J0hn Lynn Harris was born February 2, 1878 in Hemingway, Carroll County, Mississippi. He was one of the six children of Willis Benjamin and wife Emma Lynn (Thompson) Harris. Growing up on a farm was not the John wanted. After finishing his local schooling, he left for Nashville, Tennessee, to attend the Daughton Business School.
The first Draughon School of Business was founded by John F. Draughon in eastern Tennessee in 1879. At the age of sixteen, Draughon would transport books and materials by cart from town to town offering classes in basic business skills. His first non-mobile instruction was offered in Nashville. By 1921, thirty-eight such schools had been established in southern and western states from Georgia to Texas.
Wanting even more education John headed next to the University of Mississippi where he graduated from their law school in 1903.
After graduation, he moved a few miles down the road to the small town of Water Valley. There he joined a well known attorney, James G. McGowen, who would later serve on the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Just a few doors down from his office on Market Street lived the Widow Mary Duke and her family. Her sixteen year old daughter, Eleanor, had just started attending the Southern Female College in nearby West Point. She also had apparently caught the eye of the 25 year old neighborhood attorney.
After a short courtship, John and Eleanor married on September 18th the next year. For their honeymoon they headed off to the World's Fair in St. Louis.
The next year, with family life now beginning, John started his own office. It was located in the Knights of Pythias Building. This location may have been because he was the local Commander of this fraternal organization and secret society. With these kind of organizations being popular, and important to business networking then, John also became the Sachem of the Improved Order of Red Men and a member of the Woodmen of the World.
Being a popular young man he ran, and was elected, to the Mississippi House of Representatives for Yalobusha County in 1907. With his law firm, dealing in real estate, and politics, he was a busy man.
Enter now William Thaddeus Trusty. W. T., or Thad, as he was known by, had been born in nearby Pine Hill in 1874. His family had moved into Water Valley, where his dad was a locomotive engineer with the Illinois Central Rail Road (ICRR). At the Water Valley depot you could see Locomotive #638 which had been used at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. After the fair another ICRR locomotive engineer, John Luther Jones, brought it down for service in the Jackson District which Water Valley was a part of. Jones worked for a few years with W. T.'s dad. On April 30, 1900 Jones was killed when his ICRR passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi. There was a song written about it. You see, John's nickname was "Casey".
Being a popular young man he ran, and was elected, to the Mississippi House of Representatives for Yalobusha County in 1907. With his law firm, dealing in real estate, and politics, he was a busy man.
Enter now William Thaddeus Trusty. W. T., or Thad, as he was known by, had been born in nearby Pine Hill in 1874. His family had moved into Water Valley, where his dad was a locomotive engineer with the Illinois Central Rail Road (ICRR). At the Water Valley depot you could see Locomotive #638 which had been used at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. After the fair another ICRR locomotive engineer, John Luther Jones, brought it down for service in the Jackson District which Water Valley was a part of. Jones worked for a few years with W. T.'s dad. On April 30, 1900 Jones was killed when his ICRR passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi. There was a song written about it. You see, John's nickname was "Casey".
John Luther "Casey" Jones
W. T. was a man of many talents. During his life he had been a druggist, local sheriff, hardware store owner, International Harvester dealer, hotel owner and banker. He was a well known man about town.
He even did a little inventing. In 1905 he came up with an idea for a new card game. He described it as: This invention relates to playing cards and has for its principal object to provide a card game of such nature as to amuse and also to educate children. Another object of the card game resides in the provision of a pack of cards arranged in sets according to grades in the public schools.
He even did a little inventing. In 1905 he came up with an idea for a new card game. He described it as: This invention relates to playing cards and has for its principal object to provide a card game of such nature as to amuse and also to educate children. Another object of the card game resides in the provision of a pack of cards arranged in sets according to grades in the public schools.
The idea sounded simple but the description of game play covered several pages and took a number of readings to understand. The patent took 7 years to be granted and the game did not go commercial.
This failed attempt at a card game may have been what prompted another try.
