…The leading newspapers of New York and other cities sent reporters to the fight, of course, and the rivalry to get the first news out in New York was red-hot. The Mercury employed relays of reporters, however, under the management of John Stetson, then a noted pedestrian and now the proprietor and manager of the Globe Theatre, Boston; and Stetson and his men, after slippin’ away from the crowd, in an old barn at night, were on the battle-ground before the cocks took it into their heads to crow.
The fight took place some six or seven miles from a played-out telegraph station on the Wilmington and Baltimore railroad, called, I think, Mechanic’s Junction, and about four miles from the railway track itself at the nearest point. When the battle opened, Stetson went in, note-book in hand, and at the end of the third round left the ring with his “copy,” followed by a crowd of other city reporters who had watched his movements, leaving his assistants to write up the followin’ rounds and follow him.
Stetson and the rest of the press gang had horses and wagons, and soon reached the railroad track, where they all took to their legs for a race along the track to the telegraph station. Stetson easily kept two or three yards or so in advance of the others till they reached a river, when Stetson bounded over the railway bridge sleepers like a deer. The other reporters gave him a shower of sticks and stones from behind, but he reached the telegraph wire before the others hove in sight.
“I have got two columns of news, and I engage the exclusive use of this wire till I get it all off,” said Stetson, as he rushed into the little office of the operator and shut and barred the door.
“Only as long as you keep me in copy,” said the operator.
“All right.”
Then his account of the fight came tumbling into the Mercury office, and when the end of the third round was reached, the words “waiting for more copy. I’ve got the wire, and by — I’ll keep it” were telegraphed, and grabbing a Bible that he spied in the room, he astonished the Mercury people with an account of the creation of the world, and had got well into the third chapter of Genesis before his assistant came up with the remainder of the fight.
The outside barbarians were blood-thirsty, you bet, during this performance, but Stetson swore he would shoot the first mother’s-son of them that broke in, and he kept the scared telegraph clerk at his work, giving the Sunday Mercury a complete account of the fight, which was published in New York at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, while the other pressmen had to telegraph from Baltimore and Wilmington at night.
Why, the Mercury was sending that report of the fight all over the United States twelve hours before any other paper received it! It must have sold a quarter of a million copies of that McCoole and Coburn extra!
[Editor’s notes: John Stetson, Jr. (1834-1896) was a theater manager and newspaperman from Massachusetts. He should not be confused with John B. Stetson, the hatmaker; or Col. Charles A. Stetson, manager of the Astor Hotel in New York City (whom Harry often wrote about).
Joe Coburn defeated Mike McCoole for the American heavyweight boxing (bare-knuckle) championship on May 5, 1863, during the Civil War.]
