One of the better players of the early game, Blanchard was runner-up in the second Men’s Nationals in 1936, with partner Earle Gatchell, in the longest match recorded in the history of the sport; the winners, Harold D. Holmes and Richard G. Newell won 3-6, 8-6, 4-6, 9-7, 15-13 (77 games) after holding 13 match points.

Fessenden “Fess” Blanchard grew up in Hingham, MA, and graduated from Harvard in 1910 with a BA. He joined the Boston office of Pacific Mills, a leading textile concern, in 1913 and had a short assignment in China to examine their textile industry.

At the age of 30 he married Mary Bryant, the girl “almost next door” from Cohasset, MA. Their three daughters—Martha, Ruth and Molly—were born in Boston. In 1927, Blanchard, now the assistant to the head of Pacific Mills New York office, moved his family to 4 Seely Place in Scarsdale, NY, and ended up being a back-yard neighbor of James (Jimmy) Cogswell Jr., who lived at the corner of Old Army Road and Ardsley Road. This was a fortuitous development for all who love the sport of platform tennis. Both Blanchard and Cogswell were interested in finding an outdoor social activity for the long winter months and this search lead to the invention of the game in 1928.

Blanchard and Cogswell formed an ideal team for the development of the game. Blanchard was the enthusiast who tirelessly promoted the game as a wonderful blend of competition and camaraderie, and Cogswell was the engineer who worked out how the court should be constructed and the numerous improvements made over time. Camaraderie was always part of Blanchard and Cogswell’s vision and their friends who gathered around the first paddle tennis court, on the Cogswell property overlooking Ardsley Road, became affectionately known as the “Old Army Athletes.”

Blanchard was one of the five co-founders of the American Paddle Tennis Association in 1934, the group that was the forerunner of today’s American Platform Tennis Association. Blanchard represented Fox Meadow Tennis Club, one of the three founding clubs. The other two clubs were Manursing Island Club of Rye, NY—represented by Jack Ten Eyck the driving force behind the creation of the APTA, Warren A. Ransom and Grenville S. Sewall— and the Field Club of Greenwich, CT, represented by Foster M. Hampton. Blanchard was elected APTA President at the inaugural meeting at Ten Eyck’s office at 80 John Street in New York City, and served in this position until 1938. He also served as APTA Secretary from 1935 to 1941.

Blanchard wrote numerous articles about the game for major publications. The first magazines to carry stories about the game were the Sportsman and the Sportswoman in March, 1931, and Blanchard wrote both of the articles. Shortly afterwards both magazines stopped publishing–a coincidence that a friend once drew to his attention. (Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis)

Whatever Blanchard involved himself in, he immersed himself in it heart and soul, says his daughter Molly Ware. For him, the glass was always half full, and his enthusiasm was infectious. He was an outstanding sailor and wrote many books and articles on cruising. He coauthored five editions of A Cruising Guide to the New England Coast, often referred to as the “bible” for Eastern sailors. Four additional editions were co-authored by his son­in-law, John P. Ware, who also served as president of both Fox Meadow Tennis Club (1975-1976) and of the APTA (1961-1963). As a particularly adventurous sailor with extensive experience, Blanchard was elected to membership in the Cruising Club of America in 1931.

A strong and competent—though not particularly graceful—figure skater, Blanchard suggested the Fox Meadow Tennis Club tennis courts in Scarsdale be iced over in winter for fellow members to enjoy. For many years, skating was a highlight of Fox Meadow winters. Blanchard even ran the Eastern Figure Skating Championship at Playland, in Rye, NY, on one occasion.

Fess died in 1963, two days after his 75th birthday, while attending a football game in Cambridge, MA. He had taken his grandson, Andy Smith, to the Harvard-Princeton game and had a heart attack cheering for Harvard after they made a touchdown.

Footnote: During his business career, Blanchard served as a deputy administrator of the National Recovery Administration in Washington, DC in 1934, and later as a leader in the Textile Research Institute, of which he was president from 1942-1945. His expertise in textiles was used during World War II, when he served on the War Production Board and decided to eliminate cuffs from men’s trousers to save on the cost of fabric during the war effort.

