The Great Race of 1915: New Bedford or Bust!
By William F. Hanna
“How fast are we going, Jim?” asked the older man, by now drenched with a nasty combination of sweat, rain, and mud. “About four [miles] an hour,” replied his younger companion as the pair dodged puddles in the muddy road. “Well,” said the first man, “we could make four easily when I was on the plains.”
Such was the conversation as two middle-aged men dressed in business attire marched resolutely southward along a country road from Taunton to New Bedford. They had chosen what was later described as “one of the muggiest, dampest, unpromising and stickiest days” ever, to carry through on a promise to walk the 25 miles from Taunton to the Whaling City. If the oppressive humidity, peppered with intermittent scorching sunshine and torrential showers, caused them to question their decision, they refused to admit it.
The older of the two men was Nathaniel J.W. Fish, who was then completing his second stint as mayor of Taunton. The son of a New Bedford whaling captain, he was named for his mother’s uncle, Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, one of the early explorers of the Oregon Territory. Born in Taunton in 1859 and educated locally as a civil engineer, he had spent his young manhood first as a cowboy in Texas and then as a surveyor traveling throughout the Southwest. Looking back on these adventurous times, it was later said that Fish passed “days and weeks in the saddle [and] slept practically in snowdrifts.”
Returning to Taunton in 1889, Fish became involved in politics and was elected to two terms on the Board of Aldermen. In 1896 he won the mayoral contest and served first from 1897 to 1899 and then, after a decade away from City Hall, was elected again to serve from 1912 to 1915. He was in the final months of this second term as he walked toward New Bedford.
Between his mayoral terms, Fish was Taunton’s chief of police in 1908–09. In the days before civil service, the city’s mayor appointed the chief, and since no prior experience was necessary, the job usually went to friends of City Hall. Police chief was a part-time position (as was mayor) and it was often a sinecure. Under Chief Fish, appointed by Mayor Edgar L. Crossman, it was not. The former cowboy delighted in patrolling the streets, chasing stray dogs and cuffing banditos. In police work, as in life, the boisterous, hyperactive Fish joyfully played the part of a local Theodore Roosevelt.
The mayor’s walking companion that day was James E. Walsh, a successful businessman and an influential member of the Municipal Council. While Fish was riding the Plains, Walsh was learning the printer’s trade and even as a young man enjoyed a reputation as an expert typesetter. After working for a while at the Taunton Daily Gazette, he went into business for himself, and the Walsh Press became one of the area’s most successful printing houses.
Both Fish and Walsh were at the height of their popularity in that summer of 1915, and it was their wide circle of friends that was responsible for this steamy jaunt to New Bedford. The mayor, well known as an athlete and outdoorsman, was apparently the target of good-natured ribbing that questioned how much stamina the 56-year old former cowboy still possessed. Never one to pass up a contest, Fish feigned outrage and challenged all comers to a footrace down to New Bedford. Councilman Walsh, 10 years the mayor’s junior and the subject of taunts from his own cadre of genial troublemakers, accepted.
The race began at 6:45 on the morning of August 2, 1915, when the pair stepped off from Mayor Fish’s house, at 56 Summer Street. Both contestants had agreed to keep the race date secret because neither man wanted unruly spectators to mar the proceedings. Even good-natured heckling might lead to what one writer discreetly called “an inharmonious discord,” so the rivals left Taunton in secrecy.
In 1915 the modern-day Route 140 was still decades in the future. The journey for the two contestants — who had already decided that the “race” would end in a tie — began on Mayor Fish’s front porch and passed down Summer to County Street, and then along a quiet back road that took them through East Taunton, Lakeville, Freetown and into the North End of New Bedford. Mayor Fish had announced that he intended to visit his counterpart at the New Bedford City Hall and perhaps challenge him to a foot race back to Taunton.
The life expectancy of a politician’s promise isn’t very long, and neither was the secrecy guarding the Fish-Walsh race. Shortly after they departed the mayor’s house, word was out that this was the day. The Taunton Daily Gazette, careful not to reveal its source, said that “the aunt of the sister of a wife of a policeman” had seen the contestants crossing the Neck o’ Land Bridge heading south. A reporter, after making telephone calls to friends, confirmed that the men had been spotted on the New Bedford road and the race was on. Someone on the newspaper staff produced an automobile and within minutes a reporter was in pursuit of the pair.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered. Where’d you come from?” asked the mayor when the newspaperman arrived. Both contestants good-naturedly demanded the name of the person who had tipped off the press, but the writer held firm and persuaded the pair to stop for a drink at a filling station near Long Pond while he called the newspaper to report on their progress. This was about 10 miles from the starting point and the contestants were asked how they were feeling after having walked that distance in the heat and humidity. Fish took the lead and answered, “Never felt better in my life . . . I was a tenderfoot once, but never again.” Councilman Walsh, puffing on his pipe and admiring his own progress, crossed over into the regal third person as he declared, “The ‘Old Boy’ is there and don’t you forget it.”
