The McConnell Family Notebooks, Part
I
Researched by John Paul Phillips
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I came by this piece of American chess history
rather
by accident. I was playing out the 1996 Karpov-Kamsky games from
the rec.games.chess newsgroup when my friend and co-worker, Mark
Sherrouse,
came by. He remarked that he too played chess and that his
great-great
grandfather, James McConnell, used to play with Paul Morphy. He
had
a notebook of James with some gamescores in it, and said he could
bring
it in sometime for me to look at. Needless to say, I was impressed
and eagerly accepted. I said that the notebook must be over a
hundred
year old, Mark agreed it was that old and it required some care in
handling.
I mentioned that some chess archivists may be interested in the scores,
and that I could get some information from the chess archives on James
McConnell. Mark said sure, hed like that. |
After he left, I was rather in a state of
disbelief.
After a moment, I looked up the e-mail addresses of a couple individuals
from the chess newsgroup that I had come to respect for their
discussions
there. One was Nick Pope, and I asked him if he knew of a James
McConnell,
the ancestor that Mark mentioned, and what the archives had on him and
if he could recommend any chess archivists. Nick recommended
himself
since he was extremely interested, and was kind enough to give me a
biographical
outline on James McConnell and sent me the 8 games on record between
McConnell
and Morphy, all won by Morphy, plus some other games against Steinitz
and
Pillsbury. |
However, it was a while before Mark Sherrouse was
able to dig up the notebook, having left it with his mother for
safekeeping
since he was changing locations in his company, eventually ending up in
California. In the meanwhile, I called up the library at Louisiana
State University where Mark said he saw some writings on McConnell
there.
They said that one book on Morphy had some mentions of McConnell, and
they
were kind enough to e-mail me the titles of nine books on Morphy at
their
library. Nick Pope did some checking and told me that the
McConnell
notebook could be significant because the New Orleans Chess, Checkers
and
Whist Club lost most of their records and Morphy memorabilia collection
in an 1890 fire. |
So when Mark was able to mail me copies of the
notebook,
I was really excited and it was a bit of a letdown to see that it
belonged
to James McConnell Jr., the son of the James McConnell who had played
with
Morphy. All of the gamescores were after 1890, being between 1894
and 1909 with a total of 34 games, several with notes by opposing
players
and a few bits of analysis. Nick Pope was able to confirm that
some
of the games were the first recorded instances of the Kiel variation to
the Center-Counter Defense, employed by James McConnell Jr. Oddly
enough, while there were records of the father in the chess archives,
there
were none of the son, even though the games showed him to be a solid
chessplayer.
But the main thing that really hit me about the notebooks were the
autographs.
Jose Raul Capablancas signature was in it, as flamboyant as the
man himself!
Other signatures were from Pillsbury, Marshall, Maróczy, Lasker,
Tartakower, Marco, Löwy and a few other. Also included were
a couple of clippings, one of a 1903 game between Pillsbury and
Tarrasch,
and one announcing a competition for the city title at the New Orleans
club, marked T.P. Sept. 16/23, which mentioned the younger
James McConnell
and a 17-year Mexican boy named Charles Torre. There also was a
letter
from Maróczy to McConnell Jr. indicating a friendship between the
two. |
It was really exciting to see those signatures of
chess giants of a bygone era, but I was looking forward to possibly
seeing
some undiscovered Morphy games. However, Mark Sherrouse mentioned
in his accompanying letter about seeing a reference to the Manuscripts
Division at Tulane University Library, so I called them up the following
day and found that they had a large collection entitled McConnell
Family
Papers, dating from 1723 to 1962, with the bulk being between 1868
and 1934, mostly legal papers since the McConnell family was rather
prominent,
having several lawyers, including James McConnell Sr. The library
sent me an inventory list, 15 pages long with 4565 items, so I could
give
it to Mark Sherrouse. The people at Tulane were kind enough to
look
for any chess references in the James McConnell Sr. materials, and came
up with a letter from William Steinitz to James McConnell Sr. discussing
Morphy, and a 1886 game between the two won by McConnell and annotated
by Steinitz. There was another notebook kept by the elder
McConnell
with 23 games, some against Captain Mackenzie and Bird, plus a couple of
letters from father to son about Capablancas visit to New Orleans
in 1909. |
Still no Morphy, but the 1886
McConnell-Steinitz
game was a real find, since it was never recorded in the archives and it
had been annotated by Steinitz. Whats more, McConnell
announced
a mate in 6 moves by the 22nd move, quite an accomplishment against one
considered to be the reigning world chess champion at that time.
Im really glad that my digging turned up quite a gem, and Mark
tells me
that this has really stirred up his family and created new interest in
their family history, and we may do some more contributions regarding
the
McConnell chessplayers. In all, it was almost a full year from
when
Mark told me about the notebook to when I received copies of the
material
at Tulane University library. |
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