Old Sport Campana (1836-1906)

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By Davy Crockett

After ten years of competing in ultra-distance races, Old Sport, Peter Napoleon Campana (1836-1906), age 52, had never gone west of the Mississippi River. That was all about to change in 1889. Frank W. Hall (1860-1923), of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had managed some very successful six-day races. He decided to take the sport out to California. It had been about four years since the west coast had hosted a race. Hall hired Campana to be in the race and paid for this train ticket to California. He left on February 6, 1889, riding the Cincinnati Express. He arrived a week later with fellow runners Frank Hart (1856-1908) and George Cartwright (1848-1928). They created a stir among west coast sportsmen who wanted to get a glimpse of the famous runners.

New book! Old Sport Campana: Ultrarunning’s Most Popular and Amusing 19^th Century Runner. As I researched for these podcast episodes, I realized that I had enough content for an entire amusing and interesting book. This episode previews chapter eight of the book. To read the entire story of Old Sport, get my new book on Amazon.

The workmen made finishing touches to the stands and booths at San Francisco’s Mechanics Pavilion the day before the race. Sixty scorers would be needed to keep the tallies of the men, thirty on the sheets and thirty on the dials. The runners took some practice runs on the track.

How would California react to Campana’s unusual behavior? Years earlier, they had nearly run Steve Brodie (1861-1901), the young newsboy pedestrian from New York City, out of town because of his poor behavior during a race that shocked women. The San Francisco Chronicle introduced Campana to its readers. “Old Sport Campana is as original a character as one could wish to meet with.” He was quoted, “I don’t want sleep, but I must have music, and I can cover more distance when the band is playing ‘The Old Armchair’ than at any time. That’s my favorite tune, and Lord, it just makes me hustle around the track when I hear it. One time in New York, my shoestring got inside and was hurting me. I took the shoe off to fix it when the band started the tune, and up I went and traveled ten miles with one shoe on and the other off.”

The Old Armchair British folksong is about a man who inherited only an old chair from his grandmother and was mocked by his siblings, who got some cash. And how they titter’d! how they chaff’d! How my brother and sister laugh’d. But later, after the chair broke, he discovered it included more than £2,000. When my brother heard of this, the fellow I confess, went nearly mad with rage, and tore his hair. But I only laugh’d at him, then said unto him, Jem, don’t you wish you had the old armchair?

The San Francisco Examiner added, “He is 61 years old (actually 52). Because of his many peculiarities, he has become the best-known man in his business. He never trains for a race, never eats meat and never sleeps while in a race, but remains on the track through the entire six days and nights. His sharp features and closely cropped beard give him a peculiar appearance.”

The Start

On Thursday, February 21, 1889, five hours before the start, hundreds of people waited outside the Pavilion, wanting to get in. “So great was the jam of a great crowd gathered at the entrance that the managers decided to throw open the doors two hours ahead of the advertised time. Then there was a frantic rush for the seats of vantage.”

At 9:50 p.m., Hall appeared on the track, leading a long string of runners coming from their tents. “Nearly all wore colored shirts and caps and had their numbers either on their chests or backs.” The Hall Belt race began at 9:58 p.m. About 13,000 people were on hand for the start of the 31 runners.

There was another running clown in the race, a man who went by “Oofty Goofty.” His real name was Leonard “Leon” Borchardt (1862-). In 1884, Goofty was offered employment in a San Francisco dime museum where he played the role of a wild man, placed in a cage and handcuffed. He was called “the only hairy wild man in existence,” who had been captured in the jungles of Borneo.

His body was entirely covered in tar and horsehair. He was fed raw meat and told to yell “Oofty Goofty“ when people tried to talk to him. He later also received the nickname of “Professor Hardness” when he let people pay him up to 25 cents to strike his behind with a cane where he wore a leather pad. Goofty entered the six-day race with a bet of $100 to reach 200 miles. He quickly developed a friendship with Campana because of both of their antics.

Neither seemed serious about piling up a huge number of miles. “Campana hobbled around with a wet sponge upon his head and a ghastly smile upon his peaked face.” He created amusement by holding high an enormous bouquet that had been presented to him by an admirer. He reached 106 miles in the first 24 hours, good enough for seventh place. His performance thus far was amazing to those who watched. “Campana is a physical wonder. Apparently, a total wreck, and considerably past his 60^th year, the old fellow sticks to his work with marvelous endurance. He has not yet left the track. His gait is a steady job, varied from time to time by a quiet walk. He averages about four and a half miles an hour and would do even better if he did not stop every few laps to encourage his fellow walkers.”

