History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 82

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875

USA > Illinois > Cook County > History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time > Part 82

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

PACKING HOUSES AND MEAT PRODUCTS,-The first slaughter-house was built on the south bank of the North Branch of the Chicago River, south of the Blooming- dale Road and opposite the North Chicago Rolling Mills. The site of the original log slaughter-house, built by Archibald Clybourne in 1827, for the killing of such cattle as were required by the garrison at Fort Dearborn, is now 1883 occupied by an okl frame buikling that was used by Archibald Clybourne, also as a slaughter-house, now falling into pieces from sheer old age and dry rot. In October, 1832, George W. Dole packed one hundred and fifty-two head of cattle for Oliver Newberry, of Detroit, which were purchased of Charles Reed, of Hickory Creek, at $2.75 per hun- dred pounds; the hides and tallow being a perquisite of the slaughterers, who, in this instance, were John and Mark Noble, and the cattle were killed on the prairie,

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HISTORY OF COOK COUNTY.

near what is now the corner of Michigan Avenue and Madison Street. The packing-house was near the southeast corner of Dearborn and South Water streets: the barrels in which the beef was packed being brought from, and the beef shipped to, Detroit. In December, 1832, three hundred and thirty-eight hugs were killed and packed by Mr. Dole; they were purchased from John Blackstone for 83 per one hundred pounds net, and were killed in the back yard of the warehouse and salted and stowed away in bulk until barrels could he made during the winter. Elias C'olbert states, in his History of Chicago, that these meats were sent In, New York from Detroit; also that in an old account book of Mr. Dole's was an entry of a sale of a barrel of mess- pork at 86 and of a barrel of "one hog pork " at $14. The following year Archibakl Clybourne, The Govern- ment butcher for the Pottawatomies, engaged in the packing business, at his lag slaughter-house on the cast skle of the North Branch, where he packed some two hundred and fifty head of cattle and about two thousand hogs; at this place also George W. Dole parked two hundred and fifty head of cattle and one thousand hogs; the average cost of the cattle was 82.80, and of the hogs $3 per hundred pounds net. In 1834. (Hiver Newherry and George W. Dole had a slaughter-house erected on the South Branch of the river, where some three hun. dred head of cattle and fourteen hundred hogs were packed during the year. Gurdon S. Hubbard also commenced packing during 1834 in the old bank build- ing, corner of Lake and La Salle streets, but, in conse- quence of the lack of barrels, the five thousand hugs killed had to be stowed away in bulk until the ensuing spring, when barrels were brought from Cleveland at a cost of Si apiece. In 1837-38 Mr. Hubbard built a packing-house on Kinzie Street, near Rush Street, where he carried on business until 1840, when he built a house on South Water Street, between Clark and LaSalle strecis, There he continued the packing busi- ness until 1848, when he removed to the North Branrlt. In 1836, Sylvester Marsh, who packed with Mr. Hub- bard from 1833 until 1834. built a packing-house on Kinzie Street, near Rush Street, and in 1838, or 1839. entered into partnership with George W. Dole.

Mr. Marsh remained in business in Chicago until 1855. He was, in the fall of 1883, still alive, and a resi- dlent of Concord, N. H. On October 22, 1883, he appeared before the United States Senate committee on education and labor, then in session at Boston, and, prompled by the questions of the members, told the interesting story of his long and busy life. From the published interview the extrarts below are taken :

Q. Where were you lootn'

A. In Camptim, N. 11.

Q. That is about how far north from here ?

A. By the old stage route il would be about one hundred and seventeen miles.

Q. You may state the places where you have siure resided, without. at present, giving any particulars with regard to your resi. dence.

A. I was born in t803, and resided in New Hampshire umil I was nineteen.

Q. At Campinn ?

A. Yes, From Campion I came to Boston : from Boston 1 went to Ashtabula County, Ohio ; from Ohio to Chicago : t1 was in Davenport, lowa. in 1852-53, but ilid not stay there macht; from Chicago I came back to Jamaica Plain, near finton, in 1355; was there six years; went back in Chicago and staid there three years, umil 1863. In 1863 1 went to Brooklyn, N. V., and was there from 1863 until 1864. I went from there In Littleton, N. 11 .. for the purpose if building the railroad up Mount Washington. I lived there fifteen years and then came in Concord, where I now live.

A. Yes, sir.

Q. My object in taking your testimony is, by the statement of your experience during your lifetime. to be enabled to give the people of the present day an idea or picture of the industrial life of the American people, and of their development during your lifetime and within your recollection. Your father was a farmer, was he not ?

