Bandy
The rules for Bandy, also known as "Shinny", are found in The American
Boy's Book (pages 104 & 105), published in 1864, as well as other, earlier works.
It has been fairly described as being like field hockey, and some modern sources have said
that it, like "Curling", was a direct ancestor of hockey. Bandy required the use
of a stick shaped similarly to a modern field hockey stick, although the blade was shorter
and more rounded. It was a game that required some exertion and rough-housing, so much so
that among the 45 punishments listed by a teacher for his North Carolina school in 1848,
the punishment for playing Bandy - punishment number 30 - was ten lashes. Speaking of
Bandy, or Shinny, The American Boy’s Book said of it that
"Shinny is one of the best of ball-games, and should not be marred by any unnecessary roughness on the part of the players. Our young friends should remember that the absence of good-nature and fairness will spoil any game, however good it may be."
Words to remember, indeed.
Bilboquette (Bilbo Catcher)Checkers
(See Draughts)
Cloth Ball
The cloth ball is as simple as it sounds: it’s a loose
cloth ball made of fabric scraps. Intended for the amusement of infants, the loose
construction and softness of the fabric made it quite easy for infants to grab, squeeze,
and hold. It was sometimes used indoors for a game of "Catch" by older children
when the weather prevented them form amusing themselves outdoors, or all other amusements
had been exhausted. The cloth ball dates to at least the 1860’s.
Cup & Ball
A favorite Victorian era toy, the cup and ball game has been around for centuries. In
concept it sounds very easy to play, but is much harder to play than it sounds. The
implements of the game are a ball with a string attached and a cup into which the ball is
to be swung and landed. A more difficult variant of this game is the Bilbo Catcher.
Curling
A game favored in the New England states and New York and, to a lesser degree,
Pennsylvania, curling was played on ice with stones - traditionally granite - which weigh
about 42 pounds. Played on ponds, lakes, and even rivers that had frozen over, the
size of the playing field (called a "sheet") was roughly 138 feet long by 14
feet wide.
There are four members to a team, and each team member puts two stones into play.
To put the granite stones into play, the player swings and slides the stone back and forth, often lifting the stone off the ice in the backswing, and finally releases it somewhat after the fashion of a bowling ball. The limit for a player to go onto the ice of the playing area is called the "hog line". The stone glides along the ice until it passes the other hog line, at which point it's considered to be in play.
Obstructing the path of the other team's stones is desirable, and knocking them out of play is almost as important as getting your own stones into play and as close to the "tee" as they can get.
Once eight stones have been put into play by each team, the team with the stone closest to the center, a place called the "tee", is the winner.
Some say that curling is the predecessor of hockey, and some believe it to be the descendant of nine pin. Whichever it is, it's still alive in New York and the New England states. Curlers argue that it's truly a game of strategy more than anything else, perhaps contending that with sone adamance so that curling is perceived as being more than drinking beer and slipping around on the ice. They are at least partly right.
Dolls
Dolls have been found in virtually every culture, and the mid-nineteenth century was
certainly no exception. Doll-making had reached quite a high state of art by then, and
realistic dolls were not at all uncommon. Poorer children could not afford the better
dolls with heads and hands made of wax or porcelain, but there were many dolls whose heads
were made of papier-mâché or even the same cloth from which the bodies were made that
poorer children could afford. It was not unusual for a little girl to own a doll with a
cloth head that had the face drawn on it. Some dolls were faceless, such as those that
came out of the Amish culture. Even slave children had dolls, sometimes made of nothing
more than a corn cob with a strip of cloth or a rag wrapped or tied around it, and some
made with cloth bodies and carved wooden heads.
The most famous doll in re-enacting circles in 1997 would seem to be the "silent witness", a doll left behind in the parlor of the McLean house in Appomattox, Virginia, where it sat while the terms of surrender were discussed and signed between Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.
Dominoes
A game originating in China, it is played with rectangular blocks of wood, each marked
with a number of dots on its face. Called bones, men, dominoes, or pieces, the face of
each is divided by a line into two square ends, and each square is marked in similar
fashion to that by which dice are marked. The set usually is comprised of twenty-eight
pieces, marked 6-6, 6-5, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0, 5-5, 5-4, 5-3, 5-2, 5-1, 5-0, and so
forth down to 0-0. Any group of pieces having a common end comprise a suit, doublets
belonging to one suit each and all other pieces belonging to two suits. Of two bones, the
one bearing the greater number of dots is called the heavier, and the other is the
lighter.
