Grocery Store

 
     Several grocery stores occupied buildings on Main Street in Hartford through the years.  In 1854, Ira W. Allen and Willard Stratton built a store where the old Day Spring Office stood.  Another grocery store was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Eagen, yet another one was called Carpp's Grocery Store and there was an Olds Grocery.  In later years, grocery stores named Kroger Store, A&P Store, Cotman's Grocery, Weeden's Market, The Shopping Center, and Korsaks Grocery just outside of town.  In 2002, two grocery stores remain in town; Hardings Market, owned by Bonna Modro Vanderlyn since the 1960s, and Supermarcado (a Spanish specialty supermarket) since 1999.  

     After comparing photos with Dr. Willis F. Dunbar's book, "How It Was In Hartford 1900-1920", it appears that the photo above could be of Carpp's Grocery Store (see page 35 of his book) or a photo from inside the Meat Market owned by Dunbar's father, W. H. Dunbar (see page 57 of his book).   Click here to zoom (depress orange button, on lower right corner of photo, that appears shortly after new window opens) in for a close-up view of merchandise the store proprietor handled.  Notice the uncovered loaves of homemade bread, open cheese block, and possibly candy in trays on the counter.  Merchandise was wrapped with the white paper (rolls in lower-left of photo) and then wrapped and tied with the string than hung from a spindle from the ceiling, which is barely visible.  Coffee canisters on the shelves held a Germania Coffee Gemischer Kaffee, McLaughlin's Mocha and Java - guaranteed choicest quality, as well as many other canned goods in neatly-stacked rows.
     The last meat market to exist in Hartford was located on the corner of Main and Center Streets and the business was owned by Lee and Dorla Shafer Weeden during the 1960s and early 1970s.  As  teenagers in high school during 1965 and 1966, Linda Meagher Ament and I worked part-time for Lee and Dora in the Meat Market. In1969, the meat market closed its business doors.   For many years, the building was owned by Cora Southard, who lived in the front apartment of the second floor above the meat market.  She continued to live there until she was 105 years old.   At 100 years old, Cora was actually known to go up on top of the 3-story building at night and tar the roof herself to keep rain water from filtering down into her 2nd floor apartment.   Every Thursday afternoon after school, I went to visit and to read the Day Spring Newspaper to her, as she was almost completely blind. She still enjoyed hearing about what was happening in the community.  During one of my visits with Cora, she was concerned about the roof leaking and mentioned her need to do the roof tarring adventures again.  Nearly blind and having outlived her relatives and friends, there was no one to visit or give her the personal care and help that she needed, let alone the building maintenance.   My mother, Mary Thornburg, was very concerned about her safety, as well as the safety of the building tenants who operated the meat market below.  Mary convinced Cora to move from the unsafe building into a small apartment just a couple of blocks away, where she died at age 108 in Jan, 1974.   Known as the only three-story "sky-scrapper" that ever existed in Hartford, the building was torn down in 1971. The lot remained as a parking lot until 2000 when a new addition was added to Kellogg's Hardware, which was located next door to the former Meat Market.