Personal Life
Montague came to golf relatively late in life, but showed a natural talent for the game. A member of the New York Athletic Club, he initially played on public links on Pelham Bay Park. According to his friend and fellow journalist Grantland Rice, Montague was eventually so good that he could "shoot par with hoes, rakes, and shovels."
Together with Montague, New York theater impresario John Golden organized the "Knot-Very Social and Musical Frat." The organization had only four other members: Newspaperman and publisher John Neville Wheeler, sports journalist and writer Ring Lardner, American Magazine editor John Sidall, and Grantland Rice. For the members, none of whom had attended college, the organization was miniature fraternity, as much social as athletic. According to Rice's biographer William Arthur Harper, "The club got its name from Ring Lardner's habit of commenting on another's tee shot; when one of them would hit a drive, another would say cheerfully, 'Nice shot, old boy.' 'Not very,' Ring Lardner would respond, drolly." The club's letterhead, designed by Golden, featured a knotted rope above the names of its members, the largest being that of its president, Montague.
In 1924 artist Lucius Hitchcock introduced Montague to illustrator Coles Phillips, also a resident of New Rochelle. A noted pigeon fancier, Phillips suggested to Montague that they could make a substantial amount of money raising and selling squabs to restaurants and hotels. The breed chosen was the red carneau. Together they bought four acres of land on Webster Avenue near the Wykagyl Country Club, built a row of pigeon houses and installed 4,000 birds. The result, called the Silver Ring Squab Farm, had set the two back a total of $15,000.
Their dreams of pigeon-born wealth went anything but smoothly, however: A local mobster reputedly demanded a portion of the proceeds, while hotels had a habit of canceling orders. Friends were interested, but more in eating squab than paying for them. Not long after, Phillips contracted tuberculosis, and he and his wife left for Europe. Now sole manager of the farm, Montague put in thousands more to keep it afloat. Salvation came in the form of Westchester County, which wanted to buy the land to construct the Hutchinson River Parkway. Phillips later returned from Europe seemingly healthy, but died in 1927 at age 47.
Read more about this topic: James J. Montague
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