At one point, Oofty Goofty was presented with a magnificent diamond ring from a spectator and sprinted around the track to show appreciation. “He collided with Old Sport who gave chase and compelled the “professor” to apologize.” Campana finally left the track for a half hour, not for a nap, but to entertain his friends with a song. He reached 185 miles in 48 hours and moved into sixth place. Oofty Goofty brought up the rear with 111 miles.

Day Three

Early into day three, Campana seemed to be falling to pieces. “He was sodding and sidling along, arousing himself occasionally to reach out for the half-dollars that were tossed down for him by fair sympathizers.” He finally woke up from his foggy walk and astonished everyone by spurting around the track at a six-minute-mile pace. He received tremendous cheers.

Campana continued to surprise everyone as he moved into fourth place by the end of the third day with 265 miles. “It must not be supposed that he does not walk. His magnificent legs go like pieces of machinery. Whenever the band starts up a lively air, Sport spurts and lends an additional charm to his already very attractive shirt by soaking it a little more in perspiration, so that it may bring a few more bright colors from his trunks.”

“Next to Sport, Oofty Goofty probably causes the most amusement. Oofty tries to rival Campana as a lady’s man, but the effort is not a ‘howling success.’ There is something about the contour of Oofty’s legs that does not impress the onlooker with the belief that the professor is an animated sculptor’s model.”

“Sport is is an irreverent old ‘masher.’” He was never shy about flirting with women, even when sitting next to their husbands or boyfriends. “Campana was presented with a ten-pound roast turkey by some compassionate observer of his hungry appearance. Sport took it in his arms and trotted around the track with it until he feared the temptation to attack it would be too great, and he gave it a place of honor in his tent. He divided it with Oofty Goofty amid loud applause. Campana is attracting the attention of medical men, and it is said that there is a plot on foot to snatch him off the track and see whether he is really human or only a combination of India rubber and wire springs.”

Day Four

On the fourth day, Campana continued to be a focus of entertainment for the spectators. “A large gentleman with a silk hat referred to Campana as a loafer and asked why he did not trade off his feet for a lot in a graveyard.” The taunts continued as Campana was eating a pig’s foot. Campana smeared the remnants of his dinner in the man’s face. Another man, a medical student, heard that Campana had only slept one hour during the race. He received permission to go on the track to interview him. He warned Campana that he could get brain fever if he continued to go without sleep. Finally Campana replied, “You darned fool! I sleep on the track and here you’ve gone and woke me up after I had good sleep for an hour with the aid of the band.”

Campana ate his lunch on the track—raw oysters with chili sauce. Someone gave him a bottle of drink which the donor called “the right stuff.” He gulped some down and yelled, “I’m a poisoned man!” Everyone became alarmed that he had been drugged, and they were ready to “lynch” the offender. A competent chemist came down and analyzed the contents of the bottle. It was water. Minutes later, Campana sped madly around the track, holding a silver dollar high above his head that he was given. He often carried a sponge soaked with ammonia that he sniffed. “It was strong enough to drive everybody away from his vicinity and the odor would peel an onion. Still, it only served to waken the old man up a little.”

A nine-year-old boy, Ikey Martens, while eating peanuts, got into the fun started to yell at Campana. He shouted that Campana should sell his face to a drugstore. Police officer Scott arrested the boy for being out after the 8 p.m. curfew. The judge, amused, threatened to send him to jail but let him off. No parents were involved. Other boys were arrested for breaking through the skylight of the Pavilion to get free entry.

Oofty Goofty, clothed like a clown, walked around that track and raised his voice, shouting a poem he wrote:

“The bald head of Campana reflected the gaslight in a way that dazzled the eye of the beholder.” Goofty discovered that he loved the oysters that Campana had been eating. He yelled, “‘Give me a plate of eastern oysters and I will show you how I walk.” The scorers began to keep track of the oysters that Goofty ate, against the number of his laps, and awarded the oysters the prize of 211.

Day Five

Ever since the race began, Campana made pleas for the band to play his favorite tune, the folk song, “The Old Armchair.” The band director refused and Campana said that the band was incapable of playing the difficult tune. That taunt worked, and they started to play it. “They had played only one bar, when Campana left the track, and seeking Manager Hall, informed him that he would quit the race if the band was not stopped from mangling the grand old air. The music ceased, but now ‘Old Sport’ and the bandsmen did not indulge in conversation as he passed by.”

