Origins
The merger of the Forest City and London Base Ball clubs to form the London Tecumsehs occurred in June 1868 with John Brown as president — a team sponsored by the Tecumseh House hotel on the southwest corner of York and Richmond streets, immediately north of today's Canadian National railway tracks, which was demolished in the 1920s.
In 1868, the Tecumsehs lost to the Woodstock, Ontario Young Canadians 89-46 in a five-hour game. Woodstock later defeated Guelph Maple Leafs 36-29 to win the Canadian Silver Ball Championship.
During the early 1870s, the major rivals of the London Tecumsehs were the Guelph Maple Leafs who were sponsored by brewer/sportsman George Sleeman, proprietor of Silver Creek Brewery, and the Woodstock Young Canadians. The Guelph Maple Leafs were the first Ontario team to hire professional ball players from the United States to strengthen their team.
When Jacob L. Englehart, a wealthy pioneer London oil refiner from Cleveland, Ohio (and future vice president of Imperial Oil), became the president and financial backer of the Tecumsehs in late 1875, he too began looking for professional players from the U.S., later signing four Americans: first-baseman/manager George "Juice" Latham, pitcher Fred Goldsmith of New Haven, Connecticut (believed by many to be the co-inventor of the curveball along with Candy Cummings of Ware, Massachusetts), catcher Phil Powers and infielder/ outfielder Joe Hornung (nicknamed "Dutchy" and "Ubbo Ubbo") from Carthage, New York.
In addition to Englehart, the Tecumsehs' back-room movers and shakers consisted of London newspaperman Harry Gorman, Ed Moore, manager of the Tecumseh House, Richard Meredith, a future chief justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario, William Southam, who was to found Southam News and to add an egalitarian touch, Jim Jury, a janitor at the collegiate institute.
Goldsmith's first complete game with the Tecumsehs occurred on May 24, 1876, when London played Guelph before 6,000 spectators at the old Fair Grounds, a contest that London won 8-7 in 10 innings, largely due to Goldsmith's "scientific pitching," using his innovative "skew ball." (Goldsmith went on to pitch for the Troy, New York, Trojans in 1879 and the Chicago White Stockings from 1880 to 1884.)
After the military reserve was donated to the City for a public park in 1874, public protests in 1875 against the Tecumseh's use of a fenced area of the park prompted the club to move their games to the old Fair Grounds northeast of today's Central Avenue and Wellington Street, where they played until the end of the 1876 season, during which they defeated Guelph for the Canadian championship.
The Tecumsehs joined the fledgling five-team Canadian Association of Base Ball in 1876 (London Tecumsehs, Hamilton Standards, Guelph Maple Leafs, Kingston St. Lawrence and Toronto Clippers). The Tecumsehs won the Canadian title in 1876.
In 1877, the Tecumsehs joined the International Association of Professional Base Ball Players made up of London, Guelph, Ontario, and several U.S. teams, a league created as a rival to the National League.
The Association's by-laws and constitution required member teams to pay $10 to join the league (plus an additional $15 to compete for the championship) and fan admission was set at 25 cents. Visiting teams were guaranteed $75, plus half of the gate receipts when they exceeded that amount ($75).
Pitcher Candy Cummings was the International Association's first president in 1877, while he was a player with the Lynn Live Oaks in Massachusetts.
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