The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-12-27
ORIGIN OF THE sINKER.
Name Due to Dick Marshall, the Thing
Itself to Jim Meschutt.


"The statement made in connection
with the contemplated razing of the
Putnam house that the popular sinker
had its origin there must be correct
ed, - said a reminiscent old New York
err, cor the bones of Dick Marshall,
Oliver Hitchcock and Jim Meschutt
will never be easy in their graves
again.
E'Diek Marshall was the original
maker and purveyor of the butter cake
as the proper thing to 60 with cup
of coffee, and he introduced it more
than sixty years ago at his place in
Spruce street. As a youngster I
patronized that establishment, and the
man who baked the cakes was another
youngster named Oliver Hitchcock.
''I was working in printing Office
and getting 81 week and looked with
admiring envy on Oliver Hitchcock
dishing up Dick Marshall s sinkers on
order and getting So week for it.
Marshall was known to everybody as
Buttercake Dick, and that place of his
in Spruce street was certainly mint.
"When ! say that Oliver Hitchcock
dished up the cakes L describe the
process literally. The cakes were not
the light raised butter cakes known to
Park row now which Oliver Hitchcock
in after years served at his own place
and made popular. Dick Marshall s
cakes were short cakes, and instead of
being baked on order and served hot
from the griddle they were kept in
stock in a kettle of melted butter and
dipped out of it by long handled
skinner to fill the orders.
''The specific gravity of these cakes,
made with lard and stewed in butter
as they were, was such that the name
sinker which early became their own,
was easily suggested as most appro-
pirate, and it has continued to be the
popular name, although the quality of
weight was long ago eliminated.
'fWhile Oliver Hitchcock popularized
the butter cake as it is made and served
name of the father of it was once as
familiar in the town as that of Del
monico. 1t was Mesehutt.
erred Dave and Jim Meschutt had
first an eating house on the Bowery,
but branched out until they had famed
resorts of that kind in various parts of
town. one on Broadway at Howard
street At the original Bowery place
the Meschutts served coffee and cakes,
the cakes being the same sort that Dick
Marshall was serving down in Spruce
street.
"Jim Meschutt was a practical bak-
er. and the soggy, greasy, indigestible
Dick Marshall sinker didn t strike him
as being Just the thing to infiict on
customers, so he evolved a recipe that
resulted in the production of cake
that had no lard in it and that could be
baked and served direct from the grid
die. to be buttered by the customer
himself to suit his taste. These cakes
were a success from the start, and the
Meschutt establishment abolished the
hot butter kettle and the long handled
skinner.
''That is the butter cake that Oliver
Hitchcock pushed into still greater
popularity as a coffee and cake pur-
veyor on his own hook and which Is
the butter cake of commerce today.
Every one who finds satisfaction in his
order of coffee and cakes as they are
made and served today therefore owes
his thanks to Jim Meschutt. He was
the father of it, as Dick Marshall was
the father of the sinker that his shop
served to its courageous patrons fifty
years ago. IN. Y. Sun.