By David Cain
Author’s Note: In 2015, I introduced the juggling world to Ollie Young, an important and innovative juggler who had been almost completely forgotten. In 2025, I was contacted by an attorney who lived in Columbus, Ohio, Ollie Young’s hometown. He told me that his great uncle had been a very close friend to Ollie’s widow and that she had left him all of Ollie’s scrapbooks from throughout his career. The attorney was now in possession of these scrapbooks and wanted to know if I would want them. I obviously said that I was very interested. I took possession of them in September of 2025 and was amazed at all of the information and all the photos they held. This will be the first of several articles detailing the information I’ve discovered about this important juggling innovator.
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Ollie Young (1875 – 1946) was born Oliver R. Young in Columbus, Ohio (USA) to John and Madeline Young. He was a member of a large pioneer family and had four brothers and three sisters. As a boy, he worked as a courier for the Columbus Dispatch newspaper and would often deliver messages to William G. McKinley, then governor of Ohio, and later President of the United States. It isn’t known when or how he learned to juggle, but it is known that he began performing professionally as a teen in early 1892.
Ollie Young was a talented juggler, initially best known for his work with clubs. A review from 1895 from a performance in nearby Marion, Ohio states, “Ollie Young is a juggler of jugglers. Young’s performance with the clubs is absolutely the best we have ever seen on any stage. No use talking, the grand entree was the hit of the show It was superb.”
Young was the first juggler ever seen by famous club juggler and prop maker Harry Lind. Lind wrote, “In the spring of 1898 I saw Ollie Young with Field’s Minstrels and that summer at Celoron Park. After the park season closed Ollie came here and practiced at Allen’s Opera House before going to New York City to open at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall. I was a privileged character at the Opera House and so was permitted to watch Ollie practice. He was a great club juggler, doing four club tricks, foot balance, and the three clubs thrown right and left between legs. Though I have seen many do this latter trick since, no one in my opinion equaled the ease with which Ollie accomplished it. He first did four clubs at Hartman’s Opera House, Columbus, Ohio in 1898, at the start of the season with Field’s Minstrels. Ollie had a one sheet litho showing him using four clubs, a copy of which is in my collection, and to my knowledge this is the only “one sheet” to be used by a club juggler.”
Ollie Young was credited by his contemporaries as the inventor of kick ups with clubs, using the step over, crossed legged version. He was also one of the first to do complex tricks with three and four clubs. He and Morris Cronin were considered the best club jugglers prior to the start of the twentieth century.
Despite leaving home at such a young age, Ollie was very intelligent and talented in a variety of ways. He was considered a talented pianist, singer, and dancer, and was a chess champion.
Review from 1892
Ollie had an eventful start to his career. He accidently shot himself in the left leg with a gun in February of 1892.
In 1894, Ollie was joined by another Columbus, OH juggler named Billy Eberhart to create a club juggling duo.
It was during their time together that Billy Eberhart accidentally discovered the art of hoop rolling and began his very successful career as William Everhart, the inventor of hoop rolling and juggling.
Ollie Young, later in his career, gave a more detailed description of how this came about.
In 1900, Ollie Young was the first juggler included in Edward Van Wyck’s “America and Europe’s Greatest Jugglers” with a billing of “Greatest of All” and “World’s Superior Club Expert.” It is known that Young was with the Field Show for two seasons and then spent a season with the Lew Dockstader Minstrels near the beginning of his career.
Photo from America and Europe’s Greatest Jugglers, 1900
Ollie even had the opportunity to perform in the same stage as the great Houdini.
Ollie Young worked as a solo artist until 1901, when he joined with his younger brother Dewitt to form the first of three successful acts that would define the rest of his career. We’ll learn about these team acts in follow up articles.
David Cain
David Cain is a professional juggler, juggling historian, and the owner of the world's only juggling museum, the Museum of Juggling History. He is a Guinness world record holder and 16 time IJA gold medalist. In addition to his juggling pursuits, David is a successful composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and singer as well as the author of twenty-six books. He and his children live in Middletown, OH (USA).