Although there are a number of variations on the theme, a common variant is to match one end to another, identically or reciprocally numbered. In most cases, Dominoes is played by two players, but as many as five may play some variations of the game. the object of the game in most cases is to pose (or play) all of his or her bones, in which case he is to announce "Domino", and thus his victory. When one wins the hand, scoring is typically done by counting as many dots as are on the bones still held by his opponent. If there are more than two players in a game, the one next to declare "Domino" counts his or her score by the number of dots on the pieces still held by the remaining opponent or opponents.
Draughts
More commonly known today as checkers, this is an old game that was a favorite of
George Washington. The game of Draughts was played exactly as we play Checkers today.
Finger Top
The simplest of tops, it consists of a top-shaped body with a stem that protrudes from
the top. The stem permits the child to take hold of the top between their fingers and give
it a sudden twist, causing the top to spin.
Graces
Dating back to the early 1830s, Graces is a game which uses two wooden throwing rings
approximately ten inches in diameter with decorative ribbons and four catching wands.
Intended as an indoors (or parlor) game, it could be played either indoors or out. Played
by two children, each player would hold two of the catching wands, one in either hand. The
first player would place one throwing ring over each of the catching wands in his or her
possession and would cast one ring at a time to the other player, who would attempt to
catch the rings on one of the catching wands he or she held. The winner would be the one
who had caught the most rings in either a predetermined amount of time, or within a
predetermined set of throw-and-catch exchanges.
Hand Shadows
Shadows upon the wall became something of an art form in the antebellum years. Henry
Bursill produced a multitude of illustrations of hand positions which formed intriguing
and wondrous pictures of animals and people for the entertainment of adults and children
alike. In a reprint of the work Hand Shadows by Bursill, there are eighteen
different delights of this art form which can truly be said to be made by hand, and
another sixteen in his work More Hand Shadows. The equipment required is minimal: a
pair of hands, a light source, a dark room, a surface upon which the shadows may fall, and
an imagination.
Hand-Spun and Whipping Tops
The Hand-Spun Top is spun between the palms of the hands and requires no string to put
it into motion. It is, like the Finger Top, the simplest of tops.
The Whipping Top is a turned wooden top that is kept spinning by whipping it with a piece of twine or rawhide attached to a stick (thus making a whip). While it does take some amount of practice to be able to make it go at all, and then to keep it going, the Whipping Top can be given a great deal more energy than the other tops to sustain its momentum and will keep spinning as long as the child's interest may last. The Whipping Top is spun into motion (although more adept players can whip it into motion), and then is whipped to make it continue to spin, and to spin faster. Because this has a small whip involved, it makes it one of those classic toys that mothers have cautioned children about for ages: "Be careful with that thing or you’ll put somebody’s eye out."
Hoop & Stick
Basic amusements have not changed much since the beginning of mankind. This particular
toy - a hoop of wood which is roughly two feet in diameter but only about an inch to two
inches wide which is propelled by a child who taps or whacks the hoop with a rod to keep
it rolling as the child runs with it - is known to have been used by children since the
time of the Pharaohs.
Hopscotch
Hopscotch has been a favorite game of children for centuries. A child's game played by marking
squares on the ground and leaping into designated squares in a particular
sequence, the term has nothing to do with Scotland. Rather, it
comes from the 17th century term escocher,
meaning to cut or cut with a stick - the means by which children originally
marked the playing surface (usually packed earth). It also may broadly
relate to the term to the phrase to "scotch" something, as in
scotching a rumor, meaning to put an end to
a rumor.
The game is played by scratching or marking a series of squares on the ground, sometimes single squares and sometimes two squares side by side, on which the children would jump. As a child progressed satisfactorily through the series of squares, a pebble would be tossed into the next square to mark the beginning square into which the child was to make their first jump. The remaining rules vary widely, but the object is to make the necessary leaps and maintain your balance as your progress through the series of squares.
