Donovan Field (Kingston, NY)

The 1882 Kingston Leaders, a semiprofessional club sponsored by the Kingston Daily Leader. The newspaper promoted games and rivalries in its own columns, turning the team into recurring civic news. The Leaders went unbeaten in 1882. Front row, from left: Myron Allen, Dick Johnston, J. F. Cloonan, and George Johnston. (Courtesy of the Ulster County Clerk’s Office.)

 

Spectators filled every seat in the new grandstand at Donovan Field in Kingston, New York, and crowded the open ground around it on August 10, 1883, when the Kingston Leaders played New York’s National League club, commonly known as the Gothams. Police kept the diamond clear. The home club justified the excitement, leading 6–4 after five innings. Only after the visitors rallied in the sixth did the distance between a formidable local nine and a National League roster show itself. New York won, 14–7.1

The crowd had come to a ballpark barely 11 weeks old, built for a club that a newspaper had made its own. It would not see many more such afternoons. No source places a club on the grounds after 1883, and within three years Kingston’s next professional nine was playing on Union Avenue.

A Newspaper’s Ballclub

In 1882 the Kingston Daily Leader sponsored the Kingston Leaders, promoting games, reporting results, cultivating rivalries, and identifying itself openly with the club’s fortunes. The arrangement gave the team what an ordinary local nine lacked: an institution with employees, advertising reach, and a commercial reason to keep baseball in Kingston’s daily public life.

The Leader was itself new. It appeared in October 1881 and was listed in a contemporary newspaper directory as the official paper of both Ulster County and the city of Kingston, and the only Democratic daily in its congressional district.2 Kingston, the county seat, sits on the west bank of the Hudson River about 90 miles north of New York City; in 1880 it had 18,344 residents.3

A July 1882 editorial described amateur baseball as physical exercise and civic spectacle both, capable of filling Kingston Commons “till it looks like Circus day,” and pledged that the club would “command our service and our presence on every contested field.” The same editorial noted that the club had been organized from among the best amateurs in the city.4 The Leaders played on open ground. As late as May 1883 the Leader reported a practice game on the Union Avenue commons and expected another, in full uniform, on what it called the old Leader grounds.5

That support followed the Leaders out of town. When the club traveled to Wappingers Falls that July, some 25 miles south of Kingston on the east side of the Hudson, roughly 40 Kingstonians boarded the tug Dr. Kennedy at Romer & Tremper’s dock, among them aldermen, clergy, and much of the Leader’s editorial staff. Seventy-seven Kingston men were counted at the grounds. Road games carried the paper’s name into other communities.6

The team lived up to the promotion. The Leaders went unbeaten in 1882, defeating the Brooklyn Atlantics and two of Albany’s leading clubs along the way, and by early October had scored 143 runs in 11 games while allowing 32.7

Their popularity outran the city’s facilities. In July 1882 the Leader reported that its secretary was fielding challenges from clubs throughout New York State but Kingston had no suitable enclosed ball ground. Several clubs wanted to visit, the paper complained, but unless an enclosure could be secured the Leaders might have to take their next game on the road.8 The 1882 season ended without one. By the following May, Kingston had its enclosure.

Building the Ball Ground

The new grounds opened before they were finished. On Thursday, May 24, 1883, the Leaders inaugurated the season against the Actives of Wappingers Falls at what the Daily Leader called the Leader grounds on Washington Avenue, winning, 12–10. At least 500 people watched from inside the enclosure.9

A good many more watched from outside it. A neighboring property, Green’s hill, rose high enough to see over the enclosure, and nonpaying spectators lined the stone wall and fence at its foot or looked on from wagons drawn up nearby. The Leader grumbled that most of them could easily have afforded admission. The club announced that the fence on that side would be raised before the following week’s game, with canvas stretched above it if the added height was not enough.10

On Monday, May 28, a 12-foot fence was being erected for approximately 400 feet down Linderman Avenue from property belonging to Bernard Snyder, and the grounds had been mowed and leveled for a Decoration Day game against the Mullens of Albany.11

The investment continued into July. On Monday morning, July 9, the carpentry firm of Brink & Roosa began a roofed grandstand along the first-base side, assigning seven men and planning to finish in a single day. The structure ran 150 feet along its front and stood 18 feet high and 12 feet deep. Five tiers of spruce seats, each with a board footrest, sat beneath a roof that sloped two feet from front to back; the rest of the frame was hemlock, on posts set 18 inches into the ground. Set back about 50 feet from the base line, it held 700.12

