George King (1894-1930), a long-time resident of Scarsdale, was instrumental in arranging this event and although he now live in New York City he had maintained strong ties with the club.
King was ranked tenth in the nation in 1927 and was given an honorary membership in FMTC in 1928 which he graciously accepted :
” Your club was the first tennis club I ever belonged to; it was the first club at which I ever played a tournament and the first club I ever won a prize at”
In the fall of 1928, Scarsdale, NY neighbors James (Jimmy) Cogswell and Fessenden (Fess) Blanchard were on a hunt for an outdoors winter sport close to home. This led them to build a multi-purpose wooden platform on a small strip of land on Cogswell’s property for deck tennis, badminton or volleyball. The size and shape of that strip of land had a significant effect on the whole future of Platform Paddle Tennis.
The job was completed by the end of November 1928. The result was a 48′ x 20′ green platform marked out for both badminton and deck tennis. The landscape proved a challenge. The platform couldn’t be wider than 20 feet without raising it over a rock. The ground fell off so sharply at 48 feet in length that a major operation would be required to increase it. Volleyball was no longer an option.
They quickly realized that the unsheltered spot also was not ideal for badminton, so the platform was largely used for deck tennis.
Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard Paddle Tennis, 1944
Historical Factoid: Henry B. Eaton, an executive with a lumber business in NYC and a friend of Blanchard and Cogswell, was helpful in supplying material for the first court and was instrumental in getting his company to support the building of many of the early courts, including the first non-privately owned court in 1931 (Fox Meadow). Eaton was President of Fox Meadow Tennis Club in 1936. His wife, Jean Eaton, was the winner of the Women’s Doubles and Singles Nationals in 1935 (the inaugural tournaments) and the Women’s Doubles in 1936. See also – Portables Deck and Gates Sports Platform Company
Source: Joan Eaton Mauk, daughter of the Eatons
As innovators of a new sport, the duo made a balanced team.
Jimmy Cogswell was a trained engineer with a job in sales. “He was fascinated with the question of how to build the court, the technical side of it,” said his daughter, Do Cogswell Deland.
By contrast, Fess Blanchard “was so un-mechanical he couldn’t change a light bulb,” according to his daughter Molly Ware. He was the game’s pied piper, publicist, and chief promoter.
These complementary skills provided a great impetus to the development of the game.
The biggest stroke of luck was that these displaced Bostonians had ended up being neighbors in the first place. Blanchard had moved to New York to pursue a textile career in New York City, but Cogswell had set his sights on using his engineering training in a mining career in Canada. Fortunately, his wife would have none of that and he re-invented himself as a textile salesman. He moved his family to Scarsdale where Blanchard was his back-yard neighbor and was employed in the same industry.
Blanchard and Cogswell were among the first inductees into the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 1965
Blanchard promoted the sport in countless articles and letters in the 1930s and ‘40s. He did radio interviews and published the first book about the sport in 1944.
Both Blanchard and Cogswell had a keen sense of fun, according to Do Deland. Molly Ware agreed, “One thing they had in common was their enthusiasm. They were like kids, never blasé. Neither of them minded being thought an idiot.”
Source: Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983
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