Charlie Kuenzel

WRITTEN BY CHARLIE KUENZEL PHOTOS PROVIDED BY THE GEORGE BOLSTER COLLECTION

Tree trimming in Congress Park This is a very unique image of Congress Park in 1930. It was described in the Bolster Collection as “men trimming trees.” If you look closely at the image you will see many men that have climbed these huge trees for the purpose of trimming branches. Worker safety was different in 1930.

Gaming Parlor

The magnificent building in Congress Park that we all know as the Canfield Casino, is a beautiful treasure of Saratoga Springs’ architecture but is also a great focus for the story of two men that built and operated the premier gaming spot during the 19th century. The two men that shaped the social culture of the city through gambling were John Morrissey and Richard Canfield. John Morrissey built the casino in 1870 and operated it until his early death on May 1, 1878. Upon the passing of Morrissey two lesser partners Albert Spencer and Charles Reed operated the gambling house at a less than stellar level of performance. In 1894 Richard Canfield bought the casino and introduced a very high level of gaming at the location. The two most impactful owners during this period, Morrissey and Canfield were very different people. Morrissey was a tough brawler and Canfield passed as educated and refined. John Morrissey came to Saratoga Springs in 1861 and opened a gambling house on Matilda Street that today is known as Woodlawn Avenue. It was a simple house, that allowed interested men to play cards or other games of chance in a village that had outlawed many forms of gambling. Morrissey was not a trend setter in the area of gambling in Saratoga Springs. In 1819 the village had applied to the State of New York, and was granted self-governance. In that year the village allowed private card games, billiard tables in some hotels as well as more distribution of alcohol. This limited allowance of “sin” in the village led to further illegal development so that by the 1840s there were many card rooms and dice halls in the Woodlawn Avenue area. By 1863 John Morrissey had realized that well run games of chance in the proper environment would attract the rich and famous, so he along with partners Leonard Jerome, William Travers and John

Hunter founded the Saratoga Race Course. Seeing immediate success with Thoroughbred horse racing, he made plans to build a palatial gaming location in the village. By 1869 he found land in a perfect spot in the village and in 1870 built the “Club House” that today is known as the Canfield Casino in Congress Park. In the summer of 1870 Morrissey’s Club House opened for business. Morrissey offered wealthy men membership in this elite club for $250 for the season. During the first summer 200 men took advantage of this offer. The use of the name “Club House” helped to disguise the true operations of the building that first summer and kept the illegal operation open for business for the entire season. Morrissey never allowed local men to be members since he never wanted any locals being upset with money lost at his tables. He further made sure that he was closed on Sundays to stay on the good side with the local churches. Gambling by women was never socially accepted and by barring them from gambling he received little pushback from the female population. In a genius move he further cemented his good standing in the community by taking a portion of his season’s profits and donating to every church and non-profit organization in the village. These strategies and actions allowed Morrissey to be a very “popular” person in town and assured his operation in the future would have little interference. Morrissey’s plans for operation of the “Club House” made it very different than most casinos in the United States at the time. The many casinos in the newly settled West, as well as the established East, usually used skilled dealers who were able to swindle less experienced gamblers out of their money. Morrissey knew he wanted to attract the very wealthy and thus operated only fair games to build confidence with those players. This strategy worked and the venture was a success during the summer season at Saratoga. Morrissey was a tough individual who had made a reputation for himself as a boxer and a brawler who was part of a gang that acted as enforcer for Tammany Hall in NYC. Operating a casino of this level was a drastic change in his normal activity. Morrissey saw a shift in the later part of the 1800s with summer guests wanting to be entertained, rather than focusing solely on the health aspects of our mineral springs, and he took advantage of that shift. During the week of June 28, 1871, a year after a very profitable first summer in 1870, the Club House opened for business. During the off season of 1870-71, Morrissey added the parlor on the east side of the original building to provide more space for gaming. In 1871 the number of memberships rose to over 500 men wishing to be part of this fashionable entertainment location. On June 28, 1871 a guest editorial in the Saratogian entitled “The Exact Truth” talked about the assets of the Club House and described the room on the front of the second floor as the “Whist Room” not the High Stakes Room that it would be called in later years. The editorial continued to describe the pictures of horses and famous races on the walls, beautiful furniture, large chandeliers and a basement that had a wine cellar, a state-of-the-art kitchen and coal and wood vaults to supply the fireplaces. Morrissey had created a very comfortable location for the wealthy to gamble. Unfortunately, John Morrissey died young at the age of 47 on May 1, 1878 on the second floor of the Adelphi Hotel in Saratoga. The well-liked Club House operator drew about 15,000 people to his funeral in Troy New York. Morrissey and his vision were now gone and the Club House took a down turn as partners Spencer and Reed tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the success. John Morrissey

