Without a Hitch



Messenger House, corner Port Watson and Main Street



Cortland House, corner Main Street and Groton Avenue

 

Cortland Evening Standard, Monday, January 13, 1896.

The Hitching Post.

To the Editor of the Standard:

   SIR—You state in your issue of Saturday that there are only eleven hitching posts between the Messenger House and the Cortland House. If such is the fact it is a shame and disgrace to the business men of Cortland. Why, sir, what is your Main St. for? By the law just enacted it would seem it was for dress parade instead of business.

   Go with us to Syracuse, for instance, a city more than ten times the size of our country village, and I will be responsible for the saying that between the canal bridge and Dey Bros. store on Salina St. you will find hitched, any business day of the week, more than one hundred horses attached to vehicles. The business men of Syracuse, like those of all other cities, realize that their main streets are for business, and it is for that reason that business men pay high rents, and make all sorts of inducements, and pay your paper and other periodical, thousands of dollars in order to keep the crowds and those looking for purchases on the streets, and the more persons we can induce to visit our village and our places of business certainly the better it suits us.

   Do you wonder the farmer is exercised over this matter? Do you imagine he will visit our streets and leave his horse hitched for a moment in order to step into your store for a spool of thread, a bottle of paregoric, a pair of shoes, a school book, a garden hoe, a pound of tea, a piece of furniture or any other article he may need, with the fact staring him in the face that he may be arrested, fined or imprisoned, or both, for so doing?

   If you do, you are fooled. He will not come to bother you. Business men of Cortland, arouse from your lethargy!

   Let there be a demonstration against such unauthorized, such uncalled for liberties taken against our interests by those to whom we look to protect instead of to injure them.

   Let us extend to all those who may favor us with their visits and valuable patronage a continuance of that protection which has always been extended to them since our village was founded, and if it is a fact that only 11 hitching posts exist between the Messenger House and Cortland House, let us see that that evil is corrected, and that adequate and ample means are furnished for the accommodation and comfort of our patrons.

A MAN OF BUSINESS.

 

A Petition.

   A committee of citizens canvassed the business places on Main St. this morning and in about two hours secured the following names to the following paper:

   We the undersigned business men of Cortland ask that a public meeting be called in the village of Cortland for the purpose of asking for a repeal of a certain resolution recently passed with regard to hitching horses on our streets.

F. D Smith, Beard & Peck,

F. Daehler, L. T. White,

E. Alley, I. Whiteson,

Graham & Chatterton , F. M. Quick,

A. M. Jewett, A. H. Watkins,

W. J. Perkins, Palmer & Co.,

McSweeney Bros., G. M. Hopkins,

Lampman & Lannlng, Mrs. H. H. Pomeroy,

Mrs. W. W. Gale, W. Rood,

Z. H. Tanner, J. M. Churchill,

Sager & Jennings, C. W. Stoker,

McGraw & Sons, D. L. Bliss,

A. S. Burgess, R.  A. Stowell,

Mrs. J.T. Davern & Co., Clark & Angel,

H. E. Andrews, F. W. Clark,

Price & Co.,

Edgcomb & Marritt, Isaac Edgcomb,

C. W. Collins, G. H. Ames,

C. S. Hornbeck, Bingham Bros. & Miller,

C.W. Stoker, E. Robbins,

A. B. White, H. P. Davis,

H. T. Dana, A. D. Wallace,

E. E. Mellon, C. F. Brown,

A. B. Nelson, E. M Santee,

J. N. Dean, Hector Cowan,

E. D. Barker, Case, Ruggles & Bristol,

G. F. Beaudry, F. E. Brogdan,

W. G. Mead, F. N. Harrington,

G. L Warren, James E. Tanner,

Baker & Angell, T. Noonan,

G.W. Bradford, Ollie Ingraham*,

Yager & Marshall, G. E. Ingraham,

Tanner Bros., Buck & Lane,

W.G. McKinney, Kellogg & Curtis,

S. N. Holden, J. F. Dowd,

J. B. Morris, F. H. Winter,

F. J. Tooke, P. J. Peckham,

Dorr C. Smith, H. M. Kellogg.

* Ollie Ingraham was proprietor of the Messenger House.

Cortland Evening Standard, Tuesday, January 31, 1896.

VILLAGE FATHERS.

Repeal the Hitching Ordinance - Routine Business.

   The regular monthly meeting of the village board of trustees was held last night, the full board being present. Bills were ordered paid as follows :

A. Huffman    I 4.00

H. M. Kellogg   7.00

F. A. Bickford 25.00

F. D. Morris      2.17

Richard Morris   .85

   Messrs. N. Jay Peck, A. Sager, F. Daehler, and G. J. Mager, a committee appointed by the citizens at a public meeting last Wednesday night, appeared before the board and presented a resolution adopted by that meeting asking for the repeal of the hitching ordinance. The resolution was ordered placed on file.

   On motion of Trustee Doubleday, seconded by Trustee Warfield, the first resolution passed by the board Jan. 6, 1896, was rescinded. This allows the hitching of horses on Main St. as heretofore.

   The second part of the ordinance however, goes into force to-day and any person leaving a horse or domestic animal on any street in the village in cold or inclement weather for an unreasonable time is guilty of misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than ten days or by a fine of not more than ten dollars.

   On motion of Trustee Warfleld, seconded by Trustee Glann, the president appointed Messrs. Warfleld, Glann and Webb as a committee to confer with Superintendent Dunston in regard to the putting of salt on the street car tracks to melt the snow and ice. Complaints have been made to the board by teamsters that the salt makes a very strong brine and makes horses feet sore when driven through it.