This summer, we’re highlighting some of the cocktails and nonalcoholic “temperance beverages” that are available at Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village. Inspired by history but with a modern flair, these drinks pay homage to the Eagle Tavern barroom’s Michigan history as a sort of “community center.” We’d love for you to stop by and try one of these refreshing concoctions for yourself—or try making them at home. Today’s feature is nonalcoholic Mint Iced Tea.

Mint Iced Tea

Fill a 12 oz glass with ice.

Add 10 oz of Michigan-made brewed mint tea.

Garnish with a fresh mint sprig.

Additional Readings:

• Eagle Tavern Happy Hour: Nonalcoholic Cherry Effervescing Recipe
  
• Eagle Tavern Harvest Supper
  
• Eagle Tavern Cookbook, 1988
  
• Making Eagle Tavern's Butternut Squash Soup

recipes, restaurants, making, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, Eagle Tavern, beverages

This summer, we’re highlighting some of the cocktails and nonalcoholic “temperance beverages” that are available at Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village. Inspired by history but with a modern flair, these drinks pay homage to the Eagle Tavern barroom’s Michigan history as a sort of “community center.” We’d love for you to stop by and try one of these refreshing concoctions for yourself—or try making them at home. Today’s feature is the Stone Wall.

Stone Wall

 

Fill a 12 oz glass with ice.

Add 1 oz rum.

Fill to the top with Michigan-made hard cider.

Additional Readings:

• Meet Calvin Wood, Caterer of Eagle Tavern
  
• Eagle Tavern Happy Hour: Maple Bourbon Sour Recipe
  
• Eagle Tavern Harvest Supper
  
• Creating the Eagle Tavern Dining Experience

making, restaurants, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, Eagle Tavern, beverages, recipes

Debra A. Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment at The Henry Ford, answers some questions about the Vegetable Building from Detroit’s Central Market, which is currently being reconstructed in Greenfield Village, on The Henry Ford’s Instagram account, August 5, 2021.

To celebrate National Farmers Market Week last week, some of our staff interviewed Debra A. Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment at The Henry Ford, on site in Greenfield Village, where the Vegetable Building from Detroit’s Central Market is being reconstructed. In case you missed this story on our Instagram account, catch up below! And you can read even more about the Vegetable Building’s history and The Henry Ford’s plans for its future in prior blog posts.

Tell us about the Detroit Central Market Vegetable Building project.

The Detroit Central Market Vegetable Building project is a great museum project because museums collect, preserve, and interpret. We collected this building back in 2003, and it was in storage for almost 20 years, protected. Now it's being reconstructed in Greenfield Village as a hub for future food-related programs.

What is the significance of this Vegetable Building structure from the Detroit Central Market?

This structure is historically significant for a few different reasons. The master builders who are reconstructing it say that it's the most ornate timber-frame structure in North America that they've seen. That relates to another aspect of its significance, because it was designed by an architect who came from Bavaria, John Schaffer. He created the plans, and then there would have been a builder and master timber framers who erected it back in 1860, before it opened in 1861.


One of the original ornamental wooden brackets from the Detroit Central Market Vegetable Building. / THF173219

It's also an opportunity for us to talk about rural and urban connections, because the City of Detroit established the market to make sure that the citizens in the city could get food. So, it furthered food access and brought the farmers to the city.

How did The Henry Ford acquire the Vegetable Building from Detroit Central Market?

The Henry Ford acquired this building in 2003, purchasing it from the City of Detroit as an effort to save it from demolition—because it was planned for demolition. That was in its 140^th year. It had spent 30 years downtown in Detroit, between 1861 and 1894, and then 110 years on Belle Isle. During that 110 years, it had seen plenty of use as a shelter for vehicles and horses, as a riding stable, and as a storage building. Saving it really preserved a huge part of Detroit culture—but also public space culture, because it had been in use that whole 110 years on the public park on Belle Isle.

What’s the process for moving and restoring a historic structure in Greenfield Village?

After The Henry Ford purchased the building, staff and contractors then had to dismantle it, and it was stored until we had the financial support to reconstruct it. Master timber framer Christian and Sons, Incorporated, was hired to dismantle it—and almost 20 years later, they also oversaw the reconstruction of the timber frame roof. The Henry Ford’s recently retired Curator of Historic Structures and Collections Manager Jim McCabe worked with them on the whole process, with the reconstruction currently underway in Greenfield Village. Right now, the master tradesmen are putting purlins on the roof, and sheeting for the slate shingles that will top off the historic structure.


When the Vegetable Building was deconstructed on Belle Isle in 2003, the original materials were carefully tracked and stored so that eventually they could be reconstructed in Greenfield Village. / THF113552

What are the most interesting facets of working on the Detroit Central Market Vegetable Building project?

Working on this project allows me to do history research, which is what I absolutely love to do. I also know that guests have interests that don’t necessarily involve digging into the historic archive.

When we talk to guests, they often ask how much of a building is original. It's an interesting aspect of preservation for this project that half of the columns, 16 of the 32, will be original, and half of them will be replicas, to make sure that the structure is compliant with code and structurally sound engineering.

But beyond that, it's the history. Who were the vendors in the market? Where did they live? What were their family lives? And we're putting together information to create dramatic presentations, performances, and information for daily presenters to help ensure that we can share this fascinating story.

What’s the significance of National Farmers Market Week?

National Farmers Market Week is important for us because we are able to share this work in progress and get to some of the nuances about farmers markets. Detroit Central Market was Detroit’s public market: It was constructed, owned, and operated by the city and engaged many more people, many more vendors, than farmers and market gardeners alone.

But today you might hear the term farmers market, and it often means a farmer-owned and -operated cooperative venture in a community to ensure that farmers who grow produce have customers to sell to directly. So this opportunity to share during National Farmers Market Week helps us celebrate our work, the work of artisans, and the ongoing engagement between growers and you, the consumer.


Debra A. Reid is Curator of Agriculture and the Environment at The Henry Ford.

Additional Readings: 

• Detroit Central Market
  
• The Market, Envisioned
  
• Mary Judge’s Big Break: Central Market Through the Eyes of One Head-Turning
• Market Character
  
• Detroit Central Market Coming to Life

shopping, farms and farming, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, food, Michigan, Detroit Central Market, Detroit, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village

Central Market in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, circa 1890. / THF96803

As a 2021 Simmons intern at The Henry Ford, my experience, skillset, and reverence for community engagement, localization, and food justice combined into a recipe for growth.

I came to this work having spent the winter working with staff from The Henry Ford and a group of my peers on a script for a Central Market character that will debut in Greenfield Village in 2022. I also brought my knowledge of the local food environment, agroecological issues, museology, key contacts, and equity methodology. This confluence of background knowledge enabled me to envision a plan for weekly open-air historical markets in Greenfield Village that will preserve slow food culture in an urban environment. Ultimately, this has brought me one step closer to my career in designing and interpreting agroecological landscapes with communities before I head off to Burlington, Vermont, to start my PhD in Food Systems.

By now you have likely read of the reconstructed Central Market Vegetable Building in Greenfield Village. You may even know how The Henry Ford plans to bring it to life in Spring 2022 through the resurrection of historical markets for visitors to purchase fresh cut flowers, fruits, vegetables, and honey, or to pick up a cup of coffee and hear stories from market characters such as Mary Judge. This weekly educational market experience will offer a dozen growers a space to share their story, practices, and agricultural knowledge with highly engaged visitors, providing them access to the thousands of members and visitors who come to Greenfield Village every day.


Central Market vegetable shed reconstruction by Christian & Son, Inc. construction company on July 15, 2021. / Photo taken by Ayana Curran-Howes.