From 1945 to 1948, he was a vice president of the Thompson & Lichtner Company, after which Blanchard led his own marketing consulting firm and was responsible for the introduction of electric blankets. In 1951, at the request of the Massachusetts Development and Industrial Commission, Blanchard’s firm was engaged to report on the competitive position of Massachusetts industries. The result, known as the “Blanchard Report,” made banner headlines in Massachusetts and beyond as it told of a “widespread belief” that the executive and legislative branches of the state government were “unjustifiably biased against manufacturers and in favor of labor, but not in favor of the long-run interests of labor, which are bound up with the success of Massachusetts industry.”

When it comes to discussing the leading women players developed since the game began, selecting the “leading lady” is easy. According to Fess Blanchard, “not only has this player won more national championships, by far, than any other woman but she has done it with a number of different partners.”

For her first national championship, Madge Beck teamed with Fox Meadow member Marie Walker, but, in 1949, she began playing with her sister Maizie Moore, and the pair did not lose a single set for several years. Top-seeded nationally, year after year, the sisters won the Women’s title five times between 1949 and 1954, and with other partners thirteen times. And, in 1959 and 1960, Madge won the Women’s with her daughter, Susan Beck Wash. In mixed doubles, she has been a national champion four times, and,in singles, once.

Beck’s parents, Avent and Madeline Childress, created what was to become known as the Childress Paddle Dynasty, as for decades the family’s daughters and grandchildren held a string of national championships, stretching from 1936 to 1974. Five of the family own one or more national titles. As Fess Blanchard once said, “What the Barrymore’s are to theater, the Childresses are to platform tennis.” Madeline Childress taught all four of her daughters to play tennis, and three of them loved the game. When the girls were introduced to paddle, they took to the game like a trio of naturals. Asked to account for the family’s prowess at the game, Madge Beck said, “Genes.” The family’s competitive drive hasn’t hurt either. Accepting the APTA Honor Award, also owned by her mother and Aunt Maizie, Susan Wasch recalled as a very young girl facing her mother across the net as the national champ pounded balls at her with the admonition, “Don’t you ever back up!”

Whenever Blanchard asked someone who knew the game to name the best woman player platform tennis has produced, there was no hesitation with the answer: Madeline Beck. No one else could put away the ball at the net with her finality. No one else had a backhand to compare with hers. And few could match her competitive temperament, her ability to rise to a tight situation and produce a winning shot when it was needed most.

Source: Adapted from: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959; and Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years.

Cogswell was the driver behind researching solutions to initial technical issues with the first court, such as warped boards, improved wire screening—except for the Evans backstop—court dimensions, and adding lights to expand the hours of play, and then in bringing all these innovations to a brand new second court that also included the first Evans backstop, which was installed during the winter of 1934-35. Camaraderie was always Blanchard’s and Cogswell’s vision of the game and in typical Cogswell fashion, the building of the second court was preceded by a grand party with dancing on the deck of the soon-to-be-demolished first court.

Cogswell’s engineering background was critical for the development of the detailed construction specifications and drawings needed to construct a standardized permanent court and, for a number of years, he was the sole source of the plans for anyone interested in building a court.

Jimmy Cogswell was born in Portsmouth, ME. An aptitude for building things emerged early in his life and as a teenager, he constructed a fence that reportedly still stands today (2012)

After graduating from high school Cogswell pursued his engineering bent at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School, graduating in three years in 1913.

Following graduation, he devoted a year traveling the world and then joined the US Army and served in WWI. Towards the end of the war (date?) he married his hometown sweetheart, Francesca Pickering Heffenger (1893- ?,) and after hostilities ceased he set out to Canada to pursue a career in the mining industry (Dominion Mines was a coal mining operation in Nova Scotia – is that where he went?). It turned out that Francesca was not in favor of this career choice and declined to join him. Cogswell reluctantly moved back to the US, settled in the Edgemont section of Scarsdale, NY, at 105 Old Army Road and embarked on a totally different career as a national account salesman for Wellington-Sears, a leading textile company at the time. This was fortunate incident number one for the game as, when Blanchard move to Scarsdale from Boston, the families not only became neighbors, but also had the breadwinners employed in the same field.

