Harvey “Prince Mac” McMurchy was a L.C. Smith traveling representative and professional trap shooter who won the first Interstate Inanimate Target (Ligowsky) Tournament held in New Orleans in 1880.
Drew: The first
"International Clay Pigeon Tournament" (or inanimate target tournament) was run by Geo. Ligowsky's and J. E. Blume's
National Shooting Association in
Chicago in 1884; the second International Tournament was in NOLA in 1885. Ligowsky tried to sell stock in his association, but was unsuccessful. Ligowsky's NSA was formed to promote his clay targets. Organized trap shooting needed a broader base.
C. W. Dimmick of United States Cartridge Co. and other manufacturers' reps (including Winchester and UMC) founded the
American Shooting Association in
1888, and Ligowsky's group gave way to the power. S. A. "Tuck" Tucker, Parker's sales agent (and owner of the AAH that started this thread) along with Capt. A. W. duBray (then a sergeant in the U. S. army) were consulting board members of the newly-formed ASA and "Tuck" wrote the handicap rules. Live birds were still the popular targets with slight but growing interest in clays.
The
ASA dissolved in 1892 and, in turn, the
Interstate Manufacturers and Dealers Assn.--"Interstate Assn."--took over organized trap shooting. The Interstate Assn. quickly organized the first Grand American Handicap at live birds scheduled for spring 1893. Twenty-one shooters paid $25 to compete. The GAH at live birds went until 1902 at Kansas City with about 450 contestants. The GAH at targets was started by the Interstate Assn. in 1900 with 74 entries (the 1900 GAH at live birds drew 224 entries).
Until 1919, the Interstate Assn. basically owned and managed trap shooting as a sport in order to showcase its products and to promote the interests of its owners: The Manufacturers and Dealers. In 1919 the Interstate Assn. board (including Wilbur F. Parker Jr.) met in New York, and
reorganized as the American Trapshooting Assn. Then in
1920 the industry bigwigs handed organized trapshooting over to a committee of amateurs who re-named it the
Amateur Trapshooting Association--"The ATA"--which exists to this day and continues to sanction the Grand. Lot of history here...
Harvey McMurchy was known by his fellow knights of the trigger as
"McDuff." According to
Shooting & Fishing (August 1888), "Mr L. C. Smith, a Syracuse, N. Y., gun maker, apprehending McDuff's worth as a shot, his intelligence, and his experience as a traveling man, negotiated with him, and after a personal interview he was appointed a traveling representative of the L. C. Smith Gun." McDuff worked most of his adult life for the Smith Gun and retired to Florida to live out his retirement on a river fishing. When he retired, the articles in the shooting publications never mentioned the Smith Gun, just that he was a long-time employee of an unnamed gun manufacturer.
Once the amateurs took over the sport they quickly marginalized the pros; mentioning their sponsors or employers by name became a no-no. And we all know what happened to Jim Thorpe when the Olympic committee found out that he had played baseball for $50. Professional shooters likewise had the pox upon them; the punitive amateurism was so bad that janitors and factory workers at Parker Bros. were classified as pros, even if they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn from the inside, because--shame! shame!--they worked within the guns and ammo industry. RIP McDuff where ever you are... EDM
