By Davy Crockett

In 1882 it was declared, “The six-day walking matches are the sickest swindles gamblers have yet invented for defrauding a virtuous public.” Well, many of both the public and the running participants were not the most virtuous people on the planet at that time, contributing to the wild strange stories that continually occurred related to the sport of ultrarunning/pedestrianism.

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Also, this opinion expressed in the New York Herald was common, “A six-day walking match is a more brutal exhibition than a prize fight or a gladiatorial contest. In the last half of a six-day walk, nearly every contestant is vacant minded or literally crazy, he becomes an unreasoning animal, whom his keepers find sometimes sullen, sometimes savage, but never sensible.” During this era from 1875-1909, at least 400 six-day races were competed worldwide with millions of paid spectators. The stranger things that occurred related to the sport of that age were a collection of surprises and tragedies.

John Dermody Joins a Women’s Six-day Race

Brooklyn, 1880

In December 1879, John Dermody, age 45, was a homeless lemon peddler in Brooklyn, New York. The six-day race ultrarunning/pedestrian fever was raging in America. He believed that his business had hardened his leg muscles with great strength and that he would make an excellent professional pedestrian, and he longed to compete in one of the dozens of races that were being held in the New York City area that year.

Dermody could not find anyone to back him financially and help him pay an entrance fee to a race. A Women’s International Six-Day Tournament was scheduled for December 15-20, 1879, in Madison Square Garden with 26 entrants. As it approached, Dermody became so interested in it that he had been unable to think or talk of anything else.

Saloon site today



On the Sunday afternoon before the start, Dermody entered the Darwin & Kindelon saloon at 507 Third Avenue, drinking perhaps too much and jabbering about the sport of walking, wishing that he could see the start of the women’s tournament. Darwin, a known practical joker, asked Dermody how he would like to enter this contest.  “Dermody seemed perfectly delighted. His acceptance of the proposition was hailed by some practical jokers as a good chance for amusement, and they at once began to improvise a female wardrobe which would conceal his sex. His flowing reddish beard was shaved off in a neighboring barber shop, and he was dressed in a calico skirt and spotted jacket.”

They added a pair of long stockings, a handkerchief around his head, a blue veil around his neck, and three yards of white gauze to make a sash to hide his face.  They made a bib number with “32” to be suspended from his neck. Ready to go, his new backers took him to Madison Square Garden where the race was about to start.

Out on the Track

“The party hid his raiment under an overcoat as they entered and unshrouding him in a sequestered part of the place. That done, they slipped him under the railing out on the track and away he sped, with his arms going like windmills and his raiment flying out behind him like a comet. A batch of the authentic contestants had just passed, and the counterfeit put on a spurt to overhaul them.”

A roar of laughter arose as the audience began to discover what was going on. Around the track he went in a happy-go-lucky style, trying to catch up to the leader. Just as he was finishing the first lap, Sergeant Keating of the 29th precinct, observant that the bib number 32 didn’t make sense because there were only 26 starters, stepped on the track to arrest Dermody.

Arrest

“It was no easy matter catching up with the phenomenal contestant, but the Sergeant at length brought Dermody’s pace down to a walk and made a circuit of the track in his captor’s custody.” He locked him up for the night at the precinct.

Jefferson Market Courthouse