Out of hopscotch, oddly enough, some elements of history have survived thanks to the chanted "calls" passed down from mother to daughter over long periods of time. Perhaps most notable and relevant to the antebellum and Civil War period is the chant which is known today as "The Pateroller Song" ("pateroller" is a term derived from the word "patrollers", a reference to the men who patrolled the highways and byways in search of runaway slaves), which was originally called "Run, Nigger, Run", a song which slaves began long before the War Between the States began, and one that continues to this day through the hopscotch and jump-rope chant.
Horizontal Top
The horizontal top is a simple toy made of a wooden disc with two strings that pass
through two holes drilled on opposite sides of the disc. When the strings are pulled
tight, the disc spins; and when the strings are relaxed slightly, the disc rewinds to spin
again. The horizontal top was in use in America dating back at least to the late
1600’s.
Jackstraws
Known originally as Jackstraws, the game was introduced to the early settlers in
America by the Indians. Jackstraws is the same game we all learned as Pick-Up Sticks when
we were children. Rules and variations differed from area to area, but most had these
rules in common:
A group of slender sticks or splinters of approximately the same length were to be used, somewhere between fifteen and twenty at a time. Often they would be dyed different colors, a custom dating from the 1700s.
The sticks were to be held above the ground at a distance at least equal to the length of the longest stick or splinter in the bunch.
The sticks were to be suddenly released by the person holding them so that the sticks would fall to the ground and overlap each other. (One variation required that one stick of a different color or marked in some fashion to distinguish it from the others would be placed in the bunch.)
The person who had just dropped the sticks began the game, removing one stick at a time and working through the pile to remove all of the sticks without causing any of the other sticks to move. The object of the game was to accumulate more sticks from the pile than the other players removed.
In the event that any stick other than the one being removed was moved at all, that player forfeited his or her turn to the next person.
At the end of play, the person with the most sticks won the game.
Jacob’s Ladder
Few toys were acceptable for amusement on the Sabbath among the Puritans and
Separatists, and indeed among the Protestant sects up through the mid- to late nineteenth
century, as the Sabbath was set aside for the exclusive purpose of worshipping God and
reflecting upon His grace and mercies on that one day in seven. Most Protestant
denominations were Sabbatarian then. The "Sunday Blue Laws" that were in
place in most states even into the end of the 1960's throughout the country bear witness
to the prevalence of that formerly-held conviction.
The toy called "Jacob's Ladder" was one such acceptable toy, for its basic construction was somewhat along the lines of a ladder, reminiscent then of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. It was made of a series of thin, flat blocks - as few as six and as many as ten or twelve - that seem to flip over as by magic when held on one end, and to repeat the process in reverse when up-ended. The thin squares or blocks of wood were then commonly covered with small prints of Biblical scenes, and could be used as a means of illustrating the telling of one or more stories from the Bible.
Kick the Can
Tin cans were around before the War Between the States, actually coming into
relatively common use around the time of the Crimean War. The game of "Kick The
Can" could be played by one player, and consist simply of kicking a can down the road
or across a yard or field just for the fun of kicking something shiny that makes a noise,
or it could be played in a competition along the lines of soccer by a group of children.
There is no truly formal game of "Kick The Can", making it all the more fun.
Limber Jack
It’s hard to say whether this is a toy or a musical instrument, or both. It
certainly has been used for both.
The limber jack was, at the simplest, a wooden man with jointed legs and a stick stuck in his back. By rotating the stick slightly one way or another, the man could be made to "dance". Because it was wooden, it would make a "clicking" or "clacking" sound on wood, and often was supplied with a thin wooden paddle on which the Limber Jack was made to "dance". Sounding much like the bones (a musical instrument made of bones or carved hardwood and popular during the War Between the States, thanks to blackface minstrel shows), it was often used as a rhythm instrument, as well as a toy. Some were also made with jointed arms to better imitate a dancing motion.
Marbles
Not restricted to the marbles we know today, marbles was played during the antebellum
and War periods with objects such as nuts, water-rounded pebbles, hardened clay, and
anything else which might pass for being a ball-shaped object. In its simplest form, the
game of marbles was played by drawing a ring in the dirt into which marbles would be
contributed by each player, all concentrated in a circle or a bunch in the middle of the
ring. Much like the game of pool, the person who shot their "shooter" (a
larger-than-normal marble, typically) and knocked one or more marbles out of the dirt ring
was permitted to continue to shoot until he or she failed to knock any more marbles from
the ring, at which time the next person was allowed to take a turn.
