Isaac Trabue

Colonel Isaac H. Trabue is a forgotten 19th century chess player who
has an interesting life history. Trabue reminds me of another Kentucky
colonel, Colonel Sanders of fried chicken fame, both in looks (see his
picture at http://www.floridahistory.org/westco...rda/trabue.jpg)
and in his entrepeneurial energy, though he was not always as well-loved
and successful as Sanders.

Trabue came from a prominent Kentucky family. His grandfather was a general
in the Revolutionary War, and his father ran the amusingly named Greasy
Creek iron works. His father was also a noted preacher in the Campbellite
church (they preferred the seemingly redundant name "Christian Church"), a
19th century church advocating an end to church hierarchy and
a simple gospel as opposed to complex creeds. Jane Porter, a well-known
author of the time, was related to his mother. His in-laws were also
prominent, but their story will be delayed until we discuss the family
tendency towards almost-successful innovation and grand plans.

Isaac Trabue attended military college in Georgetown; his teachers included
James Blaine. When the civil war broke out, Trabue (although a slave owner)
sided with the Union, serving as an aide to Governor Magoffin. He raised the
first company of Union volunteers from his county, and supplied coal to Grant
during his campaigns on the Mississippi River. I do not know of any actual
battlefield duty performed by Trabue. He is not the Colonel Trabue from
Kentucky who played a significant role in the battle of Shiloh; that Trabue
fought for the Confederate side in this divided state.

After the war, Trabue became a lawyer in Louisville, where he became well
known as a lawyer opposed to large corporations. He was quixotically active
in politics. In a strongly Democratic state, he ran as a Republican candidate
for congress in 1872. By 1876 he had switched to the Greenback party, a
party inspired by the Panic of 1873, which openly advocated inflating the
currency by printing more money. He was an elector on the Greenback slate,
which drew fewer than 3000 votes from over 250000 cast. His biography says
that he ran for state treasurer as a Greenback in 1877 and attorney-general
in 1879 (the 1879 report is confirmend by a story from the time), but a New
York Times report on the 1877 election shows a Trabue as Republican for
secretary of state. With all but 7 counties reporting, Trabue is losing to
the Democrat Tate 95000 to 20000; it is possible that this is another
politically unsuccessful Trabue. In 1884, Trabue was an elector for the
Greenback and Anti-Monopoly slate pledged to General Benjamin Butler.
Clearly, Trabue was a form of populist, and held stubbornly to his convictions.

Trabue was well-known as a chess player while in Kentucky. He won a game
against Zukertort during 1883 in Louisville. I imagine that this game is
available, since Trabue was responsible for a chess column in the Louisville
Argus (my source here is the Brooklyn Eagle February 13, 1887, which gives
a list of chess columns as compiled by Hodges, a strong player who edited the
chess column of the Nashville American, and who may be the subject of a book
by Peter Lahde). Trabue is also said to have written a chess book, though
I have not been able to trace this down.

Trabue's place in history comes not from his time in Kentucky, but for
his move to Florida. Before I discuss Trabue's claim to fame, let me
discuss his wife's remarkable family. The grandfather of Virginia Taylor Trabue
was a temporarily successful visionary. in 1818, he helped found the
Savannah Steam Ship Company. He entertained President Monroe in his home,
and escorted him on a cruise of the Savannah. Monroe promised that if the
ship successfully sailed by steam to Liverpool and St. Petersburg, he would
purchase the ship for use as a Navy cruiser. He sailed the ship to Liverpool,
where it was refused entry due to fears that the pine-knot fire of the
steamship would destroy shipping. On reaching St. Petersburg, he was royally
received by the czar, and given expensive gifts. Unfortunately, the
ship had taken too little cargo, and the trip was a financial disaster.
Virginia's grandfather, who had a 7000 acre plantation, was held responsible
for the debt, and forced to declare bankruptcy. Virginia's mother
was persuaded to marry a coffin manufacturer against her better judgement;
within a decade, the husband declared bankruptcy, and her mother returned
to Savannah with 3 children.