The paper also announced what the grandstand was for. Alongside the construction notice, the Leader listed the season’s coming attractions: the Brooklyns on July 11, the Merritts of Camden on July 24, the New Yorks on August 10, and the Metropolitans on August 24. The grandstand was to be used for the first time at the Brooklyn game.13 The list marked a step up in opposition. The New Yorks represented the city in the National League and the Metropolitans played in the major-league American Association, while Brooklyn spent that season in the professional Inter-State Association, winning its championship before joining the American Association in 1884.14 The Merritts, also of the Inter-State Association, never made the trip; the Camden club disbanded on July 21, three days before its scheduled date in Kingston.15 Admission was set at 25 cents, the American Association’s price and half the National League’s.16

The Name and the Site

Contemporary coverage does not use the name Donovan Field. Through 1883 the Daily Leader called the enclosure the Leader base ball grounds, or the Leader grounds on Washington Avenue. Donovan Field is the name that has come down through local tradition, and it appears in print by 1924.17 The property record supplies the likeliest reason for it.

On November 13, 1875, Eliza Master conveyed to Daniel E. Donovan of Kingston, for $1,000, a parcel of approximately two acres along Linderman Avenue. The deed placed Bernard Snyder’s property along part of Donovan’s western boundary and noted that Donovan already held adjoining land to the south.18 Eight years later the Daily Leader described the new ball-ground fence as running approximately 400 feet along Linderman Avenue from the Snyder property. The deed and the newspaper description point to the same Linderman Avenue frontage.19

Donovan’s 1910 obituary supplies the wider geography. The Kingston Daily Freeman reported that he had become active in real estate and had purchased “a large tract on Washington avenue, between Linderman avenue and Marius street.”20 A separate 1872 deed confirms that Snyder held the neighboring property before the ballpark was built.21 The two street names in the newspaper coverage point the same way: a ground fenced along Linderman Avenue and identified in print as being on Washington Avenue is a ground on a tract that touched both.

The strongest reconstruction places the northern edge of the grounds along the south side of Linderman Avenue, running approximately from the present Delta Place vicinity eastward toward Washington Avenue, with the playing field extending south into Donovan’s property.22 Subsequent subdivision rules out exact boundaries, and the location of home plate remains unknown.

Donovan was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1827 and came to the United States in 1844, following family members who had preceded him. He worked as a clerk before entering business for himself, and over the following decades dealt in general merchandise, lime manufacturing, stone quarrying, and real estate, the last of which brought him the Washington Avenue tract. The Freeman credited his granite quarry on Round Island, in the Hudson River, with filling large contracts for the federal government and New York City. He served as a commissioner of the Wallkill Valley Railroad Company and was active in Kingston civic organizations. When he died in October 1910 at the age of 83, the Freeman described him as one of Kingston’s oldest and most widely known residents.23 Neither the Leader’s coverage nor the property record located so far shows what the enclosure cost, who paid for it, or on what terms the club used Donovan’s land. No tie between Donovan and the newspaper has surfaced.

A Park Worthy of the Opposition

Kingston’s ambitions had been running ahead of its facilities. In April 1883 a public challenge was issued offering $50 to any New York State club that could defeat the Leaders in a best-of-three series on their home grounds. That same spring the Leaders had turned down a challenge from a new professional club in New York City, which wanted two consecutive games in Kingston; the grounds were not ready and the club had had virtually no practice.24

By midsummer both were ready, and Brooklyn, the New Yorks, and the Metropolitans all came upriver. The Gothams’ visit produced the park’s best-documented afternoon and brought a Kingston player home in an opposing uniform. Myron Allen, a Kingston native who had pitched for the Leaders earlier that season, debuted with New York on July 19, 1883, and appeared against his former club when the New Yorks came up on August 10. Ed Dugan pitched for the Leaders, with his brother William catching.25

The Leaders trailed through two innings, went ahead in the third, and led 6–4 after five. Dick Johnston’s two-run drive to right field in the third, which scored George Johnston (no known relation) ahead of him, was only the second home run hit on the grounds. The first had gone to a Newark outfielder named Cramer earlier that season, on a drive to right that carried over a cluster of trees and well beyond the spectators standing in the outfield. Cramer had circled the bases before anyone could get through the crowd to the ball.26

In the fifth inning Roger Connor, who would become one of the 19th century’s greatest hitters, drove a ball into Ed Dugan’s arm. The injury was severe enough that the crowd expected him to leave, but Dugan stayed in the box. New York broke the game open in the sixth, seventh, and eighth. In the seventh, Tip O’Neill drove a ball into a marsh and scored before anyone could retrieve it. The visitors won, 14–7, with Allen pitching effectively against his former teammates.27 The Metropolitans came two weeks later, on August 24, and won a less dramatic affair, 15–7.28

