Battling butcher and boxer Gavin Park must have been one tough hombre.
It took two obituaries -- published three years apart -- to lay the big man from London to rest.
More than 100 years ago, Park was a champion -- boxing as Jack Stewart -- when he wasn't busy handling "large quantities of dressed pork" or selling "sausages of his own manufacture."
Even without the double dose of obituary, the raw meat of Park's story is remarkable. Born in Glasgow in 1852, he came to London in 1871. His father, John Park, was also a butcher and lived in Petersville (now the Blackfriars area).
Gavin Park soon went into business for himself in "a meat and provision shop" at the old Covent Garden Market. He married Eva McArthur of Seaforth in 1886 and has a profile -- without any mention of boxing -- in the 1889 Goodspeed History of the County of Middlesex.
The split between butcher and boxer carries through in other stories. There are Free Press accounts of Stewart's boxing career in which the butcher's real name is never mentioned. (This is definitely not true of the obituaries -- either of them).
The boxing doesn't appear to have been a secret, but such a split between Park the butcher and Stewart the pugilist may have been a recognition that the law took a dim view of prizefighting, as did many -- but not all -- respectable citizens.
In his other life as a lord of the ring, Park fought many bouts as Stewart, apparently dubbed "the Scotch giant." Stewart's claims to the heavyweight title were made in an era when boxing bouts were often held on the quiet because police were eager to interfere with any illicit mayhem.
Still, there were at least two occasions in the 1880s when The Free Press reported on Stewart bouts that were no secret.
Stewart, identified as "champion of Canada," arranged a "sparring exhibition" with a Cleveland boxer, Mervine Thompson, for March 6, 1884, at the old Grand Opera House. Led by police chief W. T. T. Williams, spoilsports kept trying to derail Stewart's plans.
The pugilistic evening went ahead before a packed house. The Free Press slammed Williams and his "wonderfully astute 'official eye' " for showing up on the night with "a posse of policemen ready to pounce . . . at the first indication of anything approaching a prize fight or even having a pugilistic tendency."
Blaming the police presence for the boxers' cautious approach, The Free Press said the Stewart vs. Thompson match was "a fizzle" and "somewhat tame." Still, The Free Press loved the way the six-foot-one, 200-pound Londoner tapped Thompson on the nose, mouth and cheek with "very stinging" blows.
A year later, Stewart, battling as a 185-pounder, knocked out Toronto-trained Alf Cliffe in the fourth round. The venue was somewhere in old Westminster Township. One hundred fight fans attended.
About 1903, Stewart fought an exhibition bout against Jim Daly, a sparring partner of U.S. champ Jim Corbett, at the old Majestic Theatre.
Later in that decade, Park moved to St. Louis, where he carried on in the grocery business on Jackson Street before The Free Press finally killed him off. Twice.
London Public Library Ivey Family London Room librarian Arthur McClelland first noticed the two obituaries while researching material for a boxing fan in Britain.
"He died twice, this guy. His obituary appeared in 1910 and 1913 . . . it's a mystery," McClelland smiles.
The Free Press first reported Park's death on June 6, 1910. Park, "a very heavy man," had been walking down Jackson Street in
St. Louis "when he slipped and fell on the sidewalk, fracturing his skull." The Page 1 obituary goes on to mention Park's relatives, including a brother-in-law who was also in the grocery business. As Jack Stewart, he was "recognized heavyweight champion of Canada for a number of years," the piece concludes.
Almost three years later, The Free Press acknowledges -- without actually admitting it -- that the 1910 account of Park's death must have been grossly exaggerated.
In another Page 1 story, this one published on April 15, 1913, the man is dead again. This time, he has died on Monday, April 14, 1913, after a year-long illness. (Recovering from death via skull fracture is no easy thing, evidently).
Park's role as one of Sir Thomas Lipton's first clerks in the Glasgow mogul's tea and grocery empire is recalled. So is a friendly meeting in London between Lipton, an avid yachtsman, and Park, when Lipton was touring North America "a number of years ago."
Park's "quiet disposition and sterling character" are saluted. So are his boxing days.
So what happened? McClelland has been on the Park case, using newspapers, census records, cemetery information and other material.
The most obvious solution is found in a little item -- Former Londoner Dead -- published on June 7, 1910, by the old Advertiser newspaper, The Free Press's feisty rival.
"Mr. Gavin Park, a former Londoner and cousin of Mr. Gavin Park, formerly of this city, and at one time champion heavyweight pugilist of Canada, was killed by a fall in St. Louis, Mo., the other day," the Advertiser says laconically on June 7, 1910. The story is short ,but the Advertiser's satisfaction in smugly besting The Free Press must have been huge.
So it was a cousin of the same name, coincidentally in the same Missouri metropolis as the boxing butcher -- or butcher-minded boxer -- who actually died in the tragic fall.
McClelland's research explains the mystery, but still leaves me wondering if the cousins' careers had ever been confused before.
Right to the end, The Free Press and the Advertiser disagree. The Advertiser says Park died on Sunday (April 13) and would be buried at St. Louis. The Free Press said he would be buried in the family plot at Mount Pleasant cemetery.
McClelland, who has done so much work on the Park file, believes The Free Press was correct on that score. After trying to bury Park twice, it must have been time to get something right.