Ajeeb the Automaton

 

Ajeeb (sometimes called “The Egyptian”) was the name of the second chess-playing automaton to become famous, after the Turk. It was a life-size Indian figure with mobile head, trunk, and right arm. It sat on a cushion mounted on a large box. It stood about 10 feet in height. Ajeeb  عجيب (ʿajīb) means “wonderful, marvelous" in Arabic.

In 1865, Charles Alfred Hooper (1825-1900), a Bristol cabinet-maker, began to build Ajeeb as a copy to the Turk, which had been destroyed in a fire in Philadelphia in 1854. He finished building Ajeeb in 1868. It was first displayed in public at the London Polytechnical Institution on Regent Street in 1868.   Ajeeb was invited to the Institute by Professor Pepper, manager of the Institution.  Hooper was the first person to play chess inside Ajeeb.  He was a fast and expert chess player and played chess for three years inside Ajeeb until his health started failing.

Between October 1868 and January 1876, it was on show at the London Crystal Palace, which had more space than the London Polytechnical Institution.   Ajeeb soon became one of the chief attractions of the palace.   Visitors who saw Ajeeb included the Shah of Persia, the Empress of Russia, the Duke of Constantine, the Sultan of Zansibar, the Chinese Ambassador, and the Viceroy of Egypt.  It was estimated that Ajeeb played about 100,000 games, winning 99 percent of the time.

In March 1876, Ajeeb moved to the Royal Aquarium at Westminster.  It remained on exhibition and played chess daily until the end of the year.  During that time, Ajeeb was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales.

From1876 to 1878, Hooper took Ajeeb to Berlin (3-month visit), Breslau, Dresden, Leipzig, Hanover, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Cologne, Elbefeld, Dusseldorf, Franfort, Wiesbaden, Brussels, and Paris.  Over 100,000 people saw it perform in Berlin in a three-month period. Johannes Zukertort (1842-1888) is said to have played it and won. Samuel Rosenthal (1837-1902), Polish master, played it twice, winning one and losing one.

While in Dresden in 1876, Ajeeb received a visit from the King and Queen on Saxony, who played several games against it.  Ajeeb also performed the knight’s tour in rapid manner.

In July 1877, Ajeeb was exhibited at a chess congress in Leipzig.  Players at the congress and spectators took their turns playing Ajeeb.  Ajeeb was not always successful at winning some of its chess games with some of the strongest chess players in Germany.

In January 1878, Ajeeb was exhibited at the Kurhais Palace in Wiesbaden.  The Duke and Duchess of Hesse, with 40 guests, attended a special private performance of Ajeeb.

In 1878, another Ajeeb was on display in Chicago, invented by Charles Schultz. (source: Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb 21, 1878)

In March 1878, Ajeeb was exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1878.  Victor Hugo and painter Gustave Dore played chess there against Ajeeb.  Several players from the Café de la Regence tried their hand against Ajeeb. 

In March 1879, Ajeeb returned to the Royal Aquarium in London.  It was on exhibit there until November 1880.

From late 1880 to 1884, Ajeeb was on display and playing chess at a wax museum in Brussels, Belgium.

In May 1884, Ajeeb returned to Paris at a new wax museum called Grevin’s Musée.  Chess players had to wait for hours in their turn for a chance of playing chess against Ajeeb.  Ajeeb was on display in Paris until June 1885.

In March 1884, the Eden Musée wax museum on West 23rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, in New York, was opened to the public.  The museum was founded by Count Kessler and a French syndicate and headed by Richard G. Hollaman and company.  It was a three-story architectural hodgepodge or arches, pilasters, and ormolu.   The museum was based on Mme. Tussaud’s Wax Works in London, with additional displays.  (source: “The Pride of the Eden Musée,” The New Yorker, Nov 30, 1943)

In June 1885, the Eden Musée wax museum authorities cabled Mr. Hooper, writing that they had an interest in displaying Ajeeb.

In July 1885, Hooper and Ajeeb boarded the Cunard steamer Etruria in Liverpool, bound for New York.