Mumblety-Peg
Played with a knife, Mumblety-Peg is a variant of "Follow The Leader". The
basic form of the game requires any kind of a knife and two or more players. The object of
the exercise is to get the knife to stick in the ground by having it fall or be flipped or
tossed or dropped from various parts of each person. The first person to play may balance
the tip of the knife blade on his index finger, for instance, and let it fall of the end
of his finger toward the ground. If he makes it stick, every player following him must do
the same. Each person scores a point for accomplishing the feat.
Should he miss, then the next person has the discretion of choosing how and from where the knife is dropped, thrown, or flipped toward the ground. The game usually continues until the players are bored with the futility of the exercise.
Music
Music played a large part in the lives of the Victorians. A young woman was not
considered to be "accomplished" unless she both played a musical instrument and
sang. Bear in mind that they lacked the entertainments so readily available at the end of
the twentieth century, and found themselves having to provide much of their own
entertainment. For more information on the specific music of the period of the War Between
the States, please refer to the Washington Artillery Song Book.
The Needle’s Eye
A common game in the Appalachian Mountains, the Needle’s Eye is based upon a chant
that large groups of children would call out as they played the game. Children would line
up in two rows with a space of six or eight feet between them, each line facing the
opposing line. In practice much like "Red Rover", the chant was
The needle’s eye that doth supply
The thread that runs so true;
I stump my toe and down I go,
All for wanting (or "want of") you.
At the conclusion of the chanted verse, one child would be invited to run across the open area between the two lines and attempt to break through the clenched hands of the other line. Another variation involved the children forming a ring and appointing one person to stand in the middle, much like the game "Farmer in the Dell" is played. That person would choose a person from the line to join them, and that person would join the first person in the center of the ring. In some games, the person who got to choose was then permitted to try to run through the ring and choose others to join him or her until that one could break through the ring, while in other variations they simply added to the inner group of children until no more could fill the center of the ring.
Nine Men’s Morris
A Morris was an English dance from the 17th century, and the game was apparently named
after the dance. The game board consists of a flat, square board into which 24 holes have
been drilled, all following a progressively larger pattern of three squares of eight holes
which form three holes to a side. Two differently colored pins are used - twelve for each
player. The object of the game is place your pins in such a way as to form a straight line
of three of the same-color pins, while preventing your opponent from doing the same. The
game was played in America as early as the mid-1700’s, and continued to enjoy
popularity through the time of the War Between the States.
Noah’s Ark
Few toys were acceptable for amusement on the Sabbath among the Puritans and
Separatists, and indeed among the Protestant sects up through the mid- to late nineteenth
century, as the Sabbath was set aside for the exclusive purpose of worshipping God and
reflecting upon His grace and mercies on that one day in seven. Most Protestant
denominations were Sabbatarian then. The "Sunday Blue Laws" that were in
place in most states even into the end of the 1960's throughout the country bear witness
to the prevalence of that formerly-held conviction.
Like the toy "Jacob’s Ladder", a Noah’s Ark set was acceptable as a Sabbath-day toy because it was a reminder of the story of Noah and the way God dealt with that righteous man and the unrighteous earth. A Noah’s Ark set consisted of some form of a container, usually in the shape of some form of a boat (not necessarily made after the pattern set forth in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament), along with a pair of people - one man, one woman - and a number of pairs of animals. The different animals and their variety varied greatly, depending upon the maker of the set. Some very few sets contained more than one pair of people, although some were more faithful to the Biblical account and included not only Noah and his wife, but also their sons Ham, Shem, and Japheth and their wives. Every set contained at least one dove.
