This is Part 2 of a series. Read Part 1

From the earliest days of the Dutch colonial settlement, butchers were at the top of the market hierarchy and their profession was tightly regulated. By the 1800s, their status was signaled by their attire, as they had taken to wearing tall top hats and tails as part of their work outfit—a look that might be familiar from the character of “Bill the Butcher” in the film Gangs of New York. In the 1850s, a well-respected Jefferson Market butcher by the name of Thomas F. De Voe, by his telling, was searching for something to do in his leisure hours. An officer of the 8th Regiment with an interest in military history, he visited the New-York Historical Society and was “bitten by a rabid antiquary.”[1] Discovering the Records and Files of the Common Council [now held by the Municipal Archives] he realized that they contained a wealth of historical information about his profession. (In actuality, he may have been conducting research to better represent himself and other butchers in regulatory matters.)

Encouraged by the Historical Society librarian to write a paper on the subject of markets, De Voe soon entered the circle of mid-19th century historians who were preserving the history of the City, including D.T. Valentine, Clerk of the City, and E.B. O’Callaghan, who was busy translating the Dutch records of New Amsterdam. After a well-received 1858 presentation of his paper at Cooper Union, De Voe published in 1862 The Market Book: Containing a historical account of the public markets of the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Brooklyn with a brief description of every article of human food sold therein, the introduction of cattle in America, and notices of many remarkable specimens. For its time, it is a masterpiece of research. Drawing on his own experiences and using the writings of O’Callaghan and Adrian Van der Donck for Dutch history, and the records of the Common Council for colonial history, he detailed every bit of minutia on markets from the 1600s to the 1800s. The scholarly respect was mutual, as D.T. Valentine commissioned him to write a history of the “Old Fly Market Butchers” for his manual of 1868. Only volume 1 of the Market Book, on the public markets of New York, was published, but in 1866 De Voe published a paper Abattoirs and in 1867 he published The Market Assistant, containing a brief description of every article of human food sold in the public markets of the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn including the various domestic and wild animals, poultry, game, fish, vegetables, fruits, &c., &c. with many curious incidents and anecdotes. It included several engravings from sketches by De Voe, including a frontispiece of the man himself in his shop.

De Voe’s descriptions are rich in details not just of food but in character studies. One of his most-cited passages is his description of “dancing for eels” at the Catharine Market.[2] The Catharine Market started in the late 18th Century as a humble butcher shed. Later a fishmonger’s stall was added, but in 1799 a petition was submitted for “a new and enlarged market-house.”[3] The elegant market-house was finished the following year and it became known for its Sunday eel market and as an ethnic mixing place. In the waning days of slavery in New York, enslaved African Americans from towns in Long Island, on leave for holidays such as pinkster, would sell whatever they could gather at the Catharine Market. To make a few shillings more, they would sometimes dance on a thin board or “shingle” for coins or pieces of eel at the close of the market. As these dances became a more frequent tradition, competitors from New Jersey, after dropping the farmer’s produce at the westside Bear Market would hurry over to compete. After a time, free African American residents of Manhattan came to the market to dance as well, and “if money was not to be had ‘they would dance for a bunch of eels or fish.’”[4] This tradition of “dancing for eels,” with competitive dance circles that would be familiar to the modern eye, had a long-lasting influence on dance. A popular mid-century play New York As It Is included a minstrel Dancing for Eels scene, which in turn inspired several lithographs, further cementing it in American culture. Some scholars suggest that tap dance was born here at the Catharine Market from a mix of African and Irish dance traditions. Dance steps developed here can still be seen today in modern hip-hop styles.[5]

In 1872 Thomas De Voe gave up his butcher stall to become Superintendent of Markets under the reform-minded comptroller Andrew Haswell Green. The following year he produced a Report upon the present condition of the public markets of the city and county of New York. His report to Green would present “historical incidents as regards the age of the present market buildings; their past mode of management or mismanagement…” in his typically colorful language. He detailed the thirteen markets then active in the City: Washington, West Washington, Fulton, Centre, Clinton, Catherine, Jefferson, Tompkins, Essex, Union, Gouvernour, Franklin, and the 18th Ward Market.[6]