Ajeeb and Hooper came to New York and Ajeeb was first displayed on the second floor in the Eden Musée on August 1, 1885. The Hoopers paid the owner (Richard Holloman) of the Musée $100 a week to exhibit Ajeeb. The cost to play Ajeeb was ten cents for a checker game and 25 cents for a chess game (admission to the Eden Musée was 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children). Ajeeb’s hours were from 1 pm to 5 pm every afternoon and from 7 pm to 10:30 pm every evening. After deducting the salaries of a barker and the operator, and the $100 a week paid to Holloman, the Hoopers cleared over $1,000 a month 

Hooper started out as the man inside Ajeeb and played chess and checkers until 1889. He later hired chess and checker masters to be hidden inside Ajeeb. Mrs. Hooper pretended to wind Ajeeb up by turning a large key fitted in a shaft on Ajeeb’s right side. If a player tried to cheat by moving to the wrong squares or taking off one of Ajeeb’s pieces, Ajeeb would knock all the pieces off the board.

In September 1885, President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) and Vice-President Thomas Hendricks (1819-1885) visited Ajeeb’s chess room at the Eden Musée. Hendricks played a game against Ajeeb and lost in a smothered mate. (source: The International Chess Magazine, Sep 1885)

Hooper made another Ajeeb which performed concurrently in other cities (Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City). The cost to play Ajeeb was ten cents for a checker game and 25 cents for a chess game.  The operator was paid $75 a month.

Among the masters that operated Ajeeb included Charles F. Moehle (1859-1898), Albert Beauregard Hodges (1861-1944), Constant Ferdinand Burille (1866-1914), Charles Francis Barker (1858- 1909) and Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906). Hodges won the U.S. championship in 1894 and was both a chess and checker master.

In 1887, Ajeeb was on display in Chicago, at the 1887 Milwaukee Exposition (September 21, 1887), in Minneapolis, and in New Orleans, playing chess or checkers. It was noted that the Ajeeb in Milwaukee was not the original Ajeeb of the Eden Musée in New York. It was also claimed that the secret of Ajeeb was stolen from time to time by a door tender. (source: Wilkes-Barre Record, Oct 13, 1887)

In July-August 1888, Ajeeb was giving exhibitions at the 1888 Centennial Exhibition at Washington Park Hall in Cincinnati, losing only one game of chess and drawing another. It did have several checkers losses to the local experts. (sources: Columbia Chess Chronicle, 1888, p. 28 and Cincinnati Evening Post, Aug 7, 1888).

The man mostly like playing inside Ajeeb was Charles Moehle (sometimes written Charles Moeschler or Mohler). In July 1888, Moehle sued to garnish the Cincinnati Centennial exposition commissioners the sum of $75. Moehle claimed that E. J. McNeal, the manager of Ajeeb in Cincinnati, did not pay Moehle for his services inside Ajeeb. (source: Kansas City Star, July 30, 1888)

In 1888, Ajeeb was in Minneapolis and Kansas City. The operator was Charles F. Barker (former US checkers champion), who played chess and checkers. The owner of Ajeeb was John Mann of Chicago, who wagered $100 for anyone who could beat Ajeeb in a checkers match.

In August 1888, the manager of Ajeeb, E. J. McNeal, was arrested at the Cincinnati Exposition and charged with embezzlement by Ajeeb’s owner. The figure was seized by the police. The owner, John Mann, claimed that McNeil, who borrowed Ajeeb, agreed to pay Mann $60 a week out of the $100 per week that McNeal received for exhibiting Ajeeb at the Cincinnati Centennial Exhibition. Mann claimed that McNeal owed him $240. (source: Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug 12, 1888, p. 9).

In August 1888, Ajeeb defeated Professor Bacharach, a strong local chess player in Cincinnati, best 2 out of 3 games, Ajeeb winning the first two games. The wager was $100 a side. (source: Lima News, Aug 16, 1888, p. 3 and The Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug 4, 1888, p. 16)

In September 1888, Charles A. Moehle (1859-1898) of St. Paul, Minnesota was the operator of Ajeeb.  He operated Ajeeb for three years, twice a day. (source: Brooklyn Eagle, Sep 16, 1888.)

In October 1888, Moehle left as Ajeeb’s chess player, saying that he was going to build himself a machine and start into the business. After October, Ajeeb was confined to checkers and did not play chess. (source: Leavenworth Times, Oct 10, 1888, p. 1).

