Kentucky by Heart: Nellie and Jackson Showalter were champion chess players from Georgetown

By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

Did kings and queens once rule in our state? Well, probably not, unless you go back in history to tag two Central Kentuckians — husband and wife — who mightily excelled in the game of chess, gaining national recognition.

Recently, while doing my daily Kentucky history reading, I discovered that Georgetown and the Scott County area listed 37 individuals on their “notable people list.” The listing covered those living as far back as the 1700s, including such as Baptist minister/whiskey distiller Elijah Craig.

Similarly, Barton Stone, another minister on the list was well-known for his part in promoting the Second Great Awakening of Christian religious fervor that started in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1790s. Also mentioned on the collection of names were American Civil War officers Stephan Burbridge and Basil Duke in the 1800s. There were contemporary names added too, and I was tickled to see my favorite college basketball coach, EKU’s A.W. Hamilton, being one of them.

I’ll say this, though. With a little more thought, the number of Scott County/Georgetown notables could probably be increased easily. Do some research and you’ll see. The place is a force for state history and contemporary times.

But back to the chess reference.

Nellie and Jackson Showalter married in 1887, and with their children, operated a farm in Georgetown. Jackson was already a well-known, champion-level chess player. He had been born in the small community of Minerva, in Mason County. In a previous column, I wrote about another luminary from Minerva, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Stanley Forman Reed.

Jackson was an 1881 graduate from the Kentucky Military Institute, then in Frankfort. He played organized baseball with several traveling teams in the state. According to an unsubstantiated report, he may have been the first person in Kentucky to throw a curve ball. For sure, chess was his best game.

Nellie was born in Brookfield, Missouri, but raised in the community of Donerail, Kentucky, in Fayette County, near what is today the Kentucky Horse Park. After their marriage, Jackson began teaching his wife how to master the chess game, too. He succeeded greatly. Within six years, she could beat her husband when using “knight odds,” a handicapping allowance.

And though I couldn’t find a specific all-time chess record for Nellie Showalter, she competed against elite woman player Harriet Worrall many times, and in 1904, according to the American Chess Bulletin, vol. 1, was called “without a doubt, the strongest player of her sex in America.”

Jackson Showalter won U.S. Championship matches in 1891-92, and 1894-95, 1896 (twice). Though still elite, he lost matches in 1890, 1892, 1894, 1897-1898, and 1909. After the turn of the century, his overall effectiveness diminished. He was often called the “Kentuckian Lion” because of his native state and his thick shock of hair. Some of his greatest matches were against perennial star Harry Nelson Peabody. Another star he faced, Emanuel Lasker, said of Showalter: “No man in all my experience ever stood up with such a formidable front as the talented Kentuckian. He is the greatest player I ever met.”

According to his biographer, Kevin Marchese, Jackson Showalter “happily lived out his remaining years surrounded by family at his Georgetown farm. He was often seen on the rooftops in town or out in his field with a table and board, playing chess with friends and family.

Jackson died on his birthday in 1935, leaving wife, Nellie, as a widow until her death in 1946. He was elected to the World Chess Hall of Fame long after his death, being recognized on August 7, 2010. On that occasion, the plaque was accepted on behalf of the Showalter family by his great granddaughter, Amy Showalter.

One comment made to a Mansfield, Ohio, newspaper reporter about the chess talent the couple possessed was quite revealing. “Let me see,” Nellie said. “I was married at sixteen and now am twenty-three. That makes seven years playing with the champion chess player of the United States. It would be funny if I did not know a little, would it not?”

The couple and several other family members are buried in the Georgetown Cemetery, Georgetown, Kentucky.

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