Asylum Street in 1875
My latest YouTube video is about the south side of the block of Asylum Street between Ann and Ford Streets. One of the many businesses that existed along this block over the decades was a meat and fish market started in the early 1870s by Joel P. Newton. In 1874, he purchased the meat and vegetable market of F. W. Johnson at 341 Asylum Street. His business later listed 1872 as its founding year, which may have referred to when Johnson had first started up on Asylum Street, or perhaps Newton had been in business already before buying Johnson’s market. In any case, in 1875 Newton asked called on his brother-in-law from New London County, James G. Burnet, to assist him in Hartford. They had previously been in business in Uncasville before Newton had come to Hartford. Burnet only planned to help out for a few weeks at the new Asylum Street store but ended up staying with the business until his death in 1920, 45 years later!
Burnet became a partner in the market in 1876. He expected to finally leave when Newton bought out his partners two years later, but Newton persuaded him to stay on as the business’ financial manager. In 1893, Burnet and his partner, Edwin A. Newton, took over the market, which was incorporated as Newton & Burnet in 1913, the year after Edwin was killed in a traffic accident. In 1898, the company had moved to 319 Asylum Street, where it erected a new building in 1926. The company would remain there until circa 1943.
Back in 1915, when James Burnet was celebrating forty years in the market trade in Hartford since his arrival in the city in 1875, the Hartford Courant interviewed him and noted the many changes on Asylum Street in the intervening decades (as reported on April 5, 1915):
Asylum street was a prominent business street in 1875 as it is now [1915]. Few stores remain on the street that were there in 1875, however, Retail markets on the street at that time included that of Frederick Kingsley, Caswell Brothers, Paekham Brothers, Hills & Smith and E. W. Bull. The Hotel Garde [originally called the Batterson Block - D.S.] was just being built. The firm of Brown & Gross [booksellers - D. S.] was located where G. F. Warfield & Co. are now.
Business methods were different then from what they are today. In those days, a team was sent out in the morning, the orders put up and the team sent to deliver them. Now four and sometimes five trips are made a day. The prominent men of the city were accustomed to come in person to the market, give their order and have it delivered. Today some of them continue the practice, but the telephone has taken the place of personal calls. Mr. Burnet's market was the first retail market in Hartford to install a telephone. The instrument was far different from what it is today. Transmitter and receiver were one, and in carrying on a conversation over the wire it was necessary to place the instrument alternately at the mouth and at the ear.
There have been changes too in the source of the supply of meat. In 1876, hardly anything except native beef was sold in Hartford, although Western dressed beef had a small market. Prices were very high in those days. Then they declined; only to go up again in the past few years.
The market opened at 4:30 o'clock in the morning and kept open until 8 o'clock at night, with the exception of Saturday nights, when it remained open until midnight. Gradually the hours were reduced. In the eighties, when it was decided to close the markets at 7 instead of at 8 o'clock, the retail dealers of Hartford held a parade at 7 o'clock on the first night when the hour was changed. The factories formerly did not close until 6 o'clock and it was thought necessary to keep the markets open an hour after that. When the factories closed at 5 o'clock the markets decided to close at 6 o'clock. The closing hour on Saturday nights was also made earlier, as time went on, and the hour of opening in the morning was made an hour later.
There’s more about the business of Newton & Burnet in my video!