HISTORY OF CRICKET IN PHILADELPHIA

Although not many cricketers realize it, the history of Cricket in America is rich and varied. Cricket caught on in America in the 1700's, not long after cricket clubs first began to make an appearance in England. Early American history is dotted with references to cricket; indeed several of the Founding Fathers were known to be avid cricketers. It is documented that cricket was played as early as 1709 at Westover on the banks of the James River in Virginia. In fact there is also evidence that George Washington's troops at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania within the close proximity of Philadelphia, in 1778, played a game, known to be some variation of the game of cricket.  The first recorded international sporting event was a cricket match between America and Canada in 1844. It was attended by 10,000 spectators and played in New York. This predates even the modern Olympic games by nearly 50 years.

""As the first cricket in Philadelphia was closely bound up with 'stakes and ale', cricket clubs were formed by anxious parents in the 1850s to protect their sons from contaminating associations. The cricket clubs gave the game an air of respectability." (E. Digby Baltzell, Philadelphai Gentlemen, 1958, 1979 ed.,p. 359). A subscriber to Spirit of Times, in 1857, wrote "everybody plays cricket in Philadelphia from the child to the old man". The five elitist clubs Philadelphia CC, founded February 10, 1854, Germantown CC, founded 1854, Young America CC, founded 1855, Merion CC, founded 1865 and Belmont CC, founded 1874 dominated local cricket and served as social hubs. In 1870 comment in the Spirit of the Times stressed social aspects, "In Philadelphia cricket is the favorite pastime with the fashionable world, the ladies of the Quaker City especially take great interest in it.... the attendance is always of the most distinguished characters, the carriages of the wealthier classes surrounding the field, and the leading belles of the city crowding the reception rooms of the club-houses." As tennis surfaces, these clubs promptly adopted it at recreational and tournament levels. Eventually tennis supplanted cricket as the club's prime sport." (Beautyman.com/ITF/history/phelps_links.html, 11/14/2005).  

Philadelphia also holds a distinction of producing the first cricketer to be killed in time of war. Walter S. Newhall, who had the dubious distinction of being the first International cricketer to be killed in time of war, died on December 18, 1863 during the American Civil war.

Walter Symonds Newhall was born at Philadelphia on October 31, 1841 and from an early age he displayed outstanding prowess at the sport of cricket. During the summer of 1859 he showed the stuff of which he was made by scoring 549 runs for the Young America Cricket Club in the Philadelphia competition and set the local tongues wagging when he scored 105 against the Delphian Cricket Club. In 1860 several prominent baseball players challenged him to a throwing contest and their best man lost badly when Newhall hurled the ball for a distance of 113 yards. (Kevin E. Boller, 1986).

In later years the Newhall family emerged as one of the most prominent cricket playing families in the history of the sport. No less than six members represented the United States of America against Canada, England, Ireland and Australia between 1859 and 1912. During the match between the United States and Canada at Nicetown, Pennsylvania on September 13-14, 1880 cricket history was made, when four Newhall brothers (George, Daniel, Robert and Charles) appeared for the US. (Kevin E. Boller, 1986).

The rise in the 1850s to its fall in 1920s, Philadelphia and its sorrounding areas has seen it all, the mightiest glory to cricket's virtual extinction except at Haverford College where it is continuously played since 1850 until present. Cricket barely survived with hiccups until 1970, after that clubs like Merion CC and Prior CC and later on British Officers Cricket club kept the competitive cricket alive in the Philadelphia suburbs. Further to the South in Delaware, beginning of the 21st century brought the emergence of new cricket clubs such as New Castle County Cricket Club.