In October 1888, Ajeeb was on display at the Kansas City exposition, but only played checkers until December. In December 1888, Eric M. Cobb was a chess operator in Ajeeb at Kansas City (source: Kansas City Star, Dec 28, 1888).

By January 1889, there were three Ajeebs playing chess in the United States.  One was at the Eden Musée, another one was in Cincinnati and a third one in Chicago.  (source: Newark Sunday Call, Jan 20, 1889)

In January 1889, Ajeeb was on display in Chicago and Minneapolis. The new owner was John Mann and he changed Ajeeb so that it could play either chess or checkers. (source: Saint Paul Globe, Jan 13, 1889, p. 9)

In late January 1889, Ajeeb was in Atlanta, Georgia.  It had lost a majority of its chess games.  Its operator was Eric M. Cobb of Kansas City, who quit and left Atlanta after being badly defeated by a member of the Atlanta Chess Club.  (source: Newark Sunday Call, Jan 20, 1889)

In 1889, Max Judd (1851-1906) was offered to be an operator of Ajeeb, but Judd did not want to leave St. Louis. Instead, Albert Hodges (1851-1944) was hired by Hooper to play chess inside Ajeeb. Hodges was a 29-year-old statistician from Nashville, Tennessee, working as a government employee in St. Louis. Hodges was too tall for the automaton and he lasted only 6 months. He was succeeded by C. F. Burille (1866-1914). The pay was $50 to $75 a week. Hodges went on to win the US chess championship in 1894.

In 1889, there were two Ajeebs in the field. The original was at the Eden Musée in New York. A copy was on tour in Cincinnati, Chicago, and Atlanta. The weakest operator was in Atlanta, run by Eric M. Cobb of Kansas City.

Burille, from Boston, was said to have played over 900 games and losing only three chess games. He never lost a checkers game.

In March 1889, Ajeeb was displayed at Worth’s Museum in New York. The automaton had a record of only two losses when Captain George Mackenzie (1837-1891) beat it in two games. William Steinitz (1836-1900) drew three games and lost one to Ajeeb. (source: New York Herald, March 1889).

In October 1889, Ajeeb was displayed in Portland, Oregon. It lost one game of chess and one game of checkers while on display. (source: Daily Morning Astoria, Oct 29, 1889, p. 3)

In September-October 1890, Ajeeb was on display at the 25^th Industrial Exposition in San Francisco.  Its owner at the time, John Mann, paid $955 for a license to exhibit Ajeeb at a fair held at the Mechanics’ Institute Pavilion.  Tickets to see Ajeeb cost 75 cents, higher than the normal 50 cents.  (source: Edwards, “Ajeeb: the chess automaton on display at the Mechanics’ Institute Pavilion in 1890,” tarynedwards.com blog, 2021)

Between 1893 and 1900, Ajeeb was operated by Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906). 

In 1894, a new automaton chess and checker player called Chang was displayed in New York. It is supposed to have played even a stronger game of chess and checkers than Ajeeb. Its manager was Dr. August Schaefer (1856-?) of New York, a checkers master. Chang was considered almost invincible as a checker player. (source: Kansas City Gazette, Mar 24, 1894, p. 4)

The Hoopers retired to England in 1895 after selling Ajeeb to Miss Emma Haddera, a ticket seller at the Eden Musée. She then married James Smith, an assistant manager at the Musée, and the two had an interest in Ajeeb. Emma died a few years later and soon afterward, James Smith presented his wife’s share to a divorcée named Mrs. Hattie Elmore, an employee at the Musée who made all the costumes for the waxworks figures. Smith later died of tuberculosis and Mrs. Elmore became the sole owner of Ajeeb. She kept Ajeeb in operation until 1915.

In early 1885, Henry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906) was the operator of Ajeeb.   When Pillsbury went to Europe In the summer of 1895, Ajeeb went out of business for a few days.  Soon, a new operator, Peter J. Hill (1870-1929) of New York and Boston, was found to operate Ajeeb as a chess player.  (source: New York World, Oct 20, 1895)

In October 1895, Pillsbury purchased Ajeeb.  He played 10 to 15 chess games a day inside Ajeeb. (source: Sioux City Journal, Oct 23, 1895).