More than four decades later the Kingston Daily Freeman recalled the “great game in which Kingston showed such baseball prowess.” The retrospective account altered some particulars, but it preserved the essential memory: a Kingston club had led a National League team deep into the game.29

Kingston Asks for a Franchise

The Leaders soon looked beyond exhibitions. In late August the club announced a month-long southern trip beginning September 3, with games against Brooklyn; the New Yorks; Easton, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia twice; Washington; Alexandria; Richmond twice; Baltimore twice; and Middletown, New York.30

In October organizers of the new Union Association met in Philadelphia to assemble a national circuit intended to compete with the National League and the American Association. Representatives attended from Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Washington. Kingston applied for admission alongside prospective clubs from New York City, Lancaster, and Richmond.31 Three of the cities represented in Philadelphia—Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington—had appeared on the announced itinerary.

Nothing came of the application. When the Union Association began play in 1884, Kingston was not among its members.

Kingston also found its best players difficult to retain. Over the winter of 1883–84, Richmond’s Virginia Base Ball Club, which had appeared on the Leaders’ southern itinerary, hired Allen to manage and pitch for its Eastern League club. Allen brought Ed and William Dugan and several other Kingston players south with him.32 Dick Johnston, another product of the newspaper’s baseball culture, joined them there. When Richmond moved into the American Association in August 1884, the Dugans debuted on August 5 and Johnston a week later.33 Johnston went on to become one of the leading defensive outfielders of his generation.34 All four of the 1883 Leaders known to have reached the major leagues went through Richmond.

A Ballpark That Disappeared

Donovan Field never became Kingston’s permanent professional home. The surviving record places the Leaders there in 1883 but reveals little about the enclosure afterward, and no source located so far establishes when the grandstand and fence came down. The Leader went on reporting a Kingston club after 1883 but no longer called it the Leaders, and the reviewed microfilm, though incomplete, shows no sign that the sponsorship continued. John Thorn describes the club as in disarray by the time Johnston and the Dugans left for Richmond.35

Kingston’s next bid for professional baseball came in 1886. On March 26, delegates from Albany, Troy, Kingston, and Newburgh met at the Merchant’s Hotel in Newburgh to organize a Hudson River Base Ball League, adopted the American Base Ball Association’s 1886 playing rules, and named eight clubs for the coming season: Albany, Troy, Hudson, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Peekskill, and Yonkers. Kingston was one of only four clubs represented at the founding convention.36 By mid-April the Kingston club was playing at the Association Grounds on Union Avenue, the street where the Leaders had practiced before 1883.37

By 1903 a “fine diamond” was being prepared at Kingston Driving Park for the city’s entry in the newly reformed Hudson River League.38

By 1910 the Freeman reported that part of Donovan’s large Washington Avenue tract had recently been sold “for development purposes.”39 Nothing located so far places a club on the grounds after 1883, and residential development eventually absorbed them.

By the end of the 1883 season, Kingston possessed much of the apparatus of professional baseball before it had a franchise: an enclosed ground, a substantial grandstand, paying crowds, and a club capable of competing with professional opposition. The Leaders sought admission to a national association, but the franchise never came. For that summer, the ballpark stood anyway.

 

Acknowledgments

This story was reviewed by Kurt Blumenau and Rory Costello and checked for accuracy by members of SABR’s fact-checking team.

 

Sources

Unless otherwise indicated in the endnotes, newspaper material is drawn from the contemporary runs of the Kingston Daily Leader, Kingston Daily Freeman, and Ellenville Journal. Property records are from the deed books of the Ulster County Clerk’s Office, Kingston, New York.

 

Notes

1 “A Brilliant and Interesting Game: The Leaders Ahead up to the Close of the Fifth Inning—The Game Not Tied Until the Sixth Inning—A Vast Crowd—The Grand Stand Filled,” Kingston (New York) Daily Leader, August 11, 1883.

2 N.W. Ayer & Son, American Newspaper Annual (Philadelphia: N.W. Ayer & Son, 1884); “Ulster County: Glasco,” Kingston Weekly Leader, October 12, 1881, 1.

3 US Census Office, Statistics of the Population of the United States at the Tenth Census (June 1, 1880) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1883), Table III, “Population of Civil Divisions Less Than Counties,” New York, Ulster County, Kingston city; census.gov/library/publications/1883/dec/vol-01-population.html, accessed September 2026.