These markets will begin with a spring flower market in April 2022, where visitors can purchase lilies, pansies, and sweet peas, to name a few. This will whet the appetites of museumgoers for the weekly Saturday markets, from mid-June through mid-August, where 12-24 farmers (scaled up over time) will sell honey, fruit, vegetables, flowers, dairy, poultry, eggs, value-added items (like jams, pickles, salsa, and bread), and refreshments (such as coffee, cider, and donuts).


People look at flowers for sale at the Central Market, undated (BHC glass neg. no. 2553). / Detail of image from Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. (EB02e878)

I conducted historical research to answer the questions, “What fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuffs were being sold in the Central Market? When? By whom? Where in the market?” This work focused on bookending the market, looking extensively at the 1860s and 1890s. I conducted primary research using Michigan Farmer from the 1850s and 1860s, seed catalogs and nurserymen specimen books from The Henry Ford’s Digital Collections, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and the Detroit Free Press archives.



D.M. Ferry & Co. Seed Annual Descriptive Catalogue, 1883, front and back covers. / THF620066, THF620067

Michigan Farmer journals were particularly helpful for identifying notable growers and specific varieties beloved by growers. In the 1863 Michigan Farmer, the most popular varieties of pears described for growers are Belle Lucrative, Flemish Beauty, and the Bartlett, which “deservedly stands without a rival.”  This journal also introduces growers to new varieties like Clapp’s Favorite, which is “similar to Bartlett in form, but less musky in flavor” (Michigan Farmer, October, 1863, pg. 162–163). These specific varieties will be important for prioritizing heritage varieties in the market, a key component of slow food culture.


Description and depiction of pear varieties, Michigan Farmer, October 1863, pg. 163. / via Google Books, reproduced from the University of Michigan.

In order to paint a picture of what vendors sold within the market, we used city directories, George W. Hawes’ Michigan State Gazetteer, the Prairie Farmer Annual, Detroit Free Press advertisements, and some references to stall-keepers within newspaper articles from the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. When we could identify what stalls individual hucksters, market gardeners, florists, butchers, and fishmongers occupied, we still had to discern where these stalls were located inside the vegetable shed. One Detroit News article was particularly helpful in orienting where certain types of vendors were situated: “Just at this time the southern row of stalls in the vegetable market is a center of floral radiance and beauty” (Detroit News, “Seen on the Streets,” May 24, 1891). Central Market shoppers found butchers in the Central Market building and fruit vendors on many corners around the market, and hired unskilled laborers, such as chimney sweeps, at the east entrance of the Central Market vegetable shed.


Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan. / Sanborn Map Company, Vol. 2, 1884, with annotations by Ayana Curran-Howes.

Then, to bring this historical research forward, I had to identify key farmers, as well as community organizations and other markets, who should be involved—in order to ensure the longevity and impact of this initiative. To not remain purely about the past, but to connect the past to the present and inspire the future, we had to become aware of how this Central Market project would be perceived and could be supported by the incredible urban agriculture community that exists in Detroit today and in southeast Michigan at large.

Consequently, I crafted an interpretation plan to ensure the markets become a sustainable, vital part of the slow food movement in Southeast Michigan. This plan is grounded in several desires: to be seen by market gardeners as a profitable venture and by the community as an asset, to be relevant to the local food environment (e.g., not to be redundant or competitive with other local markets), and to be feasible for staff of The Henry Ford and participating farmers. Additionally, we want to make sure that the market both showcases the ingenuity of late 19^th-century market gardeners and hucksters and continues to foster ingenuity in present-day farmers, as this is what helps them to thrive on the outskirts of the market economy.


Simmons intern Ayana Curran-Howes, presenting on July 22, 2021, to 30+ staff of The Henry Ford and affiliates, including Debra Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment, at the annual Historical Resources internship presentations, organized by Sophia Kloc (featured left), Office Administrator for Historical Resources. / Photo captured by Deirdre Hennebury, Associate Director of the Museum Studies Program at University of Michigan.

It was incredibly important to me to ensure this market will be accessible, supports the existing food movement, and propels marginalized farmers forward through the marketing and financial resources of The Henry Ford. For instance, one measure that is feasible for The Henry Ford’s staff and increases accessibility, both for food-insecure residents around the museum and for farmers, is an earlier start to the market. For those for whom  the entrance fee is a barrier, we hope to have help such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Senior Project FRESH, and other food assistance available.

This is also a significant component of larger initiatives underway. Jennifer Junkermeier-Khan, this year’s other Simmons intern, has drafted a five-year strategic plan to “Inspire and provide training for the next generation of food entrepreneurs, innovators, and visionaries with a focus on sustainability, health, and social justice.” Community engagement is one of four pillars of this plan and is imperative for making the Central Market vegetable building installation a springboard into a new era for The Henry Ford: an era that not only speaks openly about difficult histories, including violence and racism (past and present) in the food system, but also seeks to create a counter-narrative and opportunities for social justice hyper-locally.

Consequently, we want this work to be founded in equity from the start, given the legacy of—and ongoing—racism within our food system and market economy. This will require long-term relationship development with the surrounding community and careful selection of vendors. Thus, I created criteria for selecting vendors to ensure that farmers who can benefit the most are approached, as well as those who have knowledge to share with visitors on farming practices, produce varieties, and their own cultural and food traditions. Some of the criteria for vendors include whether they are minority-owned and -operated; using family or fair-wage labor; using integrated pest management, mixed livestock-crop, and no-till systems; and growing heritage varieties and breeds.

This historic marketplace will allow growers to develop their narrative around their practices, varieties, and cultural heritage, immortalizing their stories and recording their history in ways they are not currently captured and appreciated.

Not many growers specialize in heirloom varieties in this area—this may be something they are interested in but are not currently growing due to slow production, financial costs, and lack of demand from consumers. By incentivizing and making heirlooms more visible, we can increase demand by consumers and increase their feasibility for farmers.

Lastly, for the Central Market vegetable building and its weekly markets to have a lasting impact on visitors and lead to the food systems change we hope to see, they have to have a “big idea” and a few key messages. Within broader institutional initiatives, the Central Market will “transform relationships between consumers and the origins of their food through immersive historic market educational experiences that center the stories of diverse producers, past and present, to progress slow food culture.” This big idea will be supported by key messages for visitors to take home with them.

First, the current industrial agricultural system supports fast food culture. This harms the environment through soil erosion and nutrient degradation. It is also extremely inefficient at producing “real” food. Vast monocultures (or the cultivation of single crops in a given area) occupy most agricultural lands in the United States, resulting in products used for biofuels, animal feed, and processed foods. Our current agricultural system is also discriminatory and disconnects consumers from their food and those who produce it.

Second, slow food culture, preserved and practiced in museum spaces, and led by diverse producers in the local food environment, can heal this metabolic and sociocultural rift. This is done in large part by the replacement of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with heirloom crops and livestock bred to produce way beyond their bodily means with heritage varieties. With the preservation of genetic diversity through heritage and heirloom crops, farmers gain resilience against climate change. Diversity protects farmers against devastation to their crops and provides environmental benefits like erosion prevention. Growing heirlooms can also improve human health through the nutritional quality of food and can preserve cultural heritages. “Every culture in the world has a history of growing and cooking food for health, taste, beauty, and affordability,” and it is our goal to be a part of active preservation—not simply in the museum’s collections for perpetuity, but practiced in real time (Waters et al. 2021, pg. 118).