Fortunate incident number two for the game was Cogswell’s abiding interest in building and, when he and Blanchard decided to pursue a winter sports activity, he became the designer and builder of the first court. It was constructed on his property overlooking Ardsley Road in Scarsdale. And, fortunate incident number three came when Cogswell discovered the paddles and balls used in paddle tennis and decided to bring them home to try on the new court. This discovery made the game as we know it today.

While working on the many court construction issues Cogswell enlisted help from Professor Eliot Dunlap Smith at his alma mater, who owned a court himself. Smith aided in researching questions of wood quality for decks with the aid of Yale’s Department of Forestry, and from a Scarsdale architect, Richard H. Tatlow, who help improve the original Cogswell specifications and plans.

Cogswell’s detailed plans for court construction were provided for free in the early days, usually to friends, and then at a nominal charge. Without these standardized construction documents, the game would have never had grown as it did in the early years.

The Cogswells and Blanchards formed the core of the group of paddle enthusiasts that gathered around the Cogswell court to play and enjoy each other’s company. They called themselves The Old Army Athletes (O.A.A).

Blanchard recalls, “We often had a gallery of twenty-five or more men, women and children, most of them waiting their turn to play. This called for organization. One bench, erected under the supervision of the gang boss who had directed the platform project, Cogswell by name, was soon followed by two more. And in the nearby Cogswell cellar there began the accumulation of a collection of bear rugs, coonskin coats, and army blankets, many of them donated by members of the O.A.A. From October to April, beginning in the winter of 1928-29, hardly a weekend or holiday went by without a gathering of the athletes. Jimmy and I would assume the job of trying to give everyone a chance to play, including ourselves, and we would attempt to arrange matches that would be as even as possible.

After each afternoon’s play we would usually gather in the Cogswell living room, where Jimmy’s wife, Francesca, would serve tea and toast. These teas, the O.A.A. parties that we organized, and the many warm friendships that came from our platform tennis were among the many things we owe to our game.”

Cogswell was a founding member of Fox Meadow’s Paddle Committee (Cogswell, Gatchell, W.C. Harrison and Blanchard; except for Harrison they were all inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1965) when the Club’ s first court was opened on November 1, 1931, and later served as President of Fox Meadow in 1939. The founding members of the Paddle Committee, with the exception of Blanchard, had joined Fox Meadow because of the commitment to the new game and they brought with them the spirit and camaraderie they had developed among the Old Army Athletes. This esprit de corps has been a hallmark of Fox Meadow ever since.

Upon retirement, Jimmy moved back to his boyhood roots in Maine and settled in Kittery, where he proceeded to build a retirement home and accompanying barn. He used the latter to pursue his hobbies that had expanded to included building a dinghy. He acquired a classic Down East open lobster boat and embarked on a retirement career as an avid amateur lobster fisherman. He died suddenly one morning in 1959 while attending to his lobster pots and was buried at the First Congregational Church in Kittery Point, ME. Blanchard’s second book on the game, Platform Paddle Tennis, which was published that year, was dedicated to his memory.

Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

Footnote: Cogswell’s father, Rear Admiral James Kelsey Cogswell (1847-1908), was an executive officer of the battleship Oregon during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in 1898 that resulted in the destruction of the Spanish Fleet during the Spanish-American War. Cogswell had two siblings, Francis (1887-1939), later a Captain in the U. S. Navy and a recipient of the Navy Cross for service in WWI, and Bianca. The WWII Fletcher-class destroyer USS Cogswell was named to honor both Admiral Cogswell and Captain Francis Cogswell; she was decommissioned in 1969. Cogswell’s son, James Kelsey Cogswell, III (xx-1983), was a gunnery officer on the USS Cogswell when she was commissioned in 1943, and served aboard her for the duration of WWII. He received a citation for his part in the demilitarization of Japan.

Cogswell’s daughter, Theodora (“Do”) Deland, won two Women’s Nationals in 1962 and 1965 with partner Susan Wasch, both of whom were Fox Meadow members. Susan, the daughter of Madge Childress Beck, was a third generation member of the club’s Childress dynasty.