Billy Sunday in Kewanee

& Larry Lock May 2019 A Former Pro Baseball Player “Pitched” Kewanee Billy Sunday’s 1906 Revival Meeting Brought the Crowds to their Feet On July 14, 1881, Billy the Kid veterans who learned it during was gunned down in Fort Sumner, the war as a way to pass the New Mexico. Within nine months, time and then brought it home the Earps and the Clantons gun with them, was fast becoming fight at the OK Corral had the “national pastime.” occurred, and Jesse James had Anson eventually signed the been assassinated in Saint Joseph, twenty-year-old he scouted, the Missouri. player’s first step on his path to Three months later, Adrian fame. He eventually played “Cap” Anson, player-manager of professional baseball for a the Chicago White Stockings, decade. But baseball was not visited his Iowa hometown to the foundation upon which his scout a baseball player. fame was built. The country was growing up. It His name was William was transitioning from the almost Ashley Sunday, better known mythological “wild west” to the as Billy Sunday. Before the development of the “corn belt” advent of radio, he was the across the Midwest. There were most successful evangelist new industries built on new America had ever known. technologies – the telegraph, the Sunday was born near telephone, the electric light bulb. Ames, Iowa, in 1862. He never The movement from rural to urban met his father, who died in the living was underway. Civil War. His mother’s second And sports were evolving, too. marriage failed, and she sent Baseball, spread by Civil War him to the Soldiers’ Orphans Home in Davenport. five-week religious revival in the fall of 1906. At meetings from October 27 to December 3, with an Sunday returned to Ames in 1876 but moved to estimated attendance of 200,000, Kewanee area nearby Nevada, Iowa, because of family issues. He residents assembled at the just completed National attended high school and played sports, including Guard Armory to hear Billy Sunday “assail vice and baseball. Because of his speed, Marshalltown, Iowa, sin in every form,” as the Kewanee Star Courier recruited him and he moved there before finishing reported. school, eventually joining the town ball team. It was in Marshalltown where Anson recruited Sunday. The first meeting was on a Saturday evening, drew just over 2,000, and most remained in the During his professional career, primarily with the Armory even though the revivalist preacher arrived White Stockings but also with the Pittsburgh two hours late because of a train breakdown. Then Alleghanys, Sunday was only an average hitter. But the next day, over 2,000 attended each of the his gift was his speed, and he was well-liked by the morning and afternoon meetings. By that evening the fans for stealing bases and tracking down balls in the word must have spread, as 4,000 filled the Armory outfield, catching them barehanded. and “were glad they were not among the 1,500 or While playing for the White Stockings in the late 2,000 that were turned away.” 1880s, Sunday experienced a religious conversion And that’s the way it continued for the next five and then met his soon-to-be wife. Sunday continued weeks, with one meeting each weekday evening to play ball while he held prayer meetings and except Monday and four meetings on the weekend. participated in other religious activities. The weekday meetings drew 2,000 to 3,000, the When Sunday left baseball in the early 1890s, he weekend meetings at least 3,000 and each Sunday went to work for the Chicago YMCA and then for evening the evangelist preached to a packed house of evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman. Sunday struck out on 4,000. his own in 1897, and by the time he came to There were also some special sessions including Kewanee, he was well known for his small town lunchtime talks to 2,000 at Western Tube revivals in Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. Sunday (Kewanee’s largest factory that became Walworth in displayed a gift for oratory, and he used his athletic 1917) and to 500 at Kewanee Boiler. energy to be in constant motion when preaching. Special sessions for men were held each Sunday The extraordinary happening in Kewanee was a afternoon. The first attracted 3,500 to hear a ninety-four teams and carriages from out of the city “coatless, collarless, cuffless, and breathless” to look after and another had thirty-five.” Sunday expend “enough energy to operate a street It was not until the 11th day of the revival that the car line.” The reporter added that Sunday perspired first “call for people” was made at the close of a so much that “it is easily understood how the suit of “convincing sermon.” Eventually the newspaper underwear and clothing that he wears to one meeting began to list the names of those who were baptized. can not be used at the next.” This occurred for the first time on Nov. 26, with one Not to be outdone 4,000 women attended a “ladies week of revival left. By that time over 1,400 had only” meeting on Nov. 20. “The largest audience of come forward and in the final week an astonishing ladies that has been assembled in Kewanee . 1,600 more would be among those for whom “the crowded to the storm-doors” to hear Sunday’s waters of salvation have flowed.” message just for them. When 250 of another capacity crowd were Young people were also among the revivalists. On baptized at an encore meeting on Monday, Dec. 3 one night Kewanee High School students presented (held because so many were turned away at the Sunday “a great bunch of chrysanthemums, tied with scheduled last meeting the previous night), an utterly long ribbons of orange and black, the high school’s amazing event had come to an end. colors.” Seated up front, the students “let loose three The Star Courier reported that the 38-day revival or four yells that tore the atmosphere into shreds.” had “shattered all records in evangelistic work in the After “remarks of appreciation” by Sunday, the United States, at least, in recent times.” It reported students “liberated four more yells that testified to total attendance of 200,000 at 82 meetings with a their belief that Mr. Sunday was all right.” “total number of conversions” of 3,018. Financial Hundreds from the country and surrounding collections included $4,060 for current expenses and towns attended. Some came by train and many came $5,400 “offering to Mr. Sunday.” The names of all by horse and carriage. On the second Sunday of the 3,018 persons baptized were listed in the December revival, the “livery stables had all they could do to 4 issue of the Star Courier. take care of the conveyances. One livery barn had By the 1910’s, Sunday was preaching in the Billy Sunday once said to “[l]ive so that when the nation’s large cities, culminating in a 10-week final summons comes you will leave something more revival in New York City in 1917 in which 98,000 behind you than an epitaph on a tombstone or an came forward to accept Christ. obituary in a newspaper.” Billy Sunday, the baseball player, the revivalist preacher, the man, did just that. The 1906 revival meeting in Kewanee was not Sunday’s first trip to our hometown. In 1885, the You can find Larry Lock’s full story discussing Kewanee Reds arranged an exhibition game with the Billy Sunday’s Kewanee revival meeting at the “world renowned Chicago White Stockings,” who Kewanee Historical Society’s website, located at will “endeavor to shut them out. The great reputation https://kewanee-history.com. If you want to know of this club will attract an immense crowd . .” The more, see if an ancestor is on the list of White Stockings won 12 – 1, with Sunday going 3 conversions, or share some of your family history for 6. While he hit well on that day, arguably Billy concerning Billy Sunday’s Kewanee revival, visit Sunday was even more successful two decades later the Kewanee Historical Society’s Richards on his return trip to Kewanee. Museum at 211 N. Chestnut Street, or email the Society at [email protected]. Billy Sunday’s fame declined after World War I, but he continued to conduct revivals until his death © 2019 Dean Karau, Larry Lock All Rights Reserved in 1935 from a heart attack. .

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