Fred Cameron
1910
 The
Regal Athletic Association's annual track meet was held as
usual on Labor Day, 1907, at the Ramblers' grounds in Amherst,
Nova Scotia. Highlights included quarter-mile and half-mile
races in which a handful of exuberant youths dashed about the
playing field in pursuit of small prizes and the satisfaction,
if they did well, of reading their names the next day in the
sports columns of the Amherst Daily News.
Nothing about the competition
suggested it might become memorable, either beforehand or
afterward. Crowds cheered noisily, winners were declared and
it was over for another year. But there was one interesting
note.
A slight blue-eyed newcomer to the town finished second in
each event. Just five-foot-three and a mere one hundred and
sixteen pounds, his name was Fred S. Cameron. He was an
apprentice machinist who had never before run a race. Within
three years, although the idea would have seemed preposterous
to Cameron that day, he would be the town's most celebrated
citizen.
Born November 11, 1886, Cameron
was the son of Joshua and Jane Cameron of Advocate Harbour,
fifty miles southwest of Amherst on the Bay of Fundy coast. A
settlement of about seven hundred at the turn of the century,
Advocate was a good place for a boy to be raised. Although the
age of sail had passed and tall-rigged ships no longer set out
from its wharves for ports around the world, Advocate bustled
with the activity of eight stores, three post offices, two
hotels, a high school with four teachers and a copper mine
that had a monthly payroll of twenty-five-hundred dollars.
(29) There were also two churches, one Baptist and the
other Methodist. The Camerons were Methodists who raised their
family, four sons and three daughters, with strict Protestant
discipline. Joshua Cameron was a shipyard carpenter who turned
to lumbering and farming to provide for his family as
shipbuilding waned.
Fred Cameron was fleet of foot
as a youth, able to outsprint friends in boyhood games, but
there was no athletic program in Advocate schools. When he ran
it was spontaneously or out of impatience to get somewhere,
feet flying over Advocate roads. Training never entered his
mind even when he went to Amherst and was attracted to the
Labour Day races. But that first taste of competition and his
credible showing was enough to get him started. The following
Labour Day, in 1908, Cameron travelled to the neighboring
Cumberland County town of Springhill and ran three races in a
holiday track meet. This time he won the mile and half-mile
events and placed second in the quarter. Thereafter, surprised
at how good he was, Cameron raced whenever he could. That
fall, in a half-mile race at Amherst, he ran second to Hans
Holmer, the best runner in the Atlantic provinces.
The next spring, on May 24,
1909, Cameron caught the eye of Tom T. Trenholm, the town's
best athletic trainer, when he ran a five-mile race against
Ernie Sterling, a New Brunswick runner rated in Holmer's
class. Cameron again finished second with no serious training,
which amazed Trenholm, but what impressed him more was the
potential he saw in Cameron's light balanced anatomy.
"I examined him after the race
and knew that with proper training he would be a wonder,"
Trenholm recalled. "He was perfectly built and had the natural
ability which, if properly directed, would land him in the
front rank as a distance man.''
Trenholm became Cameron's
coach.
"After that first race I gave
him a week's rest and then put him on a diet and gave him
light road work. I ran him only a few miles a day at first. I
kept on increasing the distance until I was running him ten
miles a day, no matter what the weather was. My first object
was to muscle up his legs and arms and body where required. It
is not speed an athlete needs in long distance training. What
he needs is the muscle power to carry him through. Long
distance running is not a speed contest, it is an endurance
contest."
(30)
Cameron improved rapidly under
Trenholm and the two were soon travelling the Maritime
Provinces in search of races against the region's best
runners. Within months Cameron was matching and beating them.
Through the summer and fall of 1909 Cameron raced in Chatham,
Saint John, Moncton, Sackville, Windsor, Dartmouth and
Halifax. In Charlottetown he established a Maritime ten-mile
record of 56:04 2/5 and in Saint John he lowered it to 55:20.
