According to Baseball-Reference, Robert Livingston Armstrong arrived on this earth in Baltimore on July 4, 1850, though, if you were to believe the 1850 US Census, his birthday was more likely to be in 1849. And, if you believe a profile about candidate Robert L. Armstrong written in 1905, his birthdate was July 18, 1854. It very well could be July 18, 1849 – which is the date that makes the most sense to this researcher.

He was the third child of seven born to John Horatio and Caroline Amelia (Scheldt) Armstrong; he was a Baltimore area farmer for many years; she was a busy wife who raised the family. Robert, through his father, can trace family lineage back to a John Armstrong, who was a Major General in the Pennsylvania Militia and a Brigadier General in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and John’s son, Major John Armstrong, Jr., a Princeston student who served under General Hugh Mercer at the Battle of Princeton and, in fact, pulled Mercer off the field when Mercer suffered a mortal injury during that battle. (Adding to this Revolutionary theme, John Horatio Armstrong’s father’s name was Horatio Gates Armstrong…)

After the Great War for Slavery, Armstrong took up baseball while earning money as a store clerk in the city of Baltimore. He spent at least three summers playing for the Marylands, one of the top amateur nines in Baltimore. In 1871, he was hired to play the center field for the Kekiongas of Fort Wayne, IN in part because the Kekiongas were loaded with former Maryland players. If you look at the box score from a game between the Marylands of Baltimore and the Olympics of Washington in the May 14, 1870 New York Clipper, you will see pitcher Bobby Mathews, catcher Bill Lennon, infielder Tom Carey, shortstop Wally Goldsmith, outfielder Ed Mincher, and infielder Charles Bierman – all were members of the Kekiongas; all but Bierman were regulars. It’s no wonder that when Fort Wayne needed a centerfielder, they called their old teammate to fill the role.

Starting with his debut on June 26, 1871 against the Eckfords in Brooklyn (no hits, no errors, four putouts in center field), Armstrong appeared in 12 games, batting .224 – which was within seven points of six other regulars on the team. The Kekiongas won the first game in which Armstrong appeared – then lost the next nine games, falling out of contention, before ending the season with a 7 – 12 record. He returned to Baltimore and played on some of the other amateur teams of the city but never played professionally again.

After leaving Baltimore in late 1880, Armstrong first stopped in Texarkana, Arkansas where he took a joint cashier role with the Iron Mountain, Texas, and Pacific Railways. He left that role to take a clerk position in the Warrant County Clerk’s office in Fort Worth around 1885. He also served as a third ward election official in some capacity for a few years.

In fact, when Armstrong died his obituary noted that he was a pioneer of Fort Worth and Tarrant County in Texas. The city had been incorporated in 1873; it was a stop along the old Chisholm Trail – the route along which Texas cattle ranchers would move their cattle to Kansas rail lines. Armstrong’s arrival coincided with the arrival of railways to the city; as a title abstract clerk, he was tasked with documenting land ownership for the burgeoning city.

In Fort Worth, Armstrong married Bettie Arnold, the teen daughter of German immigrants, on Thanksgiving Day in 1886. It was a duel wedding as Bettie’s sister Augusta married John Tygert. While Robert and Bettie had an active life together, it did not include having children. After their wedding, Armstrong joined and managed the Tarrant County Abstract Company from that company’s founding in the 1880s until he fell ill in 1912. Along the way, he served on the Fort Worth city school board and ran for alderman.

Robert died on December 3, 1917 and is buried next to his wife in an unmarked grave in Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth.

Notes:

1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910 US Census Records
Texas Death Records
Texas Marriage Certficates

Baseball-Reference.com

“Championship of the South,” New York Clipper, May 10, 1870: 3.
“A Bombshell,” Fort Worth Gazette, May 5, 1886: 5.
“Armstrong Runs,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 8, 1905: 3. (Includes photo seen here.)
“The Fort Worth and Tarrant County Abstract Company,” Fort Worth Record, July 10, 1910: Part Two, Page 8.
Obit, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 4, 1917: 11.
Obit, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 16, 1960: 11.