California Chess, 1858 - 1859

by John S. Hilbert

    Interest in chess spread rapidly across the United States following Paul Morphy's sensational victory at New York 1857, followed by his triumphant European tour. New chessplayers and new clubs sprang up across the land, and the clubs already in existence gained greatly by the Morphy boom. California was no different. In its May 1858 issue The Chess Monthly, edited by Morphy and Daniel W. Fiske, reported that the chess bug had indeed hit the West Coast, and that a California Chess Congress inspired by Morphy and New York 1857 was being planned. Curiously enough, while The Chess Monthly detailed the course of the event, it did not provide any games from the tournaments. That detail was left to the pages of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, which published five games from the top tournament. Coverage of the Congress on the East Coast was of course delayed by the lengthy distances such news had to travel.

    Three San Francisco chess clubs joined together to host the Congress: the Mechanic's Institute, the German Chess Club of San Francisco, and the Pioneer Chess Club. A committee of management was formed to take charge of the event, its members being Selim Franklin (President of the Congress), W. Schleiden, D.S. Roberts, Wm. R. Wheaton, Geo. Pen Johnston, Willard B. Farwell, Thomas Bryne, B.F. Voorhies, Edward Jones, Charles Mayne, M. Eilas, and H.R. Bacon. Entrance was fixed at five dollars, and players were to be divided into classes according to ability. A problem tourney was to be held as well, although that event does not appear to have materialized.

    The California Chess Congress began on Monday evening, March 22, 1858, at the Hall in Hunt's Building, San Francisco. Congress President Franklin opened the proceedings with a short address, and play began with eight players in the First Class, twenty-six in the First Division of the Second Class (who would have received knight odds from First Class Players) and twelve in the Second Division of Second Class (who would have received rook odds from First Class Players). Players were paired within classes. The First Class Tournament saw the following pairings for play:

Selim Franklin vs. Charles Sutro
Edward Jones vs. E. Justh
Daniel S. Roberts vs. Wilhelm Schleiden
John Shaw vs. Philip Kalkman

    Play at the Congress began on Tuesday, March 23, and continued each day until midnight. The twenty-three games simultaneously in progress drew large crowds of spectators, including members of the bar, judges, clergymen, physicians, merchants and literary men, although "men of all ages and conditions" were present to witness the historic event as well.

    The event was modeled after New York 1857, with the eight players engaging in a knockout tournament, the player winning three games eliminating his opponent from play. In the first round Edward Jones defeated E. Justh 3-1, while Selim Franklin, one of the tournament's favorites, handled Charles Sutro easily, 3-0. The Chess Monthly for June 1858 added that "Mr. President Franklin's second encounter with Mr. Sutro, which took place on Thursday the 25th, is spoken of as resulting in one of the finest games ever played in California," although neither then nor later was the game published in the journal. John Shaw also ran the table on his opponent, finishing 3-0. Among the games between these two gentlemen was the following:

Kalkman - Shaw [C52]
California Chess Congress
First Class Tournament, Rd. 1
March 1858

    Daniel S. Roberts, who prior to moving to California had been elected President of the Brooklyn Chess Club, in 1856, was considered another of the favorites in the event. He had been required to move to California just before play began at New York 1857, and his presence on the west coast and his chess connections back East were largely responsible for coverage of the California Chess Congress making its way to The Chess Monthly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Indeed, as reported, Roberts was at the time of the California Congress still president of the Brooklyn organization. Roberts defeated his first round opponent, Wilhelm Schleiden, of San Francisco, by a score of 3-1. Two of the games from this match have survived.

Schleiden - Roberts [C44]
California Chess Congress
First Class Tournament, Rd. 1
March 1858

Schleiden - Roberts [D30]
California Chess Congress
First Class Tournament, Rd. 1
March 1858

    According to The Chess Monthly for June 1858, "Rain and unpleasant weather occasionally reduced the number of persons in attendance, but on the fair days sometimes nearly two hundred people were to be seen in the Hall at once."

    Pairings for the second round of the First Class Tournament were as follows:

Selim Franklin vs. Daniel S. Roberts
John Shaw vs. Edward Jones

    This round, which began on Saturday, March 27, 1858, brought together the tournament's two favorites, Franklin and Roberts. The former was "some years ago, a well-known frequenter" of chess circles in California, and his meeting with Roberts was hard fought. The first game ended in a draw, and although Franklin took the second and third games, the fourth was drawn and the fifth went to Roberts. The second week of play had seen the tournament move from Hunt's Hall to the rooms of San Francisco's Pioneer Club, with public play ceasing on the evening of Saturday, April 3, 1858. Interested readers of The Chess Monthly following the progress of the Congress had to wait until the July number to learn the conclusion of the event, which in fact did not conclude until May Day of that year.

Franklin - Roberts [A34]
California Chess Congress
First Class Tournament, Rd. 2
March 1858

Roberts - Franklin [D30]
California Chess Congress
First Class Tournament, Rd. 2
March 1858

    Unfortunately, with Roberts's elimination from the tournament, his interest in supplying games to Frank Leslie's Illustrated News appears to have ended. What is known, though, from The Chess Monthly for July 1858 is that Edward Jones defeated John Shaw, and that Franklin eliminated Jones in the final round, to win the first prize "of a costly gold watch." Second prize, earned by Jones, was "an inlaid rosewood chess-table." The final night of the Congress, after prizes were awarded in all three sections, "the evening was concluded by a social festival." All in all, the California Chess Congress of 1858 was considered a wonderful success.