4 “The National Game,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 7, 1882.

5 “The Base Ball Season: The Leaders Organized—Practice Game in Full Uniform Next Wednesday on the Old Grounds—Many Challenges Already Received,” Kingston Daily Leader, May 10, 1883. The notice reports a practice game on the Union Avenue commons on Tuesday, May 8, and anticipates another on the old Leader grounds on Wednesday, May 16, two weeks before the Washington Avenue enclosure opened. Whether the two names describe the same ground is unclear.

6 “Leaders vs. Chronicles,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 12, 1882.

7 “The Leaders Victorious: They Defeat the Quicksteps of New York City—Over 2,000 Persons Witness the Game—Magnificent Playing of the Leaders,” Kingston Daily Leader, June 26, 1882; “Leaders vs. Chronicles,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 12, 1882; “The National Game,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 7, 1882; New Paltz (New York) Times, October 4, 1882; John Thorn, “When Baseball Was Big in Kingston,” Thorn Pricks, May 25, 2006. Thorn gives the season as 12 games; the Times item counts 11.

8 “Base Ball Notes,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 25, 1882.

9 “The First Game of the Season: The Leaders Defeat the Actives of Wappingers Falls by a Score of Twelve to Ten,” Kingston Daily Leader, May 25, 1883.

10 “The First Game of the Season,” Kingston Daily Leader, May 25, 1883.

11 “Leaders Against Mullens,” Kingston Daily Leader, May 29, 1883.

12 “Grand Stand for Leader Ball Grounds: One Being Erected to Seat Comfortably Seven Hundred People,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 10, 1883.

13 “Great Games Ahead,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 10, 1883.

14 “Great Games Ahead,” Kingston Daily Leader, July 10, 1883; John Thorn, “When Baseball Was Big in Kingston,” Thorn Pricks, May 25, 2006; Bill Lamb, “Gus Abell,” SABR BioProject, accessed October 1, 2026. Brooklyn competed in the Inter-State Association in 1883 before joining the American Association in 1884.

15 Larry Gerlach, “The Camden Merritt, New Jersey’s Premier Nineteenth-Century Baseball Team,” New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 9, no. 2 (Summer 2023): 35–57.

16 Peter Roberts, “Kingston’s Boys of Summer: The Leaders Baseball Team of the 1880s,” Friends of Historic Kingston, September 2021. Roberts identifies Donovan Field near Washington and Linderman Avenues and states, “Admission was 25 cents.” The National League charged 50 cents for general admission and the American Association 25 cents, and both added 25 cents for grandstand seats; Richard Hershberger, “The First Baseball War: The American Association and the National League,” SABR Baseball Research Journal 49, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 115–24. By the consumer price index, 25 cents in 1883 equaled roughly $8 in 2026; “Value of 1883 Dollars Today,” Official Data Foundation, in2013dollars.com, accessed September 2026.

17 William C. DeWitt, “Allen in His Palmy Days,” Kingston (New York) Daily Freeman, March 12, 1924, 12. This was the earliest use of the name located at the time of research for this biography in 2026.

18 Ulster County Clerk’s Office, Deed Book 196, 235–36, Eliza Master to Daniel E. Donovan, November 13, 1875.

19 “Leaders Against Mullens,” Kingston Daily Leader, May 29, 1883; Ulster County Clerk’s Office, Deed Book 196, 235–36, Eliza Master to Daniel E. Donovan, November 13, 1875.

20 “Death on Sunday of Daniel E. Donovan,” Kingston Daily Freeman, October 10, 1910.

21 Ulster County Clerk’s Office, Deed Book 178, 413–14, Andrew Bostwick and Catharine H. Bostwick to Bernard Snyder, October 22, 1872.

22 Author’s reconstruction from the 1875 Donovan deed, the May 29, 1883, Kingston Daily Leader description, the October 10, 1910, Donovan obituary, and the modern Ulster County parcel and street system. The approximately 400 feet given for the fence in 1883 corresponds closely to the modern stretch of Linderman Avenue between the vicinity of Delta Place and Washington Avenue. Layout considerations would place the backstop in the vicinity of the present 42 Linderman Avenue, near the intersection of Linderman and Washington Avenues, but no evidence fixes its position.

23 “Death on Sunday of Daniel E. Donovan,” Kingston Daily Freeman, October 10, 1910.

24 “The Leaders and Mr. Prince’s Offer,” Kingston Daily Leader, April 22, 1883.