Simmons Interns Jennifer Junkermeier-Khan (left) and Ayana Curran-Howes (right), with Debra Reid, advisor and The Henry Ford’s Curator for Agriculture and the Environment. / Taken July 15, 2021, outside Lovett Hall at The Henry Ford.

Many genes incorporated into GMOs are stolen (biopiracy) from indigenous varieties, so that corporations profit from centuries of stewardship and plant knowledge by Black, Indigenous, Latina/o, and other marginalized groups (Shiva, 2016). Taking practices out of context and without the wisdom of those who stewarded them into existence only ensures that they are co-opted and watered down. Thus, the third key message of the Central Market vegetable building and its weekly markets is that social justice and supporting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) farmers is restorative agriculture, and the practices of restorative agricultural practices are only carried forward from the past by diverse producers.

Lastly, visitors will walk away with an understanding and appreciation for public markets, where entrepreneurship, opportunity, struggle, and community all collide. All these messages will be told through the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes at the market—through performances, signage, and experiences, such as cooking demonstrations and magicians roaming the market vying for visitors’ attention.

Sources

Shiva, Vandana. Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology. North Atlantic Books, 2016.

Waters, Alice, et al. We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto. Penguin Press, 2021.


Ayana Curran-Howes is 2021 Simmons Intern at The Henry Ford.

Additional Readings:

• Detroit Central Market
• Market Day: Detroit Central Market’s Vegetable Shed Comes to Greenfield Village
• Reading an Artifact: The Reconstructed Detroit Central Market Vegetable Shed
  
• Detroit Central Market Vegetable Building: Curator Q&A

by Ayana Curran Howes, shopping, Michigan, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, food, farms and farming, events, Detroit Central Market, Detroit, agriculture, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford

This summer, we’re highlighting some of the cocktails and nonalcoholic “temperance beverages” that are available at Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village. Inspired by history but with a modern flair, these drinks pay homage to the Eagle Tavern barroom’s Michigan history as a sort of “community center.” We’d love for you to stop by and try one of these refreshing concoctions for yourself—or try making them at home. Today’s feature is the nonalcoholic Cherry Effervescing.

Cherry Effervescing

 

Fill a 12 oz glass with ice.

Add 2 oz cherry syrup.

Fill to the top with soda water.

Additional Readings:

• Eagle Tavern Happy Hour: Maple Bourbon Sour Recipe
  
• Eagle Tavern Happy Hour: Stone Wall Recipe
  
• Eagle Tavern Inspiration to Enjoy at Home
  
• Root Vegetables, Then and Now

recipes, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, Eagle Tavern, restaurants, making, beverages

The Henry Ford has two tollbooths—both from New England, but from different eras and circumstances. The Rocks Village toll house was built in the early 19th century, when horse-drawn carriages and wagons filled America’s roads. The Merritt Parkway tollbooth dates from the mid-20th century, when Americans traveled these roads in automobile, often for recreation.

Why are these buildings, both made to collect a toll for the use of a road or bridge, so completely different in their appearance and history? Their stories tell us much about our changing attitudes toward roads and road construction, and of our expanding expectations of governmental responsibility for transportation networks.


Rocks Village Toll House, 1828, near the Ackley Covered Bridge in Greenfield Village. / THF2033

The Rocks Village Toll House

Today, the Rocks Village toll house sits adjacent to the Ackley Covered Bridge in Greenfield Village. The simple, functional building formerly served a much larger covered bridge and drawbridge that spanned the Merrimack River, connecting the towns of Haverhill and West Newbury, Massachusetts. The bridge and toll house were built in 1828 to replace an earlier bridge that had been destroyed by a flood. Their construction was not the responsibility of the towns where they were located, nor the state or federal government, but of the Proprietors of the Merrimack Bridge, a group of Haverhill and West Newbury investors who had built the first Merrimack Bridge in 1795. The building housed a toll keeper, who was responsible for collecting the tolls and for opening the drawbridge when necessary. In his considerable spare time, the toll keeper also worked as a cobbler, making shoes. Tolls were collected until 1868, and the toll house remained in use for the drawbridge until 1912.


This worn image of the Merrimack Bridge from about 1910 shows the Rocks Village toll house (marked #2) along the approach to the right of the covered bridge. / THF125139

When the first Merrimack Bridge was built at Rocks Village in 1795, there was a need for good routes from the farmlands of northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire to the growing urban markets of Boston. Neither the new federal or state governments had the resources to build and maintain many roads. As a result, privately-owned turnpike and bridge companies, like the Proprietors of the Merrimack Bridge, were encouraged to fill that need with toll roads and bridges, which proliferated around the new nation.

The era of turnpikes and toll bridges was beginning to draw to a close when the second Merrimack Bridge was built in 1828. By mid-century, canals and then railroads had replaced roads as the primary means of traveling across distances, so roads and bridges were generally used more for local travel. This change can be seen in the decline in weekly receipts at the Rocks Village toll house, from a high of $58.00 in 1857, to $29.00 in 1868, when the Merrimack Bridge became a free bridge. At that time, Essex County assumed authority over the bridge, and the towns it served—Haverhill, West Newbury, and Amesbury—shared the costs of its upkeep. With only local support, upkeep was sporadic at best, and by 1912, most of the bridge had to be replaced.

The Rocks Village toll house had witnessed the decline of the American road during the mid-19th century. It would not be until the advent of the bicycle in the late 19th century, followed by the automobile in the early 20th century, that this decline would be reversed.

The Merritt Parkway Tollbooth

 

Merritt Parkway Tollbooth, circa 1950, in the Driving America exhibition in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. / THF79064

The rustic design of the Merritt Parkway tollbooth celebrated the pleasures of driving to experience the outdoors, part of a larger effort to promote tourism in Connecticut. It was built in Greenwich around 1950 as an expansion to the existing toll plaza. The Merritt Parkway runs 37 ½ miles from the New York state line at Greenwich to Milford, Connecticut. It was built in 1938 by the State of Connecticut to relieve the congestion on US 1 (the Boston Post Road), the main route from New York to Boston. Tolls were collected on the Merritt Parkway until 1988.


The Henry Ford’s Merritt Parkway tollbooth is one of the two at the outer edges of the original rustic toll plaza, built in 1940. / THF126470

The Merritt Parkway is, in many ways, a celebration of the revival of the American road. And, as a state response to local problems, it reflects the change in the responsibility for roads from the local to the regional and state levels. Heavy New York-to-Boston through-traffic, in addition to commuter traffic in and out of New York City, had turned US 1 into a permanent traffic jam. This created tremendous problems for the local communities along that route. However, the citizens of those communities were not inclined to bear the financial burden of road improvement, especially since would mostly serve people from out-of-state. The debate about how to solve this problem lasted from the early 1920s into the 1930s.

The eventual solution, the Merritt Parkway, contained the main elements of the modern highway. First, it bypassed population centers, pulling traffic away from busy downtown areas. Second, since it passed through the rapidly gentrifying farm- and woodlands of southwest Connecticut, the design of the parkway—the graceful layout of the road itself through rolling hills, as well as the bridges, service buildings, and tollbooths—emphasized the rustic beauty of the region. The beautiful design helped to promote Connecticut as a tourist destination for out-of-state visitors. Third, it was built during the economic depression of the 1930s, so its construction was touted as a job-creating project. Finally, its construction and maintenance were funded by the state and paid for out of the general treasury. Added after a couple of years, the tollbooths raised money for an extension of the highway to Hartford, Connecticut—the Wilbur Cross Parkway.

With the Merritt Parkway and similar roads, good public roads had returned and—for better or worse—had come to be viewed as an entitlement, subsidized through the public treasury rather than private investment.