    As it turned out, The Chess Monthly added a little more regarding happenings in the far distant west. Franklin, "the winner of the first or grand prize, is a gentleman well-known for his powers as a player and for the warm interest he has so long taken in the game. He has been challenged by Mr. John Shaw to a match of twenty-one games, and as the present champion of Pacific chess we presume he will accept the challenge. The games, proceedings, etc., are to be published in a pamphlet, whose appearance we shall gladly hail as the first production of the chess-press west of the Rocky Mountains. One of the consequences of the Tournament had been the formation of a new and enlarged club, in the capital of California, under the name of 'Cosmopolitan.' Its influence will of course be felt in many other directions. We congratulate the chess lovers of the Golden State upon the entire success of their first general assemblage."

    Unfortunately, the remaining pages of The Chess Monthly, not only for 1858, but for 1859 and 1860, too, are silent as to California chess. Whether such a match between Franklin and Shaw ever took place, or whether a pamphlet about the California Chess Congress ever appeared, is unknown. For the record, though, Daniel S. Roberts continued to send some of his games later in 1858 and into 1859, which were published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated News. None of the following games were identified as taking place at the California Chess Congress, but are given here for those interested to peruse:

Roberts - Franklin [C31]
California, 1859

Franklin - Roberts [C01]
California, 1859

Roberts - Franklin [B40]
California, 1859

Roberts - Franklin [C01]
California, 1859

Franklin - Roberts [B01]
California, 1859

Franklin - Roberts [D40]
California, 1859

Roberts - Franklin [C60]
California, 1859

    As a kind of footnote to the above collection of games, attached here is one game by a Californian that was found in the pages of The Chess Monthly, and that game, as the explanation offered with it suggests, was in fact played in Boston: "We owe this game," Fiske wrote, "to the kindness of the President of the Boston Club. We publish it with great pleasure, as a specimen of the chess-play of the distinguished explorer and savan. It is one of a match played three or four months since and will amply repay the attention of the reader."

Boston Amateur - Colonel John Charles Fremont [C53]
Boston 1859

    John Charles Fremont (1813-1890), as general reference sources commonly note, had in 1838 helped map the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Fremont would later lead government survey expeditions to map much of the area between the Mississippi River valley and the Pacific Ocean. A major in the Mexican War, he helped conquer California and was appointed military governor. The gold rush brought him great fortune, and he was elected one of California's first United States senators, serving in 1850 and 1851. In 1856, Fremont was the Republican Party's first presidential candidate, losing the election that year to James Buchanan. Long after the game above was played, Fremont lost his fortune in railroad ventures, and served as governor of the Arizona Territory from 1878-1883.

    The Morphy chess boom, though, didn't last. Chess in the United States lost many of its gains in the years following Morphy's earliest and grandest successes. By March 13, 1861, a correspondent in California could write The Chess Monthly as follows:

    "During the latter part of 1858 and the beginning of 1859, while Mr. Morphy was pursing his unparalleled successes, the chess fever reached its height in San Francisco. Several chess clubs were formed, a grand Tournament was held, and all classes of the community were seized with a rage for playing chess. Since then the interest in our game has somewhat declined, and there is now no regular club in the city. The Mercantile Library Association, however, has a large and beautiful chess room for the accommodation of its members, furnished with sixteen tables, where daily and nightly may be found a collection of players of all grades of force, from the tyro, whose chess acquirements extend only to a knowledge of the moves, to such veterans as Mr. Roberts, formerly President of the Brooklyn Chess Club, or Judge Jones, formerly of New Orleans. The first named gentleman is, perhaps, the strongest player here, although there are some five or six others, to whom he can yield no odds, and who sometimes give him a close contest for the superiority."

    "A few months since, Mr. Salem [sic] Franklin, the winner of the first prize in the Tournament of 1858, and who is now residing in Victoria, V.I., paid us a visit. During his stay here he was daily at the Chess Room, and contested a number of games with our strongest players, the result giving him a slight advantage over all excepting Mr. Roberts, with whom the score was about even. Mr. Franklin's style is cautious and defensive. His motto seems to be 'slow and sure.' Indeed, his somewhat excessive slowness at times, furnishes his vanquished antagonists with an excuse, which certain great match-players have not hesitated to make use of when smarting under defeat."

    "A player like Morphy would be a godsend to our chess circle. There are men here, I am persuaded, who, could they have practice with a real first rate player, would eventually occupy no mean place in the chess world. We live in hopes that some stray chess knight of established fame will one day drop in upon us, astonishing our best men with his brilliant combinations, and exciting a generous rivalry which may result in developing the latent chess talent now awaiting the hand of the master to call it forth."

    The writer of this epistle signed himself only "J.S.L.," in the fashion so irritating to chess historians of another day. A "J. Levinson" had played in the First Division of the Second Class at the California Chess Congress of 1858, but there is no way to tell if Levinson and J.S.L. were one in the same. In any event, the writer had no way of knowing that his own letter detailing the decline of chess in the Golden State would find its parallel thousands of miles away. The letter appears in the last issue of The Chess Monthly, which was released in May 1861, a few short weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter called the nation to a larger cause. Not long thereafter, in September 1861, the chess column in Frank Leslie's Illustrated News ceased as well, no doubt also a victim to declining interest in chess and the conflagration tearing the country apart. It would only be following the conclusion of the Civil War that most men's interest in chess would return to the regional and national stage, and the progress of chess in California, as elsewhere, would eventually continue with renewed vigor.

    © 2003 John S. Hilbert All Rights Reserved