There have been quarrels over cards at the Union Club lately and “the satisfaction due a gentleman” and wounded “honor” and “duels” have been talked about among the “swells,” and paragraphed about in the papers. But in the last generation there was a quarrel over cards among well-known sports which led to a duel, but about which there was no talk, and which never got into the papers at all. It was less than four hours from the quarrel to the settlement and the satisfaction, and within twelve hours the whole matter had arisen, come to a head, been fought out and forgotten, showin’ the great difference in these “affairs of honor” between the sports and the swells.
In the “good old times,” John Frink kept a fashionable gamin’ house at No. 13 (I think it was), Park row. This place was called the “Union Club House” and was a “square game.” Frink was somethin’ of a politician, too, a warm Whig, and his place got to be a kind of political headquarters for the Whigs all over the country. Frink took in as his partner in his gamin’ rooms a young fellow quite handsome, gentlemanly and well connected–Sam Head from New Orleans. I think Head was highly-educated, and exceedin’ly polished and refined–a gentleman as well as a gambler, and very popular.
Bill Harrington, who was at this period not only a king among the sports, with his pockets full of money, but he was also a successful Whig politician, was a good deal at Frink’s establishment and had the freedom of the place, though he never seemed to hitch with Sam Head.
Frink and Head ran a day game, and one mornin’ about eleven o’clock Harrington came in while Head was dealin’ faro, and began to play.
Harrington had just come from the market, and his pockets were were full of bank notes. He pulled out a roll of bills from his vest pocket and put down $25 to begin with, lost that, and another $25, and so on till $100 had gone. Then he doubled his bets, made ‘em $50 a time and lost four times hand runnin’. In eight bets he lost $300, and then, gettin’ mad, he doubled the $50 and staked $100 on the nine. But while he was counting out his money to make up the hundred, Sam Head kept on dealin’. Harrington had not put his whole hundred down when the dealer turned the nine and Bill would have won at last, had his money been down. But as it wasn’t, he didn’t. It was no fault of Sam Head’s, but it made Harrington hoppin’ mad. It was decidedly provokin’ to lose eight bets and then, when you would and should have won the ninth, to lose, too. Harrington lost his temper and cursed and swore fearfully. Then he turned on Sam Head, and tongue-lashed him horribly, called him every name in the calendar, and offered to fight him, rough and tumble, then and there. Then he offered to fight any and all of Sam Head’s friends, then and there, and he meant what he said, too. Those old time sports all meant what they said, and took the consequences, unlike our modern “swells.”
But no one accepted Harrington’s liberal offer, and after he had got through tongue-lashin’, Sam Head quietly said that he had not been brought up to fight with fists or tongues, but that pistols were his weapons–those of a gentleman–and that he would fight Mr. William Harrington with these any time, anywhere, then and there, in that room, at that very hour, a duel to the death, if he agreed.
He said all this in a very low tone of voice, as if he was askin’ Harrington “to take somethin’,” but he meant every word of what he was sayin’ so quietly, just as thoroughly as Bill Harrington had meant all he had just said so noisily. Each of the two men expressed himself after his own peculiar fashion, but each one was in dead earnest.
Bill Harrington was plucky and a good pistol shot, and he would have at once accepted Sam Head’s proposition for an immediate duel in that gamin’ hell had not Isaiah Rynders, who was present, interfered, with others, and prevented this extraordinary sort of duelin’.
“Well,” said Harrington to Sam Head, after Rynders and the rest had interfered. “the Elysian Fields are handy; let us meet there, with our seconds or without ‘em, if we can’t get ‘em on time, at three o’clock this afternoon.”
“With pleasure, sir,” said polite Sam Head, with a bow, and then he went on dealin’, as if nothin’ unusual had transpired.
Meanwhile Sam Suydam (Gentleman Sam), John Harrison (Everybody’s Jack), Harry Parrott and Isaiah Rynders took charge of the arrangements that were to be made for the meetin’, as the Seconds of the parties, and they had plenty to do, as the meetin’ was to take place in less than three hours.
There had been some twenty people playin’ faro at the time of the burstin’ in, or out, of Harrington, but each person pledged his word of honor not to breathe a word about the projected duel.
And although these twenty people were only ordinary sports or gamblers, they all kept their word so well, and held their tongues so perfectly, that nothin’ was said about it before or after, it never got into the papers at all. How different from the way their affair was mismanaged by the Union Club swells, where everythin’ that was said and wasn’t said, and everything that was done and wasn’t done, got talked all over town inside of an hour and the papers all had long articles on the silly affair every day.