Jim McCabe is former curator and collections manager at The Henry Ford. This article was adapted by Saige Jedele, Associate Curator, Digital Content, from the July 2007 entry in our previous “Pic of the Month” online series.

Additional Readings:

• Driving America
  
• Noyes Piano Box Buggy, about 1910: A Ride of Your Own
  
• 1908 Stevens-Duryea Model U Limousine: What Should a Car Look Like?
  
• The First McDonald's Location Turns 80

roads and road trips, cars, by Jim McCabe, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, Driving America, Henry Ford Museum

“Whenever Henry Ford visited England, he always liked to spend a few days in the Cotswold Country, of which he was very fond … during these sojourns I had many happy times driving Mr. Ford around the lovely scenes which abound in this part of Britain.”

—Herbert Morton, Strange Commissions for Henry Ford


A winding road through a Cotswold village, October 1930. / THF148434, detail

The Cotswolds Catch Henry Ford’s Eye

Henry Ford loved the Cotswolds, a rural region in southwest England—nearly 800 square miles of rolling hills, pastures, and small villages.

During the Middle Ages, a vibrant wool trade brought the Cotswolds great prosperity—at its heart was a breed of sheep known as Cotswold Lions. For centuries, the Cotswold region was well-known throughout Europe for the quality of its wool. Raising sheep, trading in wool, and woolen cloth fueled England’s economic growth from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. Cotswold’s prosperity and its rich belt of limestone that provided ready building material resulted in a distinctive style of architecture: limestone homes, churches, shops, and farm buildings of simplicity and grace.

During Henry Ford’s trips to the Cotswolds in the 1920s, he became intrigued with the area’s natural beauty and charming architecture—all those lovely stone buildings that “blossomed” among the verdant green countryside and clustered together in Cotswold’s picturesque villages. By early 1929, Ford had decided he wanted to acquire and move a Cotswold home to Greenfield Village.

A letter dated February 4, 1929, from Ford secretary Frank Campsall described that Ford was looking for “an old style that has not had too many changes made to it that could be restored to its true type.” Herbert Morton, Ford’s English agent, was assigned the task of locating and purchasing a modest building “possessing as many pretty local features as might be found.” Morton began to roam the countryside looking for just such a house. It wasn’t easy. Cotswold villages were far apart, so his search covered an extensive area. Owners of desirable properties were often unwilling to sell. Those buildings that were for sale might have only one nice feature—for example, a lovely doorway, but no attractive window elements.


Cotswold Cottage (buildings shown at left) nestled among the rolling hills in Chedworth, 1929–1930. / THF236012

Herbert Morton was driving through the tiny village of Lower Chedworth when he saw it. Constructed of native limestone, the cottage had “a nice doorway, mullions to the windows, and age mellowed drip-stones.” Morton knew he had found the house he had been looking for. It was late in the day, and not wanting to knock on the door and ask if the home was for sale, Morton returned to the town of Cheltenham, where he was staying.

The next morning Morton strolled along a street in Cheltenham, pondering how to approach the home’s owner. He stopped to look into a real estate agent’s window—and saw a photograph of the house, which was being offered for sale! Later that day, Morton arrived in Chedworth, and was greeted by the owner, Margaret Cannon Smith, and her father. The cottage, constructed out of native limestone in the early 1600s, had begun life as a single cottage, with the second cottage added a bit later.


Interior of Cotswold Cottage, 1929-1930. / THF236052

The home was just as quaint inside—large open fireplaces with the mantels supported on oak beams. Heavy oak beams graced the ceilings and the roof. Spiral stone staircases led to the second floor. Morton bought the house and the two acres on which it stood under his own name from Margaret Smith in April 1929 for approximately $5000. Ford’s name was kept quiet. Had the seller been aware that the actual purchaser was Henry Ford, the asking price might have been higher.


Cotswold Cottage (probably built about 1619) as it looked when Herbert Morton spotted it, 1929–1930. / THF236020

“Perfecting” the Cotswold Look

Over the next several months, Herbert Morton and Frank Campsall, Ford’s personal secretary, traded correspondence concerning repairs and (with the best of intentions on Ford’s part) some “improvements” Ford wanted done to the building: the addition of architectural features that best exemplified the Cotswold style. Morton sent sketches, provided by builder and contractor W. Cox-Howman from nearby Stow-on-the-Wold, showing typical Cotswold architectural features not already represented in the cottage from which to choose. Ford selected the sketch which offered the largest number of typical Cotswold features.

Ford’s added features on the left cottage included a porch (a copy of one in the Cotswold village of Rissington), a dormer window, a bay window, and a beehive oven.


Cotswold Cottage, 1929–1930, showing modifications requested by Henry Ford: the beehive oven, porch, and dormer window. / THF235980


Bay window added to the left cottage by Henry Ford (shown 1929–1930). Iron casement windows were added throughout. / THF236054

The cottage on the right got a doorway “makeover” and some dove-holes. These holes are commonly found in the walls of barns, but not in houses. It would have been rather unappealing to have bird droppings so near the house!



Ford’s modifications to the right cottage—a new doorway (top) and dove-holes (bottom) on the upper wall. / THF236004, THF235988


Cotswold Cottage, now sporting Henry Ford’s desired alterations. / THF235984

Ford wanted the modifications completed before the building was disassembled—perhaps so that he could establish the final “look” of the cottage, as well as be certain that there were sufficient building materials. The appearance of the house now reflected both the early 1600s and the 1920s—each of these time periods became part of the cottage’s history. Ford’s additions, though not original to the house, added visual appeal.

The modifications were completed by early October 1929. The land the cottage stood on was transferred to the Ford Motor Company and later sold.

Cotswold Cottage Comes to America

Cotswold Cottage being disassembled. / THF148471

By January 1930, the dismantling of the modified cottage was in process. To carry out the disassembly, Morton again hired local contractor W. Cox-Howman.


Building components being crated for shipment to the United States. / THF148475

Doors, windows, staircases, and other architectural features were removed and packed in 211 crates.


Cotswold building stones ready for shipment in burlap sacks. / THF148477

The building stones were placed in 506 burlap sacks.


Cotswold barn and stable on original site, 1929–1930. / THF235974

The adjacent barn and stable, as well as the fence, were also dismantled and shipped along with the cottage.


Hauled by a Great Western Railway tank engine, 67 train cars transported the materials from the Cotswolds to London to be shipped overseas. / THF132778

The disassembled cottage, fence, and stable—nearly 500 tons worth—were ready for shipment in late March 1930. The materials were loaded into 67 Great Western Railway cars and transported to Brentford, west London, where they were carefully transferred to the London docks. From there, the Cotswold stones crossed the Atlantic on the SS London Citizen.

As one might suspect, it wasn’t a simple or inexpensive move. The sacks used to pack many of the stones were in rough condition when they arrived in New Jersey—at 600 to 1200 pounds per package, the stones were too heavy for the sacks. So, the stones were placed into smaller sacks that were better able to withstand the last leg of their journey by train from New Jersey to Dearborn. Not all of the crates were numbered; some that were had since lost their markings. One package went missing and was never accounted for—a situation complicated, perhaps, by the stones having been repackaged into smaller sacks.

Despite the problems, all the stones arrived in Dearborn in decent shape—Ford’s project manager/architect, Edward Cutler, commented that there was no breakage. Too, Herbert Morton had anticipated that some roof tiles and timbers might need to be replaced, so he had sent some extra materials along—materials taken from old cottages in the Cotswolds that were being torn down.

