1750s.2

Town Ball and Cat Played in NC Lowlands?

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags
Location	US SouthUS South
City/State/Country:	NC, United States
Modern Address
Game	Town BallTown Ball
Immediacy of Report
Age of Players
Holiday
Notables
Text	"Of formalized games, choices for males [in NC] appear to have been 'town-ball, bull-pen,' 'cat,' and 'prisoner's base,' whatever exhibitions of dexterity they may have involved." -- Biographer C. G. Davidson, on local pastimes in North Carolina
Sources	Chalmers G. Davidson, Piedmont Partisan: The Life and Times of Brigadier-General William Lee Davidson (Davidson College, Davidson NC, 1951), page 20. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 32.
Warning	This is a very early claim for town ball, preceding even New England references to bat-and-ball, roundball or like games. It would be useful to examine C. Davidson's sources on town ball and cat. Are we content that these games were found in NC in the 1750s?
Comment	Prisoner's base is not a ball game, and bull-pen is not a safe-haven game. Edit with form to add a comment
Query	Note: Can we determine what region of NC is under discussion here? Text of the biography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/15/2008. Edit with form to add a query
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