Cribbage Capital...???

Source of photo: https://mooseradio.com/montana-is-home-to-the-cribbage-capital-of-the-world/

Nelson, Montana, is supposedly "The Cribbage Capital Of The World."  Such a bogus claim apparently came simply because some one (or some people) posted a sign making the specious declaration.

Nelson, Montana is no more "The Cribbage Capital of The World" than I am The Pope. Here's how we think this hoax came down.

Nelson, Montana, isn't even a real town. It would only qualify as a "community" if you had a VERY liberal definition of the word "community".   As far as anyone can discern, Nelson, Montana, consists of three (count 'em: THREE) houses located in the middle of nowhere northeast of Helena, Montana.

There isn't a store.  There isn't a Post Office.  Heck, there isn't even a bar or saloon. NO self-respecting Montana "community" is without a bar or saloon. If you have a saloon, you can immediately pick a name and declare yourself a Montana town.  Saloons and Montana go together like ducks and water.

So we figure the residents of those three houses are all cribbage lovin' players.  Clearly, there would be NOTHING to do there in the wintertime.  The three houses comprising metro Nelson are so far from anywhere, we can't imagine the road would get snowplowed very often...if at all.  So...what would there be to do?  NOTHING...unless you play cribbage.  And then suddenly there would be a lot to do.  In fact, cribbage would be something to leap out of bed to play each day.

We betcha the residents of those three houses have a righteous Cribbage Klatch.  We can see them deep into 121 point games on a bitter cold Montana night.  Suddenly, out of the blue, one of the players exclaims, "By jove, what we've got here is The Cribbage Capital Of The World!"  The other players catch on and quickly join in.

Chances are they elected a Prime Minister of Cribbage and maybe even appointed a Cabinet, too.  Someone undoubtedly stepped forward to be The Minister of Information.  And THAT's when the idea for the sign was hatched.  The Minister of Information looked at his two neighbors and said, "A sign would make it official."

So up went the sign and the rest is history...at least until some other cribbage players somewhere else make a similar declaration and dare to contest Nelson's dubious declaration.

We've heard lot of Montana towns and cities have winter time cribbage leagues.  Heck, just about ANY of those leagues could stand up and pound the saloon bar and say, "It's time to take Nelson's title away"  Oh, the roar of the cribbage crowd would be deafening.  They would be pounding their pegs in agreement.  Some players would begin clapping cribbage board together and cheers of enthusiasm would rattle the rafters. We can see and hear it now.

At some point, Nelson residents would then have to change their sign to say "FORMER Cribbage Capital of The World."  Meanwhile, the new Montana Cribbage Capital of The World would go ALL OUT to make a righteous sign while preparing to defend their title to the last FIFTEEN-TWO.

And so it goes in Big Sky Country...

Source of claim as "Cribbage Capital Of The World is located in the main Wiki for cribbage here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cribbage

Elias Bernstein

Sometime early during World War Two, Elias Bernstein decided to make cribbage boards and send them to servicemen and Officers worldwide.   What probably began as a casual pastime became an all-consuming passion for the Staten Island, New York attorney and civic leader.

Elias didn't just make a few cribbage boards.  Nope. He made over 2,500!  Plus, he wrapped each one and paid the postage to the far flung corners of battlefronts spanning the entire globe.  Nobody now knows how Elias obtained the mailing addresses for his passionate pursuit.  For that matter, nobody now know much of anything about Elias and his unusual pastime.

It's entirely possible that Elias Bernstein could well be America's most prolific individual cribbage board builder, if not the world's.  Of course, industrial machines churn out far more than 2,500 cribbage boards in short time frames.  If you've ever tried to make your own cribbage board, you know just how tedious and time consuming the task is.

We're making Big Boards for cribbage players and we've only crafted 19 of them.  To think of creating over 2,500 boards is beyond mind-boggling.

Luckily, Elias himself hasn't been totally forgotten.  There's an Intermediate School named for him on Staten Island.  It's locally called "The Bernstein" so at least his name is bandied about in the area where he lived on Emerson Hill.  Bernstein passed on in 1950 and the school opened in 1965.

We have tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to contact Administrators of The Bernstein for more information about their school's namesake.  We will continue to attempt to contact them.  In the meantime, here is what we know about Elias Bernstein.

He was born in 1890 and apparently became a successful lawyer on Staten Island.  An unspecified health issue forced him into what today would be called "medical retirement."  Bernstein began raising orchids and canary birds to occupy his time.  When World War Two broke out, Bernstein felt orchids and canaries were irrelevant.  He apparently was an avid cribbage player so he decided to begin making boards to send to troops.

