June 19 1906
Daily Mirror, London, London, England, Tuesday, June 19, 1906
CHESS CHAMPION DEAD.
Harry Pillsbury, Who Beat Fifteen Men at Once, Dies in America at Early Age of Thirty-Five.
It is doubtful if the world of chess will ever see a finer player than Harry Pillsbury, who died suddenly yesterday, at Philadelphia, from apoplexy, at the early age of thirty-five.
He was only eighteen when he made a name for himself in the chess world by beating the champion, Steinitz. Shortly after the performance of this feat he met twelve strong chess-players and twelve players of draughts, playing them all simultaneously. He won eight of the chess games and drew four. Curiously, he lost two of the draughts games—probably because the easy character of the game made him careless.
He performed his greatest feat in 1902, when he met in one encounter sixteen fine chess-players, and, while playing a rubber of whist and chatting with his friends, kept the whole sixteen games in mind, and won fifteen of them—in addition to the rubber.
June 21 1906
Wayne County Herald, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, Thursday, June 21, 1906
GREAT CHESS MASTER GONE.
Harry Pillsbury, Champion of Knight and Pawn, Dead at Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA, June 20.—Harry Nelson Pillsbury, the chess master, died here yesterday of apoplexy after an illness of many months. Pillsbury was born Dec. 05, 1872, at Somerville, Mass., where the body will be taken, the funeral to be held there tomorrow.
Pillsbury learned the rudiments of chess when he was sixteen years old at the Deschapelles Chess club in Boston.
His first notable victory was a score of 5 to 4 in a match with John F. Barry of Boston in 1891. In 1893 he won the New York city tournament with a total score of 7 out of a possible 9 and in 1895 won first prize at the Hastings tournament, against many of the strongest players of the world.
In 1897 Pillsbury won from Showalter the American chess championship, which he confirmed by a second match with Showalter in 1898.
