Even at celebration of Lord's supper [the boys] have been and whole term around house of God.1Early American sources often refer to playing ball or ball-playing or of ball. When one reads such references, or that boys played games with and terms appear to be generic. Relatively few sources unambiguously refer to a game called bat and ball, but such references do exist.Evidence suggests that, as with so many American pastimes, bat and ball originated in England. Field Book: Sports and Past Times of British Isles (1833) observes, The game of club-ball, plebian brother to cricket, appears to have been no other than present well-known bat-and-ball, which with similar laws and customs in of it, was doubtless anterior to trap-ball.2A colonial reference comes from Reverend Gideon Hawley, in a letter written in 1794, in which he recalled his mission to Native Americans in upstate New York between 1753 and 1756. He kept a diary, it seems, for in his letter he named days and dates: on 27th, Lord's Day, he attended a Dutch meeting ... [a]t nearest houses between fort Hunter and Schoharry. 27th falls on a Sunday in April 1755,3 so that is probably year: Those who are in meeting behave devoutly.... But without, they ... have been and ... around house of God.4 Had Hawley, writing in 1794, recreated his diary entries verbatim, this sighting might qualify as primary evidence. But he may also have applied bat and ball forty years after fact, influenced by his decades as a minister in Mashpee, Massachusetts. A look at original diary, if it exists, would be required to judge quality of his observations.5One reference to bat and ball that qualifies as primary evidence appears in diary of Benjamin Glazier, ship's carpenter. In 1758, Glazier recorded that Captain Gerrish's Company played bat and ball near Fort Ticonderoga.6 Glazier, an Ipswich man, a coastal town some 15 miles north of Salem, deployed a term also used in Salem. Salem, not Boston, was where references to & first appeared in newspapers. game, if it was a distinct game, was explicitly banned in 1762,7 implying that it had been played earlier. This may be primary evidence, but it is not unambiguously a distinct baseball-like game.The 1791 diary of Reverend William Bentley of Salem puts flesh on bones of bat and ball: In May, he observed that young boys played the Bat & Ball [emphasis added] and Game of Rickets.8 Bentley described implements of & Ball: The Ball is made of rags covered with leather in quarters & covered with double twine, sewed in knots over whole. Bat is from 2 to 3 feet long, on back side but considerably on & on end for a better stroke. Especially telling is ... face, together with round ... end. A cricket bat, at least in England after 1760s, would be flatted on both sides.In his diary entry, Bentley returns to another season for & Ball: The Snow & ice determine use of Skates & Sleds.... Bat & Ball as weather begins to cool.9 seasons that Bentley specified, spring and autumn, provide a counterweight to an assertion by folklorist William Wells Newell in his description of hockey: The game is much played on ice.... name of 'Bat and Ball,' also given to this sport, indicates that in many districts this was usual way of with bat.10 Playing and on ice is too good an idea not to have been tried, and Newell may have been right that in some places such a game was called and Ball. But Reverend Bentley's contemporaneous account specified that & was a game played in spring and autumn. And bat and ball sightings, immediately below, tend to confirm Bentley's observations. …
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May 1, 2011
Tyler Curtain 
Open Access