September Gleanings From Fort Wayne: Pigs and Opiates

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 Newspapers in the 1870s and beyond almost all had a column with a name like “Gleanings,” “Brevities” or “Town Topics” in which the editor commented on local happenings, seasonal changes, who was visiting in town and so on. I’ve compiled collections of these from the two places the Barbour branch of my family were living in during this era: Coffeyville, Kansas and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Almost all my earlier “Gleanings” articles were from Coffeyville, however. these are Fort Wayne items.


Compiled from September 1869


  • The public schools of this city will open for the fall term on Monday next. (Sept. 6)

  • We do not desire to interfere with the rights of humanity to appease their appetites at various eating booths…in our city, but having, through the assistance of a watermelon rind, performed an evolution equal to a first-rate gymnast in a circus, in which our heels changed position with our head, we do enter our editorial protest against the miscellaneous scattering of the refuse matter from these booths upon the sidewalks. We think the proprietors of these stalls should be compelled to remove their garbage to a repository outside the limits of the city. 

  • F. Ofenloch has a most wonderful curiosity in his possession and will put it on exhibition at the meat market at 100 Barr street. It is in the shape of a pig with well-developed legs. The pig is three months old, well-developed and healthy, and uses all six of its legs when walking. The two extra pedal extremities are in front. The public will be anxious to see this freak of nature as soon as it is put on exhibit. 


Compiled from September 1877


  • The fair begins Monday. Fair entries are pouring in. 

  • All government employees are requested to meet at the post office Sunday at one o’clock p.m. sharp, where crape and gloves will be furnished them to attend the funeral of their late friend, ex-postmaster J.J. Kamm, as an organized body. 

  • Four hogs escaped from the city pound last night. Marshall Kelly and his deputies are indignant, and will make it hot for the parties who let the porkers out. 

  • Do not stupify your baby with Opium and Morphia mixtures, but use Dr. Bull’s Baby Syrup, which is safe and reliable and never disappoints. 


     Free roaming swine continued to be a problem in American cities in the 1870s and even 1880s in some places. There were ordinances against it, and animal control officers who impounded the hogs, with steep fees to get them out. Some owners countered that their hogs actually performed a service by eating the refuse found on the streets. For information about how this was handled in Coffeyville, Kansas, read my article, “Hogs and Dogs” published January 2023. 


     Opiates were commonly used for decades in the U.S. to soothe babies and get them to sleep. Ironically, Dr. Bull’s Baby Syrup also contained alcohol and opiates.          


Compiled from September 1888


  • The St. Vincent's Orphanage had three deaths Monday night. The little ones were aged respectively eight, six months and fourteen days.

  • General Harrison will arrive in the city on the Wabash train at 1:45 p.m. today (Sept. 4) and remain here several hours. Let everybody turn out and give him a rousing welcome. A stand has been erected just north of the Pennsylvania depot, where he will be received and introduced to our citizens. 

  • The railroad companies are experiencing a good deal of trouble from fires along their lines, the dry weather of the last few weeks causing the tall grass in pastures adjacent to the tracks to catch fire easily from locomotive sparks. 

  • Photos taken by electric light at Jones’, 44 Calhoun street. Shop men, you can have your photos taken at night and lose no time.


     St. Vincent’s Orphanage was a newly-opened institution in 1887. It was operated by the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ for over seventy years. Orphanages had high infant mortality rates, often as a result of bacteria in baby bottles. It was noted that babies did better when wet nurses were employed. 

     Benjamin Harrison swung through Fort Wayne for a campaign stop on his way to winning the presidency that fall. A group of twenty-three men, including my third great-grandfather, Myron F. Barbour, were chosen as a reception committee. They took a train to Toledo to meet Harrison and accompany him to Fort Wayne. The city band met at the courthouse to begin a procession to the depot. Behind the band were girls ages eight to fourteen carrying American flags. Women were asked to come bearing bouquets of flowers. A separate reception was held for Mrs. Harrison by the ladies of the city. 


Sources:


     Regaignon, Dara Rossman. “Infant Doping and Middle-Class Motherhood,” from Other Mothers Beyond the Maternal Ideal, Ohio State University Press, 2008, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/30/oa_edited_volume/chapter/1144899

     “Harrison, The Republican Candidate for the Presidency, Will Visit the City Today,” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 4 Sept 1888, p. 4. 


Copyright by Andrea Auclair  © 2024 

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