De Voe first addressed the largest market, the Washington, located between Greenwich, Fulton, West and Vesey streets. De Voe found the state of the market to be “generally in bad order and very much out of repair…. The two-story building on Washington Street (which had formerly sustained the fire-bell in its tower) was imminently dangerous, being in a condition at any moment to fall in and crush all beneath.” Under the floors he found that “black stagnant mud, water, animal and vegetable putrefactions had become detrimental to health and life.” The market was overseen by three “worse-than-useless officials…” who De Voe fired and replaced with “two efficient men” who were able to seize unwholesome food and suspend cheating vendors. He also installed proper sewage, drainpipes and three hydrants to better fight fires and to flush away waste.[7]

De Voe found similar levels of disrepair and corruption throughout the markets and seems to have attacked the problems with a reformer’s zeal. Catharine Market, once charming, was long neglected and had large holes in the roof. He fixed the holes but stated whenever he looked at the “rusty fronts, roofs and side, their framed windows, doors and other woodwork, I can imagine that I can hear or feel grating on my senses the sound paint! paint!!—paint me!!!”[8] The Jefferson Market, De Voe’s former place of business, was similarly distressed, but work was already underway on the courthouse that would replace it.

More generally De Voe was concerned with the quality of food coming into the city, especially animals that had been distressed before slaughter or improperly killed. In 1866 the New York State Legislature had created the Metropolitan Board of Health. One of their first targets were outdated market regulations, particularly with regards to butchers and slaughterhouses.[9] Animal slaughtering and processing had already so polluted the Collect Pond that it was drained and filled with landfill in 1811, but the carting of offal and animal hides across town to the candle makers or tanneries was a source of increasing complaints as the more fashionable residents of the city pushed uptown. De Voe worked with the Board of Health to seize animals or meat not fit for market. The markets themselves and the surrounding unlicensed vendors also presented an enormous daily challenge to street cleaning. Numerous 19th Century laws tried to tackle the issue, such as requiring vendors to keep a trash bin at their stalls.

De Voe also called for more oversight to protect the public from “improper and unwholesome” food, better market buildings, and a reining in of unlicensed stalls and pushcarts. Pushcart vendors first appeared on Hester Street in 1866, setting up informal markets. The problem of pushcarts would only grow in the 20th century, with new waves of immigration, to the consternation of a succession of mayors.

De Voe was removed as superintendent in 1876 but reappointed in 1881. He finally retired from City service in 1883, but he continued to lecture on New York history and published a book on the genealogy of the Devaux family. When he died in 1892 the New York Times called him “one of the best known of the old New-Yorkers.”[10]

After De Voe’s retirement, the enormous open-air Gansevoort Market was officially sanctioned in 1884, and in 1889 the City built a new West Washington Market building to replace older buildings used for meat, poultry and dairy. By 1900 the area housed over 250 slaughterhouses and packing plants, earning the name the Meat Packing District.

In Brooklyn, an informal farmers market that gathered near the Navy Yard consisted of some rough sheds by 1884. The City of Brooklyn decided to grace this market with grand market halls and a prominent clock tower designed in the Dutch Colonial Revival style by William Tubby, who had just completed several buildings for the Pratt Institute. Wallabout Market, looking like a fairy-tale village, was completed in 1896, one of the last hurrahs of the independent City of Brooklyn before the consolidation of 1898. That consolidation and the increasing needs of a growing city would change the ways the City dealt with markets. However, it would be well into the 20th Century for the City to finally implement many of the market reforms that De Voe had called for.

Part III coming soon.

• [1] De Voe, Thomas F. The Market Book, 1862.

• [2] Ibid, pp. 344-345.

• [3] Ibid, p. 342

• [4] Ibid, p. 344-345.

• [5] Lhamon, W.T., Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop, 2002.

• [6] De Voe, Thomas F., Report upon the present condition of the public markets of the city and county of New York, 1873.

• [7] Ibid, pp. 4-5

• [8] Ibid, p. 15.

• [9] Day, Jared N., Butchers, Tanners, and Tallow Chandlers: The Geography of Slaughtering in Early Nineteenth-Century New York City.

• [10] New York Times Obituary, Thomas F. De Voe, February 2, 1892.