On an indoor track at Windsor
Cameron allowed himself to get boxed in and lost a race on the
final lap but the mistake was one that did not occur often. By
the end of the season, when he journeyed to Halifax for the
biggest race of the year, the Halifax Herald Modified
Marathon, he was among the best-known runners in Eastern
Canada. Cameron lived up to expectations of supporters in the
ten-mile event, storming to the front early as rain poured
down and fog bells tolled in Halifax Harbour. Spectators
huddled under umbrellas and cheered him on as Cameron leaped
pools of water and slogged through ankle-deep mud to win in
56:16 1/2, a new course record. Telegraph and telephone lines
crackled with the news in Amherst, switchboard operators
finding themselves swamped with calls.
The Halifax Herald Modified
Marathon was one of many Canadian road races inspired by the
pioneering example of the annual race around the perimeter of
Hamilton Bay. Started in 1907 and continuing for more than
thirty years, until World War 11 broke out in Europe, the race
was sponsored by the Halifax Herald and its associate
publication, the Evening Mail. Bolder in some respects than
the original race at Hamilton, it brought together the best
runners from the three Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland, a
major undertaking for the times. Starting it at all was a
risky venture for the Herald and Mail since rival newspapers
in the city would have been glad to criticize if the idea
proved a flop. Competition for newspaper readers was as fierce
at the time in Halifax as any city in Canada.
Prior to the first Modified
Marathon on October 31, 1907, Thanksgiving Day, Herald and
Mail columns bulged for weeks with promotional fanfare. The
contest was touted as the Maritime Provinces ten-mile
championship and sanctioned by the Maritime Provinces Amateur
Athletic Association. As trophies were chosen and medals
struck, and the race route was measured and announced, entries
began to pour into Herald offices, runners showing interest
from such far-flung places as Sydney Mines, Antigonish, Pictou
Landing, Bridgetown, Mahone Bay, Stewiacke, Blockhouse, Sambro,
Truro, Little River, Noel, St. Croix, Ellerhouse, Parrsboro,
Saint John, Fredericton and Charlottetown. By deadline the
pile totalled eighty-six. Proprietor William Dennis was
amazed.
Halifax merchants welcomed the
event, adding as it did to the holiday air and enticing
citizens to spend in preparation. Customers of A. Monaghan&Co.
(open 7:30a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Saturdays at 9p.m.) were
reminded to stock up. "Here,'' said an advertisement typical
of the business splat of the day, ''you will find a store full
of the finest brands of wines and liquors, the approaching
Thanksgiving and Hallowe'en Festivities suggest the need of."
Premier Gicorge H. Murray,
differences between his Liberal government and the newspapers
Conservative owners notwithstanding, received and accepted an
invitation to start the race. He even expressed an interest in
running', which took organizers aback. ''Unfortunately," the
Herald responded with thinly-disguised relief, "the entry list
has been closed."
The Rules of
the Race
1. The Herald and
Mail's championship ten-mile race is under the jurisdiction of
the M.P.A.A.A. and will be refereed by J.C. Lithgow, president
of the Athletic body.
2. Only bona fide amateurs may compete.
3. No handicaps allowed.
4. Competitors winning prizes, if discovered later to be
professionals, will lose prizes, the latter to go to
competitors next in order.
5. Any deviation from the prescribed course will throw the
runner out of thee race.
6. Winner of the trophy will give bond to the Herald and Mail
for its safekeeping.
7. The trophy to become the permanent possession of the
competitor winning it twice, not necessarily in succession.
8. The race being a championship event, there are in
consequence the medals of first and second championship
honors. The medal for first place is a handsome gold one, and
the second one of heavy silver. In addition there are fifteen
handsome silver ones of a pretty design, making in all
seventeen medals.
9. The decision of the judges to be final.
10. The competitors will carry the numbers which appear with
their names on the entry list.