At one o’clock Sam Head left the “club house” or gamin’ “hell,” as usual, and went over to the old Astor House for one of Stetson’s unrivaled lunches, as usual, and chatted and smiled, as usual.
Not a soul who saw him would have dreamed that there was anythin’ the matter with him, or that anythin’ was about to happen of any special importance. There wasn’t even that air of “mystery” about him which many people carry about ‘em, which in itself sets people wonderin’. Even the sportin’ men who thronged around him at lunch, and who are very keen observers, noticed nothin’ at all out of the way about him, and yet he was eatin’, for all he knew, his last meal on earth.
It had been arranged that no more than two or three parties engaged as principals or friends of the projected duel should keep together, or go over together on the Hoboken ferryboat, so as to avoid any possible suspicion or inquiry. Consequently, Sam Head and Sam Suydam, havin’ lunched at The Astor, walked quietly down to the Hoboken ferryboat and were carried over to the Elysian Fields, then a place of very popular resort for more purposes than one. Meanwhile Jack Harrison, and Parrot, and Rynders got over separately, Harrison carryin’ the pistols for Head in his pocket and Rynders carryin’ the pistol for Harrington. The men looked as natural and festive as ever, and nobody on earth would have imagined that they were crossin’ the ferry for a deadly purpose.
And on approachin’ the ground appointed for the encounter, lo and behold! they found Harrington, with his coat off, as the day was warm, lyin’ fast asleep on one of the rustic sofas under the trees. He had come there about a half an hour too soon, and tired of waiting had fallen asleep. Rynders called to Harrington and woke him from what for all he knew was his last sleep, or his last but one. He woke smilin’ and puttin’ on his coat saluted the party, (who had walked over from the ferry), politely and then joined Rynders.
It had been arranged that the two principles were to fight, or shoot, each other at a short distance beyond the road leadin’ to the woods, where there was an open space convenient. Rynders won choice of ground and selected an advantageous position for Harrington. Meanwhile, at this last minute, an attempt was made by all the seconds to see if they could get the principals to compromise or become reconciled, but in vain. Sam Head was as polite as ever, Harrington was as jolly and bluff as ever, but neither would yield an inch. There was no braggadacio, no bluster, no Bowery theatre attitudes, but both men meant business and death.
Harrington gave his watch, chain and money to Rynders, tellin’ him to hand ‘em over to his wife if he fell. Sam Head had no wife, but he told Suydam what disposition to make of his body and effects if he fell. Then the two men were about to be placed in position to fire at each other at “one–two–three,” and as both of ‘em were dead shots, Harrington bein’ one of the best in New York and Head one of the best in New Orleans, there would have certainly been one, probably two, dead men in a minute; when, all of a sudden, a Jersey constable, attended by several men, rushed in upon ‘em and stopped the fight.
Harrington and Head were for opposin’ the officer and fightin’ anyway, but their seconds, glad of the interruption, opposed the idea and pledged their words to the constable and his attendants that their men would peaceably withdraw, and they kept their word.
The next day Harrington, havin’ had time to think the matter over and reflectin’ that he had been in the wrong originally, came over to Sam Head’s place and publicly apologized to him. Sam Head accepted the apology in the same hearty manner in which it had been offered, and the two men and their friends present had a sort of love feast together.
Only one thing now worried Head and Harrington. Who of their own set of sportin’ men had gone back on their word of honor to ‘em and had betrayed the intended duel to the Jersey authorities who had stopped it? But now, after the love feast, even this point was satisfactorily explained and in a way that showed that the word of all the sportin’ men concerned in this transaction had been kept to the letter.
It seems that Tom Horton, Osburn and McGunn, well-known local New York sports who had also been present at the original row at the “Union Club House,” had made up their minds to stop this “duel to the death,” as it had been meant to be, and yet not to violate their pledged word either, which was not to breathe a hint of the affair to anyone who had not witnessed its original cause. So they selected a chap called Orton, who had been present at the gamblin’ house that morning, but who was not known personally to either of the principals or their seconds, excepting Rynders, who had had the sense to keep quiet after the secret had been forced on him at the last moment on the ground. This Orton went over with the rest, played the part of constable well, assisted ably by Horton, Osborn, McGunn and others, and by this well-intended and well-carried out artifice, saved their own honor, the honor of the two would-be duelists, and the lives of one or both of ‘em.
There was a good laugh over this disclosure now that all trouble was over, and the whole affair stands out in reminiscence as a peculiar instance of a sort of quarrel which is very seldom witnessed or recorded.
