Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-09-07
IT'LL WEEK. IN BLACK AND WHITES.
disni6ed or beneath one to mingle Wit

u ExawD REzzsH 44sAhSA $aszzt1 Y Va
| dignified or beneath one to mingle with
/ market throngs. John Marshall the
! greatest iurist America ever produced,
used TO go to the Old Market daily and
! purchase bacon and peas and eggs and
corn. And he not only bought his pro-
duce, but took it home with him and had
it served on his table in his house at
Ninth and Marshall streets.
Old market men say that ladies used to
come to the market before the war ac-
companied by one or two colored girls,
who were slaves. These girls used to
bring big baskets with them, and take
the purchases back imm ediately, either on
foot or in the family carriage.
These days ladies don't come with SER
wants They do not loiter, but rush back
home and have their goods sent. They
don't wish to be seen at the market, and
have no time to talk
Old man BILLY" Hechler, one Of the
Oldest, brightest, most talkative and con-
genial stall-keepers at the Old Market,
likes to talk about the old times. He
remembers how things once We're, and
sheds tear at the memory of the old
regime that has passed away forever. He
remembers tvis:sn 5 his Ia tler Valentine ,e
Hechler, and John Lindsay, and William
Cullingworth, and John and George How
ard, all old-timers, used to keep market
and act .congenial friends together all at
the same time.
''Those were good old days says Mr..
Hechler ''Then market man had gen
tlemanly traits. He was courteous. My
father would rather nave cut his hand
off than try to- get the trade away from
other stall-keepers, who had established
a trade and built up a patronage Now
that's all market men think of-taking
trade from other men"
"'Why is it that most market STALL
keepers are Germans?" many people ask.
But nobody knows this. Out of forty
stall-keepers at the Old Market only two
are not Germans, or men of German de-
scent The same proportion exists at the
other markets of the city, in Washington,
Baltimore, Philadelphia. New York, and
Boston. It is as natural for Germans to
keep market as it is for Cinnamon to
have laundrys, Italians to have fruit
stands, Jews to keep dry goods stores or
the darkels to sell watermelons. Why?
All! the question is as deep as that of
climate, and its effects on racial in
stiEct.
Some OId-Timers.
George Schwolm John Brauer N H.
Brauer, and z. II. Acree have all been
in business at the Old Market for more
than forty years
What a world Of experience they have
had! What sights they must have seen.
How much of human nature, in all its
forms, have they learned? They are old
men now, and grow reminiscent and
thoughtful when talked to. And their
thoughts flash back over a past that is
~ Il
Kaleidoscope. Human nature! How much
of it old Billy Hechler and George
Schwolm have seen!
Tradition says that when the front part
Of the Old Market was built many years
ago a peculiar accident happened to the
structure when but partially completed.
Workmen were putting up the iron pillars
around the building. There are fourteen
on a side, and ca CHI one had to be SOL
dered in the stone at the bottom. Thir-.
teen pillars had been put up, but not very
substantially. The fourteenth was almost
in place when it fell. It fell towards the
next post, and knocked it down. That
post fell and started the line off In
half minute every post was on the
ground. Some Of the cid men at the mar
ket still repeat This tale
Thomas Didot was the first clerk the
y
by Sam Ellis, who was followed by NJ.
E. Gary, o. r. Kelley, and J. E. Sullivan
in succession. Sullivan is still in Office.
The duty of the clerk is to collect the
ten-cent tax from country carts. to see
that order is preserved and all runs
smoothly in business way and So
cially.
The Old Market. like the Bowery in
New York. is the place Of 'the people,"
the masses, the majority. or in sense,
the ho polloi, as the Greeks would say.
Here is the paradise for the darkey.
Here is the rendezvous for all lovers OF
sport and seekers of congeniality on a
Saturday night. II we want to study
Rastus in all his simplicity, his shrewd-
ness, his capacity for enjoying himself,
and his love for the watermelon, the Old
Market is the place to find the subject
All ack in the side alleys and streets
..of a Sat-day night the darkey is on.
hand, and in about nine cases out of ten
he Is near a wa atermelon, either with one
in his arms. beside him, or within him
Summer wouldn't be summer if it wasn't
for the watermelon, nor would life be
anything like worth the living.
If the walls and colonnades of the Old
Market could talk; they would tell many
tales! There would be some tragedy,
some com edy. some plain. everyday rou-=
tine simplicity. But it would be inter
esting to hear It. The Old Market is one.
Of Richmond's greatest Institutions No
one Who sees visions or dreams dreams.
or thinks thoughts or ina gines would be
unwilling to say. Long live the Old Mar
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