11. Each competitor must pass the regular stations in order to
qualify for a prize. This makes it impossible for any
shortcuts to be made, as each runner is checked in passing
these points along the road. Great care will therefore be
exercised in checking the men.
12. The progress of the runners will be placed on the boards
at the Herald and Mail's building during the race. This
information will be received by telephone.
13. The course will be flagged.
14. Competitors may run on the sidewalks when desired, and cut
corners on any of the city streets.
15. The team prize, which is a handsome silver cup, goes to
the club gettting four men over the finish line before four
men of any other club. Only clubs which have started at least
five men are eligible for this handsomle prize.
16. Competitors must register before they are given their
numbers and be examined by the official examiner. Dr.
Carruthers.
The Course for the Race
Starting from the Herald and Mail building, the course goes
along Granville street to Buckingham street to Lockman street
to the depot. From the depot the course continues over the
Campbell road and passes through Africville. After this
village is passed the course winds in by the Imperial Oil
Company's tank, skirting Bedford road to within a few yards of
the Three Mile House, where a turn is made to the left and
then to the Dutch Village Road right to the head of North West
Arm. Then the climb begins up along Quinpool road to Oxford
street, turing along Oxford Street onto South street at the
head of the road leading from the N.W.A.R.C. boathouse. From
this point the course continues down South street as far as
Tower road, where a turn is made to the right and thence into
Inglis street, turning to the left at Pleasant street, then up
Pleasant to Barrington street, where a turn is made on Salter
street, the first street after passing the Academy of Music.
Continuing down Salter street the course turns at Granville
street and along to the Herald and Mail Building.
(31)
The inaugural race
was a flawless success watched under blue fall skies by an
estimated thirty thousand Halifax citizens, the biggest
turnout of its kind in memory. Hans Holmer, a New Yorker who
had made Halifax his home, led through the first checkpoint at
Munford's drug store and began to pull away as the field of
sixty-two runners (twenty-four entrants did not show) hit the
gentle downgrade through Africville, a black community that
half a century later would be bulldozed to extinction against
residents wishes. Holmer won in 59:25 2/5, then a Maritime
record, and the Herald was ecstatic.
"The event this year was
something in the nature of an experiment," William Dennis
acknowledged in presenting prizes. ''But this ten-mile race
will be a great event of future years. We can scarcely hope
for greater success but we do expect a repetition of the
interest and enthusiasm that prevailed here today."
Holmer was reminded in
accepting the winning trophy that it would be his to keep,
according to race rules, if he won the event a second time. In
1908 Holmer did exactly that, then departed amateur ranks to
become a professional, but his name lived on as one of the
race's memorable champions.
Cameron, for his victory in
1909, setting the stage as it did for the Boston Marathon of
1910, was a celebrated victor. So also was a young Cape
Bretoner named Johnny Miles who took Boston by storm in 1926
after winning the Modified Marathon the previous fall. But the
greatest of the race's heros was a Windsor farm hand named
Victor MacAulay who won it five times, first in 1913 and then
four times in a row from 1921 through 1924. Michael Thomas of
Charlottetown, George Irwin of Woodside and Roy Oliver of New
Glasgow each scored three victories and Alf Rodgers of
Dartmouth, a legend for his longevity, competing until he was
close to sixty, won twice. The course record, when the race
was phased out in the late 1930s with the onset of war in
Europe, was 51:32, set in 1935 by John A. Kelley, the
Arlington, Massachusetts, florist who six weeks earlier had
won the Boston Marathon.
"I'm proud,'' said Kelley. I
consider the Herald classic one of the biggest races of the
year and my triumph will be a great source of satisfaction to
my supporters." (a)
Fred Cameron thought of himself
as a ten-mile runner, not a marathoner, when he resumed to
Amherst a hero in the fall of 1909, champion of the Maritime
Provinces. And with good reason. Just two weeks later, before
two thousand hometown spectators at the Ramblers grounds,
Cameron ran ten miles in 54:46 to break by eight seconds the
Canadian ten-mile record then held by Fred Simpson of
Peterborough, Ontario. In doing so he outran American
marathoner Bobbie Fowler, the man who finished second to Tom
Longboat at Boston in 1907.
