Searching for the True Beginning of the Cowbellions

There are several different versions of the details of the founding of the Cowbellions. You know the basic story of how Michael Krafft got the rakes and cowbells from a display at some hardware store and paraded around, making a ruckus. The final result was the Cowbellions and this later led to — so it is agreed — modern Mardi Gras in both New Orleans and Mobile. There are different traditions in different Mobile families about which hardware store it was, or what the name of it was. Over the years, I have been told by various families that tradition has it that it was their family’s hardware store. The main contending versions mention the Halls, the Partridges and the Barneys.

Even historic accounts differ on many of the details. Julian Lee “Judy” Rayford, a Mobile jackleg Mardi Gras historian, in a 1962 work that is a mixture of fact, fiction and folklore, said “[O]ne of the peculiarities of the Michael Krafft legend [is that] [e]ach story seems to have a different hardware dealer…”

He’s right, but I have always considered it a minor and unimportant issue in Mystic Mobile. I’m sure that’s because it was not my ancestor’s hardware store at which all of the modern Mystic World began. 

Over the years, when I have told the Cowbellion story, both orally and in writing, I have relied on a copy of a typewritten document dated at its top “1870,” given to me by Caldwell Delaney when I went to talk to him about ancient Mobile Mystic history. This was in about 1978, as I recall; I’m not sure exactly, about a century after the document is dated. I remember Caldwell saying then that he did not know who wrote it but that he thought it was written by former Mayor Pat Lyons (1850-1921), who apparently also named Mobile “Mother of Mystics” for the 1894 “Great Veiled Prophet” parade in St. Louis (another story for later). 

I have come to doubt that Pat Lyons wrote this 1870 piece, mainly because Lyons was born in 1850, and I don’t think that a 20 year old wrote that.

Rayford thought the piece was written by Charles Kennerly (1868-1962). I seriously doubt that too, based on the birth year of the only Charles Kennerly I could find in Mobile. A 2-year-old didn’t write that, and it wasn’t his father, who had a different first name. Rayford didn’t say in his book why he thought it was written by Charles Kennerly. And I have no idea why he thought that.

I don’t know who wrote it. But I don’t think it matters much. The issue is which hardware store it was, not who wrote the 1870 piece, although I wish I knew.

Now, I have serious doubts about Rayford as a historian, especially on very early Mobile Mardi Gras history, but on this issue of which hardware store it was, he seems to have spent a lot of time and effort. And I think that he came out right.

In 1962, Rayford published his Mardi Gras history in a limited edition of 1,000 copies of a book he called “Chasin’ The Devil Round A Stump,” subtitled “The History of Mardi Gras in Mobile from 1704.” The title was based on the Emblem Float of the Order of Myths (OOM), which is a Folly figure chasing a skeleton around a broken column, and beating the skeleton with inflated pig bladders painted gold, which make a loud noise with each hit. You know, fun keeps death at bay and all.

In his book Rayford makes a serious effort to figure out just which Mobile hardware store it could have been. 

He didn’t think it was a Partridge store. Rayford said in 1962 that “[e]very year, at carnival time, there appears in the Register or the Press, a story telling how Mardi Gras got started in Mobile. Rehashed every year, the story goes on and on — and on and on —” In that version, Krafft and some buddies have a drinking dinner in LaTourette’s Restaurant at Conti and Water streets and then walk two blocks north to St. Francis Street, thence one block east to Commerce Street “where they came to Partridge’s Hardware Store” and take the rakes and cowbell. Rayford didn’t say this; although all the other suggested stores were all listed in the 1837 Mobile city directory, the earliest the library has, no Partridge or Partridge Hardware was listed there.

Rayford says “[t]ime has mellowed the story and erased far too much. . . [a]fter telling and re-telling, through more than a century.” Rayford set out to try to sift through the various versions of the story.

So, like any decent historian, even a jackleg historian like him or like me, he tried to get to the bottom of the accuracy issue at hand.

In the 1870 version of the story, we find Krafft, “[w]ending his way up town, he came to the corner of Commerce and Conti Streets now known as the ‘Shippers Exchange’ then occupied by the late Joseph Hall as a hardware store.” In fact, the 1837 Mobile city directory shows that Joseph Hall had a hardware store at Commerce and Conti. Hall lived at the corner of Church and Royal.

Rayford covers a 1904 speech by Louis deV. Chaudron to the Iberville Historical Society, “including even another name for the hardware store.” This time, Chaudron said “Krafft, the ringleader, led the jolly crowd to a hardware store (located on the site now occupied by the Barney-Cavanaugh Hardware Company)…” Notice he did not say “to the Barney-Cavanaugh Hardware Company.” The 1837 city directory, five years later, listed a “Barney Chas & co, hardware merchants, c.[orner] St. Francis and Commerce” and a “Barney, Geo C., importer of hardware, c.[orner] Water and Dauphin.” No Cavanaugh is listed in the directory. 

Chaudron was neither a Cow nor a Striker, and that speech contained errors about both societies.

Rayford notes a 1911 version by Thomas Cooper DeLeon, former editor of the Mobile Register, who knew a lot of Mystic history. DeLeon says those old guys back then stole a turkey from a Creole restaurant and yet convinced the place to serve it to them with plenty of drinking, and went to serenade the mayor. “En route to his residence, they passed the hardware store of Mr. Ledyard, where Odd Fellows Hall stood for years, to be replaced permanently by the great and widely-known house [meaning store?] of Adam Glass.” The 1837 city directory, five years later, lists a “William J. Ledyard”, of the firm “Ledyard, Hatter & Co., merchants” on Dauphin between Water and Royal streets.

Rayford concluded that, “What must surely be the authentic story of Michael Krafft’s first escapade was written by Charles Kennerly, in 1870.” But “[i]t is a shame this account, written 92 years ago, has been so long out of circulation, for it would have cleared up the Michael Krafft story long ago…” And it wasn’t just the hardware story; Rayford had several questions about all of these old reports of what happened. 

Rayford concluded: “The whole thing has drifted off into the smoke of folklore. I suppose you’re welcome to any version you like — but I prefer the one by Charles Kennerly. I think it must be the true story.”

I think it’s the true story, too, but I don’t think it was written by Charles Kennerly.

David Bagwell is a retired attorney and amateur historian living on the Eastern Shore.