Campana was asked by a reporter what his real age was. “‘How old am I? I’ll be 27 my next birthday. Sickness made me baldheaded. If you don’t believe that is my age, just look at my teeth.’ And he displayed a double row of stumpless gums.”

The Finish

Campana was missing from the track during the afternoon of the final day. “Manager Hall discovered that he had made a break for the street. The old man was captured and taken back.” When asked why he left the building, he said he was in search of men who owed him $500 each on bets he won from them on the race.

In the end, Frank Hart won in a close race with 525.8 miles. Campana reached 385.7 miles, and Oofty Goofty pulled up the rear with 222 miles. It had been a very successful race financially and entertainment-wise. More than 80,000 people passed through the doors of Mechanics Hall during the race.

Campana received no winnings for his fifth-place finish, but it was rumored that he picked up as much as $400 off the track. But he claimed he was destitute. He had lost his voice, and on the next day he was not happy with the race manager, Frank Hall. He and other runners accused Hall of skimming off profits for himself.

Campana was asked why he was so upset. “He told inquisitive strangers that his shoes had been pawned. ‘Because I’ve been robbed, cheated and swindled. How do I expect to get back to New York? Frank Hall? He guaranteed me the entire earth when I came on. If he’ll pay my way back, I’ll be satisfied. I don’t know how I’m going to git back. But I’m only 21 years of age, and I’m a walker from Walkersville.”

The next day he announced that he would walk home, stopping in Denver to enter another race, to give time for the snow to melt off the railroad ties between there and Chicago. His California exit plans quickly changed as another six-day race was announced to be held in two months.

Campana’s Secret Box

Announcements were made that Campana had entered other races in the west, but he did not start in them. He stayed in the San Francisco area, hanging out in the Sportsmen’s Resort, on Golden Gate Avenue, that hosted boxing matches. He had a secret that drove people crazy with curiosity. He carried around with him a little green cigar box for days. Reporters tried to get the story about the box, but Campana refused to share the secret.

One day while napping, some young men carefully took the little box from his arms. “The lid was removed, and the box was found to be filled with pieces of mossy turf and little twigs.” The turf was discovered to be from the grave of one of Campana’s boxing heroes, Yankee Sullivan (1811-1856), from Ireland. Campana had met him during the early 1850s while Campana was a fireman. Sullivan tragically took his own life in 1856 when he while in prison, faced with deportation, accused by vigilantes of stuffing a ballot box.

Sullivan was buried at Mission Delores Cemetery, in San Francisco. Campana went to the cemetery to pay his respects and took some turf to honor his hero.

On top of the turf in the box were some soiled sheets of paper that contained a draft of a brief biography of Campana, that included a phony age for him. The men copied those pages and had them published in The San Francisco Examiner. “The little box with its precious contents was restored to the old man’s fond clasp and he slept on undisturbed.”

Campana went to work on the streets of San Francisco. “He was seen driving a wagon along Market Street and shouting, ‘Sweet Los Angeles oranges, two bits a dozen here.’ He appeared to be doing a thriving business.” He wrote, “Here the old man is 3,000 miles from his wife and children, flat broke.” As the next date for the next six-day race came closer, he did some serious training.

The Second Hall Belt Six-Day Race

With the financial success of the February six-day race, Frank Hall (1860-1923) quickly scheduled another six-day race for May 1889. He paid the six-day American record holder, James Albert (1856-1912), $1,000 to come from New Jersey to compete. The news of Albert’s payment “created much talk and jealousy” among the runners. Some put together plans to try to gang up on Albert during the race. Manager Hall wrote back to his hometown newspaper in Philadelphia, “I predict that we will see the grandest event that has ever transpired in the history of pedestrianism, and it is a foregone conclusion that the record will be broken in the coming race.”

There was so much interest in the race that an hour before the start, on May 10, 1889, race management had to hang up a notice that read, “Standing Room Only.” “The floor was an ever-moving mass of humanity, and the long tiers of seats and rows of chairs on the galleries were filled with thousands of spectators. Pool-sellers (bookmakers) were hoarsely shouting the bids on the athletic contestants. Barkeepers in spotless uniforms were jingling glasses in their ceaseless efforts to satisfy the thirsty crowd, while a military band filled in any lulls by selections from the latest popular airs.”