Cotswold “Reborn”

In April 1930, the disassembled Cotswold Cottage and its associated structures arrived at Greenfield Village. English contractor Cox-Howman sent two men, mason C.T. Troughton and carpenter William H. Ratcliffe, to Dearborn to help re-erect the house. Workers from Ford Motor Company’s Rouge Plant also came to assist. Reassembling the Cotswold buildings began in early July, with most of the work completed by late September. Henry Ford was frequently on site as Cotswold Cottage took its place stone-by-stone in Greenfield Village.

Before the English craftsmen returned home, Clara Ford arranged a special lunch at the cottage, with food prepared in the cottage’s beehive oven. The men also enjoyed a sight-seeing trip to Niagara Falls before they left for England in late November.


By the end of July 1930, the cottage walls were nearly completed. / THF148485


On August 20, 1930, the buildings were ready for their shingles to be put in place. The stone shingles were put up with copper nails, a more modern method than the wooden pegs originally used. / THF148497


Cotswold barn, stable, and dovecote, photographed by Michele Andonian. / THF53508

Free-standing dovecotes, designed to house pigeons or doves which provided a source of fertilizer, eggs, and meat, were not associated with buildings such as Cotswold Cottage. They were found at the homes of the elite. Still, for good measure, Ford added a dovecote to the grouping about 1935. Cutler made several plans and Ford chose a design modeled on a dovecote in Chesham, England.

Henry and Clara Ford Return to the Cotswolds

The Lygon Arms in Broadway, where the Fords stayed when visiting the Cotswolds. / THF148435, detail

As reconstruction of Cotswold Cottage in Greenfield Village was wrapping up in the fall of 1930, Henry and Clara Ford set off for a trip to England. While visiting the Cotswolds, the Fords stayed at their usual hotel, the Lygon Arms in Broadway, one of the most frequently visited of all Cotswold villages.


Henry (center) and Clara Ford (second from left) visit the original site of Cotswold Cottage, October 1930. / THF148446, detail

While in the Cotswolds, Henry Ford unsurprisingly asked Morton to take him and Clara to the site where the cottage had been.


Cotswold village of Stow-on-the-Wold, 1930. / THF148440, detail

At Stow-on-the-Wold, the Fords called on the families of the English mason and carpenter sent to Dearborn to help reassemble the Cotswold buildings.


Village of Snowshill in the Cotswolds. / THF148437, detail

During this visit to the Cotswolds, the Fords also stopped by the village of Snowshill, not far from Broadway, where the Fords were staying. Here, Henry Ford examined a 1600s forge and its contents—a place where generations of blacksmiths had produced wrought iron farm equipment and household objects, as well as iron repair work, for people in the community.


The forge on its original site at Snowshill, 1930. / THF146942

A few weeks later, Ford purchased the dilapidated building. He would have it dismantled, and then shipped to Dearborn in February 1931. The reconstructed Cotswold Forge would take its place near the Cotswold Cottage in Greenfield Village.

To see more photos taken during Henry and Clara Ford’s 1930 tour of the Cotswolds, check out this photograph album in our Digital Collections.

Cotswold Cottage Complete in Greenfield Village—Including Wooly “Residents”

Completed the previous fall, Cotswold Cottage is dusted with snow in this January 1931 photograph. Cotswold sheep gather in the barnyard, watched over by Rover, Cotswold’s faithful sheepdog. (Learn Rover's story here.) / THF623050


A Cotswold sheep (and feline friend) in the barnyard, 1932. / THF134679

Beyond the building itself, Henry Ford brought over Cotswold sheep to inhabit the Cotswold barnyard. Sheep of this breed are known as Cotswold Lions because of their long, shaggy coats and faintly golden hue.


Cotswold Cottage stood ready to welcome—and charm—visitors when Greenfield Village opened to the public in June 1933. / THF129639

By the Way: Who Once Lived in Cotswold Cottage?

Cotswold Cottage, as it looked in the early 1900s. From Old Cottages Farm-Houses, and Other Stone Buildings in the Cotswold District, 1905, by W. Galsworthy Davie and E. Guy Dawber. / THF284946

Before Henry Ford acquired Cotswold Cottage for Greenfield Village, the house had been lived in for over 300 years, from the early 1600s into the late 1920s. Many of the rapid changes created by the Industrial Revolution bypassed the Cotswold region and in the 1920s, many area residents still lived in similar stone cottages. In previous centuries, many of the region’s inhabitants had farmed, raised sheep, worked in the wool or clothing trades, cut limestone in the local quarries, or worked as masons constructing the region’s distinctive stone buildings. Later, silk- and glove-making industries came to the Cotswolds, though agriculture remained important. By the early 1900s, tourism became a growing part of the region’s economy.

A complete history of those who once occupied Greenfield Village’s Cotswold Cottage is not known, but we’ve identified some of the owners since the mid-1700s. The first residents who can be documented are Robert Sley and his wife Mary Robbins Sley in 1748. Sley was a yeoman, a farmer who owned the land he worked. From 1790 at least until 1872, Cotswold was owned by several generations of Robbins descendants named Smith, who were masons or limeburners (people who burned limestone in a kiln to obtain lime for mixing with sand to make mortar).

As the Cotswold region gradually evolved over time, so too did the nature of some of its residents. From 1920 to 1923, Austin Lane Poole and his young family owned the Cotswold Cottage. Medieval historian, fellow, and tutor at St. John’s College at Oxford University (about 35 miles away), Poole was a scholar who also enjoyed hands-on work improving the succession of Cotswold houses that he owned. Austin Poole had gathered documents relating to the Sley/Robbins/Smith families spanning 1748 through 1872. It was these deeds and wills that revealed the names of some of Cotswold Cottage’s former owners. In 1937, after learning that the cottage had been moved to Greenfield Village, Poole gave these documents to Henry Ford.

In 1926, Margaret Cannon Smith purchased the house, selling it in 1929 to Herbert Morton, on Henry Ford’s behalf.

“Olde English” Captures the American Imagination

At the time that Henry Ford brought Cotswold Cottage to Greenfield Village, many Americans were drawn to historic English architectural design—what became known as Tudor Revival. The style is based on a variety of late Middle Ages and early Renaissance English architecture. Tudor Revival, with its range of details reminiscent of thatched-roof cottages, Cotswold-style homes, and grand half-timbered manor houses, became the inspiration for many middle-class and upper-class homes of the 1920s and 1930.

These picturesque houses filled suburban neighborhoods and graced the estates of the wealthy. Houses with half-timbering and elaborate detail were often the most obvious examples of these English revival houses, but unassuming cottage-style homes also took their place in American towns and cities. Mansion or cottage, imposing or whimsical, the Tudor Revival house was often made of brick or stone veneer, was usually asymmetrical, and had a steep, multi-gabled roof. Other characteristics included entries in front-facing gables, arched doorways, large stone or brick chimneys (often at the front of the house), and small-paned casement windows.


Edsel Ford’s home at Gaukler Pointe, about 1930. / THF112530

Henry Ford’s son Edsel and his wife Eleanor built their impressive but unpretentious home, Gaukler Pointe, in the Cotswold Revival style in the late 1920s.


Postcard, Postum Cereal Company office building in Battle Creek, Michigan, about 1915. / THF148469

Tudor Revival design found its way into non-residential buildings as well. The Postum Cereal Company (now Post Cereals) of Battle Creek, Michigan, chose to build an office building in this centuries-old English style.


Plan for “An Attractive English Cottage” from the American Face Brick Association plan book, 1921. / THF148542




Plans for English-inspired homes offered by Curtis Companies Inc., 1933. / THF148549, THF148550, THF148553

Tudor Revival homes for the middle-class, generally more common and often smaller in size, appeared in house pattern books of the 1920s and 1930s.