In November 1897, a Mr. Bullitt committed suicide,  He had been chronically addicted to playing an automaton called Ching Chang (operated by Pillsbury) at chess and never winning. (source: The Chicago Inter Ocean, Dec 5, 1897, p. 21)

In March 1898, William E. Napier (1881-1952) played a chess game against Ajeeb in Brooklyn. However, the lights went out the game did not continue. At the time, Napier was winning the game. (source: Literary Digest, April 2, 1898)

On May 6, 1898, Charles H. Moehle, age 38, one of the operators of Ajeeb, died. (source: Chicago Inter Ocean, May 7, 1898, p. 2)

In 1898, Martinka & Company of New York, America’s oldest magic shop, sold a chess-playing automaton, which was featured in their 1898 and 1906 catalogs.  (source: Oswald, “Abracadabra,” www.invention.edu, Feb 27, 2014)

One of the operators, Peter J. Hill, defeated a woman player. She was so enraged that she stuck a hatpin into the mouth of Ajeeb, wounding Hill, who remained quiet. (source: Time magazine, Feb 4, 1929)

On another occasion, Hill was shot in the shoulder when a Westerner lost his game to Ajeeb. He emptied his six-shooter into the automaton. (source: New York Times, Jan 23, 1929)

In September 1898, Pillsbury sold Ajeeb, was no longer associated with the Eden Musée, and moved to Philadelphia.  (source: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sep 9, 1898).

In 1901, Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) played Ajeeb in a game of chess. The game was drawn.

In April 1910, Captain Francis B. Fishburne of Columbia, SC, visited New York and beat Ajeeb at checkers in 3 games.  Fishburne was considered the Southern checkers champion at the time.

After 1915 Ajeeb concentrated on checkers. The Eden Musée went bankrupt after the introduction of movie theaters and closed in June 1915. (source: “Eden Musée Faces Bankruptcy.” New York Times, p. 17, June 8, 1915)

The last man to work Ajeeb (checkers) at the Eden World of Wax of Coney Island was Jesse Bonaparte Hanson.  He was considered the second-best checkers player in the United States, behind Samuel Gonotsky (1902-1929).

In 1916, Ajeeb was set up at Hamid’s Museum, owned by Samuel W. Gumpertz (1868-1952) on Surf Avenue on Coney Island where the operator was Sam Gonotsky, a Western Union messenger from Brooklyn and a world class checkers player. It was too hard to pay the high salaries asked by skilled chess players, so the owners decide to use checkers players.  Gumpertz also owned Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier in Atlantic City.

For much of the time after 1916, Sam Gonotsky  was Ajeeb’s operator.  One day, his understudy was operating Ajeeb when a Coney Island visitor lost to Ajeeb and got so mad that he shot Ajeeb in the torso.  This killed the understudy inside Ajeeb.  To conceal the secret that Ajeeb was not a true robot, and due to the transient nature of this particular apprentice, the owner of Ajeeb disposed of the body without consequences.  (sources: “Robot of the Week: Ajeeb,” www.pizzateen.com, Oct 1, 2007 and Pletz, “Ajeeb,” www.scc.net)

Mrs. Elmore, the owner of Ajeeb, had a disagreement with Gumpertz and later moved Ajeeb to the rival World of Wax Musée of Coney Island a few doors down from Hamid’s.

Mrs. Elmore later married Wethereall McKeever and in 1925 she retired and took Ajeeb home with her in Brooklyn. McKeever put Ajeeb on display in his garage, and then it was stored in the attic.

In 1926, Gustav Burzendt, who claimed to be a distant uncle of von Kempelen, tried to purchase Ajeeb, but couldn’t come up with the money. He then tried to steal it.

In 1928, Wethereall McKeever died.

In January 1929, Peter J. Hill (1870-1929), one of Ajeeb’s chess operators for 9 years, died at the age of 59 in Massachusetts. (source: New York Times, Jan 24, 1929, p. 20)

On March 15, 1929, one of the Ajeebs was destroyed in a fire at Coney Island.  There had been other unauthorized copies of Ajeeb, making it history hard to trace.

In 1929, Sam Gonotsky died of tuberculosis at age 26.

In 1932 a copy of Ajeeb was sold to Jesse Henley (checker master) and Frank Farina by a craftsman named Gus Burns. Henley never lost a checker game and only drew 8 games in his lifetime as an Ajeeb operator. They then took it on tour in Canada. The operators took Ajeeb to Canada and had it blessed at a shrine in Quebec.