In 1893 Spencer and Reed added a new partner: Richard Canfield. In that year Canfield had just returned from a second trip to England and became interested in the Club House when he visited Saratoga Springs that summer. The following year, Canfield bought Spencer and Reed out for the sum of $250,000 and began to make changes to the operation immediately. Canfield was a different personality when compared to Morrissey. Canfield had graduated from only grammar school and went to work as a very young man. In 1877 he became the night clerk at the Union Square Hotel in New York City and was an instant success with the wealthy patrons. Canfield became known as the person to get you “anything” while staying at the hotel. He remembered faces and names and had a refined manner that combined with a warm smile that went far with the members of high society. During the next few summers he worked at other hotels and in the winter spent his time running floating card games and gambling houses.

Canfield Casino

In 1884 Canfield was arrested for gambling and sentenced to six months in jail. He made good use of his incarceration and read all the books he could find in the jail on the subjects of history, art and language. He quickly learned so many topics that he continued to pass himself off as a highly educated man. He took this education and provided a very safe environment for gamblers at the Club House and changed the name to the Casino. He further required men to dress in formal attire to enter the building and payed all money won by patrons immediately from a safe in his office that held one million dollars every day. Canfield ran honest games and was happy to take the percentage of profit from the natural risk of each game. Patrons that lost were given a split of Champagne and a gentle hand on their back as he consoled them for their loss while those that won were paid immediately. This honest and open process was a huge success and the Canfield Casino flourished. In 1903 Canfield added the rear dining room to the building as well as the Italian Gardens in the rear of the property that today has Spit and Spat statuary as the focal point. The cost of those upgrades was $800,000 in 1903 buying power. Today many people use a 10X multiplier to convert that sum into the buying power of 2020, or a sum of $8,000,000. Even though Canfield was adding many assets to his operation, the winds of change in Saratoga were starting to blow.

A reform movement began to develop in Saratoga and helped to provide local push-back to the operation of the Casino, and at the end of the season in 1907 Canfield closed the building for the last time. The anti-gambling pressure was too much and in 1911 Canfield sold the building and a large portion of the northern part of the park to the City of Saratoga Springs. This closing and sale would mark a huge shift in the fabric of a Saratoga Springs summer. The visiting wealthy would begin to drift away and find new summer locations for their entertainment and Saratoga Springs would need to re-invent itself for future success a few more times in the 20th century.

S S SPECIAL NOTE: The summer of 2020 will mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Canfield Casino, with many special events to be announced.

Saratoga Vichy Wagon This iconic picture of a horse drawn Vichy water delivery wagon is popular with many long-time locals. The Vichy brand was a popular drink and mixer that stopped bottling this product in the later part of the 1900s. The name Vichy was a long-used name to describe many mineral springs in Saratoga that were close to the taste of the long time and widely marketed bottled water from Vichy France.

United States Hotel This is an image of the re-built United States Hotel as it appeared in the early 1900s. The hotel was located on the southwestern corner of Broadway and Division Street. When the new hotel was constructed, they needed more frontage on Broadway, so they moved the location of Division Street to the north by 66 feet, changing the straight line of the street.

United States Hotel Burns The United States Hotel was one of the three big hotels that was in Saratoga Springs in the 1800s. The original hotel was built in 1824 and burned on June 18, 1865. The hotel was re-built even larger and opened in the summer of 1874.