Cameron set the record as a
member of the Ramblers' Athletic Association, the most
prominent Amherst athletic club of the day. The Ramblers dated
back to 1895 when a group of boys founded a football club with
four dollars and fifty cents raised through the collection of
bottles and scrap iron. Known initially as the Deceivers, they
switched from football to hockey, adopted official red, white
and blue colors, and collected dues of five cents a week to
remain solvent. The Deceivers became the Ramblers in 1900
(b), their colors changing
at the same time to purple and white, and by the time Cameron
came to prominence they had their own athletic grounds and a
hockey rink, a claim no other sports organization in Nova
Scotia could make at the time.''
(32)
Cameron entered the Boston
Marathon of 1910 almost casually, giving it little thought
through the winter months when snows clogged the Cumberland
roads and he took a break from his rigorous training schedule.
He liked shorter distances and thought races the length of the
marathon were a risk to health. Trenholm advised Cameron to
take it easy, his philosophy as a coach tending toward the
view that too much training was worse than too little.
Trenholm thought maximum runs of sixteen to eighteen miles
were sufficient for marathon training, as long as they
included a few tough hills. Going the full distance in
training, the formula Jack Caffery believed in so strongly,
was not only extreme but created psychological drawbacks if a
runner did so over the actual race course, Trenholm believed.
"I do not want to know how fast
(a runner) can travel," he said. "Neither does he want to
know. As soon as a runner knows his capacity he begins to go
back. I do not believe it is right to put a man over the
course before a race and time him. That does him no good. My
idea is to train him well and have him run the race only once
— when the race is scheduled.''
(33)
Ironically, Trenholm waited so
long before deciding Cameron should go to Boston, allowing
only three weeks of hard training, that he was forced to
compromise the principles he espoused. He instructed Cameron
to run twenty miles a day, ten in the morning and ten in the
afternoon. Cameron withstood the workload and the two set off
early for Boston where Cameron had a chance to complete his
preparations in the milder New England spring. Trenholm had
the misfortune on arrival to be bitten by an insect and
confined to bed by the poison.
Charles W. Jordan and John
Colclogh, two acquaintances from Boston athletic circles, took
over for Trenholm, supervising Cameron on daily outings
through the Mattapan and Blue Hills districts of the city.
Trenholm's orders were heeded religiously. The first Cameron
saw of the Boston course was on Patriot's Day when he boarded
the train for Ashland. A revived Trenholm accompanied him,
bringing along a pair of running boots he had designed
personally for Cameron to wear in the race. Cameron, a
confident runner after the successes of his 1909 season,
headlined the Canadian contingent at Boston in 1910. But it
also included runners of the caliber of Jim Corkery and John
R. Roe of Toronto as well as lesser-known athletes like Gordon
Wolfe and Charles Patterson, fellow Nova Scotians.
The American favorites were
Henri Renaud (c), the
Nashua, New Hampshire, mill worker who triumphed the previous
year at Boston in heat that soared into the nineties, and
Sammy Mellor of New York, the durable 1902 Boston winner.
Bobbie Fowler, his defeat by Cameron in Amherst still fresh in
his mind, was also in the field as was a twenty-two-year-old
runner named Clarence H. DeMar, representing the North
Dorchester Athletic Association.
One hundred and sixty-nine
runners, the largest Boston field ever, reflecting the
marathon's unprecedented popularity, leaped from the starting
line at the noon gun. George Brown, secretary of the Boston
Athletic Association, watched them go with a certain peace of
mind. Supervision along the course was the most thorough the
BAA had ever put in place, especially so at Framingham.
