Henry Wersell and his Bird Store

 

Henry Wersell and his Bird Store                                        by Alan Borer

 

Henry Wersell and a monkey outside his store. (Toledo-Lucas County Public Library)

            Newspapers used to offer suggestions for shoppers looking for Christmas gifts.  Such advertisements were a way for smaller shops to buy ad space in modest (and inexpensive) quantities.   For the newspapers it was a goodwill gesture that filled space while big advertisers made the newspaper profitable.  I was digging through the December 10, 1914, issue of the Perrysburg Journal, which offered a “Christmas Gift Suggestions” column in the back pages. when I spied a small advertisement at the bottom of the page: “When in Toledo Visit Our Bird Show:  Special prices beginning December 12.”  Two Christmas gift ideas items were suggested.  At the high end, shoppers could purchase a “Hartz Mountain“canary for $3.50.  It that was too pricey, one could buy a fish and a “globe” for a dime.

            Who was running a “bird show” or “bird store” at this early date?  The ad was placed by a retailer named  Henry Wersell, a prominent member of Toledo’s German-American community.  Born in Germany in 1860, he arrived in America in 1876.  He married an American born German girl, Mary Streicher, in Toledo in 1884.  The family resided at 34 Rockingham Street near Cherry Street and Central Avenue.  But unlike so many fellow Germans who worked in breweries and other industries, Wersell carved out a niche for himself: pets.

During the 1900s and 1910s, Wersell ran what he called a ‘bird store,’ first at 608 Summit Street and then at 328 Cherry Street.  Birds were bought and sold, but Wersell offered many other kinds of pet-related merchandise.  A 1914 ad listed imported canaries, Mexican parrots, dogs, cats, rabbits, goldfish, cages, bird seed, and veterinary supplies.  Ferrets and monkeys were occasional guests.  The shop also boarded animals.  When your pet passed away, Wersell offered taxidermy services for both birds and animals.[i]  With so many different animals all living in close quarters, one can imagine how noisy the shop must have been.

Wersell participated in a booming market for pet birds.  The popularity of caged birds in the first decade of the twentieth century made them the most popular indoor pet in the country.  Their singing and companionship was believed to cross social and ethnic lines, and while only a landowner could keep dogs and horses, birds were inexpensive, low maintenance friends.[ii]

The shopkeeper advertised heavily in the newspaper classified ads.  In some of the ads, Wersell seemed to speak directly to the reader: “Received a shipment of imported parrots, young had raised birds that I guarantee to talk.”[iii]  Another Christmas ad read, “Make Xmas merry by getting a good singing bird of Wersell.”[iv]  Other venues were pet sales.  In 1900, the Toledo [Pet] Fanciers had an exhibition just after the holidays.  Held at 129-131 Summit, the show featured many kind of pets.  Henry Wersell had an aquarium display:

The north window is occupied by the display of Henry Wersell of this city.  Gold fish and other handsome or quaint inhabitants of the waters are disposed in prettily quipped aquariums.[v]

Depending on the needs of the pet owner, birds were also livestock.  Wersell placed many ads in poultry journals.  He cooperated with other growers and breeders of birds.  An example was Legron’s Duck Farm, at the corner of Glendale and Detroit.  They offered incubators for rent or sale.  Customers could leave their eggs at either Wersell’s Bird Store or take them directly to the Duck Farm, which would incubate them for $2.00 per hundred eggs.[vi]

One example of other-than-pet merchandise Wersell sold was the “Mandy Lee” chicken incubator.  The George Lee Company of Omaha, Nebraska, did a big mail order business, selling every piece of equipment necessary for brooding, hatching, raising, and selling chickens.  Lee himself owned 2500 chickens.  He may have named the incubator “Mandy” after his daughter, Ivy May, but the elder Lee sold his incubators through the rapidly expanding combination of parcel post and the railroad system that delivered them

Henry Wersell died on May 11, 1920.  According to his News Bee obituary, he had been ill for several months.  He left his wife and six children, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery.[vii]  It may have been World War 1 and its disruptions, or failing health, but Wersell’s bird store was closed by 1920.