Sideboard, part of a dining room suite made in the English Revival style, 1925–1930. / THF99617

The Tudor Revival called for period-style furnishings as well. “Old English” was one of the most common designs found in fashionable dining rooms during the 1920s and 1930s.


Christmas card, 1929. / THF4485

Even English-themed Christmas cards were popular.

Cotswold Cottage—A Perennial Favorite

Cotswold Cottage in Greenfield Village, photographed by Michelle Andonian. / THF53489

Henry Ford was not alone in his attraction to the distinctive architecture of the Cotswold region and the English cottage he transported to America. Cotswold Cottage remains a favorite with many visitors to Greenfield Village, providing a unique and memorable experience.


Jeanine Head Miller is Curator of Domestic Life at The Henry Ford. Many thanks to Sophia Kloc, Office Administrator for Historical Resources at The Henry Ford, for editorial preparation assistance with this post.

Additional Readings:

• Cotswold Cottage Tea
  
• Interior of Cotswold Cottage at its Original Site, Chedworth, Gloucestershire, England, 1929-1930
  
• Cotswold Cottage

home life, design, farm animals, travel, Henry Ford, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village history, Greenfield Village, by Jeanine Head Miller

Trade Card for Choice Flower Seeds, D.M. Ferry & Co., 1880-1900 / THF214403

Sustenance is not usually associated with flowers or the horticultural industry, but cut flowers and ornamental plants have been nourishing humans for centuries. Flowers aid people through hard times by providing joy, mental health benefits, and ephemeral beauty unmatched in many eyes. Additionally, cut flower cultivation is a critical source of revenue and ecosystem service for agricultural entrepreneurs.


Stereograph of a blooming tree peony, circa 1865 / THF66255

The horticulture industry grew rapidly during the 19^th century. New businesses, such as Mount Hope Nursery and Gardens out of Rochester, New York, used an expanding transportation infrastructure to market ornamental plants to Midwesterners starting during the 1840s. Yet, while consumers’ interest in ornamentation grew, so did their displeasure with distant producers distributing plants of unverifiable quality. Soon enough, local seed companies and seedling and transplant growers met Detroiters’ needs, establishing greater levels of trust between producer and consumer (Lyon-Jenness, 2004). D.M. Ferry & Co., established in Detroit in 1867, sold vegetable and flower seeds, as well as fruit tree grafts, direct to consumers and farmers.

At the heart of horticulture lies a tension between respect for local, native species and the appeal of newly engineered, “perfect” cultivars. Entrepreneurs such as Hiram Sibley invested in the new and novel, building fruit, vegetable, and flower farms, as well as distribution centers, in multiple states.


Hiram Sibley & Co. Seed Box, Used in the C.W. Barnes Store, 1882-1888 / THF181542

Plant breeders such as Luther Burbank sought a climate to support year-round experimentation. As a result, he relocated from Massachusetts to California, where he cultivated roses, crimson poppies, daisies, and more than 800 other plants over the decades. Companies in other parts of the country—Stark Bro’s Nurseries & Orchards Co. in Louisiana, Missouri, and the W. Atlee Burpee Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—partnered with Burbank or established their own California operations to maintain a competitive edge. These larger farms had to send their flowers by rail across the country and as such, engineered for consistency and mass production.


Field of Burbank's Rosy Crimson Escholtzia, April 13, 1908, Santa Rosa, California. / THF277209

Advertising fueled growth. Companies marketed seeds directly to homeowners, farmers, and market gardeners through a combination of colorful packets, seed boxes, catalogs, specimen books, trade cards, and purchasing schemes. Merchants could reference colorful trade literature issued by D.M. Ferry & Company as they planned flower seed purchases for the next year. The 1879 catalog even oriented merchants to its seed farms and trial grounds near Detroit. A D.M. Ferry trade card (seen below) advertised more than the early flowering sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) in 1889, featuring twelve “choice kinds” available in Ferry seed boxes or through orders submitted by merchants directly to the company (Little and Kantor, Journal of Heredity, 1941). Customers who returned ten empty seed packets earned a copy of Ferry’s Floral Album.


Trade Card for Sweet Pea Seeds, D.M. Ferry & Company, 1889. / THF214415

Additionally, magazines such as Vick’s Illustrated Family Magazine, published by Rochester, New York, seedsman James Vick, served as a clearinghouse of information for consumers and growers alike.


Floral lithographs by James Vick / Digital Collections

Flowers were not always grown in isolation. Cultivating and selling vegetables side-by-side with flowers was common practice, as it provided farmers diversity in income with the ebb and flow of seasons. The addition of flowers proved mutually beneficial to both profits and productivity for farms, as they attract pollinators and receive a high mark-up in the market. Furthermore, flowers could be placed alongside vegetables on farm stands as a means to decorate and draw the attention of market goers.

Market gardeners who also grew flowers saw the potential in Detroit, and this helped develop the floriculture industry. John Ford, a Scottish immigrant, gained visibility through his entries at the Annual Fair of Michigan State Agricultural Society, winning awards for cut flowers, dahlias, and German asters, as well as culinary vegetables, strawberries, and nutmeg melons, throughout the 1850s and 1860s (The Michigan Farmer, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1861/62, 1863/64). Ford served on the Detroit City Common Council. After that body approved construction, in 1860, of a new Vegetable Shed for Detroit’s City Hall Market (also known as Central Market), Ford or members of his family operated a stand in the market until at least 1882.


Nurseryman's Specimen Book, 1871-1888, page 76 / THF620239

Another market gardener, John Breitmeyer, an immigrant from Bavaria, settled in Detroit in 1852 and grew a booming floral business. He anticipated the growth of the floral industry, building hot houses for roses in 1886 and establishing the first florist shop in Detroit in 1890 off Bates Street (The American Florist, April 28, 1900, pg. 1213). He worked with his two sons, who had studied floriculture in Philadelphia, to raise plants and flowers, but “the latter seemed the most profitable” (Detroit Journal, reprinted in Fort Worth Daily Gazette, August 12, 1889, pg. 4). There were 200 floral shops in Detroit by 1930, when the Breitmeyer family operation grew to specialize in “chrysanthymums [sic], carnations, and sweet peas” in addition to roses (Detroit Free Press, April 6, 1930).


Detroit City Business Directory, Volume II, 1889-1890, page 125 / THF277531

Florists sold cut flowers to satisfy consumers willing to part with hard-earned money on such temporary satisfaction. Many factors influenced their decisions: weddings, funerals, and other rites of passage; brightening a home interior; thanking a host; or treating a sweetheart. Whatever the reason, Breitmeyer and Ford and others responded to the zeal for floral ornamentation.


Memorial Floral Arrangement, circa 1878 / THF210195

The Michigan Farmer encouraged readers to “bring a few daisies and butter-cups from your last field walk, and keep them alive in a little water; aye, preserve but a branch of clover, or a handful of flower grass—one of the most elegant, as well as cheapest of nature’s productions and you have something on your table that reminds you of the beauties of God’s creation, and gives you a link with the poets and sages that have done it most honor. Put but a rose, or a lily, or a violet, on your table, and you and Lord Bacon have a custom in common.” (July 1863, pg. 32). Though the preferences varied, flowers inside the home were simultaneously a luxury and something that everyday people could afford, and connected them to poets and lords.

Publications encouraged the trade through how-to columns on decorating with flowers. This clipping from the Michigan Farmer explained how to construct a centerpiece featuring cut flowers.