Charles Gannon, chief of police at South Framingham, had
erected a rope barrier to control crowds and the BAA had
assurance from railway authorities in Framingham, as it had
received each year since 1907 when a freight train blocked the
way, that no trains would cross the marathon route between
12:15 p.m. and 12:45 p.m. Runners swept unimpeded through
Chief Gannon's end of town but, in a classic case of the best
laid plans going awry, a freight train barged across the race
course once again. Twenty-five runners made it through,
including Cameron, but the rest were blocked, sweating and
cursing, for a minute and sixteen seconds. Their resumption
resembled a second start.
Included in the field, and
taking no small satisfaction from the fact, was Peter Foley, a
fifty-two-year-old runner from Winchester who had run the
marathon for the love of it every year for nearly a decade.
Four days earlier Foley had received a polite note from the
BAA suggesting he was too old for such strenuous activity and
advising that he would not be allowed to start the race. Not
so easily put off Foley shaved off his telltale beard and
slipped unnoticed into the field at Ashland. He ran the entire
race undetected at his usual leisurely pace and announced
defiantly to reporters at the finish that he intended to do so
every year.
Eight Canadians, in a striking
show of force, were among the first twelve runners at
Framingham, causing crowds to marvel at the prowess of ''the
provinces'' in producing gallant runners. Cameron led the lot
by thirty yards, a margin he stretched to fifty at Natick,
with Corkery, a maple leaf on his chest, following behind in
second place.
The temperature exceeded
seventy degrees but Cameron, who had trained for the heat by
running in heavy sweaters, found it comfortable. At Newton
Lower Falls, seventeen miles into the race, he stretched his
lead to more than two hundred yards, a visor shielding his
eyes from the sun. Trenholm, who had inspected the course
closely even though he would not allow Cameron to see it,
travelled alongside in an automobile, shouting instructions.
The clog of accompanying vehicles was such that the dust and
smoke blackened Cameron's face and parched his throat.
Trenholm doused sponges with witch hazel and handed them to
his protege to wipe away the grime. Going through the Newton
Hills Cameron could hear cheers for another runner in the
distance behind him, which he would later learn had been
Clarence DeMar, but he kept to his same smooth pace.
Crowds lined the course as he
ran into downtown Boston, shouts of ''Good boy!'' and ''Go for
it!'' ringing in his ears. Cars, bicycles and carriages were
stopped from continuing when they reached Massachusetts Avenue
and Cameron, his progress no longer impeded, ran on alone the
last mile down Commonwealth Avenue. When a young girl held up
a Union Jack, he pulled off his visor and threw it to her in
celebration, then turned sharp right onto Exeter Street and
sprinted the final yards to the tape in front of the BAA
Clubhouse. Crowds applauded from sidewalks and rooftops, young
boys dangled from the limbs of trees and women waved
handkerchiefs from the windows of the Lenox Hotel. Cameron's
winning time was 2:28:52 2/5. One minute and one fifth of a
second later DeMar arrived in second place followed by Corkery
in 2:34:25 4/5 and John Roe in 2:38:06 2/5. R.E. MacCormack,
another Toronto runner, was seventh in 2:40:25. giving
Canadians four of the top seven finishes.
Nowhere was the news awaited
more eagerly than in Amherst, the town hanging on the distant
drama. The Daily News arranged for special bulletins to be
relayed by telegraph over the Canadian Pacific Railway line
and held back its presses until the outcome was known. From
the first dispatch the word was what editors had been hoping
to hear. ''At 12:50 p.m. Cameron was in the lead," the message
said. ''Cameron is speeding on to Wellesley, is flesh and
running in fine style.'' Seven bulletins were received in all,
the last beginning, ''Cameron of Amherst wins Marathon,'' and
all were hastily set in type. A special edition with ringing
front page headlines was on the streets by late afternoon,
selling out before the supper hour. The town could scarcely
contain itself.
A Daily News editorial on April
20, 1910, reflected the pride citizens felt.
