The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-11-11
TOUGH CLUB DINERS
REVIVE OhDEN TIMES
Greenwich Village Kids Cheer
ut Celebration of 5Oth
Anniversary.
90 GALLONS OF CHOWDER


Lights. rcd and yellow lights, lavishly
festooned and strewn up and down the
front and around the borders OF the
old four story and basement house at
:i3 West Fourteenth street. where the
merry men Of the Tough Club meet to
plan and plot for the happiness of the
little kids OF old Greenwich Village and
for the comfort and easy days Of the
very old. winked the friendlief sort of
welcome TO even the casual visitor last
night.
The eminently respectable and law-
abiding rowdies Of the most c%uriously
misnamed club in the world were cele-
brating the organizations fftieth anni-
versary last night and after a fashion
that Dickens or Thackeray would have
been delighted To see IL they could have
spread their legs under one Of the
tables that groaned under the weight Of
smoking meats and good brown ale.
For the Tough Club has done more than
its share of the job of keeping alive
good, neighborly feeling and Kindness to
ths young and old.
The minute one passed the portals Of
the Tough Club last night and was in
troduced TO pipe and mug and began TO
hear the true tales of old Greenwich
told by men who have lived In the vii
lage. as their fathers and grandfathers
did before them, and who always will
1txs. shAr.a until tlax. .r, On rrtA 60. he
well, to another ~home-nervcs re-
Taxed and worries faded and life seemed
to be pleasanter and less highly geared.
Presents From oldest Member.
The celebration got under way at 4
r. NJ. when the members. each with one
invited guest, began to pour in and ask
FOR Simon Sharp and Charley Walker.
the steward. and old Horatio Sanger.
the club bartender. Siman. who Is 20
and has the distinction of being the only
living charter member, distributed gold
UNI links to the members while he in
d~ignantIy denied that he had been cheat
Ing about his age for the last half CEN
Jury and was really the oldest white
child born in Greenwich Village. And
as the afternoon drif,ed along and
turned Into evening and the evening
darkened into night and Charley
Walkers famous ninety gallon chowder
pot began to produce and old friends
hurried up from the village and a mill
ion kids scampered In the street cheering
n wanting to know II there was to be
u big Christmas party this year. one
met and shook lands with the stalwarts
Of the Tough Club.
There were Perpetual President Billy
Lawrence. a prosperous plumber: Sam
uel Dean. ST.. OF the old Greenwich
Village Deans. who have held property
there for 1875 years James f. Fraser.
the pow6 .r maker; Joe Fitzhenry. truck
man Charles u. Cervin. inventor of
one OF those thingamajigs that one pulls
down when one want ones incandes-
cent light to get busy Ed Hart. who
lives at the club; Henry Henken, viii
.age coal dealer; James w. Harrison.
the oldest iagmaker in the city of New
York tthough some one will write in TO
THE Sun probably 10 say that he isn't
George A. Howgill, John Koran, GUS
todian of the Appellate Division court
house J, b. avanagh supreme Court
squad captain w. W. Kershaw, com
mission merchant; Henry Hughes and
Billy Hughes. the Paige brothers. David
b. and Frank b., Anthony +. Mazetti,
the caterer; DR.. Otto Mates. Rodney
Patterson, the village carpenter; Pat
Quirk. the soda water man., James
Shields, auditor of the Erie Railroad
oscar Suwarrow, a member for forty.
nine years. Matt Walsh. the hosiery
merchant: Or. Nelson Westcott. John
Taska, Dave simpson. the butcher; Ed
Scully. the undertaken. and from a tam.
lily of Scullys that have lived In Green.
witch nearly 100 years, Charley stone
ham. the broker; John Palmer, who
never gets over the fact that Simon
Sharp is u leetle bit, just "A leetle hi
older than he; Charley Patterson, the
actor, and-well, the list takes in pretty
nearly every name that means some
thing to Greenwich Village. In som,
instances four generations were repre-
sented in one family.
Members All Hard Workers.
For fifty years the Tough Club has
been made up of men. hard working
family men. Every year for fifty years
the Tough Club has given a Christmas
party for the little people. iilling then
to blissful capacity with lemonade AM
cake and ice cream and sending then
home with arms loade' with dolls AM
"ketchin' 4" gloves and real eague base
balls and skates and Ill of the thing'
that little people ought to find in thel,
stockings the morning after Old Mr.
santa Claus made his rounds.
The name Is a queer misnomer. Blu
the fact Is the name of the club ough
not be Tough at all but Topf. for 1t wa
in the back room OF a little saloon con
Quoted by a man named George Topf a
Hudson and West Tenth streets that tn
club was organized OH November Ia
1865.
Their original meeting place wa
Topfs back room. Thereafter the,
changed their headquarters half a dozel
times. In 1910 the club moved to 1t
present clubhouse at 2i3 West Four
teenth street. taking with 1t the famou
iron chowder pot holding ninety gallon
OF the finest clam " to be foun
in the known world the ancient clu
motto, contained within a horseshoe Q
the vintage of lS65-"Bend. But Neve
Break"-the two Spanish bells whic
Brother Tom Eason, who was wilt
Dewey in Manila Bay. brought bac
from foreign parts the big cabinet @
framed portraits of old members wit
whiskers fashionable In the EOS and so
and many other mementoes and sou
yenirs reminiscent Of famous, or, at an
rate, much loved n respected men
baSa
Politics aud War Talk Harre
The club has never had any politics a
n club. II won't tolerate war argument
IL avoids any of those blood heating dis
crssions which make bad friends il
to-uay, as 1t has been for nifty years.
social organization purely. run for II
good FELLOWSHIP side Of life, and esp,