The man who would later found a great chain of hardware stores, Ben Franklin.

This rings a bell from the John Adams biography, actually.

Or failing that, Sam Adams: brewer, patriot.

I was hoping that the non-Philly setting would lead people off on an entertainingly false trail, but I should know better than to thing that such tricks will get over on the likes of you all. Boxjam puts it away early: Young Ben Franklin, writing as "Silence Dogood" in his brother James's paper, is indeed the correct answer. A tip of the tricorner hat to you, sir.

But so that we might yet be diverted, I offer this head-scratcher: in the 1978 journal Fleas, writer Fred Shapiro offered a brief essay titled "Origins." It began:

"The information that follows was not easily come by. Since the Library of Congress and the New York Public, Harvard University, Boston Public and National Geographic Society libraries were combed for relevant materials, it may be said that virtually the entire library resources of the United States were exhausted. I studied the recreational, social and linguistic histories of many different countries and eras, written in many different languages (for the crucial segment of my research, I had to find someone who could read ancient Chinese!). This is not the kind of thing usually discussed in books; ____ has such low status that even books describing hundreds of children's or table games often omit it. Accordingly, I had to search through things like historical dictionaries, anthropological journals, ETwA references and toy catalogues. Rick Tucker helped me in this work, but the essential findings were my own.

I also want to state at the outset that this is entirely serious, unlike the historical conclusions of some other ___ers, such as the early Oxonians who had me on the wrong track for a month because of their claim that Alfred the Great had played ___. This turned out to be a joke.

"It is necessary to begin by defining the essential elements of ___, those features which differentiate it from other games and enable us to determine whether a given game corresponds to it or is a possible precursor. I believe that there is a single item which is the core: the squidger."

What game is Shapiro writing about?

Brewer, patriot, catty female impersonator. Shame he didn't live into the era of drag brunches, really.

I'll jump on the Adams wagon and suggest the astoundingly precocious John Quincy Adams, though I don't really imagine any of these guys would be claiming to be a middle-aged widow, except for Ben Franklin, maybe. He seemed more comfortable in his masculinity, in a Bugs Bunny sort of way. In the movie version of 1776, anyway.

I believe Shapiro refers to the ancient tradition of freeze tag.

Or failing that, badminton.

Hopscotch

Parcheesi

I agree with Scott that the only really plausible guess was Franklin, who just seemed to have a greater sense of whimsy than the rest of the revolutionary crew.

Plus anyone who read the beginning of Neal Stephenson's latest epic will remember a young Ben in Boston.

Also: Spin the bottle!

Spin the bottle.

I don't know about the squidger -- I didn't play much StB as a kid, since my sisters made up the bulk of the girl population in the neighborhood.

A childhood bio of Ben I read credited the "Silence Dogood" columns with ending the practice of stockade punishment in Boston. He wrote it ironically, Silence in favor of the humiliation it bestowed on the punishee. Also, when James found out that Ben was the mysterious writer of the columns, he canned him.

Thumb wrestling. A really good wrestler can leave you with a painful squidger.

If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, Boxjam: wear a cup!

No right answers on the game yet.

And FWIW, according to Walter Isaacson's biography, in the summer of 1722 James spent 3 weeks in jail without charge, and that's when the Silence Dogood columns really hit their stride, critiquing religious hypocrisy and high-handed use of religious authority in government. When James later found out that Ben was writing the column, he killed it (Ben said James thought it was making him too vain)-- but then got himself in hot water a few months later for essentially repeating the same ideas in the paper without a clever literary invention like Dogood to hide behind. James was forbidden by local authorities to publish for a while -- and so the paper continued to come out, but with Ben's name at the top of the masthead. And according to Isaacson, he actually did more or less run the paper then, just as he did when James was in jail.

There's more: in order to turn the paper over to his brother legally, James had to discharge Ben as an apprentice. But James had Ben sign a secret apprenticeship agreement to replace it, never intending to let his brother off the hook. When James returned to control of the paper, he began treating Ben as he had before, with little respect and physical beatings. So, figuring that a secret apprenticeship agreement would be tough for his brother to enforce, he used the opportunity to split, and left Boston for good.

and in Philadelphia he picked up the charming ancient Chinese game of Ping Pong.

Man, I am learning more stuff here...

Tiddlywinks

It is indeed tiddlywinks! Full article here:

http://www.cpcug.org/user/rwtucker/tiddlywinks/fleas-history-origins.html

Played, presumably to this day, by the Bushes of Kennebunkport. I learned this while interning at the DNC as we assembled a document called 500 Days of Haze targeting the elder Bush, the one who doesn't like broccoli.

"Bar...I can't find my squidger!"