In one of the Rochester Journals that we have for sale at the museum, there is an excerpt from the memoirs of J. Augustus Johnson who was born in Boston in 1836. Though he was born in the city, Augustus and his family spent many of his younger years in Rochester. His mother, Mary, was a member of the Burges family and a descendant of Joseph Burge who built the first gristmill for grinding corn near Leonard’s Pond.
In his memoirs, he wrote about the festivities that surrounded both Election Day and Muster Day. On both days, townspeople gathered. There were “booths and games” and a general air of holiday. It was a “gala day for young people.”
Johnson wrote that the town’s boys had “great fun” playing in the area of the town hall. One game that he had particularly enjoyed was called ” hailey over”. As you can see from the picture the town hall at that time was only one-story high which made it perfect for this game.
The boys, usually around ten, would divide into two teams with one team on each side of the building where they were invisible to each other. One boy would throw a handball over the roof. If a boy on the opposite side caught the ball “he would run around the corner and then throw the ball at the rival gang.” If he hit a boy, that boy would have to “join the ranks of the enemy.”
This would go on with the handball going back and forth over the roof until one side had completely captured the others. According to Johnson, “the running and shouting and the exercise and the fluctuating victory or loss made the game exhilarating and an event of the day”.
To think in today’s world Dodge Ball is considered too rough.
By Connie Eshbach