Virginia's mother, Charlotte Taylor, has been called Georgia's first
female entomologist. She wrote articles for School Fellows (a children's
magazine), American Agriculturist, and Harper's Monthly. She was an
expert on plant parasites, and her study of the silkworm led her to make
a grand prediction for the revival of the silk industry in the United
States. Before her death in 1861, she was working on several books. The
book manuscripts do not survive, but her specimen book was handed down
to Virginia, and is still on display in the town which is associated with
the Trabues. Pictures from her specimen book, and a list of the articles
printed in Harper's by Charlotte Taylor, are available on the web.

In 1885, at the age of 56 and having some health problems, Trabue decided
to move to Florida. True to the grand dreams of his family, he devised a
plan. Like many a sucker, Trabue bought land in Florida, getting a price
of $1.25 per acre. The land turned out to be basically a swamp, in bad
condition, but Trabue had planned his combination in advance. Ironically,
after years of being anti-corporate, Trabue realized the importance of a
sweetheart deal. Trabue struck a deal with Henry Plant of the Southern
Florida Railway; Plant would extend the railway to the new town modestly
called Trabue, and in return would receive 15 of Trabue's original 30
acres of land. Suddenly, the land was worth $3000 per acre; a pretty fair
return on a $1.25 investment!

Was this a criminal act? No, this was the Gilded Age of capitalism, and
pretty much anything goes; it is even spoken of with pride in Trabue's
biography in the Memoirs of prominent Floridians.

However, Trabue had even greater plans for his city. An enormous hotel was
built, and Trabue developed the ambitious plan of making his city the leading
producer of pineapples in the United States, an effort which was at least
temporarily successful (though I don't know how many competitors there
were for this honor). An amusing picture of a postcard showing a horse and
wagon carrying an enormous Florida pineapple can be found at
http://myfwc.com.recreation.babcock_webb/history.asp. He used the
proceeds from sales of pineapples to pay for gold medals at his
annual chess tournaments.

However, Trabue and Plant had fallen out over issues of how to develop
the town. I don't know details, which are called very bitter, but Trabue
seemed to want to run the town as his own operation, as an unincorporated
city. 34 men gathered in a pool room and decided to incorporate the town;
to add insult to injury, the town name would be changed from trabue to
Punta Gorda. Lawsuits followed over what rights Trabue maintained, and he lost;
this probably accounts for Trabue's aversion to members of his own profession.

And that is all that I can find in a short time about an interesting charactor.
More can be dug up. In addition to the Louisville Argus column which
would be an excellent source for his chess feats, Punta Gorda maintains
his house as town founder and no doubt more information on the trabue-Plant
dispute can be found at their local library. BCM 1980, page 599 must say
something about the Trabue tournaments, according to a web page. Let me
know if you find out any more!

Jerry Spinrad

Jeremy Spinrad wrote:
Isaac Trabue

Thanks! I recall that pineapple-financed tournament prize being
mentioned in the International Chess Magazine, but I never could
find any info on the actual tournaments. Not even mentioned
in Gaige's checklist ...


--
Anders Thulin ath*algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~ath

It might be useful to write to the people who hold a "Spirit of Trabue Annual
Chess Tournament" in Punta Gorda. It seems to be run by a group called "Old Punta
Gorda, Inc"; snail mail and phone numbers are given on the web (perhaps some of
the Floridians who often make noise in the chess newsgroups could call?), but no
email address seems to be given on most of the pages, but I did just find one I
might try ). I'll let you know if I hear anything.

Jerry Spinrad

In article , Anders Thulin writes:
| Jeremy Spinrad wrote:
| Isaac Trabue
|
| Thanks! I recall that pineapple-financed tournament prize being
| mentioned in the International Chess Magazine, but I never could
| find any info on the actual tournaments. Not even mentioned
| in Gaige's checklist ...
|
|
| --
| Anders Thulin ath*algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~ath

A little more found out about Isaac Trabue, with help from Don Atwood of Punta
Gorda.

Trabue's book on chess was, with typical boldness, an attempt to invent a new
version of chess; as with the town, he modestly named it after himself. The book
is in the Cleveland Public Library, and is called Rules and Directions to Play
Four-Handed Trabue, American Chess. Colonel Trabue's name gets changed on the
author page; he gets a promotion in rank, but (like the town) changes his name
from Trabue, becoming General Punta Gorda.

Amusing fellow! Has anyone heard of this variant?

Jerry Spinrad