During his formative years pursuing his education, fortune would have it that he fell captive to the burgeoning sport of Disc. 

Harper loved the outdoors and staying active, and enjoying the company of like-minded friends.  In 1895 he and some friends organized what is believed to be the first recorded disc-related club, called the PT Slingshots. 

Being in its infancy, disc sport was different from the big-distance-driving game of disc golf played today. Plastics were only just being developed and had not yet reached the consumer market. Discs were either wooden, leather (a deflated ball, often shellacked) and/or rubber, and were more likely akin to today’s softer approach putters (such as Elevation’s Koi).

Slingshot club members frequently engaged in spectacular feats of disc showmanship, such as hitting distant targets and throwing through mandatory obstacles. Due to the numerous lakes in the Piedmont region they frequently challenged themselves to throw across water. They reportedly climbed the iconic Sauratown Mountain heights of Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock just to sling discs off them in competition for distance (it was said that finding the discs afterwards was the biggest challenge!)   

The Slingshots developed a course for standardized competition, and experimented with equipment, including disc target fabrication. A basket with chains became the most accepted means of catching a disc, but the shape and size of the target was a significant matter of debate. 

This club was a huge source of camaraderie for Harper and from it he developed several life long friends and business partners.

The amazement evoked by his awkward but often effective throwing style earned him the additional nickname of ‘McChainz’ (the creation of this moniker given to him he attributed to fellow Slingshot club member Topher Waterman, incidentally, also left-handed).  Harper maintained that “McChainz” was an alter ego who would only occasionally emerge in odd instances (an idea he “borrowed” from Robert Lewis Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”). Later, Harper would say, concerning the name ‘McChainz’  that the “The ‘z’ was for ‘The Zing!’”  

While the club was active for nearly 40 years there is no official record as to the significance of ‘PT’. The club seemed to have intentionally avoided stating its meaning and members seemed devoted to maintaining its mystery. The most widely supported theory is that it stands for ‘Piedmont Triangle’. Others argue it stands for ‘Part Time’. One outlandish theory, poorly supported, calls it a desperate attempt to secure club sponsorship by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. 

Harper was left handed. In contrast to the historical and prevailing sentiment of the time which viewed left-handedness as impractical and even suspicious, Harper embraced his left-handedness. Harper, along with fellow Slingshot members Topher Waterman, Garrett Phillips and Adam Hawk (all left-handed) establish a not-so-secretive charitable association called The Society of Sinister Discophori. Their chief inspiration was the greco-roman statue ‘Discophorus’, which shows a left-handed “disc-bearer”.   The society’s motto, in part, read ‘Suspectum manum’, meaning “suspicious hand”.

While membership was open to any person who appreciated the sport of disc, the designation of ‘Honorary member’ was limited to left-handed individuals.  

This Society grew and over the next 30 years chapters played an important part in disc sport club support across the US.

The Society of Sinister Discophori hosted an annual toga-wearing disc sport event.

Out of his love of the sport, and recognizing the health benefits disc throwing exercise conveyed and the deep camaraderie it evoked, and being quite entrepreneurial,  in 1899 Harper (with business partner Matthias Liberty, to whom he credited introducing him to the game) opened what is thought to be the world’s first disc sport focused establishment.  

“McChainz’ Disc Yard & Alehouse” was a unique leisure / athletic facility featuring 6 targets each with 3 pads (AKA boxes) of various distance. 

The establishment was also a brewery and sold ales and spirits. It was located near Kernersville, NC (not far from the now famous Korner’s Folly). 

McChainz’ was a popular establishment. After a hard day of work, townsfolk would enjoy each other’s company and a refreshing beverage, while engaging in (or spectating) disc-related activities, recreational or competitive.

Harper is attributed to first using the term ‘ace’ to describe the feat of landing a disc in basket in single shot (however, the term only applied if the distance the disc carried exceeded 40 meters), as his establishment maintained a record of local ‘aceman’, each with their own special stein. The walls were decorated with banners upon which patches celebrating certain achievements were sown. 

In the same year (1899) Harper published a “brief treatise” which included common terms of the sport, technique for throwing, examples of course maps, the rules for competitive play, individual and team, and recreational habits he and the PT Slingshots developed, including the practice of an extra initial throw (oddly named ‘Two off the Top’, which caused great confusion with their golf playing companions) and the flipping of a disc over to indicate one’s lie (a practice other clubs rejected in favor of a miniature indicator, and which Harper eventually recognized as valuable).  

