JW-vol49no2-p66

HISTORIC JUGGLING FIRSTS

by Tom Breen

(From The Juggler's Bulletin, May 1946)

To my knowledge the first person to juggle three clubs was DeWitt Cook and he trained his stepson or foster son, Claude Bartram, to juggle. I don't know much of Bartram's early life or partners except that he teamed up with Alburtus and the famous team of Alburtus and Bartram was the result. They were the first club juggling act by two people to create a big name for themselves and start a demand for double club jugglers. Claude Bartram went over to England, and for years was editor of the English theatrical paper, "The Performer."

But they were not the first to do double club juggling, as that honor could be claimed by either the Devine Bros. of Lawrence, Mass, or Rogers and Rourke of Lowell, Mass. They were the first teams to pass six clubs and they were working about the same time and lived in cities only 10 miles apart. I met one of the Devine Bros. and explaining he said, "We did not know if it was possible to pass six clubs and thought the best way for the audience to get a good view of the mover would be to stand side by side and face the audience (The man on the right side throws a high double to partner's left hand; man on left throws a low club to partner's left hand)."

After getting it down they stood back to back and threw the clubs over their head to the other man. (Both of these tricks are difficult and don't get as much reaction from the audience as facing each other).

Although I've tried hard to get a trace of them, I've never heard of the Modoc Bros. or Murdock Bros., who an English Variety agent by the name of Fred Higham brought to England between 1885-1890 from St. Louis. Their lithograph that Higham had hanging on his wall showed two men on pedestals passing four clubs between them. My father saw this lithograph but never heard of the jugglers here in America, and they were Americans.

Charles Hoey of Natick, Mass., was the first man to juggle four clubs. He could not finish with them and so they would close in the scenery and he would drop them on the floor. He worked with the Gus Hill show and his club juggling was quite a contrast to Gus Hill's club swinging. Hill, who owned the show, had a standing offer of $1,000 to anyone who could duplicate Hoey's feat with the four clubs.

The first to juggle five clubs was Ben Mowatt. He is the son of the man I mentioned before as having created the three and four club routines for troupes. I thought for quite awhile that Pat McBann was the first with five, but a few of the old timers that knew both the boys corrected me ori that and said Ben handled the five before John Whitfield put his nephew, Pat, in the Five Johnsons Act.

The McBann name is a contraction of the two names - Pat McGreevey and Tommy Bannahan. They were the original McBanns and afterward Pat put his brother Henry in the act and the act really made a big name for itself. They were known as the fastest double act of their time (1908-1912). When Pat died in Lucerne, Switzerland, Henry continued the act with Jerry Buckley. Pat McBann was the first juggler to attempt six clubs. I've been told-he juggled four in one hand and two in the other but he passed away before he could get it perfected to put on the stage.