincoln Memorial was to be dedicated in 1922, the current President, Warren G. Harding, was one of the listed speakers. Also in attendance was the Chief Justice of the United States, former President William Howard Taft. As the only surviving child of Honest Abe, Robert was invited. He refused to come. He was afraid Harding would be assassinated, too. (If he was concerned for Taft's safety, he didn't say so.)

Finally, he was talked into attending the ceremony. Harding was not assassinated, but he was already in poor health (not that the public knew this at the time), and he died in office the next year. Robert was more sure than ever that he was a jinx. He died in 1926, without ever meeting another President.

The Baltimore and Potomac Station was demolished after the opening of Union Station in 1907. In 1931, B Street was renamed Constitution Avenue, and was made part of U.S. Route 50, which it remains today. In 1941, the National Gallery of Art opened on the site of the station. It took until 2019 for the National Park Service to erect interpretive plaques about the assassination on the site.

Francklyn Cottage has long since been demolished. However, in the middle of Long Branch's boardwalk, Seven Presidents Park pays tribute to the 7 Presidents who vacationed there, and there is a statue of Garfield.

Like fellow Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, James Abram Garfield has an official memorial in Washington, D.C. -- but not at the site of the assassination. The James A. Garfield Monument, dedicated on May 12, 1887, is in front of the U.S. Capitol Building, in a traffic circle at First Street and Maryland Avenue Southwest.

There are 11 cities in America named for Garfield, in Bergen County, New Jersey. There are Counties named for him in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah and Washington. There are 2 high schools named for him in Ohio, 1 in Los Angeles, and 1 in Seattle.

Arthur was the 1st President born in Vermont, but represented New York in politics. He has a statue in New York's Madison Square, not far from his Lexington Avenue apartment, but no towns named for him, and no memorial in the nation's capital.

Arthur Statue, Madison Square Park, Manhattan

Garfield was played by Francis Sayles in The Night Riders in 1939, and Van Johnson in The Price of Power in 1969. Arthur was played by Emmett Corrigan in Silver Dollar in 1932, and Larry Gates in Cattle King in 1963. There have been 2 ships named the SS President Garfield: A hospital ship in service from 1921 to 1948, and an attack transport from 1940 to 1955. There was a transport ship named SS President Arthur from 1922 to 1927.

In a great irony, despite being the sons of the 1st 2 assassinated Presidents, Robert Todd Lincoln turned out to be the last surviving member of the Cabinets of both Garfield and Arthur, living until 1926; and James R. Garfield would be the last surviving member of the Cabinet of Theodore Roosevelt, serving as Secretary of the Interior, and living until 1950 -- 84 years old, and 69 years after his father's death.

Garfield was President for only 200 days -- and he had a bullet in him for 80 of them. His Presidency is the 2nd-shortest, ahead of only William Henry Harrison, who was inaugurated on March 4, 1841, and died on April 4, after 31 days.

*

September 19, 1881 was a Monday. There was only one score on this historic day: The Troy Trojans beat the Buffalo Bisons, 7-5 at Haymakers' Grounds in Troy, New York, named for the Troy Haymakers, the Trojans' predecessors.

The Trojans, who played across the Hudson River from Albany, New York, folded after the 1882 season. In 1883, their place in the NL was taken by the New York Gothams, who became the Giants in 1886, and the San Francisco Giants in 1958. The Bisons went out of business after the 1885 season.