About 10,000 people crushed into the Mechanics Pavilion. They were delighted to see the clowns on the track, Campana, and Oofty Goofty (1862-) starting the race. It was said that outside of wagering, the primary interest in the race was centered on the comical actions of the two. Both kept the crowd roaring with delight. Campana reached 100 miles in 23:30. He received loud applause, and the band played his favorite song, “The Old Armchair.” He received a telegram from his wife in Providence, Rhode Island, stating that if he didn’t finish high in the standings, he needn’t come home. After reaching 100 miles, he went off of the track for an hour and then came back looking very stiff.

Details of the race were limited in the newspapers because of a disagreement with reporters. Albert won with 533 miles. Campana finished in fifth place, with 349 miles. Oofty Goofty was last, among those that lasted six days, with 211 miles.

Campana Assaults Frank Hall

Campana went on a tirade the day after the race and confronted Manager Hall, at the Central Park Saloon, over a dispute regarding receiving money, to get him back home to Connecticut. Hall had paid for his train ticket to come out to California but refused to give him anything to return.

Campana said, “I thought about my wife and children away off in the East, maybe starving, and tears commenced running down my face. I went to put my hand to my eye, but it landed on Frank Hall’s. I poked his lower jaw astride his neck and jammed his head down until his collarbones nearly cut his years off. Then Hall got behind the bar and begged them to protect him and finally sneaked off when I wasn’t looking. I danced a jig on his plug hat.”

Reporters flocked to learn about the reason for Campana’s assault on the much younger, 29-year-old, Hall. He explained that this was Hall’s fourth race where he had hired Campana to spend the entire six days on the track but then reneged on the agreement. At Hall’s February 1888 race at Madison Square Garden, he had been promised $250 but only received $10 to appear. He said, “I went back to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and commenced peddling peanuts again.” The same treatment was repeated at another Hall race in Philadelphia where he was promised a trainer and food but only received $6. “I worked my way back to Bridgeport and went to work keeping books for a peanut stand.”

As the embarrassing matter became very public, Hall promised to pay for Campana’s return ticket to the East but did not follow through with that promise. Campana told people that he had received a telegram stating that his wife was seriously ill. A benefit evening, including pedestrianism, dancing, and sword combat, was held to raise expense money for Campana. The manager of Woodward’s Gardens, F. Albrecht, bought Campana’s return train ticket home.

Campana left for the East on May 28, 1889. He gave a farewell speech and said, “There will be a sensation in New York when I get back there and I’ll tell ‘em about you. I’m going to tell ‘em that California is the greatest country in the world. Good-bye and remember Old Sport.” He arrived back in Connecticut on June 10, 1889, sharing his tale of how he “thrashed” Hall.

Frank Hall Skips Out of Town

Just a week after the race concluded, Manager Hall skipped out of town without paying all of his bills, including his hotel bill, and a large wine bill at a house of ill repute. “Hall took his trunks out of the Windsor Hotel by night and with them departed for pastures new, leaving numerous collectors to stand in line in front of his office.” It was rumored that Hall was on a train on the way back to Philadelphia.

Hall’s local assistant manager, Duncan R. “D. R.” McNeill (1847-1930), who had a good reputation, vowed that he would pay all the bills, realizing that Hall had pulled a fast one on him. It was estimated that McNeill’s losses were about $1,500, valued at $51,000 today. Within a couple of weeks, Hall was helping with a race in Philadelphia and back managing events held in Elite Rink.

Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part One
Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part Two
Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part Three
Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part Four
Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part Five
Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part Six

Sources:

The Evening World (New York, New York), Jan 17, 24-28, 1889
The Brooklyn Citizen (New York), Jan 26-27, 1889
The Journal (Meriden, Connecticut), Jan 14, 1889
The Morning Journal-Courier (New Haven, Connecticut), Jan 10, 1889
The Waterbury Democrat (Connecticut), Jun 11, 1889
San Francisco Chronicle (California), Feb 14, 22-28, May 11-12, 17, 1889
The San Francisco Examiner (California), Feb 14, 23-28, Mar 1-2, 27, Apr 14, May 11, 18, 25, 28, 1889
The Los Angeles Times (California), Feb 23, 1889
Santa Cruz Surf (California), Mar 9, 1889

173: Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part Six