In the early days in St. Louis my most intimate young men friends were John Riggin, Louis Hutchinson, John Stetinius and Paul Prewett, all “high rollers,” except myself. We belonged to the St. Louis Cyclone Base Ball Company in 1860. We leased what is now Lafayette Park. At that time, it was surrounded by an osage orange hedge. We spent $600 to put the grounds in shape. This company was one of the first of its kind, formed long before the game became professional. The members were all young men in business, or sedentary life, and the club was for exercise, recreation and social intercourse. I was the first President. Among its members, I remember, were Edward Bredell, who lived opposite on Lafayette Avenue; Jack and William Collier, Ferd Garesche, Alex Crosman and E. O. Matthews, the latter two cadets in the United States Navy; Edw. Farish, my brother W. H. Matthews, now of New Orleans, and others I do not recollect. One afternoon some of us, Ed. Bredell among the rest, were lying in the shade of the hedge, pitching a ball from one to the other, when someone remarked – “Boys, we will soon have another kind of ball to pitch” – and poor Ed. caught one in battle in Virginia, early in the war.