Wayman C. McCreery

{{short description|American classical composer}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Wayman C. McCreery

|image = Wayman Crow McCreery—Newark Daily Advocate, 1900.png

|image_size =

|caption = McCreery in or about 1900 (Detail from February 6, 1900 edition of The Newark Daily Advocate)

|birth_date = June 14, 1851Wayman McCreery's U.S. passport application dated May 30, 1895. Accessed through Ancestry.com on June 2, 2009.

|birth_place = St. Louis, Missouri

|death_date = 1901{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C02E5DF1130E132A25752C3A9619C946097D6CF|title=Killed By Too Much Golf; Dr. Bernays of St. Louis Says Overindulgence in Game Caused Wayman McCreery's Death|last=Staff writers|date=July 31, 1901|work=The New York Times|access-date=June 2, 2009}}

|death_place = St. Louis, Missouri

|other_names = Wayman Crow McCreery

|known_for = Popularizer{{cite book|last=Shamos|first=Michael Ian|year=1993|title=The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards|publisher=Lyons & Burford|location=New York, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/illustratedencyc0000sham/page/244 244]|isbn=1-55821-219-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/illustratedencyc0000sham/page/244}} and possible inventor of three-cushion billiards.{{cite book | last = Thomas | first = Augustus | year = 1922 | title = The Print of My Remembrance | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.204564 | publisher = C. Scribner's Sons | location = New York, London | page = [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.204564/page/n133 117]}}

|occupation = Billiards player, real estate agent, internal revenue collector of St. Louis, opera composer

|years_active =

|signature =

}}

Wayman Crow McCreery (June 14, 1851 – 1901) was a real estate agent, opera composer, and the internal revenue collector of St. Louis, Missouri. He is best known as the popularizer and possible inventor of three-cushion billiards.{{cite news|newspaper=Brooklyn Daily Eagle|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/50406390/|date=February 12, 1899|title=Champions at Billiards: Three Noted Amateurs to Compete in the Tournament at the Knickerbocker Athletic Club|location=New York|page=9}}

Soon after McCreery's 1897 appointment as St. Louis' internal revenue collector, he was described as "probably the most accomplished officeholder in the service of the government. He has held the college record for the long distance baseball throw, has been a champion amateur billiardist, is choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral, is a good singer [and] has composed an opera."{{cite news|title=At Home and Abroad|date=January 2, 1897|publisher=Saturday Evening News|pages=front page}}

Playwright Augustus Thomas' wrote of him in 1922:

A moving spirit in the McCullough Club—in its organization, its management, and in its active expression—was Wayman McCreery, now dead. I am sure that ten thousand of his surviving contemporaries in the city of St. Louis will remember Wayman McCreery. Few men are so physically and intellectually equipped as he was. There was nothing that an athlete could do with his body that in a notable degree Wayman McCreery could not do. He was boxer, wrestler, fencer, runner, and swimmer, and all-round athlete. In addition to these he was a graceful step dancer. Intellectually he was equipped with a college training and had an interest in everything that interested the intelligent people of his day. He sang well enough to be a leading tenor in a fashionable choir. He wrote music of good quality. He was the author of the opera "L'Afrique," which was first done by amateurs in St. Louis and subsequently produced in New York, although with not very great success, by Jesse Williams. McCreery will be remembered by the sporting world as the inventor of the three cushion game of billiards, of which he was at one time the national champion. As Hugh Chalcot in Robertson's comedy "Ours" it would have taken a professional to equal him. Another part of McCreery's was Captain Hawtree in "Caste," by the same author.

The very first tournament at three-cushion billiards took place January 14–31, 1878, in C. E. Mussey's Room in St. Louis. McCreery played in the tourney, which was won by New Yorker Leon Magnus. The high run for the tournament was just 6 points, and the high average a .75.{{cite book|last=Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company|title=Modern Billiards|publisher=Trow Directory|location=New York|year=1909|page=333|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qXIuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA333}}

McCreery won the Amateur Championship of Missouri four straight times. He posted high runs during competition of 336 at straight rail; 54 at cushion caroms, and 14 at three cushion—in which his "remarkable skill has given him a worldwide reputation." In the estimation of Willie Hoppe, a 51-time world champion{{cite news|url=https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F20D1EF73E59107B93C0A91789D85F4D8585F9|title=Willie Hoppe Dead; Master of Billiards|last=United Press International|date=February 2, 1959|work=The New York Times|url-access=subscription |page=1}} in three forms of carom billiards,{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SeIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA122|last=Hoppe|first=Willie|date=November 1946|title=How to Play Three-Cushion Billiards|journal=Popular Mechanics|publisher=Hearst Magazines|volume=86|issue=5|page=123|issn=0032-4558}}

McCreery was "one of the finest performers [at straight rail] in the country."{{cite news|title=Hoppe recalls game With Sutton in Plea for Three-Night Contest|last=Hoppe|first=Willie|date=March 27, 1910|publisher=Indianapolis Star|page=2}}

In February 1899, McCreery competed against Martin Mullen and Wilson P. Foss in the American Athletic Union's Class A Amateur Championship of America, at 14-point balkline{{Cref2|fn. 1}} held at New York City's Knickerbocker Club. They were described by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as "without doubt the best three amateurs in the country". There, McCreery set two amateur world records: the first for a {{cuegloss|high run}} of 139 points in one game, and the second for maintaining a point average of 13.33, in the context of a {{cuegloss|race}} to 400 points.{{cite book|title=Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac|section=Billiards—Records|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0sIWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA132|edition=1st|year=1900 |publisher=Brooklyn Daily Eagle|location=New York|pages=132–133}}

McCreery was secretary of the Security Building Company.{{cite book|last=Stevens|first=Walter Barlow|title=Centennial history of Missouri: (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921|publisher=S. J. Clarke publishing company|location=St. Louis|year=1921|volume=IV|page=878|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EIgUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA878}}

McCreery composed a Te Deum Laudamus and the music to the libretto L'Afrique, also known as "the Tale of the Dark Continent".{{cite book|last=State Historical Society of Missouri|title=Missouri historical review|publisher=State Historical Society of Missouri|location=St. Louis|year=1923|volume=17|pages=152–4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PKoKAAAAIAAJ&q=%22wayman+c.+mccreery%22}}

McCreery was married and had three daughters and a son.

In August 2018, a 3-cushion tournament called "Champion of Champions" was organized under his name.[http://www.mccreerychampionofchampions.com/ McCreedy 3-Cushion Champion of Champions], August 2018