"The Steele Box" - 1880's / 1890's Baseball

[Mforder]

Hello All,

I am new here so please excuse me if I take a misstep. I found this thread / site via searching the internet for 19th century baseball. The reason for my search is because of a box of papers I have which I refer to as the "Steele Box".

The "Steele Box" is from around 1870's up through the early 1890's. The box once belonged to a person named "Charles Steele". In the box there were primarily papers, unfortunately not all of them are baseball related but some are.

The papers in the box are sort of interconnected, meaning Charles Steele was a firefighter, banker, planned excursions, theatre buff, etc. The box has a number of subjects within it like baseball letters, receipts, a few ledgers, a few checks, schedules and so on. Most of this is from local NJ and NY teams from the 1880's & 1890's timeframe. The reason I say that they are interconnected is because the baseball team Mr Steele was on was a team of firefighters that played ball back then. Some of that papers reference multiple things. For instance you may see a letter about baseball and around the same date you may see a bill head where Mr Steel purchased baseballs or uniforms while also buying something unrelated like a loaf of bread.


The "Steele Box" what is it...

In the mid 1990's my wife worked as a manager in a bank in the town of Newton, NJ in Sussex County. I do not know the exact age of the building. The Original bank from where the "Steele Box" came from was on this square but not in the same building, At the time th bank was called "The Sussex Bank". The bank building was located on the main square in the town. It was 3 or 4 stories tall and it had a large basement full of dark rooms. This was the kind of basement people just don't wander around in. It had a active 1 1/2 foot stream flowing through it, there were rats and other things around as well. It also had a fallout shelter with boxes and boxes of war rations in it. Huge pile of news papers that dated back to the 1950's, thy were used for the old furnace which had since been changed and no longer used. In the basement there was also an old vault that was also no longer being used, it was always open. In it there were a number of things, including a box in which I still have.

In case you are wondering why I have the box it's because...
The management of the bank decided to sell the property.
In preparation they reached out to my wife who explained to them the situation in the basement is in dire need assistance.
In order to sell it the bank decided that the basement needed to be emptied and everything needed to be thrown away.
My wife then called the Newton Historical Society who came and took some things.
This is where I come in....
As the basement was been cleared out they basically looked at nothing, picked it up and threw it away into a dumpster outside. I cannot imagine all that was lost. The basement was room after room and seemed to have gone on forever
At the end of the day I would go up to see if there was anything that was worth saving from the dumpster.
Then one day my wife said the vault in the basement was next on the list to be cleared out. The workers were instructed to throw everything into the into the dumpster and they did.
This is when I found the"Steele Box". It was on it's way to the trash heap and I grabbed it, little did I know what was inside.

What is the "Steele Box"?

I can tell you it is a box similar to a old milk box / storage container, wood handles and made of metal. It's about 18 inches front to back, 22 inches side to side and about 18 to 20 inches deep.
I named it the "Steele Box" because it is basically a time capsule for the 1880's from a Mr. Charles Steele.
Mr Charles Steel was a...
Banker
Firefighter
Railroad Engineer of some sort
Local Baseball Player
Fan of the New York City and local theatre as well
In the box there were...
Copper printing plates, one of which has the signature of George Washington on. Mt Vernon is currently researching it.
The box also had CDV photo's of actresses (Lotta Crabtree) from the California Gold Rush days taken by a well know photographer from New York City named Jeremiah Gurney. He was ranked up there Matthew Brady who happened to be the person who made the cases for Jeremiah's photos early on. As you know Matthew Brady then went on to take the famous photos which he is well known for of President Abraham Lincoln.
Employee time tables from the Lackawanna Railroad, Chicago and others.
Love letters.
A letter that is from a man he knew that was in Cape Horn, South Africa. From what I gather he was trying to evade being captured by the police.
Letters to bring electricity to Newton.
Papers, ledgers, and so on all tied to arranging local Baseball games in the area including New York City in such places as Coney Island.
The baseball team from Newton was made up mostly from the Newton Steamer Co. No. 1, firefighters from that time.
Broadside of the first kidnapping in the United States for ransom, Charles ("Charley") Brewster Ross.
Opera house floor plans from New York City, one of which was torn down and is now where Madison Square Garden is today.
Bill Heads and Broadsides.
Bank Checks
Bank notes that were used as currency before the Federal Reserve been into existence.
....and more. There are over 2,000 pieces of paper (Ephemera) in this box.

As you can see it's overwhelming.

At the moment most of what was in the box is in protective sleeves and separated by category. Please know that the "Steele Box" is actually steel or tin. It did rust while it was in the basement so some of the items in the box are in bad shape while others are not.

For the first post I will include a pic of the box and also a link to some papers that have already have been posted here on this site under a different thread.

I did want to add one more thing. I would like to learn more about what I have and early ball. I am also hoping folks here could help with that. Finding information out there on the internet is not easy as you must already know.

Last I have labeled my posts numerically so that if you have any questions of feedback you can easily reference them. I will begin with "Item #6 here since Items 1 through 5 are already in this post/thread....

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=296440


Thanks,

---Mark

[Mforder]

This is one of two letters from the Gotham Baseball Club.

If anyone knows anything about this club please share that information.

I will continue to post more images as I digitize them.

Thanks,

--Mark

[Mforder]

Not sure but my guess is that this just may be an amateur team. I would not even have a clue if any famous player played on it?

[bgar3]

Mark,
As you know from the other thread, many of us find this stuff very interesting.
I don’t know if it is possible, but now that you know there is interest, perhaps you could post the letters chronologically.
Congratulations on saving this stuff.

[Mforder]

Originally Posted by bgar3

Mark,
As you know from the other thread, many of us find this stuff very interesting.
I don’t know if it is possible, but now that you know there is interest, perhaps you could post the letters chronologically.
Congratulations on saving this stuff.

Hello Bgar3,

Thank you. I will see if I can do that and I do appreciate the feedback. I was hoping to post things that looked like they would be the most interesting and some things unfortunately don't have a date. On top of that I am still discovering things in the box. As I look closer at the content of the papers themselves I am finding that there are letters from what I think were friends of Charles Steele and they talk a bit about a game, seeing a game or even playing in one. There are just so many papers. Almost too many believe it or not.

I have a 2 page letter that has the "By Laws & Regulations" of the Newton Baseball Club. Unfortunately with no date at all. I was hoping to post that next.I am thinking that these "By Laws" predate what I have already posted. I'd have to research the names on it to see if I can ties them to possibly a year.

I am glad that you and others are finding this interesting and I thank you for all of your advice. I'm happy that these were saved and it was my pleasure pulling them from the dumpster. I had no clue at the time what was even in that box. It was the box itself that grabbed my attention because of the wooden handles. Who knew...

---Mark

[bgar3]

For me, the By Laws would be very interesting, as would the letters referencing games and descriptions of games. Others may prefer the letterheads etc, but I am looking forward to some of the descriptions. Take your time.

[Mforder]

This was also in the box. It's the Bylaws and Regulations of the Newton, NJ Baseball Club. There is no date bu I am assuming it is one of the earlier papers from the team. 1870's or 1880's.

[Mforder]

I never thought of looking for the Newton Athletic Association. I just did and came across this. It'a small world, the papers were also from Charles S. Steele.

https://www.milehighcardco.com/1880s...-LOT21685.aspx