John Boyle O'Reilly and Friends formed the Boston Athletic Association in 1887

The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) was founded in 1887 by a group of local athletes, civil leaders and organizations in Boston.  Since then the BAA has become one of the most successful amateur sports associations in the world,  presiding over the annual Boston Marathon and a variety of road races and community events in Massachusetts.

One of the founders of the BAA was an Irish immigrant, poet and amateur sportsman named John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-90).  

Better known as a fiery rebel, activist and leader of the Irish community during his  20 years in Boston, O'Reilly was a celebrated amateur sportsman who believed in the physical, mental and spiritual benefits of sports.  His 1888 book, Ethics of Boxing and Manly Sports, included a treatise on boxing  - he was friends with heavyweight champ John L. Sullivan - and sketches of O'Reilly's canoe trips throughout New England and Pennsylvania.  One essay in the book, "How to Grow Strong by Exercise, Training, Diet and Sleep," was described by one newspaper as "probably the most complete study of this important subject ever made in this country."

The impetus to form the BAA came about in January 1887,  according to The Boston Globe in a March 9, 1912 story on the BAA’s 25th anniversary. “At the suggestion of the late John Boyle O’Reilly, the first meeting was formed to consider…forming an athletic club in Boston."  That meeting demonstrated the pent-up enthusiasm for such a club, along the lines of the famous New York Athletic Club, and the organizers agreed to proceed.

On March 25 1887, "The petition for a bill to incorporate the Boston Athletic Association was submitted to the legislature.  The signers of the petition were Henry Parkman, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. O. Shaw, Jr. and A.P. Martin," reported the Globe.

And finally, on  May 9, 1887, the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act to officially incorporate the BAA.

The first meeting of the BAA took place on June 14, 1887 at the Boston Cadet Armory at the corner of Arlington Street and Columbus Avenue in Boston. The full membership of 1,200 was already enrolled by the time the first meeting took place.

Author John Hanc's book, B.A.A. at 125,  recounts the formation of the group and gives a synopsis of O'Reilly's life and his involvement in the forming the city's most famous athletic organization.

In addition to developing the Boston Marathon into one of the world's great races, the BAA helped field the first US Olympic team that competed in Athens, Greece in 1896.

O’Reilly's life is full of adventure and daring.  Born in County Meath, Ireland in 1844, O'Reilly was convicted of sedition against the British Empire, and sentenced to life imprisonment in a British penal colony in Western Australia.  In 1869 he escaped imprisonment and spent days in the bush, until he was able to stole-away on board a whaling ship out of New Bedford, MA.  He arrived in Boston in 1870, where he lived until his death in 1890 from an accidental overdose of medication at age 46.

Today, a memorial to John Boyle O'Reilly is located in the Fens at the top of Boylston Street, and there are various other tributes to him around Massachusetts, Ireland and Australia. 

Find about more about Boston Irish history by visiting IrishHeritageTrail.com.