Ajeeb was the name of the second automaton to become famous, after the Turk. It was a lifesize Indian figure with mobile head, trunk, and right arm. It sat on a cushion mounted on a large box.
In 1865, Charles Alfred Hooper (1825-1900), a Bristol cabinet-maker, began to build Ajeeb as a copy to the Turk. He finished building Ajeeb in 1968. It was first displayed at the London Crystal Palace in 1868.
In 1877 Ajeeb moved to the Royal Aquarium at Westminster.
Hooper then took Ajeeb to Berlin, Breslau, Dresden, Leipzig, Hanover, Magdeburg, Cologne, Elbefeld, Dusseldorf, Franfurt, Wiesbaden, Brussels, and Paris. Over 100,000 people saw it perform.
In 1885, Ajeeb and Hooper came to New York and Ajeeb was displayed in the Eden Musee (1883-1916) on Twenty-third Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, in New York. In September, 1885, President Grover Cleveland and Vice-President Hendricks visited Ajeeb's chess room. Hendrick played a game against Ajeeb and lost.
Hooper made another Ajeeb which performed concurrently in other cities (Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City). The cost to play Ajeeb was ten cents for a checker game and 25 cents for a chess game.
Among the masters that operated Ajeeb included Charles F. Moehle (1859-1898), Albert Beauregard Hodges (1861-1944), Constant Ferdinand Burille (1866-1914), Charles Francis Barker (US checkers champion in 1905) and Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906). Hodges won the U.S. championship in 1894 and was both a chess and checker master.
Hooper retired to England in 1895 after selling it to James Smith. The new operator was Sam Gotski. On one occasion a sore loser took his gun out and shot into the torso of Ajeeb, wounding the operator. There is also some speculation that this sore loser killed an apprentice operator inside Ajeeb. The accidental killing was then covered up.
In 1898 Sam Gotski was no longer the operator of Ajeeb. He left complaining that Ajeeb was moving on its own accord.
From 1898 to 1904 Henry Pillsbury was the operator of Ajeeb.
After 1915 Ajeeb concentrated on checkers.
In 1916 Ajeeb was set up at Coney Island.
On March 15, 1929, one of the Ajeebs was destroyed in a fire at Coney Island.
In 1932 a copy of Ajeeb was sold to Jesse Henley (checker master) and Frank Farina by Gus Burns. Henley never lost a checker game and only drew 8 games in his lifetime as an Ajeeb operator. They then took it on tour in Canada. The operators took Ajeeb to Canada and had it blessed at a shrine in Quebec.
In 1936 Ajeeb toured America. Winners got a radio set.
Some of Ajeeb's opponents include Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Houdini, Admiral Dewey, O. Henry, Sarah Bernhardt, and actress Marie Dressler.
Ajeeb disappeared during World War II.
Ajeeb - Divine, New York 1890
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 Nxe4 5.Nxf7 Qh4 6.Qe2 Bc5 7.g3 Qf6 8.Qxe4 Qxf2+ 9.Kd1 d5
10.Bxd5 Bf5 11.Bxc6+ bxc6 12.Qxe5+ Kxf7 13.Qxc7+ Kg8 14.Qf4 Qxf4 15.gxf4 Bg4+ 16.Ke1 Re8+
17.Kf1 Bh3 mate 0-1