A. Ves.

Passing over the period of his life prior to his reach- ing Chicago in 1833, the interview continued as fol. lows :

12. llow Inng did you remain there ?

A. From 1528 to the winter of 1833-34.

Q. Where did your go then ?

A. To Chicago.

(). In what condition was Chicago then ?

A. Chicago then bad about three hundred inhabitants. besides Fort Dearborn, which had eighty soldiers and their officers, mak. ing il amount to almut one hundred. There was no business donr in the winter. Provisions were all taken from Ohio for them to live on.

1. What made you go there ?

.\. Weit. I heard of it, looked at it, and saw that it was a gol point. I had faith in the growth of the country, and went there to open a market. There was no slaughter-house there, no place to kill a beef, amil for sixty days I led the cattle out to an old elm tree that stond on Monroe Street, ahont where the court-house is, and there I took a tackle and swung them up on the elm after killing them.

(. What animals did you kill ?

A. Beef, principally; there was not anything else there to kill, the first little while that I was there. They had hardly any sheep.

(D. Were there any hog .?

A. Very few hogs, The hogy had all to come from Wabash, one hundred and fifty milesdown. 1 went into that business after- ward, and went down to Wabash and drove them up.

Q. Von killed those animals to ship to the East ? X. No: 1 killed those for the local market, as much beel each day as was needed for home consumption.

Q. Did you commence the meal business there ?

.1. Ves, sir.

Q. You were the first ime that established it ? .1. Yes, sir.

Tell us something of its development afterward.

A. Chicago grew very fast and in 1835 there must have Ixen two thousand five hundred people there. We then went duwn to the Wabash country, as we called it, and hought cattle and hoge and drove them up for market. We did not ship thewu then. In 1836 they commenced lmilding the canal, and in that year I packed six thousand hogs there, mostly for luune consumption, They were building the Illinois & Michigan C'anal then, and the contractors in 1837-35 took the pork for their men. The State failed to pay in 1835-39. and work on the canal was stopped. State bonds went alown to twenty-five cents on the dollar, and the Stale jested what was call "canal-serip " to pay the contractors what they owed them for work that they had done. That was afterward redeemed dollar for ilullar. In 1936 the old town of Chicago was soll. The Government gave the State of Illinois every alternate section for fifteen miles wide, to aid in building the canal from Chicago to the Illinois River-l'eru, I think, is at the end of the canal-and one section of that canal was right in the heart of old Chicagu. It was sold in June, 1.536, by the State of Illinois for a quarter down, and the balance in one, two and three years, and I think there was but one man in the city that made his second pay- ment. That was P. F. W. Peck. The thing all burst up, and there was but that one man that made his seenmil payment. They had all paid one-quarter down and given notes at interest for the rest. ] did so myself, and so did others ; but only one made the second payment.

12. Why so?

A. Because everybody burst up-the banks and everybody else went up.

Q. What became of the canal ?

3. The canal went along for awhile. Contracts were entered into by the State, and work went along until 1839, the State trying in every way to pay, and about that time they stopped. There was an appropriation of $1,000,000 made by the State for internal improvements, but when the canal and railroad were partly done. it all burst up, and these improvements were not again begun until about 1847 or 1848.

Q. What was the condition of the people around there then ? llow were they clad, and how were they housed, and what was the condition of their wages ?

Q. You are the inventor and constructor of the Mount Wash- upon Railroadl'

329

EARLY TRADE AND MANUFACTURES.

Well, from 1836 to 1842. when the United States bank- rupt law was passed, there was no responsibility. No man had anything, hardly, that he could eall his own at the time the law was passed in 1842.

Q. You think that the bankrupt act was necessary, do you ? A. Oh, yes : they never would have started in the world, If it had not been for that.

Q. During that time how were prices ?

A. In t838 I paid 86 a hundred pounds for pork in Chicago. In 1841, with a view of finishing the canal next summer, I bought pork for $2, that is to say, I paid $z for all pork that weighed Iwo hundred; for all hogs that did not weigh two hundred, I paid $1. 50 a hundred. I bought beef there for barreling in 1843-44 for $2 a hundred, for the fore-quarters of the beef, if the ox weighed six hundred pounds, and $1.50 per hundred pounds if he fell under it. That is the lowest price I ever heard of it being sold for.

Q. That was owing to the condition of eredit and of the currency ?

A. Yes, and then there was more of this stuff raised than was needed up to about t846 or 1847, when the famine in Ireland cleaned out the West almost entirely. Wheat was worth twenty- five cents a bushel in 1844 in Chicagn. Produce commenced ris- ing from that time, and, you might say, has kept on rising since. Cattle and pork rose a good deal from a small price until in t850 cattle were worth 84 In $5 a hundred pounds, and hogs were worth the same. There has been a steady increase each year. I made money for the reason that everything was going up.

