“My name is Libbie Splann. My stage name is Hattie Leslie,” confirmed the twenty-year-old woman sworn in before Judge Hatch of New York’s Superior Court, Criminal Term. Dressed entirely in black—a felt walking hat, a dress made of alpaca, and a stuff shawl—the young lady from Buffalo was seated in the witness box to give her firsthand testimony regarding the illegal prizefight that was held in a derelict barn on Navy Island, off Canadian waters of the Niagara River, two and a half weeks prior.
The fact that it occurred on the Sabbath, a day
reserved for rest and religious observance, was the first of two chief
complaints relative to the September 16, 1888 bout in question. Of more or less
concern was that the two competitors were females—of whom Hattie Leslie was
one. “I am a theatrical woman,” she elaborated. “My specialty is giving
sparring exhibitions. I have been at it one and a half years.” She had also
become well known on the theater circuit for her remarkable dexterity and raw
power while handling the Indian clubs.
“There’s only one trouble with Hattie,” her husband
and sparring partner John once confessed half-kiddingly. “She’s so beastly in
earnest.” He expressed in no uncertain terms that, when it came to their boxing
routine on the vaudeville stage, his wife “plays for keeps.” Her club swinging
act helped Leslie remain in excellent physical condition at all times, and she
was described as being endowed with “an Amazonian kind of prettiness.” A
reporter dispatched to interview Hattie noted that her rounded muscles and
“gladiatorial” neck were offset by “baby blue eyes” and a mouth “that is much
more fitted to receive kisses than punches.”
Hattie had been among those arrested and indicted
for violating social purity statutes enforced by Christian-based civic virtue
groups such as the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice which equated
prizefighting with intemperance and prostitution as the handiwork of the devil
himself. Taken into custody as well was her adversary Alice Leary, a
serio-comic vaudevillian twenty-four years of age whose birth name was Barbara
Dillon. After her initial detention and release, Leary had successfully evaded the
law and was not present at the hearing.
Of the prizefight, District Attorney George T.
Quinby remarked, “If this is not disgusting, I have nothing to say.” Though the
female principals were not excused from recrimination, of course, he made it
perfectly clear that they were less contemptible in his eyes than Leslie’s and
Leary’s sponsors—George LaBlanche and Billy Baker, respectively—in addition to
Hattie’s husband John, not to mention the handful of event organizers that the
local police were able to apprehend and haul into court.
“Prizefights between men have perhaps been
tolerated,” Quinby continued sanctimoniously, “but prizefights between women
never. I think that the men who would engage in it must have forgotten the
mother that bore them. They must have forgotten that their mother was a woman
and I trust as an outcome of this affair that these men shall be severely
punished at the hands of the law, and that never again can it be said that men
can get together and pollute the honor of womanhood.”
***
Recently established at 191 Main Street in downtown
Buffalo was an inn owned and operated by a French-Canadian expatriate by the
name of Napoleon Prenevau for whom it was named. It was here, inside the Napoleon Hotel’s restaurant
on the afternoon of July 11, that Hattie Leslie and Alice Leary met to sign the
articles of agreement. The document stated: “We hereby agree to fight a fair
stand up prizefight with skintight gloves, according to the new rules of the
London prize ring, to take place between August 23 and 27, place to be agreed
on August 20, the fight to be for $500 a side and the championship of the
world.”
Hailing from Bradford, Pennsylvania, the
six-foot-tall Alice Leary was characterized as “quarrelsome” and “very handy
with her fist.” It was further said that “she has not as much science as her opponent
but is more of a slugger.” Alice was accompanied to the Napoleon Hotel for the
signing by her backer, Jack Kehoe. A fighter out of Pittsburgh, Kehoe had five
months earlier dueled to a draw with a novice named Benny Strauss in a
four-rounder at Buffalo’s Adelphia Theatre which was refereed by Billy Baker.
Himself a boxer of some renown, Baker had previously
squared off against the likes of ‘Nonpareil’ Jack Dempsey and Jack Burke and
would later scrap on three occasions with the legendary ‘Black Prince’ Peter
Jackson. Kehoe would serve as co-trainer to Leary, alongside Charley Dwyer, and
Baker would ultimately assume the role of Alice’s second for the fight itself.
Hattie Leslie’s walkaround weight was approximated
at 180, or twenty pounds more than Alice Leary who was around 160 on any given
day. By the time their fight actually happened in mid-September, after a few
postponements which pushed the bout back from its intended date by roughly
three weeks, the weight differential was exactly the same, as Leslie had
trained down to 168 while Leary likewise shed twelve pounds to tip the scales
at 148 on the day of.
