CLUB AND PROFESSIONAL ROWING THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD The rowing that was rapidly gaining in the latter part of the fifties came to a sudden stop during the Civil War, and where five clubs had been founded in 1859,— the Waverley and the Gulick of New York, and the Alcyone of Brook lyn, the Pacific Barge in Philadelphia, and the Menomonee in Milwaukee,— only eight come in the next five years ; but among these are some of the strongest of the present time, — such as the Malta, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia Barge Clubs on the Schuylkill, and the Ariel Barge Club of Baltimore, which dates from the close of the war.
The New York clubs in 186o formed the Re gatta of the Hudson Navy to increase the interest in amateur racing, and they held a regatta in Sep tember, with races in which boats of almost any description were allowed to enter with handi caps for build and oars. It was the only meet ing of the association, for the breaking out of the war caused it to disband in the following year.
Little racing, aside from the professional matches and regattas, occurred, and the clubs contented themselves with club regattas or long excursions; the Gulicks signallized their organization by row ing to Albany and back. The only sections in which much racing did take place was about Bos ton, Pittsburg, and the upper Hudson ; the Citi zen's Regatta at Worcester continued, together with the Boston and the Beacon Cup Regattas, the clubs about Pittsburg formed the Alleghany Association and gave their first races in July, 186o, and the Empire City Regattas were held each year on the Harlem.
Nearly all of these regattas, however, found their support from the professional oarsmen, and the bulk of the racing was in single sculls, four and six-oared shells. Josh Ward was the un beaten champion in the single sculls and defeated all of the best men of the time, such as Fay, Decker, Leary, John Biglin, W. H. Hayes, better known as " Bill Hem " Hayes, Fred Crownin shield, and John Tyler, Jr., of Harvard, and numerous other scullers of lesser note ; Gilbert Ward was also coming into the field and rowed several creditable races.
Josh Ward stands out as the old rugged type of oarsman, — big, muscular, and possessed of remarkable power and endurance ; he could row a race at any distance, but was especially good on the longer courses, and his time of one hour and twenty-three minutes in the ten-mile match with Burger, on the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, has never been equalled ; in his prime he held the records for nearly every course. The Ward
family was then coming into rowing, and as it is undoubtedly the most famous of all the old row ing families, a word should be said of them. They lived at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, and their father, a fisherman and hotel-keeper, brought the boys up on the water ; it was a large family, and five of them turned out oarsmen, John, Ellis, and Gil, with both scull and sweep, and Charles and Hank with the sweep alone ; they were noted for re markable endurance and strength, while in pluck they could not have been bettered. Josh and Ellis had almost perfect sculling form.
A new champion was coming out of the West ; the sculling matches about Pittsburg had been won for several years by James Hamill, and in 1862 he entered the sculls at the Boston Regatta, and came in so far ahead that the judges at first declined to give him the prize under the impres sion that he had not covered the full course, and it was not until the next man proved that Hamill had really rowed all the way that the money was paid. Then Hamill challenged Ward to a match, and two races were arranged on the Schuylkill, the first at three and the second at five miles, both with turns. Hamill surprised the whole country by defeating Ward in both contests and taking the championship ; in the next year Ward chal lenged to row at Poughkeepsie, and this time Ward won. Then came another challenge for a purse of $2000, and Hamill won over the Pough keepsie course, and again settled the question of superiority on the Monongahela at Pittsburg in 1864, and retained the undisputed possession of the championship. Hamill was a remarkable little man; a glass-blower by trade, he had enor mous chest and arm muscles, and he frequently rowed as many as sixty strokes a minute, with a choppy action that would have killed a man less hardy ; his mode of rowing gained him the name of " The Little Engine," and his arms did move like piston-rods when in full action.