Q. That comes down to when?

A. From 1844 to 1850.

Q. You still remained at Chicago ?

A. Yes,

Q. I suppose Chicago was developing all the time ?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you recolleet about the price of wheat or corn in those days ?

A. In 1848 corn was worth twenty-five cents a bushel. Q. That is, at Chicago?

A. Yes. Freight then was as high as twenty-five cents a bushel to Buffalo.

Q. And from Buffalo on to Boston what was it ?

A. I do not know what freight was to Boston then. I stayed in that provision business until ] killed one hundred and eighty-five head of large cattle and five hundred hogs for a day's work, and that is not, comparatively speaking, more than a' leaspoonful to what they have come to since I left the business. Chicago had no start, no life, until the Legislature passed what we called the relief law, that is, they gave us as much of the land as we had paid for. If a man had bought four lots and paid the full value of one, the relief law gave us one lot, and then gave us up our notes, That was the first sign of life after the break-up in Chicago. Then, you see, a man who was elcared through bankruptcy, if he could only raise a hundred dollars, had credit, but up to that time, when we were all in debt, nobody could trust his brother. In 185t and t852 I spent most of my time in northern New York and Vermont. In January, t851, I received an appointment as agent for the Ogdens- burg & Lake Champlain and Burlington & Rutland railroads My business was to procure freight and passengers from the West over these roads, for the Boston market. In the fall of t850, I shipped a propeller-load of about three thousand barrels of provisions to Ogdensburg, which were stored there till the railroad was com- pleled in January, 1851. I bought seven thousand kegs of nails at ihe Keeseville Iron Works, on lake Champlain, as return freight for Chicago. Nails were worth only $2.8715 per hundred, but during the next six months they rose to $4 per hundred. These northern railroads were not successful in getting much business for the Eastern markets for a few years, as they could not compete with the New York Central Rallroad and the Erie Canal.

Q. From Chicago where did you go?

A. I went from Chicago to Davenport, Iowa, in t852. I was there two years.

Q. Did you follow the same business there ?

A. No; I was in the grain business there.

Q. How were the prices of provisions there ?

A. Well, hogs were $3 a hundred in Davenport in 1852.

Q. What are they worth now ?

A. I don't know what they are worth now, They vary. They have been as high as eight, len and twelve cents a pound, though they are down now, I believe.

Q. You do not know the price of other kinds of meat-beef and mutton, at Davenport at that time, do you ?

A. No.

Q. You were in the grain business mostly ?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you recollect about the prices of grain there ?

.\. Corn was worth twenty to twenty-five cents a bushel: wheat from forty to fifty cents; oats about twelve cents.

(). Did you ship to the East ?

A. I did, from Chicago to Buffalo I did not ship much from Davenport. In 1852 I went into the grain drying business, making kiln-dried meal for the West India Islands, from a process of my own invention. I made five hundred harrels of kiln-dried meal a day, and shipped it to the West India Islands.

Q. What sort of market did you get for it ?

A. A very falr market. The negroes in the West India Islands ale it.

Q. Did you ship it down the Mississippi ?

A. Some of it, but most of it by way of New York. I made money the last year that I sent kiln-dried meal there, by my own process,

Q. Is the invention still in use ?

A. Yes; much of the article is put up now for the European markels under my same brand, " Marsh's Caloric Driedl Meal." 1 have five patents for drying grain. There is not so much of this kind made as there used to be, because farmers take care of their own corn now, and if the corn begins to heat they will put it into cars. When I began it they would put it in their warehouses and let it stay there awhile, and It would heut.