Judging from the only known photo of him, the boards were small standard size items with perhaps some individual craftsman touches added. In the grainy newspaper archive photo above, you can see a couple of little boards with rounded tops.

It is said that Elias made some of his cribbage boards from the furniture of Ralph Waldo Emerson's nearby on Staten Island.  In fact, a U.S. Naval Institute article on Admiral Halsey states that Bernstein sent Adm. Halsey three cribbage boards including one made from an ebony chest owned by R.W.  Emerson.  R.W. Emerson never lived on Staten Island but his brother did.  That's how Emerson Hill got its name.

Elias supposedly received numerous replies thanking him for his generosity.  The hardbitten, blunt Adm. Halsey supposedly even replied.  We contacted the Naval Institute to see if they had any of the boards or a copy of Adm. Halsey's reply.  Sadly, Naval Institute Archivist Janis D. Jorgensen replied that they do not.

The only article describing Bernstein's epic efforts appear in early November 1945 and was picked up by newspapers around the country.  After all, cribbage was very popular every where back then so it would have been of interest to folks from all walks of life Coast-To-Coast.

The article claims that Bernstein's favorite "Thank You" note came from someone on the USS "The Sullivans."  By a coincidental fluke of fate, "The Sullivans" still exists and is on moored display in Buffalo, New York. We contacted  Buffalo Naval Park Director of Museum Collections Shane E. Stephenson and he reported Bernstein's board is no longer on the ship.

Cribbage was wildly popular in the U.S. Navy before, during and after World War Two.  It's quite likely that Bernstein's board received a regular and enthusiastic workout aboard "The Sullivans."

We wish we could resurrect more information about The Life & Times of Elias Bernstein but, alas, we cannot.  Below is the entire transcript of the article that appears in so many newspapers.  At least Elias got his 15 seconds of fame through that article.

Source of article:
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/83683742/elias-bernstein-cribbage-1945/

"WARRIOR'S GAME. The next time two soldiers sit down for a game of cribbage in a U.S. hospital or a camp in Germany, or Japan, it's a fairly safe bet they'll be using one of Elias Bernstein's cribbage boards. High-ranking generals and admirals own Bernstein boards, too. But the number of brassless servicemen who have pegged fifteen-twos on them is beyond computation.

White-haired, booming-voiced Elias Bernstein was one of the leading attorneys on New York's Staten Island until his health gave out a few years ago, forced him to retire. "But even an invalid can do something for our men," he thinks. To date, he has made and sent out more than 2,500 cribbage boards.

The letters of thanks he has received would drive an autograph-hunter crazy: Admiral King, General Bradley, Admiral Halsey, Lord Mountbatten, General Vandegrift.

"THANKS." Even more than these letters, though, Bernstein cherishes those from the enlisted men who get 99 out of every 100 of his boards. But the one he cherishes most told how his board arrived aboard The Sullivans just in time to be used for a cribbage tournament.

He makes his cribbage boards of choice woods, inlays them with decorative patterns. When the old Ralph Waldo Emerson mansion near his home on Staten Island was sold, he bought up some of the furniture, and many of the gift boards are made of this historical wood.

When Bernstein retired, he started raising orchids and canary birds to keep busy. When the war came along, this seemed meaningless. An avid cribbage player, he decided to try to make boards, even though he was "just a lawyer and all thumbs." But to servicemen who like cribbage, from Admiral Nimitz down the line, he's an artist of the first water."

Photo source: https://buffalonavalpark.org/exhibits/uss-the-sullivans/

 

"Pistols Before Breakfast..."???

 "A man may outslick them on a rum deal or steal their gal and they may let it go at that but when their treasured cribbage board is hijacked it simply means pistols before breakfast and may the best man win."

We've been roamin' newspaper archives finding cribbage stories and this is A Gem published July 26, 1930 in "The Times Herald" at Port Huron, Michigan.  Here is the link to the original article.  See below the graphics for an interesting sidebar story.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/83670286/jailhouse-cribbage-board-swiped-1930/

We went roaming to attempt to find a photo of prisoners playing cribbage but had no luck.  We did, however, find this truly interesting spin-off on Cribbage called "Crooks."

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/11/for-your-holiday-pleasure-we-offer-crooks-a-new-card-game-appropriate-for-a-year-of-thieves-and-miscreants.html

The O'Kane Cribbage Board

 Click here to watch cribbage being played on The O'Kane Board in the USS Olympia.