Pick-Up Sticks
(See Jackstraws)
Play Parties
Separatist New England in its early years harbored a pervasive and general fear that
there would develop a habit of "lascivious dancing to wanton ditties", most
especially among the young. When young people got together for fun, they had to convince
their elders that they were assembling not to dance, but to play games. It was from this
description of their activities that the name that lived on into the middle of the
twentieth century in the Appalachia's came into being: "play parties". What they
often neglected to tell their elders, however, was that there was often music played at
these parties to which the young people might move somewhat rhythmically; not exactly
dancing, but not exactly not dancing, either. By the early nineteenth century, though,
outside of areas that were under the watchful eyes of Primitive and backwoods Southern
Baptists, old and young people alike were "playing" those same "games"
to fiddle tunes and owning up to them as dances.
Many of the early "games" of the play parties employed lyrics that bordered on the foolish or unintelligible, such as "Pop Goes The Weasel", an English children’s song dating from the seventeenth century, or "The Thread That Runs So True". Jesse Stuart, the famous Kentucky educator and author of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote a book about his first teaching experiences titled The Thread That Runs So True after the "Red Rover"-type game played in the hollers of Kentucky (and throughout Appalachia) of his youth.
The needle’s eye that doth supply
The thread that runs so true;
I stump my toe, and down I go,
All for wanting you.
Pop Gun
The popgun has been around since at least the 1700’s. The earliest reference
we’ve found that illustrates a popgun is from a boy’s activity book printed in
1860. The popguns sold by sutlers at re-enactments are almost identical to that one. Using
a simple piston, the popgun fires a cork attached to a string. If the handle is pulled
back far enough to force the cork stopper back into the tube of the barrel, it reloads and
is ready to "pop" again.
Ring Toss
Ring toss was a versatile game, for it could be played in the parlor in the winter and on
the lawn in the spring and summer. Although distances varied according to the size of the
lawn and the size, strength, and age of the participants, rings were thrown with the
intention of making them land on and ring around pegs driven into the ground. When played
indoors, the rings would be thrown around either weighted pegs made to be used in the
parlor, or improvised pegs.
See-Saw
Children of the antebellum and War periods had two
primary variations on a theme with a see-saw. Using a long plank laid
across a log, low wall, or the lower rails of a fence, one child would seat
herself or himself on one end of the plank, and another child on the other end
of the plank, balancing the plank and taking turns springing off the ground.
A variation of the game would entail having a third child - called "Jack Of
Both Sides" for the purpose of the game - straddle the middle of the plank
to shift his weight from side to side to help exaggerate the springing of the
two see-sawers.
Shinny
(See Bandy)
String Figures
While the study of making string figures is a relatively recent development (the late
19th and early 20th centuries saw the genesis of that study), it has been a game common
among primitive peoples since time immemorial. While the figures themselves can range from
the extremely simple to the highly complex, the beauty of this pastime is that it requires
only a good length of string of seven feet in length, time which would otherwise be idle,
and a measure of patience.
Townball
Baseball's predecessor in America. Please refer
to the section we have dedicated to the rules and regulations for Townball,
listed also under "19th Century Games & Amusements". Also,
there is an excellent Website for Townball, listed in our "Links"
section.
Trap Ball
On pages 133 and 144 of The American Boy's Book of Sports and Games, published
in 1864, it says of Trap Ball:
"...[I]n England, this game is considered to rank next to Cricket, but it is not played so much in this country. The ball being much smaller than a cricket-ball, it is more difficult to catch; indeed, to stand before the balls of a good player requires great quickness of sight. The half-round bat is now seldom used, except by very young players; that in general use is flat, about one inch thick, and is called ‘spoon-shaped.’
"The trap is an instrument used to elevate the ball for the batsman. It is made in the form of a shoe, the heel part being hollowed out for the reception of the ball. In fixing it, it is best to sink the heel a little in the ground. The following are the laws of the game:
"Two boundaries are formed, equally placed, and at a great distance, on each side of the trap, between which it is necessary the ball should pass when struck by the batsman; if it fall outside either of them he is out. In playing the scientific game, besides the side boundaries, a line or tape should be stretched across the ground, several feet high, and twenty feet in front of the trap; over this line the batsman must send his ball or he is out; but this mode of playing is seldom adopted by juvenile players.