Q. From Davenport where did you go ?

N. I went to Chicago. I did not really move to Davenport.

Q. You went back then to Chicago. How long did you remain there ?

A. I remained in Chicago until 1855. all the time.

Q. There was no special change in the condition of things in Chicago, I suppose, during that time, that you remember ?

A. No.

In 1839, Oramel S. Hough and R. M. Hough were with Sylvester Marsh. In 1837-38. D. H. Underhill came to Chicago and engaged in the packing business for a brief period, killing his hogs near Absalom Funk's butcher-shop, corner North Water and North State streets. About 184r, Eri Reynolds commenced pack- ing in Dole's packing-house. In the winter 1841-42, Oren Sherman and Nathaniel Pitkin, a dry-goods firm, packed several hundred logs, pork being then at the lowest price ever known in Chicago; Charles Cleaver stating that several loads of hogs were bought by him at that time for $1.25 per hundred. Archibald Clybourne during the winter of 1842-43 slaughtered and packed for William and Norman Felt-William Felt & Co .- about three thousand head of cattle for shipment to New York City; alleged to be the first beef packed in Chicago for an eastern market. In t843-44, Thomas Dyer and John P. Chapin commenced packing in Rey- nolds' house, associating with them Julius Wadsworth, in 1844, and then built a packing house on the South Branch near North Street; being succeeded in 1845 or t846, by Wadsworth & Dyer. During the season of t844-45 this firm packed the first tierce of beef ever put up in Chicago for the English market; the barrels for the firm's use were furnished by Hugh Maher, In 1843, George Steel packed hogs on South Water Street, near the corner of Franklin Street. About 1849, William B. Clapp entered the pork packing arena. In 1850, Oramel S. and R. M. Hough built a packing house on the South Branch at a cost of $3.000; in 1853, they built a large stone packing-house costing $20,000, which was burned in the fall of 1856. They rebuilt in 1857 at a cost of $25.000. In 1852, Orville H. Tobey and Heman D). Booth commenced packing pork; and, in 1854, John L. Hancock-as agent for Craigin & Co., of New York- built a packing house on the South Branch at a cost of $45.000, and did what was then deemed an enor- mous business. In 1853-54. Andrew Brown & Co. commenced packing, as did Moore, Seaverns & Co., in the fall of 1854. The following table exhibits the capac- ity and valuation of the packing houses in 1858, not including the value of the real estate.

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HISTORY OF COOK COUNTY. .

Capacity Per Day.

Cost of Erecting

Cattle.

Hogs.

Packing Houses.

G. S. Hubbard & Co ....... ...

200

1,000

810,000

Hough & Co ..

225

1,000

25,000

C'ragin & Co ...

...

1,000

45,000

Thomas Nash ( afterward Van Brust & Watrous).

400

1.400

19.100

Moore, Seaverns & Co.

200

15,000

.A. Brown & Co ..

200

600

10,000

Tobey, Ronth & Co ..

...

10,000

John Ilayward .

140

400

5,000

Jones & Culbertson.

1,200

9,000

1. & J. Stewart . .

...

3(N)

3,000

George Steel & Co ..

....

300

3.000

W. Leland

....

100

Small Packing Houses ...

500

....

*Total.

1.765

9.000

$154,100

Beef packing was for years the most ostentatious business in Chicago, and gave the newspapers of the day a most splendid foothold for boasting. Compared with the volume of business in that line now carried on, when single houses do more business daily than was at that time done in a year by the whole city, there was little to brag of; but the journalists of then, as now, looked back for comparisons, and found in them the grand satisfaction which came from past progress and unlimited hope for the future. Below are two extracts concerning the business in its early days from the Daily Democrat of September 26, 1848:

"The beef-packing season has opened unprecedent- edlly early this year, and already a brisk little business is being done by one firm in this city-Messrs. Marsh & Sherry. The firm kills from fifty to sixty head per day, and has already shipped seven hundred barrels of beef to the East. Chicago will rely for its supplies of cattle this season principally, if not altogether, on the northern por- tion of the State. One firm, Wadsworth, Dyer & Co., have already contracted for one thousand head of cattle. We have seen letters to Mr. Marsh from his commission house in Boston, stating that his heef takes the lead altogether of that shipped from Maine; also one from England to Wadsworth, Dyer & Co., stating that as long as their beef is kept up to its present standard there is no fear but it will compete successfully with the best Irish brands. This firm kills none but the heaviest cattle, and uses foreign salt altogether in packing. In consequence of this superiority most of the beef packed in this city goes to England or Boston. It is expected that eighteen thousand to twenty thousand barrels of beef will be packed this season, or perhaps more. Of this Marsh & Sherry expect to pack four thousand barrels, Wadsworth, Dyer & Co. ten thousand, and the remainder by Slocum & Clapp and one other firmn. Barrels are selling at $1.00, at which price contracts for large numbers have been made."

In 1850, November 16, the Gem of the Prairie gave the following exhaustive review of the business, the mention of the firms and business done being as fol- lows :

"The slaughtering and rendering estahlishment of Sylvester Marsh is situated upon the beach imme- diately north of the North Pier. The packing-house is situated on the bank of the river, at the corner of North Water and Wolcott streets. It was built during the present year, is three stories high, and sixty by eighty-four feet in size. He employs seventy-five hands, and slaughters one hundred and eighty-five cattle per day. He pays out for the season, cash, for cattle, $90,-

ooo; for salt and barrels, $15,000; for labor, $5,000- total, $110,000.