Description of simple DIY floral ornaments in the household. Excerpt from Michigan Farmer, August, 1863/64, pg. 84. / Image via HathiTrust

What types of flowers might growers raise to fill their baskets and ornament their tables? The Michigan Farmer indicated that “no garden” should be without dahlias “as a part of its autumn glory” (April 1857, pg. 115) and that growers should “never be without” a Moutan peony (February 1858, pg. 48).

Urban markets featured many more plants and cut flowers to satisfy consumer demand. The Detroit News reported in May 1891 that “tulips of every hue and the modest daisy or bachelor’s button still linger on the stalls, but they are the first floral offerings of the spring, and their day is now about over.” The florists rapidly restocked, filling their southern row of stalls in the vegetable market with “floral radiance and beauty…. The hydrangeas with their pink or snow-white balls; fuchsias, with their bell-like cups and purple hearts; geraniums, in all the colors of the rainbow; the heliotrope, with its light-pink blossom; the begonia, with its wax green leaves; verbenas in pink, purple and white; the marguerite, with its white and yellow star; the kelseloria [Calceolaria] in blushing red or golden yellow; the modest mignonette, with its neutral tints but exquisite perfume; and the blue and fragrant forget-me-not” (“Seen on the Streets,” May 24, 1891).

Florists stood at the ready to satisfy customers’ needs, especially for a beau seeking a bouquet to woo his lover (Detroit Free Press, June 19, 1870). On one occasion, a woman reluctantly bought sunflower seeds and catnip instead of climbers that would make her house look “almost like Paradise,” fearing that this ornamentation would cause the landlord to raise her rent (Detroit Free Press, April 27, 1879). In other instances, men “commissioned” by their wives stopped by the flower stands in Central Market, perusing “roses, pansies, and hyacinth bulbs” (Detroit Free Press, January 10, 1890). 


Shoppers at Central Market crowd around potted lilies and cut flowers wrapped in paper, undated (BHC glass neg. no. 1911). / Image from Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (EB02e398)

By the late 19^th century, customers had many options to satisfy their appetite for flowers. Many Detroiters purchased their flowers and ornamental plants at the Vegetable Building in Central Market. One huckster turned florist, Mary Judge, engaged customers at her Central Market floral stand with a pretty rose bush for a quarter (not 20 cents, or she’d make no profit), geraniums for 10 cents, or a “beyutiful little flower” for 5 cents (Detroit News, May 24, 1891).

They could also frequent florist shops like John Breitmeyer’s by 1890, or purchase seed from merchants to raise their own. Many reasons motivated them, from satisfying a sweetheart to keeping up with their neighbors’ ornamental plantings. No doubt, beautiful trade cards helped stir up allure and demand for popular garden flowers such as pansies.


Trade Card for Pansies Seeds, D. M. Ferry & Co., 1889 / THF298777

The entrepreneurs and florists of the 19^th century sowed the seeds for an industry that remains vigorous but is far more globalized. There are botanic stories still to uncover and after centuries of cultivation, these beautiful ornaments still sustain something deeper within us.

Secondary Sources:

Stewart, Amy. Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful. Algonquin Books, 2008.

Lyon-Jenness, C. (2004). Planting a Seed: The Nineteenth-Century Horticultural Boom in America. Business History Review, 78(3), 381-421. doi:10.2307/25096907


Ayana Curran-Howes is 2021 Simmons Intern at The Henry Ford. Debra A. Reid is Curator of Agriculture and the Environment at The Henry Ford.

entrepreneurship, home life, shopping, farms and farming, agriculture, by Debra A. Reid, by Ayana Curran Howes, Michigan, Detroit, Detroit Central Market, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village

This summer, we’re highlighting some of the cocktails and nonalcoholic “temperance beverages” that are available at Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village. Inspired by history but with a modern flair, these drinks pay homage to the Eagle Tavern barroom’s Michigan history as a sort of “community center.” We’d love for you to stop by and try one of these refreshing concoctions for yourself—or try making them at home. Today’s feature is the Mint Julep.

Mint Julep

In a 9 oz glass, muddle the leaves from 2 sprigs of mint.

Add 4 seconds of a pour of sugared water, and continue to muddle.

Fill with cracked ice, then add 1 jigger of bourbon or brandy, and 2 brisk dashes of bitters (to taste).

Stir well and garnish with mint.

Additional Readings:

• Eagle Tavern Happy Hour: Nonalcoholic Cherry Effervescing Recipe
  
• Drinking at Eagle Tavern
  
• Meet Calvin Wood, Caterer of Eagle Tavern
  
• #THF90: Creating Greenfield Village

making, restaurants, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, Eagle Tavern, beverages, recipes

"History of Detroit and Michigan," Silas Farmer, 1884, page 794 / THF139107

Fresh food markets have always brought communities of all backgrounds together for nutritional and social sustenance. The markets of the 19^th century were different than today’s in terms of sanitation, regulations, and petty crimes, but the desire for community that existed then remains true. Today, Detroit’s Eastern Market and dozens of other markets in southeast Michigan provide citizens with food security and support a burgeoning urban agricultural movement and the local economy.


Interior of a farmers’ market, 1875, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally published in Earl Shinn, A Century After: Picturesque Glimpses of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania (published in Philadelphia by Lane Allen & Scott and J.W. Lauderbach, 1875), pg. 156, on the title page of the chapter "Marketry.” This illustrates what we can imagine the inside of Central Market looked like on a busy market day. / THF610498

The Vegetable Building (now being reconstructed in Greenfield Village) opened in Detroit's public market, then known as City Hall Market, in 1861. It remained a hub of community cohesion and commercial competition for 30 years until the city closed it, later dismantling it and relocating it to Belle Isle in 1894. In the three decades that the Vegetable Building attracted vendors and customers, Detroit’s population grew from 45,619 to 205,876 (per Detroit Historical Society) and the market tried to keep pace.

Mounting calls for the demolition of Detroit’s rat-infested “eyesore” resulted in the obliteration of the three-story “Central Market” brick building that housed butchers and market administrators between 1880 and 1894. It also prompted removal of the Vegetable Building to Belle Isle, and its replacement with a retail park (Cadillac Square) and a new public market (Eastern Market). This process destroyed the public market in central Detroit, but ultimately preserved the market’s Vegetable Building.

The Henry Ford acquired the Vegetable Building in 2003. After its reconstruction, the Central Market’s Vegetable Building will allow us to tell the stories of the vendors and consumers that frequented the market. These stories will illustrate that Central Market was a place where Detroiters came to purchase food stuffs, where entrepreneurs (many of them immigrants) were able to make a living, and where vibrant community life (including competition and discrimination) played out.

This year, we’ve been working to establish authentic stories as the basis for living history programming at the Vegetable Building, featuring costumed presenters and dramatic performances. Additional research underscores decisions about modern-day vendors invited to sell their honey, bread, pickles, eggs, flowers, and fresh fruits and vegetables to visitors at weekly markets and specialty markets in Greenfield Village.


Group of women, one with a baby carriage, in front of the Central Market Building, Detroit, Michigan, circa 1890. / THF623829

A partnership between The Henry Ford and the University of Michigan Museum Studies Program resulted in a script for a dramatic presentation that will help guests grasp the numerous ways that the market building affected urban life. Four students from the Museum Studies Program—Kathleen Brown (American Culture), Laurel Fricker (Classical Art and Archeology), Antonello Mastronardi (Classics), and myself, Ayana Curran-Howes (Environment & Sustainability)—crafted a script for a noteworthy Central Market character. The market was filled with characters, but one that captured the attention of newspaper reporters, the police, and a fair number of male suitors was Mary Judge. She became the focus of our investigation.

