"Pop" Ballard, America's First Bicycle Champion

 Who did win the first bike race held in the United States? If you read some accounts you might be tempted to answer that the first was won by C. A. Parker, from F. E. Cabot, in a three mile race around the Beacon Park trotting track. The race was a part of the Harvard Athletic Association's Summer Meeting, held on 24 May 1878, and included three other riders - L. Foster, Tubbs and Sharon (first names lost to history) - who soon enough fell behind, leaving only Parker and Cabot to battle for victory. The race was the neck-and-neck, back-and-forth variety which really got the gathered crowd of spectators excited and wildly cheering as the two competitors came in to the finish, pumping the pedals on their bone-shakers for all they were worth.

But...

(don't you just love the "buts"?) there also exists an alternate story, one that made the rounds of newspapers all around the country in early 1903. The occasion of this widely published story was the death (at the age of 66 years) of Mr. Lewis Mortimer "Pop" Ballard at his home in New York City on the 19th of January. According to this account Mr. Ballard, who had a fondness of outdoor sports, entered a velocipede race in NYC on 20 March 1869 and rode to victory. He kept that bicycle as a souvenir the remainder of his life - In 1892, according to the Yonkers Statesman, Ballard's velocipede was exhibited at Madison Square Garden.

Not only was Mr. Ballard an accomplished bicyclist, but he was also a noted rifleman, competing with the American long-range rifle team during the years 1874-76. That team defeated every other it competed against, both home and abroad. Ballard, as was noted in his obituary, was the "first American to receive a prize from the hands of a member of the royal family of England," presented to him by Princess Louise following a rifle competition at Wimbledon Common.

L. M. Ballard's boneshaker would have looked much like this one being held by James Moore, who won the world's first bike race (held in Paris) on 31 May 1868.