In January 1935, Ajeeb was displayed at the Marshall Chess Club. Frank Marshall played one game with Ajeeb. The game was a draw.

In March 1935, Ajeeb was displayed in Reading, Pennsylvania at the YMCA and played checkers against all comers. (source: Reading Times, Mar 18, 1935)

In 1936, Ajeeb toured America under contract with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Winners got a Magic Brain radio set, but there were no winners. Only eight $25 credit slips towards a radio were given out – the prize for playing Ajeeb to a draw. Frain and Hansen made $300 a week, appearing in department stores, amusement parks, and hotels. Ajeeb was called the RCA-Victor Checker Playing Robot.

Ajeeb was later displayed at Masonic temples, Rotary Clubs, and state fairs.

In 1939, Ajeeb performed in the basement of Hubert’s Museum, a penny arcade and flea circus on West 42nd Street.

In 1940, Ajeeb was featured at President Roosevelt’s Birthday Ball. It later performed at the Waldorf-Astoria for an Aid to Britain party during World War II.

By 1940, Ajeeb had appeared in every major U.S. city, Mexico, Guatemala, and Canada. Over 6 million people have seen Ajeeb. (source: Long Island Star Journal, April 3, 1940)

In 1943, Ajeeb was stored in Queens, broken into eight parts.  Seven parts rested in the back of a Cadillac touring car which was stored in an open-air parking lot.  Ajeeb’s head was in a trunk in the Jackson Heights apartment of one of Ajeeb’s two owners.  (source: Thorn, “Ajeeb, the Eden Musée Chessman,” gothanhistory.com, May 11, 2015)

Ajeeb disappeared after 1944.

Some of Ajeeb’s opponents include Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Houdini, Admiral  Dewey, O. Henry (William Porter), Sarah Bernhardt, William Jennings Bryan, Vice-President Hendricks, Secretary of the Navy William Whitney, Arthur Treacher, baseball pitcher Christy Mathewson (1880-1925), British boxer Bob Fitzsimmons (1863-1917), and actress Marie Dressler.   

A number of Wall Street men spent their lunch hour playing Ajeeb on days when the Stock Exchange was quiet.

O. Henry lived on 24th Street and would frequently drop in at the Musée and play a game of chess against Ajeeb. There is the story that O. Henry knew there was an operator in Ajeeb and used to slip a drink of whiskey to the operator behind the papier-mache.  .  (source: Baral, Turn West on 23^rd: A Toast to New York’s Old Chelsea, p. 59, 1965)

Sarah Bernhardt played a game of chess against Ajeeb on each of her four trips to the United States between 1886 and 1900.   Bernhardt lived at the Hotel Chelsea, a block away from the Eden Musée, and visited the museum several times to play chess against Ajeeb.  (source: Baral, Turn West on 23^rd: A Toast to New York’s Old Chelsea, p. 59, 1965)

Christy Mathewson, the baseball player, also liked to play chess against Ajeeb. Also, several Wall Street men would come by and play chess against Ajeeb for an hour or two in the afternoon when the Stock Exchange was quiet.

From 1868 to 1944 the operators were: Charles Francis Barker, Constant F. Burille, Eric M. Cobb, L.B. Cobb, Sam Gonotsky, Jesse Hanson, Peter J. Hill, Albert B. Hodges, Charles Edward Hooper, Charles Moehle, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Adolph Sangg, and Doc Schaefer.

Other automatons: Ching-Chang, Mephisto, Turk, Ultimatum, Hajeb, As-Rah, Mazam, Ali, Akimo, and Kado.

 

References:

“Ajeeb,” www.chessgames.com - The chess games of Ajeeb (Automaton)

Anonymous, The Adventures of Ajeeb, 1885

Cook, The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum, 2001

Kidwell, “Playing Checkers with Machines – from Ajeeb to Chinook,” Information & Culture, Vol 40, no, 4 (Fall 2015)

Kobler, “Where Are they Now?  The Pride of the Eden Musée,” New Yorker, Nov 20, 1943

Schaeffer, One Step Ahead, 1997

Wall, “Turk, Ajeeb, Mephisto – the great Chess Automatons,” White Knight Review, Jan/Feb 2011, pp. 4-6