Saturday, October 10, 2020 - On this day in New York History: The “tuxedo” jacket premiers - Tuxedo, New York - 1886

The Original Tuxedo Club - Image from the Museum of the City of New York

If you lived in or around New York City in the year 1886, and were of the ilk of people who enjoyed activities, occasions and events that would best be described as high-society, then you would likely have known of a town approximately sixty miles north-east of Midtown Manhattan: Tuxedo, New York.

The most telling account of the history of Tuxedo’s founding can be found by way of Tuxedo Park Fine Homes. Of note, many of the earliest tennis matches ever played in the United States are believed to have been played in Tuxedo. Despite the region’s rich and intriguing history, the founding of Tuxedo, like the founding of the United States, carries with it a tragedy of colonization and displacement. Tuxedo Fine Park Homes’ historical essay brings a bit of this history to light.

Tuxedo was an uninhabited wilderness between two great Indian nations, the Algonquin to the east and south, and the Six Nations to the north and west. Every year warriors from each nation would slink away into mountains between them to hunt the elk, deer and turkeys, which lived there in large numbers. Today, only two traces of the Indians remain, the smoke stains their fires left on the rocks in secluded ravines, and the name they gave the lake –––– Ptucksepo. The first white settlers attempted to convert this into such Anglicisms as Duck Sider or Duck Cedar, but eventually the Indian name won out, as Tuxedo.

If you ran in the crowd of people who knew about and visited Tuxedo, then you also, most assuredly, were aware of Tuxedo’s Autumn Ball, the first of which took place in October of 1886. The event, according to Tuxedo Park Fine Homes (and backed by a search of the New York Times’ archives) “was covered by all of the New York society pages,” and was where “generations of American girls thought of the Ball as the most important place to make their debuts.”

While the town, Tuxedo, New York, is relatively well-known by those who live in the greater New York City region, as well as stretches of the eastern seaboard, including the Hudson Valley, Upstate, and even New England, the fact is that the popularity of the term, “tuxedo jacket,” far surpasses the prevalence of the town.

Here’s why: at the first annual Autumn Ball there was a certain guest, Mr. James Potter, who had recently visited the Prince of Wales. While abroad, upon being invited to the Prince’s country estate in Sandringham, Mr. Potter received a fashion tip, as such: “Prior to going [to the Prince’s country estate], Mr. Potter asked the Prince what he should wear for dinner. The Prince replied that he had adopted a short jacket in the place of a tailcoat for dinner in the country and that if Mr. Potter went to his tailor in London, he could get a similar jacket made. Mr. Potter did as the Prince suggested.”

When Mr. Potter returned to Tuxedo, New York and appeared at the first Autumn Ball in October, 1886, he did so donning a newly-tailored, less-formal, and short-tailed dinner jacket, the type of which would become known as the tuxedo. It definitely was a hit.

W. Anthler Cottage (1886) - Tuxedo, Park - designed by Bruce Price, an American architect who designed the original Tuxedo Club (also above).