            There are still conflicting opinions over whether birds, especial fowl, are pets or livestock.  Millions of birds of both kinds live among us.  Henry Wersell was apparently satisfied selling any feathered animal, and many more with fur or fins as well.  Certainly he sold many of every kind – and stuffed a few as well.

(This was submitted to Bend of the River before the magazine ended in November 2023.)

---

[i][i] New Bee, April 3, 1914.

[ii] https://daily.jstor.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-pet-bird/

[iii] News Bee,  July 25, 1906.

[iv] News Bee, December 19, 1913.

[v] News Bee, January 5, 1900.

[vi] News-Bee, February 28, 1914.

[vii] Toledo News-Bee, May 12, 1920.

Asking for a Wishbone from the President

 

Asking for a Wishbone from the President                                                by Alan Borer

           

            As a boy, I enjoyed Thanksgiving almost as much as Christmas, mainly because of the feast prepared and served by my mother and/or various female relatives.  For a small boy, it was pretty much a work-free celebration.  The only “work” I remember doing was carefully securing and drying the turkey wishbone.  I had read enough Thanksgiving story books, and seen enough holiday TV shows, that I was determined to follow that custom and receive whatever prize or luck came to the one who broke off the bigger portion of the wishbone.

            Lucky wishbones are an old custom.  The Etruscans of pre-Roman Italy thought wishbones brought luck.  In the Middle Ages, a goose breastbone was examined on St. Martin’s Day (November 11) for weather predictions for the coming year.  Turkeys were unknown in Europe before Christopher Columbus, but were soon part of “harvest home” celebrations.  Harvest Home, still celebrated in many American churches, marks the end of the growing season, when food was plentiful and easy to obtain.  Add in the presidential proclamations of a celebration the last Thursday in November, coupled with an avalanche of Thanksgiving galas, pageants, and greeting cards starting around 1900. It is no wonder that America developed a turkey-themed holiday, of which the wishbone played a part.

            Who was president when all this was developing?  Abraham Lincoln decreed the first national Thanksgiving, but the President at the time that the holiday really took off was none other than William McKinley.  McKinley (1843-1901), a native of nearby Canton, Ohio, proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday as was the custom.  It was no surprise therefore that McKinley declared Thursday, November 30, 1899 to be Thanksgiving Day.  McKinley was riding high in popularity that month.  The nation had won a brief war with Spain in 1898, and the economy was doing well.  He appeared to be a shoe-in for reelection with his even more popular running-mate, Theodore Roosevelt.

            Whether McKinley heard of a news story that appeared in the Perrysburg Journal the following spring is impossible to say.  But turkey wishbones were on the minds of many:

. . . . At least a hundred letters were received by President McKinley asking for the wishbone of the Thanksgiving turkey, and half as many more for the right drumstick.  Just think of it!  Asking for a bone at which the President has nibbled.  A bone from a common turkey, raised in a common barn yard . . . . served like any other old turkey, but to those worshippers of titles and aristocracy, made sacred by the lips of a member of the President’s household. . . . [February 9, 1900]

            We can assume that this was either written by, or was approved by, the editor of the Journal, one E. L. Blue.  Mr. Blue was outraged, at least editorially, that American citizens were “soft” enough to want a souvenir that smacked of royalty.  Whether the White House acted on these requests is unknown.  The idea of sending a greasy wishbone through the mail rather suggests it was not. 

            When William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York in 1901, he was succeeded by Roosevelt.  In an odd bit of coincidence, Roosevelt used the symbol of the wishbone in his 1904 reelection campaign.  He used the wishbone to proclaim the good times that country continued to have in the new century, and thousands of pins and buttons featured Roosevelt surrounded by the twin arms of a wishbone.  This time, the wishbone brought him the luck it symbolized.

            As Americans eat more and more processed food, fewer of us sit down to a home cooked or home carved Thanksgiving turkey dinner.  Restaurants big and small entice customers with buffets and prepackaged meals that, while featuring turkey, have eaten away at the home processed repast.  I‘m sure the symbol and tradition of the wishbone will survive for many for many years to come, although in fewer homes.  Check with your grocer or butcher if you are not doing the whole extravaganza this year.  They may be able to help.