''To win a victory against the
pick and flower of the runners of the United States and Canada
was more than even some of Cameron's most sanguine admirers
expected. They would have been satisfied, if in his first
marathon race, he had secured any position well to the front.
We have no doubt that on his return the citizens of Amherst
will extend to him and his trainer, Mr. Trenholm, such a
homecoming as was never extended to any other two citizens.
They more than deserve a hearty welcome and while we down in
this province rejoice over his achievements we know also that
in and about the great city of Boston there are thousands of
Canadians whose hearts will glow with pride at the thought
that it was a Nova Scotia boy who took first place in the big
race. As a result they will square their shoulders more
proudly, lift their heads a little higher and in their hearts
once again they will feel a glow of pride in this their native
land.''
The newspaper took exception
when the Halifax Herald ran a long account of the race and
claimed credit for having launched Cameron on the road to
success by virtue of his win in the Modified Marathon. Citing
a string of Cameron victories in Amherst and other Maritime
centres, the Daily News put the Herald firmly in its place:
''Once upon a time,'' it
responded, ''there was an English prince who had a peculiar
bee in his bonnet. He was obsessed with the hallucination that
it was through his generalship that most of the great
victories placed to the credit of British arms had been won.
The Halifax Herald is evidently prey to a similar mental
malady. The Herald has done much to encourage clean sport in
this province but if it continues to publish such absurd
cooked dispatches it will simply become a laughing stock of
the sporting fraternity.''
Before leaving Boston, Cameron
was honored at a luncheon given by Mayor John F. Fitzgerald,
the first time the recognition of the city had been extended
to a Boston Marathon champion (d).
Fitzgerald followed the race by car and was so caught up in
the excitement he issued the invitation at the finish line.
Said Cameron the next day after dining with the mayor and
other civic dignitaries at Young's Hotel, "You would think I
was the local favorite from the reception I have been given. I
thanked the mayor and I wish I could thank personally every
one of the thousands who have taken an interest in me."
Cameron also said he hoped to return to Boston the following
year and match Jack Caffery's achievement of winning two
marathon victories in a row. A second dinner in his honor,
this one by the Canadian Club of Boston, was also held before
Cameron and Trenholm caught the train home.
Amherst was so anxious to pay
tribute to Cameron that a rail car was chartered and decorated
and sent to Moncton, New Brunswick, with an advance delegation
to meet him. Moncton itself got into the act, as had the city
of Saint John before it, by extending an official welcome to
Cameron as he passed through. Between Moncton and Amberst
hundreds cheered at each stop and a crowd of five thousand,
unlike anything the town had seen, was waiting when he arrived
in Amherst. A band played See The Conquering Hero Comes and
ovation after ovation filled the air. Cameron was placed in a
carriage drawn by a team of ceremonial grey horses and taken
to Amherst Auditorium where an estimated four thousand managed
to get inside and half again as many milled outside, hoping
for a glimpse of the man who had generated all the excitement.
Cameron sat on the stage with his father and Trenholm, and
Mayor Curry read a formal address of welcome and praise.
"In winning fame for yourself
you have at the same time brought fame to Amherst,'' said
Curry. ''Your victory was hailed with delight from all parts
of the country. Long may you continue to be victorious. We
have known you as an honest and open-hearted boy. We hail you
as the champion runner.''
Cameron was presented with a
gold watch and a purse containing fifty dollars in gold was
awarded to Trenholm. Displayed on stage as the ceremonies took
place was the large trophy, twenty-eight inches high and
fourteen inches wide, that Cameron brought home from Boston.
Made of polished copper with ornate pewter handles, it
featured the unicorn insignia of the Boston Athletic
Association with an engraved silver shield that read:
Annual Amrican Marathon Held
under the Auspices of the Boston Athletic Association April
19, 1910 Won by Fred S. Cameron, Amherst. N.S.