Back on road as late morning approached, the reporter asked each man for a status report. Fish confessed, “The only thing I’m sorry for is that I didn’t take Jim’s advice beforehand and wear a heavier pair of shoes. The soles of these shoes are pretty thin and I can feel about every pebble I step on.” “And I wish I had laid in a supply of smokes,” said Walsh. Despite the discomfort, the mayor wondered aloud what Frank Washburn, a Main Street merchant and one of the friendly instigators of the race, would say when he learned that the contest was well underway. Walsh agreed and noted that finally starting the race “has saved me no end of torture from the gang.”
Just past Long Pond the pair, with the Gazette reporter following in the automobile, crossed the Freetown line. At one point a rabbit dashed out of the underbrush and momentarily hesitated in front of the men. Fish, ever the showman, laughed and launched a stage kick in the animal’s direction. “Get out of here and let someone go who can go,” shouted the mayor. Just up the road, the skies opened in a torrent and this forced the walkers to take shelter in a grove of trees. There, said the reporter, they stopped for half an hour and “listened to each other’s experiences.”
From East Freetown, the party passed into the North End of New Bedford. Another deluge caught them as they approached the Sassaquin Sanitarium, a tuberculosis hospital, and they stopped in a nearby streetcar barn until the weather cleared enough to continue. By the time they arrived at Lund’s Corner, 19 miles from Taunton, word of their coming had reached New Bedford and several locals offered congratulations and friendly greetings. One man who had formerly lived in Taunton approached Fish and reminded him of the time the mayor had accepted a ride to Whittenton in his car. “Don’t doubt it at all,” said Fish, “but I don’t need an automobile to get around in nowadays.” Shortly afterward, someone suggested that since they had reached New Bedford, and thus met the challenge, they should take a streetcar into downtown for their visit to City Hall. “Not a bit of it,” said Fish, “I’m going to stick if it costs a leg.” Councilman Walsh’s response was not recorded.
The trudge continued, and in mid-afternoon, as the weary pair neared the New Bedford business district, the Gazette man reported what happened: “Divested of coats, hats, and collars, the trampers, somewhat the worse for looks, and wringing with perspiration, pushed their way through Purchase Street and up William Street. In front of City Hall they put back their coats and dolled up more or less to suit the dignity of their office.”
Informed that his Taunton visitors had arrived, New Bedford mayor Edward R. Hathaway made his way to the front steps of City Hall, where several photos were taken. When Hathaway asked why his two guests had made such a strenuous journey, Fish replied, “Well, I had to show some of the skeptics up my way that the son of an old New Bedford whaler still has some backbone left.” When Hathaway playfully asked if Fish intended to walk back to Taunton, Fish quickly said, “Walk back? I will if you do.” “Walking is not my game,” replied Hathaway, who then kindly offered to get his visitors a ride back to Taunton. Councilman Walsh was there too, noted the Gazette reporter, but “he was trying to catch his second wind.”
Mayor Fish was in no hurry to return home after bidding farewell to Hathaway. With Councilman Walsh at his side, he visited with several New Bedford friends and then the two sat down to a hearty meal; each admitted to having eaten almost nothing in preparation for the great race. When they were finished, the erstwhile walkers happily accepted the reporter’s offer of a ride back to Taunton.
It was almost 7 P.M. when the car carrying Mayor Fish and Councilman Walsh was spotted on Summer Street making its way toward City Hall. Ominous clouds darkened the sky and thunder rolled in the distance, but this wasn’t enough to keep John W. Robertson’s brass band quiet. Robertson, another of the mayor’s provocateurs, was the city’s most successful automobile dealer, and he kept his band ready for special occasions. The car came to a stop, the small crowd cheered lustily, the band played, the mayor and councilman took their bows, and then everybody scattered as the heavens opened in what one observer called “a first-class thunderstorm.”
The next morning found both Fish and Walsh at City Hall, like two characters having stepped from Homer’s Odyssey, greeting visitors and accepting congratulations. No one seemed to question that a 25-mile “race” had ended in a dead heat, or that two footsore, middle-aged men could have crossed the finish line at exactly the same moment. In fact, the Robbins Company of Attleboro had been commissioned to strike two identical medals, one for each man, commemorating this incredible finish.
For their part, the former contestants chose to beat their blisters and aching muscles with bluster and bravado. The mayor promised that he was “Right on deck and feeling first-rate,” while Councilman Walsh was “Just as spry as ever. Ready to start again.”
They were the talk of the town for a week or so, and then life went on and Taunton settled back into the rhythm of a hot, lazy summer.