In the late afternoon of Saturday, September 15,
John Leslie conveyed both his wife and her opponent from Black Rock up the West
River to the Niagara by canoe. No lodgings were available at Sheenwater, where
they docked at seven in the evening, forcing them to proceed on foot to the
McComb Hotel, a magnificent five-story structure on Grand Island where they had
a late dinner of sandwiches and retired to their respective rooms to partake of
a good night’s rest for the momentous day ahead.
The fight’s spectators, numbering somewhere around
fifty, began their trek in the early morning hours, traveling upriver on a
barge through a teeming rainstorm. They would pay five dollars each to attend
the fight to produce a gate of $250 which would have to suffice for a
winner-take-all prize for the competitors, since the $500 a side Leslie and
Leary had agreed upon at the Napoleon Hotel back in July was evidently never
put up by either party.
Seeing as though Navy Island had covertly played
host to several prizefights (Billy Baker had contested three bouts there in
recent months) as well as dog fights, it was considered the ideal destination
for this rain-soaked landing party of ne’er-do-wells. An outdoors bout was
impossible due to the inclement weather, so a nearby barn adjacent to an
unoccupied house was cleared out with the use of pitchforks to make enough
space suitable for a boxing ring—about eight feet wide by eighteen feet long.
Conveniently, bales of hay were arranged in such a
manner as to provide padded benches for the more fortunate onlookers, while
others were left to tough it out on the barn floor. Reporters staked out a
bird’s eye view of the action by clambering up onto exposed roof beams.
Meanwhile, a tugboat was dispatched to collect
Hattie and Alice from the McComb Hotel at about six o’clock Sunday morning.
Roused from their slumber, the women arrived an hour later and donned their
fighting attire aboard the vessel before disembarking and making their appearance
inside the barn shortly after eight.
Hattie Leslie, who would show up to the trial
outfitted in nothing but black, conversely wore tights, skirts, and a
sleeveless wrapper which were all pure white on the day of the bout. She was
seconded by George LaBlanche, the fighting Marine from Quebec, Canada who
briefly interrupted his boxing career by enlisting in the U.S. armed forces in
late 1883. A good friend of John L. Sullivan, he put the pointers given to him
by the ‘Boston Strong Boy’ to good use and was frequently asked to travel with
John L.’s touring company which crisscrossed the map, giving boxing exhibitions
in small towns and big cities along the way.
Among LaBlanche’s more notable donnybrooks were
those opposite Jake Kilrain, Jimmy Carroll (on multiple occasions), and his
personal nemesis ‘Nonpareil’ Jack Dempsey with whom he would squabble more than
once over the world middleweight championship. LaBlanche was also no stranger
to Alice Leary’s second, Billy Baker. The two had faced off against one another
just eight days before, and Baker had enough fight left in him to take on Jack
Fallon, known as ‘Brooklyn Strong Boy’—an obvious homage to John L. Sullivan’s
moniker—the same night.
Leary, with her “Celtic cast of countenance” and
“abundance of brown hair” that had been braided at the nape of her neck for the
occasion, dressed for the fight in wine-colored tights pulled over black trunks
and a white sleeveless wrapper similar to that worn by Hattie Leslie. At
approximately quarter past eight, the two women shook hands—which were covered
by skin-tight fingerless gloves, per their original agreement—and retreated to
opposing corners where they sat on overturned peach baskets that served quite
nicely as makeshift stools. A couple of local scrappers, Jack Leonard and
‘Fists’ Carroll, were appointed, somewhat spontaneously and after negligible
debate, as referee and timekeeper, respectively.
Officiating under Marquess of Queensbury rules with
rounds set to last three minutes, Jack Leonard called “time” and the women
commenced to skirmish. After thirty seconds or so of feinting and cautious
jabbing, Hattie Leslie landed the fight’s first blow with a right to Leary’s nose.
Alice offered a rapid rejoinder by way of a shot to Leslie’s cheekbone. A left
from Leslie clubbed Alice on the ear as hostilities resumed in round two.
Hattie followed up with a barrage of body shots, one hitting Leary in the right
breast. Shrinking away from the onslaught, Leary took a blow to the neck for
her effort but, once resituated, managed to catch Hattie with a shot just below
her left eye in retaliation.
The third round, which eyewitnesses all claim was
much shorter than the rest, was a humdrum affair anyway, with nothing of
consequence landed, much less thrown. Leslie and Leary made up for it in the
following frame, taking turns knocking each other across the improvised ring
and practically into the laps of the bystanders seated on blocks of hay.
