Daily camera. [volume] (Boulder, Colo.) 1891-1928, 1900-06-23
TnE DAILY cNv,ERA
CHAMPION PUGILISTS.
NEARLY ALL HAVE DIED IN
POVERTY.
John Morrisssy Left His Widow In
Want, Although Worth $4,000, 600
Once-Hsensn and Yankee Sullivan

| Once-Heenan and Yankee Sullivan
Prize ring champions rarely amount
to much in the Dugilistic business
after they once suffer defeat. Like
John l.. Sullivan, who has been on the
retired list ever since Corbett defeated
him in 81 rounds at New Orleans in
1892, they are thenceforward consid
cred old men, though still so young
that in most callings they would be
spoken of as in the prime Of life. OF
late years nearly every pugilist too
old to fight" any more has retired"
to some sort of retail drinking shop.
| This has become so common that the
public expects nothing more nor less
from any ex-champion, though it was
by no means the invariable rule in
the earlier, more brutal, days of bare
knuckle fighting. John Jackson, who
was the British champion 100 years
and more ago, taught boxing after he
had retired from the ring, numbering
among his pupils nearly all Of the
young sprigs of fashion and scions of
afistocracy in England. He was u
at his death, in 1S45, and an expensive
monument surmounted by lion
couchant, and guarded by sculptured
! gladiator holding wreath was put
| up over his remains at BrOmpton
| cemetery. Few or no other British
| pugilists have died rich, though the
last resting place of three others are
| marked by impressive monuments.
They were Tom Crib, Tom Spring and
Tom Sayers.
Two exprize ring champions have
gone into politics, and amassed wealth
after leaving the fistic arena, though
neither had much money when death
| called. One of these was John Gully,
| the Englishman, and the other was
| John Morrissey, the American Gully
| got into parliament, and for while
enjoyed the respect and friendship of
many Of England's most exalted per-
| sonages." He made a part of his
wealth out Of racing, and the remain
| Ger in various speculative enterprises,
some which turned out disastrously.
| In his later years he was in constant
fear of the workhouse, but he didn't
fall so low as that.
| John Morrissey's post prize-ring
days were far more spectacular than
Cullys. Morrissey retired a cham
rion, having defeated Heenan, and
! having sensibly refused to fight again.
| Morrissey numbered old Commodore
| Vanderbilt among his closest friends,
! and by following the commOdore's ad-
/ vice was able to win heavily in Wall
street Morrissey also made money
Ia wads and rolls in the two gambling
houses which he established-one in
New York, in Broadway, and one in
| Saratoga. Morrissey's political rise
Logan early in the COS. For years he
was so strong that he had a virtual
monopoly as to gambling there, which
he took advantage of by levying trib-
ute on all the establishments of his
| fellow boss gamblers in town. He was
| sent to the house of representatives in
| 1866 by the Democrats and in the fight
| Letween Tweed, the Tammany boss,
and Tilden, sided with the latter. At
one time Morrissey's fortune was 81,
100000 and lie is said to have made
s6OO.O 900 in one deal in Harlem en-
tered into on account of a tip from
Commodore Vanderbilt. The death Of
the commodore was the beginning of
bad luck for Morrissey. He tried spec
ulation on his own hook, but without
Vanderbilt to tip him off found it i'm
possible to buck up against Jay Gould
and the other expert Wall street op-
orators of that day. Still Morrissey
kept up a brave front as long as he
lived for till death he was supposed
generally to have much wealth left.
The late William r. Travers and Ed
ward Murphy were his executors. On
examination they found that his es-
tate had dwindled practically to
naught, and his widow, who had been
| a Hudson river steamboat captain S
daughter when Morrissey was a deck
hand, found herself plunged in poverty
instead of rolling in wealth.
John C. Heenan, who, though a vic
tor over Sayers, was himself defeated
by Morrissey, ran gambling den for
while and for time did fairly we'll;
but the tide soon turned the wrong
way, and Heenan died of consumption
in Colorado, in great financial straits.
Heenan was married to the erratic
Adah Isaacs Menken. She died in
France a year or two before her hus
band.
Yankee Sullivan, whose real name
was Frank Ambrose Murray, counted
in his day and generation the greatest
fighter of his weight and inches in the
United States left the east and went
to California to dig gold after his sue
cessive defeats by Tom Hyer and John
Morrssey. Sullivan might have been q
god thing as a miner, but in some
manner he ran against the San Fran
| cisco vigilance committee in its palmi-
est days, and was by it thrown into
prison. He was suspected of having
been connected with a gang of bur