" The slaughtering and packing house of Gurdon S. Hubbard is situated upon the North Branch, on East Water Street, between Michigan and Illinois streets. Number slaughtered per day, one hundred and five; hands usually employed, seventy-five. He packs this year for Norman Felt, of New York; Joseph Draper, of Boston, and W. Smith, of New Haven. Pays for cattle, $100,000; for salt and barrels, $21,000-total, $121,000.

" The establishment of Wadsworth. Dyer & Co. is situated upon the South Branch, in the suburb of the city. The various buildings cover half an acre. The number of cattle slaughtered this season by the firm will probably exceed six thousand. The firm employs one hundred and ten men, and slaughters two hundred and ten head of cattle per day. They commenced operations here seven years ago. Their brand in the London and Liverpool markets take precedence over beef from every other quarter of the world. Their hides are purchased by Gurnee, Hayden & Co., and their refuse is carted by C. Beers to his farm beyond Bridge- port. Paid for cattle, $132,000; for salt, barrels and labor, $28,000-total, $160,000.

" R. M. & O. S. Hough are located a short distance below Bridgeport, immediately on the banks of the river. Their building is thirty by sixty feet in size, with wings, They are working fifty hands, and slaught- ering one hundred and thirty head of cattle per day. C'ash paid for cattle, $70,000 ; for salt, barrels and labor, $15,000 ; total. $85,000.

" Passing down the river until within a short distance of the tannery of Gurnee, Hayden & Co., we come to the slaughtering and packing house of William B. Clapp. He is killing one hundred cattle per day, and working forty hands. He has a contract for supplying one thousand eight hundred barrels to the United States Navy. Cash paid for cattle, $56,000 ; for salt, barrels and labor, $16,000 ; total, $72,000.

" A little further down is the establishment of Eri Reynolds, a brick building, fifty by one hundred and twenty feet in size. He packs for himself and W. & H. Felt, of Earlville, N. Y., employs thirty hands and slaughters about ninety head of cattle per day. His estimates for the season are : Cash for cattle. $48,000; for salt, barrels and labor, $10,000 ; total, 858,000.

" The seventh and last establishment, that of Messrs. Clybourne & Ellis, we did not find time to visit. It is situated upon the North Branch, about a mile above Ogden's Bridge. They will slaughter this season about two thousand head of cattle, and the cost of the same, including salt, barrels, labor, etc., will amount to about $45,000.

" Hence we have twenty-seven thousand five hun- dred cattle packed and $651,000 paid out. The major- ity of cattle are fattened in Illinois, McLean County bearing the palm ; hut a portion are brought from Indiana and Iowa."

The first cattle-yards were opened in 1848, at the " Bull's Head," and occupied the immediate vicinage of Madison Street and Ashland Avenue; but they were but a makeshift for supplying the necessities of the growing cattle trade, and the live stock dealers became disgusted with the long drive to and from the yard to railroad depots and slaughter houses. In 1856, the wants of the public were met by John B. Sherman, who leased the Myrick property on the lake shore, north of Thirty-first Street, and laid out what were known as Sherman's yards, and this entrepot at once took the

* From Annual Review of Chicago Daily Press and Tribune for 1858.

331

EARLY TRADE AND MANUFACTURES.

place of the old Bull's Head, and, being upon the line of the Illinois Central Railroad, was eminently adapted to the needs of the live-stock traffic.

FLOURING MILLS .- The first flouring mill erected in this city was located on the South Branch and was built by Jared Gage in 1836. In partnership with one Lyman, he conducted this mill until in January 1847, when with John C. Haines he purchased the Chicago Mills. These mills were massive, yet commodious buildings of stone situated on South Water Street and the river, and had excellent facilities for receiving grain direct from vessels or canal boats, and for loading the same. They had four run of buhrs and appropriate machinery for elevating and handling grain, all driven by a pair of reciprocating engines, to supply whose consumption of steam required the use of twelve hundred tons of coal annually. The total investment in the plant was $150,000; in 1854, the proprietors employed thirty men and ground one hundred and twenty-five thousand bushels of wheat and ten thousand bushels of corn, turn- ing out twenty-five thousand barrels of flour and six hundred thousand pounds of meal. At that time the out-put of these mills was nearly all consumed in this city; in the year mentioned less than two thousand bar- rels were shipped to a foreign market.

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History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 82

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas Number of Pages: 875

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875