History
A club for cricket was opened in 1877 at Longwood Estate, a place named after the house Napoleon Bonaparte stayed at while exiled to Saint Helena. Located on the outskirts of Boston, cricketers and baseball players put Longwood on the sports map. Specifically, Harry Wright, first player-manager of the Boston Red Sox, played cricket for the United States, as did his brother George Wright. George Wright combined with tennis pro Charlie Chambers in league games throughout New England and played at Longwood against Lord Harris' XI in 1891. George Wright was the co-proprietor of Wright and Ditman, purveyor of fine sports goods. Wright brought the first tennis gear to Boston on his return from a baseball-cricket tour of England in 1874. Wright also taught tennis to Harvard students and toured with them in California in 1890. It was George Wright who deserves the credit for Longwood's broad-based sporting tradition, having excelled in baseball and cricket as a paid professional and at tennis as an imaginative promoter of the game. A lawn tennis court was laid in 1878, two years after the organization of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club at Lord's Cricket Ground in London. On January 5, 1888, Longwood member and US cricket team captain C.L. Bixby led the team to a win over the West Indies cricket team at the Bourda ground in Georgetown, Guyana. Richard D. Sears, who won seven United States Championships, would soon become a club member as well.
The club's first tennis tournament was held in 1882. The Eastern Championship for doubles tennis was held in 1890. The following year saw the first Longwood Bowl tournament, attracting top American players. It would continue to be held annually until 1942. Cricket was last played at Longwood in 1933 before a one-off game was held in October 2008 between the Faded Blues CC and St. Columba's Cricket Club from Newport, Rhode Island.
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