In 1900 a mail-order catalog followed, offering supplies and other items of use to the disc sportsman. 

Over the next several years his business offerings greatly expanded and include many of his own concoction and invention, including his hugely popular ‘Practically Necessary Surprisingly Essential Grip Wax’, the ‘Mighty Relaxing Barely Detectable Bicep Balm (for the Arduous Forehand Dominant)’, and ‘Highly Extended Far-Reaching Telescopic Disc Retriever (Vital for Water Carry Attempts and Varied Vegetation Rescue)’.

Having medical training, and being quite industrious Harper was quite adept at developing medicinal products as well as practical implements. 

A successful partnership with the artist (and fellow discman) Victor Newby resulted in a series of disc products displaying unique colors and patterns. The practice of artistically modifying discs developed because in competitive club play, 12 individuals (6 members per team) would compete, and confusion as to disc ownership needed to be avoided.

In 1904 the catalog begins offering fashion in the two competing styles. Some players wore a style similar to golf and tennis players, featuring wool blends or light sweaters and a tweed flat cap. Others adopted a jersey and pillcap, similar to those worn by rugby and baseball players of the era. 

These products, as well as targets, discs, canteens, bags (especially useful for adorning patches, which eventually were not just achievement based, but were more often sentimental) and even disc ‘carriages’, were popular and laid the groundwork for years of successful commerce.  

The evidence is that Harper personally favored the more tweedy style of golf players, but privately acknowledged in correspondence that the jersey was the more athletically practical. 

  
The first mass-produced targets were metal baskets manufactured by Snow Basket Co. of High Point.
Sadly, their main product, a woven basket used by tobacco farmers was too easily replicable and not a profitable venture for them, and resulted in dissolution of the business.

Harper McClaine traveled the country promoting disc sport, his business and making new associates. He frequently sent postcards documenting his and acquaintances’ discing adventures in fantastic locales, including those in New England, the midWest, and Oregon. He gathered and published player profiles and club match statistics.  

In 1905 he published his first chapbook containing accounts and illustrations of his discing adventures. This small booklet contained his reflections on his experiences, good and bad. Several passages reveal a Preservationist orientation.  

Harper’s primary source of income was as an itinerant physician.  Evidence is he would often prescribe prescribe exercise regimes for targeted muscle improvement, a precursor to today’s physical therapy practices.  

Reported while in Texas Harper first enunciated what eventually became his signature valediction, “See you on the course!”

In addition to stories, the publication included helpful information useful in identifying various natural items possibly encountered while playing, including creatures (especially birds), rocks and minerals, trees, flora, fauna and even fungi (Harper was a skilled mushroom forager), as well as scientific descriptions of the flight of the disc (oblate spheroid) and history of the sport. 

The publications included stories, quotes and illustrations of women and children playing the sport leading credence to the theory that Harper held to the educational philosophy and methods of Charlotte Mason and was a friend of the Suffragettes.

In 1906, Harper was instrumental in forming the Southern Disc Club Association (SDCA) for organizing competition amongst regional clubs at their courses, which were becoming semi-permanent (typically at a given property, though target and box locations would change). This association established rules for Club Team play and organized leagues with a competition schedule, playoffs and an annual Championship. 

For nearly 30 years Harper was active in the collection and publication of competitive disc sport news and statistics, and was considered a articulate commentator and authority on the history of the sport. 

In 1919 the SDCA joined the American Disc League, which folded in 1935.

In 1907, the first full year of league competition, 8 teams competed. 

On Nov 2, the The Queen City Catapults (Charlotte, NC) defeated the Huntsville (AL) Sharpshooters 9-7 to win the championship. Catapult A.P. Green (#2) delivering a historic Triple Opponent (6-2) on the last target, despite a devastating water carry attempt on hole 4 resulting in two lost discs and thus forcing his completion of the match with only 4 remaining discs.

Prohibition went into effect in North Carolina in 1909.
Harper’s small press sales helped offset the loss of his alcohol sales. 

Officially, Matthias Liberty ceased alcohol production and sales, but unofficially, rumors persisted, as his politics did not align.

Zylpha was a skillful artist and great lover of nature (an early member of the Audubon Society). She loved the stories of Beatrix Potter (after whom Winifred was named). She would frequently accompany him outdoors, but would not engage in the sport, rather making use of the time to study plants and woodland creatures. She wrote and illustrated children stories of animals playing disc sport.   Many of her artistic works appeared in his publications.