In 1923 Harris and Trusty went into business together. Their venture was named the Coin Card Company and was incorporated in Delaware. The incorporation laws were better there. The Delaware Charter Company, of 904 Market Street in Wilmington, was their agent. The new venture started with a capital of $40,000 (over $600,000 today) to manufacture "paper specialties". The other members of their corporation were a filling station owner, a bank clerk and a department store salesman. Their card game was to be called "Coin Cards".
This failed attempt at a card game may have been what prompted another try.
In 1923 Harris and Trusty went into business together. Their venture was named the Coin Card Company and was incorporated in Delaware. The incorporation laws were better there. The Delaware Charter Company, of 904 Market Street in Wilmington, was their agent. The new venture started with a capital of $40,000 (over $600,000 today) to manufacture "paper specialties". The other members of their corporation were a filling station owner, a bank clerk and a department store salesman. Their card game was to be called "Coin Cards".
The new game is apparently a commercial failure and everyone goes back to their regular routine.
John Lynn Harris dies in 1930 while serving another term in the Mississippi House of Representatives. His wife, now described as a successful business woman, decides to run for his vacant seat. She wins and becomes the third woman to serve in the Mississippi legislature.
W. T. passes away in 1967 at the age of 92.
THE STORY IS NOT OVER....
Fast forward now to 1987 in downtown Water Valley. What had been W. T.'s old hardware store is now purchased by Dr. Harold Sexton. The doctor's claim to fame happened ten years earlier in Memphis when Elvis Presley died. Dr. Sexton was the pathologist at Elvis's autopsy and had removed his brain. Hounded by the press, and fans believing Elvis was still alive, Dr. Sexton left Memphis for a quieter life. Working at the local hospital the doctor was thinking having an office in town. He asked Jack Gurner to look it over and give him an estimate for the electrical work.
Jack was checking out the second floor when he came upon a large pile covered with an old dirty tarp. Removing it, he found hundreds of banded boxes of unopened Coin Cards! Most of the boxes were still in perfect shape. Only some outer edge boxes were disintegrated or falling apart.
Jack immediately recognized the cards from his childhood. In the late 1930s he remembered Trusty handing out these cards to him and a bunch of other kids in town. In a few days the streets and ditches were filled with them.
Jack asked Dr. Sexton if he could have them. Being of no use to the doc he said yes. Jack's son asked some collectors about the cards and word spread through out the card collecting community. His son, a journalist, even had the story published in "Coin World" since they were also of interest to numismatists.
Jack asked Dr. Sexton if he could have them. Being of no use to the doc he said yes. Jack's son asked some collectors about the cards and word spread through out the card collecting community. His son, a journalist, even had the story published in "Coin World" since they were also of interest to numismatists.
THE CARDS
The decks came in three different boxes. One deck not gilded and two decks gilded.
As you can see it states " The Coin Card Co. Water Valley, Miss. & Memphis, Tenn.". The Memphis part is the puzzler. The Coin Card Company did not have an office in Memphis. Neither did any of the people involved, even though Memphis was not that far away.
My thought is that the printer of the cards was from Memphis. The gilding is great and the work looks like lithography. So my choice is the S. C. Toof Company.
My thought is that the printer of the cards was from Memphis. The gilding is great and the work looks like lithography. So my choice is the S. C. Toof Company.
Stephen C. Toof was the founder of the S. C. Toof & Co., the oldest commercial printing firm in Memphis. They started in 1864, He was previously the pressroom foreman of the Memphis newspaper, the Memphis Daily Appeal. The firm was also the largest in Memphis at the time and was known world wide. This was especially because of of it's bookbinding done by Otto Zahn a Master Bookbinder. Zahn had also taught their workmen how to master gilding.
In a twist to our story Mr. Toof owned a large farm on the edge of Memphis. He had named it for his daughter Grace. It was known as "Graceland" and years later it became the home of Elvis
The other unanswered question is the band around the boxes. The printing on it was facing inward so you could not read it.
None of the decks have tax stamps but the 8 cents Internal Revenue Tax on the label would be correct for the time period the cards were made. A search for "Interstate Pinochle Playing Cards" has not yielded any information.
I would like to give thanks to Jack Gurner Jr. of Water Valley for his help on this story. It was greatly appreciated.