 The O'Kane Cribbage Board is arguably America's most famous such board.  The O'Kane Board is so steeped in lore, legend and longevity that it's unlikely any other cribbage board could conceivably be more famous. Plus, The O'Kane Board is guaranteed a place of Honor in perpetuity so it's only going to become MORE famous as the future unfolds.

So what exactly is The O'Kane Board?  Well, it all started on a submarine in April 1943. The USS Wahoo was ordered to be the very first submarine to enter the shallow Yellow Sea.  Morale of the entire crew plummeted to a new low ebb and nervousness ran rampant.  Near the nadir of the crew's apprehension about their upcoming dangerous mission, the Wahoo's Commander Dudley "Mush" Morton challenged his Executive Office Richard Hetherington "Dick" O'Kane to a game of cribbage.  As outlandish fate would have it the CO dealt the XO a perfect hand of 29 points.  As any cribbage player knows, a Perfect Hand is often seen as divine intervention.  Word spread like wildfire among the crew and every one took The Perfect Hand as an omen of Good Luck.

Left: CO Morton & XO O'Kane in conning tower of USS Wahoo during an attack on a Japanese convoy off New Guinea, 26 January 1943. Right: The Japanese freighter Nittsu Maru sinks by the bow in the Yellow Sea on 23 March 1943 after being torpedoed by Wahoo.  (USN photos via Wiki.)

Sure enough, that very night The Wahoo sunk three Japanese ships.  And then the cribbage games continued.  The CO dealt his XO a 28-point hand!  Once again, the crew rejoiced at being part of such intergalactic good luck.  And sure, within hours The Wahoo sunk two more Japanese ships.  Right then and there that cribbage board became an instant legend.  The Wahoo went on to become one of the most successful submarines in the Pacific Fleet.

Eventually, the XO became a CO on the USS Tang and took his lucky cribbage board along.  The Tang's fame eventually outshone The Wahoo's.  Sadly, The Tang was sunk by one of its own torpedoes that doubled back on the ship.  Only ten men survived and the cribbage board went down with the ill-fated submarine.

CO O'Kane received the Medal of Honor for his valor and courage during the sinking and subsequent perils of the few survivors.  He spent the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp.

Not long after World War Two's end, the US Navy ordered a new submarine to bear the name "Tang."  Of course, by then everybody knew all about O'Kane's famous cribbage board.  So the commissioning crew of the Tang presented O'Kane with a replica cribbage board upon his retirement in 1957.  When O'Kane passed on in 1994, the board was donated to the oldest fast attack submarine still active in the Navy's fleet.  The tradition began on the USS Kamehameha (SSBN 642) because it was the oldest submarine in the fleet. From there it would be passed on to USS Parche (SSN 683), USS Los Angeles (SSN 688), USS Bremerton (SSN 698), USS Olympia (SSN 717) and now USS Chicago (SSN 721).

Official Party at Launching of USS Tank (SS563) June 19, 1951. Miss Marsha G. O'Kane, Maid of Honor, Mrs. Richard O'Kane, Sponsor and CMDR. Richard H. O'Kane U.S.N. Source:
http://navsource.org/archives/08/564/0856307.jpg

And that's where the tradition began.  When the oldest fast attack submarine is decommissioned, the O'Kane Board must be passed on with due pomp and ceremony to the next oldest fast attack submarine in the fleet.  With each successive transfer of The O'Kane Board to the next oldest fast attack submarine, the pomp and ceremony grows a little more elaborate and perhaps the legend is polished just a wee bit more as well.

Click here to read about transfer of The O'Kane Board to USS Chicago from USS Olympia.

Currently, The O'Kane Board sits in the Wardroom of the USS Chicago where it will presumably remain until 2024 when the Chicago is tentatively scheduled for decommissioning.  The O'Kane Board isn't treated like an untouchable trophy in a case. Nope, the crew and Officers of The USS Chicago actually play cribbage on The O'Kane Board because of a consensus "that O'Kane would want us to."

Typically, the Chief of Boat (COB) will assist the Captain in organizing cribbage play for the crew and Officers.  It's The U.S. Navy Way!  Cribbage has always been popular in the U.S. armed services and it is especially so in the U.S. Navy.  In fact, cribbage is often said to be the unofficial game of the submariners.

One of these days, we hope we can obtain a photo of The O'Kane Board on the USS Chicago.  There are many online resources that discuss The O'Kane Board and its storied history.  Cribbage Story enthusiasts can enjoy many an educational hour studying those resources.