"The game is played by any number, either single or by choosing sides. The innings are tossed up for, and the player, who is to commence, places the ball in the spoon of the trap, touches the trigger with the bat, and as the ball hops from trap, strikes it as far as he can. One of the other players endeavors to catch it; if he does so before it reaches the ground, or if the striker miss the ball when he aims at it, or hits the trigger more than twice without striking the ball, or makes ‘an offer’ (the trigger to be touched but once), he is out, and the next in order, which must previously be agreed on, takes his place.
"Should the ball be fairly struck, and not caught, as we have stated, the out-player, into whose hands it comes, bowls it, from the place where he picks it up, at the trap, which if he hit, the striker is out. If he miss it, the striker counts one toward the game, which may be any number decided on. There is also a practice in some places, when the bowler has sent in the ball, of the striker's guessing the number of bat's lengths it is from the trap; if he guess within the real number, he reckons that number toward his game; but if he guess more than there really are, he loses his innings. It is not necessary to make the game in one inning."
The ball was a home-stitched piece of equipment, so it was probably loosely stuffed and hence not very hard.
Viewing Jar
Victorians were fascinated with many of the same things that today fascinate us, and
nature was one of those things. Since they had no television or Discovery channel, they
would often collect interesting items from nature and collect them in a viewing jar, a jar
that could be decorative, educational, or just interesting to look at. Some people made
their viewing jars thematic, collecting only natural items from the oceanside, or perhaps
pebbles and rocks. Others made theirs an eclectic collection. Whichever approach they
took, it provided them with something novel to look upon for their amusement and
edification.
Whipping Tops (See Hand-Spun and Whipping Tops)
Whistle
Whistles varied from the least expensive from nature to the more expensive man-made
variety. The least expensive from nature was a slender poplar branch cut from a poplar
tree, and then the bark worked loose so that it would slide on the branch so that a person
could blow across the end and make a whistling sound that varied in pitch, according to
how you slid the bark on the branch. Simple one-hole tin whistles were very popular with
children (and quite distracting and irritating to adults), and the more complicated (but
inexpensive) tin whistles or pennywhistles could be used to play simple or sophisticated
music, much in the manner of one playing a fife.
Wind-Up Toys
Wind-up toys made their appearance in Europe in the 16th century, and maintained their
popularity into the 20th century. Although they were popular, they were as popular with
adults as with children, and were relatively expensive.
Yo-Yo
The Yo-Yo is one of the oldest known toys, with
examples of stone yo-yos more than 3,000 years old having been discovered in
Greece. There also is reason to believe that yo-yos were also used in
ancient China, although the evidence is not so clear and compelling as the
artifact evidence of Greece. The yo-yo fell in and out of popular use over
the centuries, resurfacing time and again. It attained a great deal of
popularity in more modern times in the French royal court during the 1700's,
where it was known as the jou-jou.
Enjoying yet another revival of interest, the yo-yo again found popularity among the English children of the 1800's. Its resurgence of popularity was so great that enthusiasm for the toy in the Victorian Age swept from England to the United States. Making the yo-yo their own, Americans not only enjoyed playing with the toy, but sought to make design improvements over the original. Patents were issued for many a yo-yo improvement before, during, and after the Civil War, reflecting the cultural fascination with the toy. Within two decades of the end of the War, though, the yo-yo's popularity was on a serious decline that would not be revived significantly until the 1920's and '30's when Donald Duncan would re-invent the yo-yo, so to speak, and make an industry and a financial empire on the back of the little toy whose innate charm lies in coming back up when it's thrown down.
Zoetrope
The Zoetrope was a toy made for adults (reflected by the relative delicacy of the
instrument and the relatively high cost). First developed and sold in the 1820’s,
this classic optical toy operated by having a disk perforated with slits, mounted
horizontally, twirled. As it twirled, images on opposites sides of the disk’s
interior would become superimposed on each other, making a dimensional image for the
viewer to watch. A variety of images were available to be used with the Zoetrope.
Other games and amusements which will be dealt with at a later time include:
Baseball
(Townball)
Jumping Jacks
Blind
Man’s Bluff
Kaleidoscope
Card Games
Minstrel Shows
Chalk Art
Pin The Tail
Croquet
Pugilism
Dice Games
Silhouettes
Fox And Geese
Singing Games
Football
Stereoscope
Hair Art
Stilts
Hand Puppets
Story-Telling
Jacks
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