Not long after his triumphant
homecoming Cameron found himself embroiled in controversy over
his status as an amateur, the result of five exhibition races
run in various Maritime centres against Jim Corkery. The
Toronto runner had come east with his trainer,Tim O'Rourke of
the Irish Canadian Athletic Club, in hopes of proving he was
superior to Cameron despite running third at Boston. The
races, two in Amherst, the others in New Glasgow, Halifax and
Saint John, were all run before paying audiences, raising
suspicions that the runners had profited beyond legitimate
expenses. Cameron won all five contests, resolving the issue
of athletic superiority, but was accused of becoming a
professional in the process. He escaped a formal investigation
by the Maritime Provinces Amateur Athletic Association, which
was a luckier break than what transpired for Corkery. He found
himself in hot water with the Canadian Amateur Athletic
Association when he returned to Toronto.
Corkery managed to avoid
official censure, the governing body unable to prove he had
accepted anything beyond hotel and meal expenses but a pair of
gold cuff links. But debate about Cameron went on in Maritime
athletic circles until Trenholm felt compelled to issue a
public statement. ''Cameron takes great pride in running and
amateur sport and is not being paid a cent more than his
legitimate expenses,'' Trenholm declared. ''Moreover, he tried
to curtail expenses as much as possible by not charging for
unnecessary things for which an allowance might be made.
Cameron is prepared to give evidence to this effect when
called upon at any time, and will make such an affidavit if
required. His father is also taking great interest in him and
is putting up money to put his son to the front."
(34) That seemed to settle matters but no sooner had the
fuss died down than Cameron was accused of a more serious
offense, taking drugs in a race against Ernie Sterling at
Saint John.
The denial this time came from
Cameron personally who told the press that he had never used
drugs in any of his races, that he abstained absolutely from
alcohol and seldom used tobacco. Declaring that he would quit
road racing before fuming to drugs to bolster performance,
Cameron said the strongest stimulant he had taken in a race
was cold tea, and that only to rinse his mouth in the final
miles of the Boston Marathon. The talk of drugs subsided
thereafter but Cameron's troubles continued.
A few weeks later he and
Trenholm abruptly ended their association as athlete and
coach. Neither would say why publicly except to acknowledge
that "some differences" had arisen and that they decided it
would be best to go separate ways. The parting was described
as amicable and Cameron disclosed that his brother, Guy, a
school teacher, would take Trenholm's place.
That summer Cameron won the two
biggest races of his life in Amherst, events of ten and
fifteen miles held in conjunction with Old Home Week
celebrations in July. The festivities, an annual affair, were
of an unusual scale in 1910, partly because of the acclaim
Cameron had brought to the town. The cost exceeded ten
thousand dollars and so many visitors flocked to Amherst that
its normal population of nine thousand swelled by more than
half. Hotels were filled and private homes overflowed with
relatives and friends, one weary housewife setting the table
daily for sixteen dinner guests. Other than racing, highlights
of the week included dances, parades, theatre performances, a
masquerade carnival and a midnight procession in which young
boys lighted the way with torches as the men of the town
marched through the streets in their nightgowns.
Because of Cameron's stature as
an athlete the races attracted some of the best American
runners of the day. A group that included Clarence DeMar,
Walter Hackett and Cliff Home sailed on the Governor Cobb from
Boston to Saint John, New Brunswick, and travelled on to
Amherst by train, staying the week and joining in the revelry.
Crowds packed the Ramblers' grounds for the two races, those
unable to get in climbing trees or craning their necks from
rooftops to see how Cameron fared. He won both races, each the
same way, holding with the competition until near the end and
then pouring on a burst of unmatchable speed. When the
American runners left Amherst at the end of the week Cameron
told them he would see them the following spring in Boston.
But it was not to be. That fall
Fred Cameron became a professional runner, lured by the
big-time prize money lavished on stars like Longboat, Dorando,
Shrubb and Hayes. The mid-September announcement disappointed
some of his followers but most wished him well and felt
confident he would prosper.