Harper lovingly referred to Zylpha as “Ms Mandatory”.  In their correspondence she would often include small pieces of naturalistic artwork (her favorite mediums of watercolors and ink drawings). She also signed her letters to him with, “your affectionate, Missed Mando”.

In Sept 1914 Harper volunteered for medical service in the Great War and was immediately sent to France. 

His publications temporarily ceased operation but resumed in July of 1919, following his return, uninjured.  

During the Spring of 1919, he traveled throughout the United Kingdom. He wrote of visiting the ruins of castles on Mull, his ancestral home.

Little is known of Harper’s war experiences. Only one letter remains, received in 1916 by a friend (a beloved Ruling Elder, as he was Presbyterian). In it he recorded, in addition to his enduring faith in the resurrection, a hope for courage in the face of danger, a desire to one day explore a peaceful Europe and gratitude for years of practice at lobbing objects. 

During the 1920’s Harper’s ventures were profitable. The variety of products his catalog offered grew, resulted in a small empire, eventually consisting of 7 disc sport emporiums located throughout the country, each having character unique to its region. 

Harper travelled frequently, organizing and supporting clubs, collecting and publishing news and stories, and advocating for outdoor adventure through disc sport.

Being philanthropic, he and his associates, gave moral and financial support to disc sport enthusiasts and clubs across the country. 

Harper’s petition to the Boys Scouts of America for the inclusion of disc sport in its Athletic Merit Badge was not successful. 

He advocated partnerships with urban planners to make use of city parks for disc sport courses.

For a brief moment in time, the popularity of disc sport rivaled other popular up-and-coming sports, including Basketball and Parlor Quoits (AKA ‘Cornhole’).  Distances the disc could be thrown were being stretched and partakers of the sport took more and more pleasure being outside, and throwing discs in scenic woods, undulating hillsides, across wide plains and bodies of water and from the highest rocky mountain tops.  Disc golf clubs flourished and it was a time of great health, joy, camaraderie, whimsy and merriment. 

Harper continued to collect and publish stories of disc-wielding escapades. 

A fictional serial called ‘Bogey Takes the Box’, which detailed the madcap adventures of a misfit disc club, was instrumental in increased subscriptions.

‘Bogey Takes the Box’ was reported the source material for a now-lost silent film screened in 1928.

Sadly, this story takes a turn; as previously stated Harper’s life was not without tragedy. The onset of the Great Depression wrecked the fortunes of this great propagator of disc sport. The hardships many endured made leisure time hard to come by and sport expenditures less viable.  Sales and subscriptions plummeted. Tried though he may to promote the physical and psychological benefits amid times of financial hardship and emotional duress, like so many businessmen of the era, his investments radically failed. 

In the immediate years following, the joy of disc sport was all but lost. Disc targets, once the source of merriment, were plundered for their metal, so needed during the second World War. The sport sank into obscurity until it was practically unknown, as if it had never existed.

In the 1970s, from the fun-loving culture of California, and with the aid of more sophisticated disc manufacturing, a new manifestation of the sport appeared. 

In 1937, a destitute Harper B. McClaine sold his last holdings, and with sack in hand containing the last of his most treasured discs, hopped a train, reportedly headed West, never to be seen again.

So what became of Harper B. McClaine?
Did he make it West, possibly making it to California?  

Did he plant seeds of a modern sport that would one day blossom?
Or did he succumb to the undoubtedly dangerous life of a disc-wielding vagabond?  

Sadly, history is silent.  

But rumors persist.

Believed to be the last known photo of Harper McClaine AKA ‘McChainz’

And there the tale ends, but not the speculation.  While no records exist to prove otherwise, it is nice to imagine the legendary ‘McChainz’ living out his final days fulfilling his dream of exploration, experiencing natural beauty and even new heights of disc soaring exuberance, maybe finally settling down in a hamlet resplendent with vast green hills and valleys. 

Undoubtedly, wherever his wanderlust took him, he introduced others to the joy of being outside, following the fantastic flight of a disc and hearing the resounding clang of the chains.

One fantastical tale says that at the onset of World War II, possibly seeking to defend his ancestral homeland of Scotland, he made his way to Great Britain and joined the American Red Cross. Eventually he found himself as part of a diplomatic unit serving Northern Europe, and there he made use of all his talents and experiences, participated in the organization, collection and transportation of medical supplies, a final testament to his deep love for others and their well-being. The only evidence for this theory is a simple headstone in France of an unnamed individual indicating only a death date of 1954 and inscribed:
“SUSPECTUM MANUM COR MUNDUM”.