In a time when a pound of butter sold for six pence
AT ONE TIME Hamilton Market was hailed as the finest on the continent.
And it had all the attachments of a successful money-making enterprise.
Farmers and their wives, dealing in everything from pickled beets to fresh flowers, provided only part of the show when the market reached its peak of success during the first part of the century.
The real show, and much of the colour, came from street vendors, who tried to sell everything from collar buttons to cure-all medicines.
Barkers and their fast-talking, money-parting chatter were supplemented by one-man bands, rickety wild west shows and circus strong men. These “Snake Oil” shows, as the customers of the day called them, centred on the salesman.
In 1849, the city decided it had to bring some order into a growing chaotic market and introduced a statute regulating the sales of commodities at the market, including straw, fodder, wood, fish and animals.
BACK IN those days a pound of beef cost be- tween three and five pence, bacon four to six pennies, and a pound of butter for six pence.
Periodic auction sales were held so people might buy a whole cow or sheep. Even stray dogs and cats grabbed off the street were sold to the highest bidder.
The market started through the efforts of a hotel operator, Andrew “Yankee” Miller who conveyed a parcel of land to the city on April 14, 1837 as part of payment of tax debts.
The land, with a frontage of 150 feet on James Street North and extending westward to MacNab Street, was turned over to the president of the Board of Police, the municipal equivalent to the mayor.
“The Memorial of Bargain and Sales” stated that the land could only be used as a public market and the deed also outlined the dimensions for the market house — two storeys and a cellar.
There were strong men and witch doctors to put on a big show.
As early as 1833 the statute outlining the borders of the new town provided for a market place “as a majority of the Justices of the Peace for the District of the Gore shall determine.”
Shortly after Mr. Miller donated the land “for the growth and prosperity of Hamilton,” he gave permission for a meeting hall to be erected on the site of the old city hall beside what is now Eaton’s department store.
A meat market was held in the basement of this hall and over the years the main floors were enlarged for major balls and literary and social meetings.
In 1874 the original Miller deed was changed for “valuable consideration” by the executor to allow for more buildings and gradually extra lots were added to the first parcel of land.
On Oct. 27, 1960, the present market complex with the parking garage overhead opened with about the same number of stalls as the old market.
Pets and live chickens were excluded, but to offset this imported goods for the first time were allowed to be sold by the vendors.
Fees, either on a yearly or semi-annual rental, range from $15 to $50 per month for a stall.
A YEAR AGO the market briefly operated every day of the week but it reverted to the traditional Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule when business failed to warrant the extra hours.
“The future for one of the oldest and most famous markets on the continent never looked brighter than now,” remarks the present manager L.T. Nutley in a review of the site.
Almost all of the 534 stalls are rented to area farmers, local dealers and wholesalers.