According to the Edo historical rating list he was a non-master with a high rating of 2182 in 1902. Chessmetrics assigns him a high rating of 2383 in 1900.
Magee was also a patron of the Good Companion, a problem club, founded in Philadelphia by Magee and Alain C. White. The club brought together up to 600 problem solving members that were spread all over the world; they were known as "Good Companions.”
From 1913 to 1924 the club published bulletins entitled "The Good Companion Chess Problem Club (Our Folder)" that contained the best problems of club competitions in Europe and America. The Good Companion dealt mainly with two movers sent in by the members.
Thanks to the patronage of Magee and White and the organizational skills of John Gardner of Toronto , the club survived the First World War, but following the birth of new magazines and national problem sections and White's retirement for reasons of health it was dissolved in 1924. For a 1910 manuscript of the Good Companion, a 174 page book containing problem and miscellaneous material, click HERE.
The book was edited by Magee and the dedication reads: "To those Good Companions of the Franklin and Junior Che Clubs of Philidelphia, also that other good companion the unknown composer and collector of these problems.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a collection of medieval chess pieces, but most of them are missing. In 1913, the Metropolitan acquired copies of famous medieval chess pieces through the gift of Magee that were based on originals found in museum collections in Paris and Florence. While traveling in Europe, Magee personally petitioned museum directors to make copies for him. In Philadelphia, Magee also exhibited seventy-eight copies of the Lewis Chessmen that were in the collection of Cleveland collector John G. White. By 1920 Magee was able to make another gift to the Metropolitan, this time of copies of some of the Lewis Chessmen.
Not much is known of Magee, but he is mentioned in the The University of Pennsylvania’s Records of the Class of 1887 when he formed a bicycle club. “The Club was formed in the middle of Sophomore Year, through the untiring efforts of Jas. F. Magee, Jr., alias Jimmy, alias One Lung. He is well known to all the Class, but for the benefit of Freshmen he may be described as the handsome brunette, with the light dark mustache, who might be seen any lime during recitation hours reclining on one of the benches in the Assembly Room, his face wreathed in smiles and cigarette smoke.” The records list the chess club members, but, oddly, Magee was not listed as a member.
The 1922 edition of The Further History of the Class of Eighty-seven of the University of Pennsylvania has addition information on Magee. “Magee was for a number of years a broker in merchandise and food stuffs, but has since retired and settled down into the regular occupation of a chess crank, sharp, bug, enthusiast and expert. We have reason to suspect that most of the treatises on chess since the time of Confucius were in reality written by Magee; that while climbing a barbed wire fence, he can also conduct seventeen and a half contests in parallel; that he has a floating chess board upon which to play in his tub; that he has memorized chess equivalents for each of the personages of the Bible, so that when apparently following the church service, he can yet be constructing a chess problem, and that he will not eat mashed potatoes unless moulded into the forms of Kings, Queens, Bishops, etc. Anyway, he is some chess player.”
“Color is lent to these beliefs from his editorship of the publication of the Good Companion Chess Club, that wisely gave him that job in 1913 and his being an international secretary of the Problem Club. He also carries as an auxiliary and side line, membership in the Franklin Chess Club, and such office as he has may be best located by any one seeking him going to the Musical Arts Club of Philadelphia and to the chess tables therein.”
“To keep tuned up to this indoor sport as above, he mentally toys a little at bridge, or whacks a golf ball about, at the Merion Cricket Club, until the call of chess again hits him. Then, when some men carry pocket flasks, or paper of many sheets to the inch, in their pockets, Magee pulls out a pocket chess board, squats on the green and essays to crack another problem; while the caddy, speechless in unfathomed amazement, curls up on the grass and goes into a long undisturbed sleep.”
“Magee has been a consistent and active and loyal worker for '87. It is again to his efforts, that the numerous pictures of ourselves as we now are—as is, as the department stores would rate us—in this present issue are due. And those of the Class who have not contributed, best know what a task is the collection such pictures of our cherubic phizzes.”
“In 1913, Magee's son died; James Francis Magee III. It was a hard thing for Magee to meet—and to no one does the silent handclasp of sympathy go out more than to fine Jimmy Magee of '87.”
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Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 6, 1913
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