The Boston Club


The Boston Club is a private gentlemen's club in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, founded in 1841 as a place for its members to congregate and partake in the fashionable card game of Boston. It is the oldest remaining social club in the city, after the Elkin, Pelican and Orleans Clubs closed prior or due to the Civil War. The clubhouse has been located at 824 Canal Street since 1884, formerly 148 Canal St, on the edge of the Central Business District. It was built in 1844 by James Gallier as a city residence for Dr. William Newton Mercer, a planter in Mississippi and surgeon from the War of 1812. The Club itself was organized in 1841, by thirty leading mercantile and professional men, they were the heads of families and men of substance on the shady side of life, yet full of bonhomie and fond of the card game of Boston, from which this club was christened. It epitomized the South’s most refined male tastes and attitudes, a member once noted, “Propriety of demeanor and proper courtesy are alone exacted within its portals.”

History

Founded in 1841, The Boston Club is the third oldest Gentlemen’s City Club in the United States behind The Philadelphia Club in Philadelphia and Union Club of the City of New York in New York City. Members organized and rented rooms first at the Merchants Exchange, 126 Royal St, in the Vieux Carre, then 129/130 Canal Street until the Civil War when it closed from 1862-1866. After the war, it occupied 214 Royal Street until 1867 at which point it moved to 4 Carondelet Street, the former home of New Orleans financier, Edward J. Forstall. In 1884 it moved into its current clubhouse at 824 Canal Street and the house was fully purchased by 1905. The club was closed for 3 years during the Civil War.
The Elkin Club, founded 1832 and shuttered in 1838, was the first social club in New Orleans. An open club, it sponsored dances and balls in the vicinity of Bayou St John and closed due to the financial crisis of 1837. The Pelican Club founded 1843 and folded at the beginning of the Civil War, confined its membership through blackball policies to bankers, cotton brokers, attorneys, physicians, and political leaders; the smallest lapse in credit spelled denial of membership. Younger gentlemen, who had been rejected membership to the Pelican Club, organized The Orleans Club in 1851 with similar, yet less restrictive, membership policies; but similarly shuttered its doors, never to reopen, at the outset of the Civil War. Members of this club full of jovial mirth would go on to found The Pickwick Club, the city's second-oldest Gentlemen's Club, and found modern-day Carnival.
Initially, in more civilized times, the club was not closed, members could extend the club's hospitality to the guests-the club was theirs to use gratis; but as older, more conservative and narrow-minded men came to lead the club, these vestiges of hospitality were lost and anti-semitism set in. Ironically, Judah P. Benjamin and the first Rex, Lewis Solomon, both Jewish, had been members of the club.

Famous guests

In 1873, Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery attended a luncheon.
General Ulysses S. Grant lunched at The Boston Club in 1880.
John J. Pershing visited on February 17, 1920.
The Duke of Windsor and the Duchess of Windsor, February 21, 1950
It was customary, until 1992, for Rex and his queen to lunch at the club after the Rex parade during Mardi Gras. In addition, the Boston Club entertained the queen of the carnival and her court during the parade.

Notable members

Members of the Boston Club frequently patronized Jockey Clubs of the area, both the defunct Metairie Course and the Fair Grounds Race Course, putting up high stakes purses to help offset the Jockey Club’s expenses. “The Boston Club…being composed of gentlemen who know ‘what’s what’...insured a numerous and distinguished attendance upon these occasions.” Later noting “In the betting circles last evening.. The wagering was spirited and lively, and a good deal of money will change hands as a result.” John Randolph Grymes owned philly Susan Yandal who raced in the first races at the Fair Grounds Race Course in 1838, his cousin Henry A. Tayloe, youngest son of turfsman John Tayloe III, was one of the proprietors along with local, Bernard de Marigny.

Homes of The Boston Club

Entering from Canal Street, the entrance to the club is a 10x12 vestibule framed by sidelights between engaged ionic pilasters and columns, with wooden door inscribed in frosted glass the club’s initials BC, opening into a marble paved hallway. Adjacent, to the left through a solid mahogany door, is a well-decorated parlor, extending fifty-five feet deep from the front facade. Here can be found leather chairs, lace curtains, and rockers with foremost men of New Orleans discussing current events. There is a reception area with a large round table behind leading into formal and informal dining areas. The formal dining room is forty-five feet deep, with molded stucco ceiling cornices and large center ceiling medallion of floral designs, and mantels finished in period Eastlake Style replacing earlier marble mantel carved with cherubs and flute players. The bar, located behind the informal dining area, is made of oak along with the wainscot running around the room. The second floor has two rooms, the front, a former card room while the rear is mainly used as a sitting room but can be converted easily to a dining room, it is finished in oak with cypress doors and is attached to a billiards room, board room and lady’s water closet.

Significance

The Boston Club is a social club composed mainly of Anglo-American men. Its clubhouse has held lavish balls, regular daily lunches, and monthly dinners. Its events and social activities were the fodder for many newspaper and social columns at the turn of the 19th century and on into the 20th century. That a lavish club lifestyle could be centered around something as simple as a card game serves as a sign of prosperous times in New Orleans.

In popular culture

In The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy, "Uncle Jules" is said to have suffered a heart attack and died at the Boston Club on Mardi Gras.