- Name Article: A Gambler’s gift to Art
- Author: By George H. Kennedy Jr.
- Year: 12 February 1933
- Published in: The Billings Gazette
- Location: Billings Montana, New York, USA
A Gambler’s gift to Art – By George H. Kennedy Jr. in The Billings Gazette (Billings Montana), New York
A huge newspaper article in The Billings Gazette from 1933 was about the friendship between Canfield and James McNeill Whistler, a very famous artist at the time. Here, George Kennedy Jr. refers to the Canfield Solitaire game. The description of the game relates to the game we call Klondike nowadays. The writer mentions a payout of $500 a card back, which means the buy-in would have been $5000 or even $5200, enormous amounts in the time Canfield would have run his gambling house.
“He was the inventor of the Solitaire game that bears his name. You probably play it: almost everyone does. It goes one card up and six cards down in a row to start. Aces go in the center and upon these, the deuces and treys are placed in order – if you can turn them up. Canfield uses to pay $500 for every card that vents in the center, but it cost more than ten times for that for the privilege of playing”