25 “Cleveland Beats New York,” New York Times, July 20, 1883, 3; “A Brilliant and Interesting Game,” Kingston Daily Leader, August 11, 1883; “The Base Ball Season,” Kingston Daily Leader, May 10, 1883, which names Allen as the club’s regular pitcher for 1883; William C. DeWitt, “Allen in His Palmy Days,” Kingston Daily Freeman, March 12, 1924, 12; Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide, 1883, 101; DeWitt Base Ball Guide, 1883, 29; John Thorn, “When Baseball Was Big in Kingston,” Thorn Pricks, May 25, 2006. Thorn reports that the 1883 Leaders lost at Donovan Field to Brooklyn, New York, and the Metropolitans, and that the Dugans had come to Kingston from Brooklyn.

26 “A Brilliant and Interesting Game,” Kingston Daily Leader, August 11, 1883; Kingston Daily Leader, July 19, 1883. Peter Roberts, “Kingston’s Boys of Summer: The Leaders Baseball Team of the 1880s,” Friends of Historic Kingston, September 2021, profiles George Johnston (1858–1944), a Leaders catcher, separately from Dick Johnston (1863–1934) and does not describe them as related; the May 10, 1883, Leader notice gives the catcher’s name as George A. Johnson. Baseball-Reference’s Bullpen notes that an outfielder named Cramer played for Newark later in 1883 and may be the Edward “Dick” Cramer who appeared in two games for the Gothams that May, but does not establish the identification; “Dick Cramer,” BR Bullpen, Baseball-Reference.com, accessed September 2026.

27 “A Brilliant and Interesting Game,” Kingston Daily Leader, August 11, 1883. The box score credits O’Neill with New York’s only home run; the seventh-inning account places the ball in the marsh.

28 “Base Ball Notes,” Ellenville Journal, August 31, 1883.

29 William C. DeWitt, “Allen in His Palmy Days,” Kingston Daily Freeman, March 12, 1924, 12.

30 “Base Ball Notes,” Ellenville Journal, August 31, 1883.

31 “Union Baseball Association: Important Meeting Held in Philadelphia Yesterday,” Washington Post, October 21, 1883; “A Meeting of the New Union Association,” Philadelphia Times, October 21, 1883; “War on the Reserve Nine—The Philadelphia Club—Notes,” Philadelphia Times, October 28, 1883.

32 Bruce Allardice, “Richmond Virginias Team Ownership History,” SABR Team Ownership History Project, citing Scott P. Mayer, “The First Fifty Years of Professional Baseball in Richmond, Virginia: 1883–1932” (master’s thesis, University of Richmond, 2001), 24–25. Accessed October 1, 2026.

33 “Ed Dugan” and “Bill Dugan,” Baseball-Reference.com, accessed September 2026; “Dick Johnston,” Baseball-Reference.com, accessed September 2026. William Dugan also caught for Kansas City of the Union Association later in 1884.

34 John Thorn, “When Baseball Was Big in Kingston,” Thorn Pricks, May 25, 2006; “Players’ League Games,” Boston Daily Globe, April 6, 1890; “‘Dicky’ Johnston, Old-Time Ball Player, Visits Boston,” Boston Daily Globe, September 11, 1917; “Dick Johnston,” Baseball-Reference.com, accessed September 2026. Johnston played for Richmond (AA) in 1884, Boston (NL) from 1885 through 1889, Boston and New York (PL) in 1890, and Cincinnati (AA) in 1891, and led the National League in triples in 1888.

35 Based on the Kingston Daily Leader’s baseball coverage after 1883; the reviewed microfilm run is missing some issues. “Base Ball: The Second Game of the Season in This City,” Kingston Daily Leader, April 13, 1886, calls the club the Kingstons. John Thorn, “When Baseball Was Big in Kingston,” Thorn Pricks, May 25, 2006. Peter Roberts, “Kingston’s Boys of Summer: The Leaders Baseball Team of the 1880s,” Friends of Historic Kingston, September 2021, dates the Leaders’ end to 1888, but the Leader’s own later coverage does not use the name.

36 “Hudson River League: Formed at Newburgh Yesterday—Kingston to Have a Club—A Championship Pennant to be Competed For,” Kingston Daily Leader, March 27, 1886.

37 “Base Ball: The Second Game of the Season in This City,” Kingston Daily Leader, April 13, 1886, reporting the Kingstons’ 6–3 loss to the Stars of Syracuse the previous afternoon at the Association Grounds on Union Avenue.

38 “Hudson River Baseball League,” Kingston Daily Freeman, April 10, 1903.

39 “Death on Sunday of Daniel E. Donovan,” Kingston Daily Freeman, October 10, 1910.