Iler Farmer Celebrated the End of World War 1 in Fostoria

There is not much left of Iler, Ohio.  Sitting roughly between Fostoria and Bettsville in Seneca County, Iler is a tad south of State Route 12 on County Road 592.  Unincorporated now, Iler lived (and died) by its location on the Nickel Plate railroad.  The village gained a post office in 1885, and offered most of the amenities that hamlets needed.  A brick and tile factory, general store, and telegraph office could be found in Iler at the turn of the last century (1900).  Never mind that the Iler railroad station was a converted boxcar; if one needed big city comforts, Toledo or Cleveland could easily be reached by rail.

A taste of Iler in its heyday can be found reading the 1918 diary of resident Robert F. Keller.  Keller (1888-1961) was a 29 year old farmer with a wife (Rose), a son and two daughters.  His father, Uzziah N. Keller, was a prominent citizen of Iler, helping organize the local Farm Bureau and teaching school for many years.  We are not sure why Robert Keller began a diary that year.  It might have had something to do with World War I.  Other than the backdrop of war, his life seemed to go on pretty much as normal (for an early twentieth century farmer). 

Let’s sample some of the entries Mr. Keller made in the pivotal month of November”

 

November 2  Saturday

We hauled in two bags of fodder.  Cleaned out horse stable.  I husk 5 shocks of corn this a.m.

++Corn was shocked earlier in the autumn.  Each individual stalk of corn was cut and propped up against a “gallus,” or a framework of four unpicked stalks.  Left to dry for several weeks, the ears of corn were husked, or the removal of the papery covers of the ears.

 

November 5 Tuesday

We helped Newcomer finish shredding [corn] at noon   Frank took us to vote   we husk this P.M.

++ Possibly Levi B. Newcomer (1843-1920)[i], a neighborhood farmer. 

 

November 6 Wednesday

We finished husking corn to day. . . . we hauled in big load this eve.

 

November  11 Monday

Garry & I husk corn for Ed Morrison to day.  I went to town tonight to march in Parade

++November 11 was the day of the armistice, or the day that Germany surrendered to the Allies.  Now celebrated as Veterans Day, crowds of patriots cheered the news, and many were the parades and celebrations in the chilly November air.  This parade was likely in Fostoria.

 

November 14 Saturday

Garry helped Ed husk corn & done chores.  I plowed.  I went to sale.

++We cannot be sure of the identity of “Garry.”  Was he a hired man, or a shirttail relative?  His name appears often in the diary; so does Ed, for that matter.  Husking corn was a tedious job, only partly helped by corn husking tools.  Keller took time off to go to a farm auction while Garry husked and husked.

 

November 18 Monday

It drizzled rain about all day.  I went up town.  I went to Lodge.  Got 50 nails.

++Keller belonged to the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal organization, and “secret society.”  Founded in 1864, the Knights still do charitable work, especially with victim of cystic fibrosis

 

November 20 Wednesday

Done chores    Garry went to town   got meat bbl.   We killed hog this pm,  Jay helped us….

 

November 21 Thursday

We cut up meat.   Tinkered around barn.  Garry went to Iler to Plow at noon.

 

November 25 Monday

We hauled in rest of corn & load of fodder   loaded up hay & Garry went to Iler to plow   I helped Masoner kill hog. . . .

++Butchering was the big chore in late November.  Rural families were still bound by the weather in 1918; butchering had to wait for freezing temperatures to preserve the meat.  Then the whole family worked as a group to kill the pig, scrape off the hair, drain the blood, and cut up the sections.  Smaller families often had help from friends and neighbors at butchering.

 

 

November 28 Thursday

We was home all day.   H. Wade B. Lord & Garryers [?] came down to hunt.  It rained   Garry had company

++By long standing tradition, Thanksgiving is a day for hunting.  You will notice that Keller and his friends did not even use the word “thanksgiving,” but this was the day appointed by president Woodrow Wilson for the holiday in 1918.  Thanksgiving falls squarely in hunting season, and given a federal holiday in late November, hunters took advantage of the day to pursue a favorite outdoor pastime.  It was also a god day for cold weather meat preservation, as mentioned above.