Alice opened a cut on Leslie’s face courtesy of a
right hand to the mouth, violently mashing Hattie’s lips against her teeth.
Despite George LaBlanche’s best efforts to wipe away the claret, Billy Baker
called “first blood!” on behalf of his fighter which was acknowledged by
referee Jack Leonard.
No doubt feeling full of herself, Leary greeted
Hattie for round five with a disdainful smirk. Leslie promptly wiped it off her
face with a right cross to Alice’s left eye. This set up another bombardment
from which Leary once more attempted to duck and cover, turning her back and
absorbing blows to the neck and liver as a result.
Launching an unexpected sneak attack, Alice turned
an abrupt about-face and socked Leslie in the mouth which got the blood flowing
again. A three-punch combination from Hattie—connecting with her rival’s neck,
jawline, and face—caused Leary’s opulent head of hair to come undone from its
plait which required attention during the rest period.
Leslie scored the only significant blow over the
following three minutes, a counterpunch to Alice’s cheek. Otherwise, the two
women sparred defensively for the majority of round six, their lackadaisical
output earning jeers from the impatient, bloodthirsty spectators. Billy Baker
urged Alice to put forth a better effort in the seventh round, but it was
pretty apparent that this wasn’t going to happen.
With Leary looking visibly shaken and winded, George
LaBlanche demanded that Hattie show her no compassion and go for the kill. She
bumrushed Alice and struck her a blow in the face then three to the body before
unleashing a wild torrent of punches, one of which closed Leary’s eye.
At the end of round seven, Alice pulled off her
gloves in a show of capitulation and Billy Baker was left no choice but to
throw in the sponge. Jack Leonard awarded the fight to Hattie Leslie, who was
sporting a pair of shiners, and a $10 collection was taken up among the
attendees as a consolation prize for Alice Leary. The participants and spectators
alike set off down river in tugs and scows shortly after the bout’s conclusion,
returning to Black Rock right around noon.
News of the fight spread fast, and reports began to
appear as early as the afternoon editions of the Monday papers beneath rather
uncomplimentary headlines such as Women Not Ladies, A Disgraceful Match Between
Amazons Near Buffalo, and Dainty Features Cut and Bruised by Hard Gloves. The
Buffalo Times declared, in its account of the punch-up, that “it seemed
repugnant and unnatural to see two women fighting.”
Well before the newsprint was even dry, the local
authorities had been tipped off and begun their roundup. Hattie and Alice were
both collared, and Billy Baker had already been arraigned on charges of “aiding
and abetting a prizefight.” He was released after posting $200 bail, and George
LaBlanche had avoided capture, momentarily anyway, by fleeing for New York
City. Hattie’s husband John was naturally branded as a person of interest, as
was John Floss who had given the couple $15 to cover training expenses. Each
and every one, of course, pleaded not guilty.
District Attorney Quinby was tasked with
interrogating the defendants during October’s Superior Court hearings,
beginning with Hattie Leslie. Quinby requested that she begin by identifying
the guilty parties, which, given little choice in the matter, she proceded to
do. Hattie then ran through her recollections of the prizefight which were
contrary to certain accounts read aloud by Quinby.
Two reporters—Walter Nurrey, who was present at the
fight, and F.C. Gram, who was not—were called on next to offer their testimony,
but it was said to amount to nothing in the way of collaboration with either
the defense or prosecution other than to attest to the fact that John Floss did
not attend the bout.
This was consistent with the eyewitness accounts
subsequently given by Frank G. Smith and Charles H. Thomas, sporting editors of
the Commercial and Courier out of Buffalo, respectively, neither of whom
offered nor confirmed any incriminating evidence one way or the other.
Following the afternoon recess, a motion to acquit
was put forth by the defense attorney, one Mr. Thomas, based on his premise
that “there had not been any prize fight, and that the battle was simply a
friendly one to gain notoriety.” Not surprisingly, the motion was denied by
Judge Hatch. Lastly, Hattie Leslie’s husband John was called forth and he
confessed under oath to having played a role in arranging the contest.
The jury returned after a brief deliberation with
guilty verdicts for everyone involved. Sentencing was handed down for the
guilty parties the following day, with John Leslie and Billy Baker given the
stiffest penalties—six months’ hard labor. George LaBlanche and John Floss were
each to serve three-month prison sentences.
Incredibly enough for the two women, Alice Leary’s
indictment was dismissed and Hattie Leslie was deemed free to go.
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