Our research into Mary Judge unveiled a fascinating and difficult, yet vibrant, individual. Newspaper reports documented her wit, sharp tongue, charm, and self-awareness as a woman staking her claim to independence. Newspaper reports from the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press gave us a foundation on which to build a script for an entertaining and educational performance.


Vegetable Shed at Detroit’s City Hall Market, known as Central Market after 1880. It is identified as “Cadillac Square Market (Detroit, Mich.)” in the George Washington Merrill photographs collection, University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library (BL003974). The original was one of two photographic images likely taken by James A. Jenney for A. J. Brow, Detroit, Michigan, and published as a stereograph. The original stereograph is in the Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library. We believe the woman circled in orange may be Mary Judge, vending flowers. 

The script, featuring Mary Judge, is set during a Saturday night market in the 1880s. We chose a Saturday night market to introduce guests to the hustle and bustle of market life that everyday Detroit residents experienced. Farmers saved their best produce for busy Saturday nights when throngs of factory workers and working-class citizens came to purchase fresh produce and meat, as well as to socialize.

Mary Judge enters as a whirlwind. Her livelihood depended on capturing the public’s attention, and the dramatic presentation conveys that urgency. Mary also conveys the tumultuous yet essential relationship that hucksters like herself had with the farmers who grew the products that hucksters resold. Mary’s success at reselling depended on the relationships she cultivated with other vendors and the larger market community. The eight-minute solo act features Mary’s opinions about the role of the market in Detroit life, before the politics around the closing of the market disrupted Mary’s status quo starting in 1891.

What did Mary resell? The Michigan climate lent itself to a wide array of produce. Consumers could choose between market crops such as strawberries and cherries, often eaten to the point of bellyache (Detroit Free Press, June 25, 1874), or other seasonal crops such as rhubarb, cucumbers, and celery worthy of larceny (Detroit Free Press, August 12, 1879). Mary herself sold many different things, including coffee, flowers, fruit, poultry, and “fried cakes, gingerbread, pig's feet” (November 22, 1875). The Free Press reported her doughnuts “were very fillin’ for the price” (February 28, 1876).


Cherries. Nurseryman's Specimen Book, 1871-1888, page 48. / THF620211

Additional carnival-like attractions included strong-man machines, magic tricks, and exotic pets for sale. The variety of attractions created a bustling crowd that made it “often a feat to swallow a cup of coffee, without having it spilled” (Detroit Free Press, December 19, 1869).

The research plan we devised included numerous stages.

We reviewed other dramatic performances at The Henry Ford, including “The Disagreeable Customer” at J.R. Jones General Store and “How I Got Over” at Susquehanna Plantation. We also reviewed expert advice about living history programming collected in the Living History Anthology (Katz-Hyman et al., 2018). These informed the structure and style of our script.

Then, we asked ourselves “What was the social and economic function of the market? Who was allowed to keep a stall in the market and in what ways were they restricted, supported, and able to survive in this market economy?” Answers to these questions were revealed through secondary sources including Gloria Main, “Women on the Edge: Life at Street Level in the Early Republic” (2012); Jen Manion, “Dangerous Publics,” in Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America (2015); and Melanie Archer, “Self-Employment and Occupational Structure in an Industrializing City: Detroit, 1880” (1991).

We also looked at Detroit’s demographic data to understand the composition of the consumers in the market space. Then we conducted primary research, reviewing news reports published in the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News that featured Mary Judge over 30 years. These conveyed the verbiage of the time, the historic perspective on events, the politics of the past, and the atmosphere of the market. The newspaper coverage of the market generated a body of evidence that continues to inform us.


From left to right: Ayana Curran-Howes, The Henry Ford’s Curator of Agriculture and the Environment Debra Reid, and Antonello Mastronardi, looking at the site where the Vegetable Building is being reconstructed in Greenfield Village, March 6, 2021. Photo taken by Laurel Fricker.

The low capital investment required to become a huckster allowed some immigrants to Detroit, including Mary Judge, to carve out a space in the public market. Other immigrants, including English and Irish individuals as well as Germans, Poles, and Italians, gained a toehold on economic independence. German butchers dominated the fresh- and processed-meat markets. They had more capital and political influence and, therefore, access to better stalls. In contrast, the Italians, newcomers during the 1880s, tried their hand at selling fruit.

Long before these European ethnic groups arrived, Black Detroiters faced racism in the marketplace and endured discrimination and violence. Nonetheless, they used the marketplace, as did other entrepreneurs, to sell their labor as chimney sweeps and whitewashers (those who painted cellars and building interiors, even the Vegetable Building interior, to intensify natural light).

The portrayal of Mary Judge will show guests how women used huckstering to gain financial independence. This was one of few alternatives for single women at the time, other than domestic service. Secondary readings and primary evidence indicated that women rarely held public-facing positions comparable to that of Mary Judge, the Central Market huckster. When they did, they were harassed by men and police alike. The consequences compounded for poor unmarried women, identified as “unladylike” in demeanor, and disruptive in action.

Hierarchies based on privilege kept many vendors marginalized. Female and immigrant vendors had to overcome language barriers, and had to navigate racism, sexism, and xenophobia when they tried to obtain permits, rent a stall, and obtain goods to sell. As an example, anti-immigrant sentiment followed Italian fruit vendors wherever they went. Mary Judge perpetrated this herself, verbally engaging with Italians and decrying their business decisions: “Go an’ absolve yerself of your business, sir; an’ not be hawkin’ ye’r truck on the streets this blessid day [Sunday]” (Detroit Free Press, July 25, 1887).


From left to right: Debra Reid, Kathleen Brown, Ayana Curran-Howes, Laurel Fricker, Antonello Mastronardi, and The Henry Ford’s Director of Greenfield Village Jim Johnson, standing outside the fenced off area where the Vegetable Building was being erected, March 6, 2021. Photo taken by Jeanine Head Miller.

All vendors faced other societal pressures. One of the most pernicious threats, petty theft perpetrated by those “sampling” products, undermined market vendors. Mary turned to market administrators to mediate her grievances, as did other vendors. She also reported abuses to the police, who intervened in some situations.

Despite these barriers, hucksters made this their way of life and stayed in the market for decades. Mary Judge, a twice-married devout Catholic, was as durable a huckster as one could be. She kept a stall from 1863 until city officials dismantled the market in 1894.

Starting in Spring 2022, you will be able to visit the Vegetable Building in Greenfield Village, and soon you'll be able to meet the “queen of the market,” Mary Judge, selling coffee and decades of wisdom as a huckster from her stall. This coming-soon one-woman show (as Mary would have preferred it) will illustrate huckstering as an occupation and as a way of life.

Thanks to the following people for research support and guidance during the Winter 2021 term:

• Gil Gallagher, curatorial research assistant volunteer, The Henry Ford
• Jim Johnson, Director of Greenfield Village and Curator of Historic Structures and Landscapes, The Henry Ford
• Jeanine Head Miller, Curator of Domestic Life, The Henry Ford
• Patricia Montmurri, author/journalist, Detroit Free Press
• Debra A. Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment, The Henry Ford
• Susan Whitall, author/journalist, Detroit News

Ayana Curran-Howes is 2021 Simmons Intern at The Henry Ford.

Additional Readings:

• Detroit Central Market Vegetable Building: Curator Q&A
  
• The Market, Envisioned
  
• Reading an Artifact: The Reconstructed Detroit Central Market Vegetable Shed
  
• This GivingTuesday Help The Henry Ford Bring a Historic Piece of Detroit to Greenfield Village

food, shopping, women's history, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, Detroit, Detroit Central Market, research, by Ayana Curran Howes