It came therefore as a jolt
when his new career got off to a disastrous start. For impact,
Cameron chose to run his first professional races against
Abbie Wood of Montreal, a runner who had won the annual race
around Mount Royal, Montreal's version of the Hamilton and
Halifax races, and whose professional record included
victories against Longboat and Shrubb. Defeating Wood would
get him into professional racing with a splash, Cameron
thought, but he overlooked the fact that Wood could kick with
frightening speed in the closing stages of a race, an asset
that earned him many victories.
Cameron and Wood raced four
times in the fall of 1910, twice in Amherst and twice in
Montreal, Cameron losing all four races. Gate receipts were
divided seventy-five per cent to twenty-five per cent, the
winner taking the larger share. Cameron was unable to cope
with Wood's speed, his only solace being that he managed to
push the Montrealer to some of his fastest times. Ironically,
it was Guy Cameron, not his famous brother, who enjoyed the
most racing success that fall. Guy managed to win a five-mile
race in Amherst against local opponents and finished twelfth,
winning a silver medal, in the Modified Marathon at Halifax.
Cameron pushed on with his new
career, resolving his differences with Trenholm and
reacquiring him as manager and coach. Together they toured the
continent. Cameron raced professionals such as Shrubb,
Longboat, American Billy Queal and two noted Swedish runners,
Thure Johansson and Gosta Lungstrom, but his professional
success was marginal and purses were often small, reflecting
declining public interest in professional running.
Cameron raced professionally
only one full season, 1911. One of his final big races was the
last of three world professional marathon competitions held at
Powderhall Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland, on January 2, 1912.
Cameron alternated the lead with a British runner named J. W.
Kitchener for eighteen miles before fading. He finished third
behind victor Willie Kolehmainen of Finland and fellow Nova
Scotian Hans Holmer. Cameron's prize was a mere six pounds,
about thirty dollars Canadian. Not long afterward, the sport
all but dead, he abandoned professional racing and returned to
Amherst to make his living by other methods.
For a time Cameron ran a tire
vulcanizing business in the town. He also chose a bride,
marrying an Amherst woman named Blanche Moffat. Later the
couple left the Maritimes and lived for several years in
Chicago where Cameron ran for a period as a member of the
Illinois Athletic Club.
Eventually Cameron chose to
reside on the West Coast of Canada, settling in Vancouver and
again making his living in the tire vulcanizing business. He
remained active until his death on March 18, 1953, his
athletic interests widening over the years to include boxing,
cycling and golf as well as running. When he died his home
resembled a museum, its shelves and cabinets filled with
trophies and medals that commemorated a lifetime of devotion
to athletics. The Vancouver Province published an obituary
together with an old photograph of Cameron crossing the finish
line at Boston in 1910. The wire services relayed news of his
death back to Nova Scotia but few even remembered the name of
the man who had once been so acclaimed. His death was noted
with a single cryptic paragraph in the Halifax Herald, the
newspaper that once sang his praises so loudly. Cameron was
buried in Vancouver. His wife died a few years later. They had
no children.
Footnotes
(a) Several
times during the 1930s the Modified Marathon was lengthened to
a fill marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards. In 1982,
after a lapse of more than forty years, the race was revived
as a 10-mile event, once again with the Herald as a sponsor.
(b) The name Ramblers has
been synonymous with sport in Amherst ever since.
(c) Like Ronald McDonald,
the 1898 Boston champion, Henri Renaud had Canadian ties. Some
accounts suggest he as born in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, where
his parents lived before settling in New Hampshire, but
accounts of the 1909 race list his birthplace as Nashua.
(d) The City of Boston
plays a major role in organizing the modem spectacle that the
marathon has become The event is recognized annually by
official proclamation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and
American presidents have even taken notice Jimmy Carter, a
runner himself, invited Bill Rodgers to dinner at the White
House after Rodgers' third record-setting victory in 1979. |