           

            Robert Keller ran the Iler farm until 1939, when his son, also Robert, took over.  The family stopped farming in 1948.  Robert Keller died in 1961 and is buried in Fostoria.  Iler slowly perished as the years went on.  The post office closed in 1923; the tile factory closed, and workers found jobs in Fostoria and elsewhere.  Such has been the story of many rural hamlets that could not survive in the twentieth century.           

---

[i] https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/9MKZ-CJT

A Native American Favorite: Raccoon Pot Pie

 

by Alan Borer

 

            When you have new neighbors, you must be careful if they come from a different culture.  They may dress, speak, pray, and especially eat things that are not familiar to you.  This is as true today as it was 50, 100, or 200 years ago.  Certainly in the pioneer days of the Maumee Valley, two groups of people, the Native Indians and the white European settlers, had to learn to get along with each other.  Part of this effort was to learn to eat each other’s food.  And depending on the individual dish, that took some doing.

            Some of the very earliest settlers of Wood County’s Milton Township were members of the Hutchinson family.  Originating from Ohio’s Summit County (Akron), they were numerous:  James Hutchinson, the father, three daughters, and two adult sons.  Andrew Hutchinson and his wife had twelve children.  James Jr. brought his wife as well, but the couple had no children.  Five yoke of oxen and a team of horses rounded out the party of settlers.  It took ten days for the newcomers to travel from Summit County to Perrysburg in Wood County, in 1834.  The Hutchinson brood traveled along what was then called the Maumee and Western Reserve Pike.  Then an “almost bottomless” sea of mud, the oxen came in handy, because if a team got stuck in the mud, the rest of the teams could pull them out! 

Once in Perrysburg, the family proceeded to Bowling Green, which had been established and named, but not much else.  Following the (still visible) sand ridges, they slogged their way southwest  toward Milton Township, their new home.  Once arrived, the Hutchinson family raised a log cabin, reputedly taking only 48 hours to build.

Milton Township at that time was a total wilderness.  “Not a tree had been cut in the township, unless by hunters, and everything was in a state of nature.”  The exception was a large Native American community.  Andrew Hutchinson’s children quickly made friends with the native children, each group learning the other’s games.  Meanwhile, Andrew the father set about clearing ground for a pioneer farm.  He was also a very active hunter, and would often sell wild game to newcomers in exchange for farm work.  Like his children, he learned hunting skills from his native neighbors.

The cultural exchange continued apace, and dietary exchanges were no exception.  The native people enjoyed the white settler’s hominy, in addition to their own native game such as venison, raccoon, muskrat, and groundhog.  Andrew Hutchinson noted that the Indians owned copper kettles, each holding eight to ten raccoons, each of which would be “skinned and quartered, then thrown in the kettle head, feet, claws, and all.”  Mixed with hominy, the raccoons cooked down into what the Hutchinsons called “pot pie.”

Not all the settlers enjoyed this fare.  James Hutchinson found his wife by traveling back to Summit County, where he met a “rather fashionable young lady” willing to share the rigorous life of a Wood County pioneer:

About the first Sunday she was there, they went to visit their neighbors – [Native] neighbors, and of course were invited to stay for dinner.  The young Summit county bride took a look into one of the kettles and got a full sniff of the steaming coon pot-pie, which so sickened her that she had to be taken off home which amused the Indians very much.[i]

We don’t know the specifics of this story, not even the tribe to which the natives belonged.  We can guess by their residence near the Maumee River that they were Ottawa or Wyandot.  The last generation of Natives living in Ohio, they were forced to relocate to what is now Oklahoma by 1843.  Milton Township has lost almost all its forests to clear cutting, with the bulk of the land now given over to intensive agriculture.

Only the Hutchinson family was given the time and space to settle down.  Their land was near a now vanished hamlet called Groff’s Corners, “on the edge of the Jackson prairie.”  Andrew Hutchinson sold meat from his hunting, and when last heard from, was 74 years old in 1883.  Perhaps even then he missed the taste of raccoon pot pie.

---

[i] Charles W. Evers, Pioneer Scrap=Book of Wood County Ohio (1910; rpt. 2008), pp. 96-97.