Duncan Fraser Curry (November 28, 1812 – April 1894) was an American baseball pioneer and insurance executive.
Curry was the first president of the Knickerbockers Base Ball Club, reported to be the first organized baseball club in 1845. He is also credited with participating in the drafting of the Knickerbocker Rules, the first written set of official baseball rules. He also served on the game's various rules committees from 1845 until at least 1856.
Curry was also one of the founders of the Republic Fire Insurance Company and served as its secretary from 1852 to 1882.
Biography
Curry was born in New York City on November 28, 1812.
Curry worked in the insurance business for more than 35 years. From 1843 to 1852, he was the Secretary of the City Fire Insurance Company. In 1852, he was one of the founding officers of the Republic Fire Insurance Company, known as "The Pioneer Mutual Fire Insurance Co. Combining the Economy of the Mutual Plan with the Security of a Cash Capital." He served as the Secretary of Republic Fire Insurance Company for 30 years from its formation in 1852 until 1882.
Knickerbockers Base Ball Club
Participation in early informal games
In 1842, Curry was part of a group of prominent New York businessmen who gathered in the afternoons to play a game that became baseball. Curry later recalled: "For several years it had been our habit to casually assemble on a plot of ground that is now known as Twenty-seventh street and Fourth avenue, where the Harlem Railroad Depot afterward stood. We would take our bats and balls with us and play any sort of game. We had no name in particular for it. Sometimes we batted the ball to one another or sometimes we played one o'cat."
Baseball pioneer and Hall of Fame inductee John Montgomery Ward interviewed several of the early members of the group, including Curry, and later wrote the following about the early development of the game in New York: "When in about the year 1842 or earlier, Dr. D. L. Adams, Alexander J. Cartwright, Colonel James Lee, Duncan F. Curry, E. R. Dupignac, William F. Ladd and other prominent business and professional men of New York City, seeking some medium for outdoor exercise, turned to the boy's game of Base Ball, there was not a code of rules nor any written records of the game." In his history of baseball, Al Spalding wrote of the group: "Nevertheless, it is of record that as early as the year 1842, a number of New York gentlemen -- and I used the term 'gentlemen' in its highest social significance -- were accustomed to meet regularly for Base Ball practice games. It does not appear that any of these were world-beaters in the realm of athletic sports."
Formation of the Knickerbockers
In the spring of 1845, one of the members of the group, Alexander Cartwright, proposed that they establish a formal baseball club. A committee consisting of Cartwright, Curry, William Wheaton, William H. Tucker and Dupignac was charged with responsibility to secure signatures of players wishing to belong to the club and to otherwise organize the club. On September 23, 1845, at a meeting held at McCarty's Hotel in New York City (located at Hudson and 12 Streets), the Knickerbockers Base Ball Club was formally established, and Curry was selected as its first president. The Knickerbockers were reported to have been the first organized baseball club. In his history of the sport, Al Spalding cited the formation of the Knickerbockers as a seminal point in baseball history: "The organization of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club was the beginning of a most important era in the history of the game, for it was the first recorded movement of that kind. The right and title to the distinction of being the first organized Base Ball club in the world belongs to the old Knickerbocker Club. That honor has never been called in question. For more than thirty years the Knickerbocker Club maintained an amateur organization, and as such was regarded as a model in every respect."