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Jake Kilrain, now sparring with his oldtime adversary at the Pan tages, is celebrating his fiftieth birthday. But for the iron gray hair and moustache you would never suspect it. He is more agile than many a man half his years, his eye is clear and his muscles apparently as pliable as in the days when he gave John L. the greatest struggle the old gladiator ever met. For right down hard fighting there hasn't been anything to beat it in the history of the game. Kilrain’s experience has been of savage prize ring warfare, yet at 50 his physique is still one to envy. Jake Kilrain was born in Green port, N. Y. In the rolling mill where he was employed in Sum merville, Mass., he was compelled to stand for a lot of chaff and guy ing, the circumstance of his hav ing come from an up-state country community in New York giving the smarties in the mill a cue for the flashing of cheap withingeing on hayseed and vegetables. All this was received with smiling good na ture until one day one of his doc tors overstepped the frontier of discretion and something dropped. The man hit thought Jake had used a sledge, but those who saw knew he didn’t and were also convinced that further guying would be dangerous. What he did to the man who thought a sledge had been used interested all to the scrappy ones in the establishment with the re sult that Jake was forced into meeting a quartet, one after the other, or would be champions. They were Jack Daly, Jem Driscoll, Dan Dwyer and Dennis Roach, and all four faded before the fists of the sturdy youngster from the up-state New York county. Athletics now took hold of Jake’s attention and after polishing off Roach, who had been imported into the mill on purpose to whip him, he turned his attention to rowing. He was an apt pupil of some of the old time watermen on the Charles river, in Boston; was one of the winning crew in a four oared race on Lake Waldron, and in 1883 won the junior sculling championship of the National Amateur regatta at Newark, N. J. In the winter of 1883 he became an assistant at the old Cribb club of Tim McCarthy in Boston, and from that time on for several years his entire attention was de voted to boxing. Very quickly he showed his fitness by whipping Harry Allen, George Godfrey for 44 rounds and fighting draws in 1884 with Jim Goode, Charley Mitchell and Mike Cleary. Later, after a rest of some time, Frank Herald was accounted for in one round, Kilrain was given the Richard K. Fox diamond champion ship belt, and in 1887 Kilrain fought Jem Smith of England for the championship of the world. The battle went 106 rounds to a draw, the rules governing being the Lon don prize ring. This battle with Smith led to the great mill with John L. Sullivan in Mississippi in which Kilrain lost. After that event Jake was beaten by Corbett in a six round go for points and lost to Frank Slavin at Coney Island in 1890. His last fight was in Slavin in 1899. Dur ing his career he has fought over 150 battles, and today weighs 224 pounds and is in the best of condi tion. SULLIVAN AND KILRAIN WITH THEIR HANDS UP
Newspaper Details
Spokane Press
Spokane, Washington, US
Tue, Feb 09, 1909
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Tim A.
CA, USA 06 Jun 2026
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