Dennis Joseph “Big Dan” Brouthers was born on May 8th, 1858 in Sylvan Lake, New York. The Hudson River and the Eerie Canal played a huge role before, during, and after Dan’s life. Once the Eerie Canal was completed in 1825 and connect the Eerie Lake to the Hudson River cities started to spring up all along there because of an economic surge. Sylvan Lake village is a hamlet in the town of Beekman, Dutchess County, New York; the hamlet is about 10 miles southeast of Poughkeepsie just off the Hudson River. The village is named after the Lake it surrounds. An Irish Immigrant in search of work, Michael Brooder, settled in Beekman with his wife and four children, one of which is none other than Big Dan. Michael worked in the iron-refining industry, according to census data he was labeled as an “iron furnace man” (Kerr). Since the Eerie Canal allowed coal to transported so easily it became the main source of energy, many jobs were created because it including Michaels. Dan was born on the same year as the founding of St. Denis Church in Beekman. Dan and his family moved around in his childhood but always in the New York region. His family moved two miles north to the town of Fishkill Plains, while welcoming another baby sister, then went west and settled down in the village of Wappingers Falls.
As an Irish Catholic white man, Dan was able to play baseball freely in a period of American history right after the Civil War. During this period he played base ball (yes two words) as a child almost as soon as he could but when he wasn’t playing he was working with his father at a calico dye and printing mill called either the Garner or the Dutchess Print Works, depending on the year” (Kerr). The days were long starting at 6:20AM and ending at 6PM, with an hour-long lunch. He worked half days on Saturdays too. The pay was not enough for him and his family to live a lavish lifestyle; instead they lived a hard and brutal life. Unfortunately, Dan’s mother, Annie died before her 48th birthday. The good news was that since Dan had been born and the time he started playing baseball professionally, baseball had turned from the trendy amateur sport to the professional sport that drove America wild. He started playing baseball in semi-professionally in Wappingers Falls and would garner the nickname “The Wappingers Falls Boy” or “The Wappinggerian” (Kerr).
The next time that the Eerie Canal and the Hudson River played a role in Dan’s life was in the city of Troy, New York. Troy is almost at the connection of Eerie Canal and the Hudson River, making it very important to the growth of New York because of all the expanded trade. Dan, unfortunately, died on August 2nd, 1932 in East Orange, New Jersey due to a heart attack. He is fittingly buried in Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Wappingers Falls (Dennis Joseph “Big Dan” Brouthers).
Works Cited
“Dennis Joseph “Big Dan” Brouthers.” Find a Grave. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2016. <http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8497>.
Kerr, Roy. Big Dan Brouthers: Baseball’s First Great Slugger. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland &, 2003. Print.
Dan Bothers: Baseball Profile 