Fowl Prices for the Thanksgiving Holiday in 1864

A families menu for Thanksgiving meal in 1864 might have included several sorts of wild birds. To get some wild meat for the holiday meal, it was simply a matter of walking down the street in two of the biggest cities of the U.S.A.

Details for market prices from New York City and Washington D.C. indicate particular prices for this holiday, 150 years ago. These local newspapers gave the cost of goods at the market, so the actual purchase cost is readily known, along with other items that could have been bought.

These are the details for New York City, where an epicure or home cook had a wide variety of game bird species from which to pick and choose for their holiday meal. These prices were reported in the New York Daily Tribune issue of November 19^th.

• ducks, wood, per pair, $1.00
• ducks, mallard, per pair, $1.25 @ 1.50
• ducks, canvas back, per pair, $4.50 @ 5.00
• ducks, red-head, per pair, $2.00 @ 2.50
• ducks, teal, per pair, 75 c @ 87
• woodcock, per pair, $1.25
• partridges, per pair, $1.25 @ 1.50
• prairie chickens, per pair, $2.00
• quail, per dozen, $4.25 @ 4.50
• robins, per dozen, $1.00 @ 1.25
• squab pigeons, each, 30 c @ 37

Quite a variety of edibles could be found among the aisles of this market! More than ten species are represented in these details.

These details are for the Center (a.k.a. Centre) Market, in the nation's capitol, as given in the Washington D.C. Evening Star issue of November 26^th on page three. Among the commodities were:

Small birds, per bunch, 50c. Wild pigeons, per pair, 37 ½c. Blue wing ducks, per pair $1. Widgeons, per pair, $1. Wild turkeys, $2.50. Partridges, doz., $2.50 @ $3.

There were also generic geese and turkeys available.

This historic place dominated the intersection of Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, for many decades. Items in the newspaper convey the reported price for many species of birds from at least 1856 to 1885. Fowl of many sorts were a key feature at many city markets during this era, with a vibrant trade underway, as the birds were harvested in the country and then shipped, usually via railway to the bigger cities, and then actively sold. For local markets, acquisition requirements were a gun, ammunition and a wagon, and a purchaser with cash and a newspaper advertisement.

Our National Dinner Day - San Francisco Game Market

Few of our readers but are aware that immense quantities of game are disposed of in our markets, daily, at this season of the year. And this amount is vastly augmented on the annual recurrence of the time-honored festival of Thanksgiving, as will be seen by a perusal of the figures given below.

Dealers inform us that there has never, on any previous anniversary, been so extensive demand for every variety of food, as during the day preceding Thanksgiving of the present year. The supplies are mainly furnished from the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Solano and Sonoma. The valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, however, contribute their quota, particularly of web-footed fowl, which are found in innumerable abundance during the rainy season in the marshes, and estuaries, and along the shores bordering on the streams. In fact, throughout the state there are few localities in which game in vast quantities and of delicious flavor, is not to be had for the next three months. The forests of Klamath and the lakes of Siskiyou — the marshes of Mariposa and the sands of San Diego — can all furnish game fit for the sensitive palate of the gourmand.

The unusual abundance of quail and other small birds, has so reduced prices as to place those delicious luxuries with the reach of the humblest. The same remark will also apply to every description of wild fowl.

On entering the markets, early on yesterday, we found them crowded with every class of our population — old and young, rich and poor, high and low. Here might be seen an obese landlady pressing her thumb on the breast bone of a gobbler; there a fastidious connoisseur inspecting a brace of mallards; and anon a plainly clad laborer, inquiring the price of a pair of chickens. Everybody must have had a fowl dinner, yesterday, to judge by the demand at all the stalls where winged specimens were to be obtained.

The subjoined is a list of the number of turkeys, geese, brandt, chickens, quail, prices, &c., which we obtained from the vendors, whose names are also given. These are the principal dealers, and yet do not constitute all of them, for, scattered throughout the city, are many provision and other stores, which, sell on holidays, every description of fowl. Then, too, we have not a few amateur sportsmen, who scour the country for days prior to Thanksgiving, and come home laden with game, which is distributed amongst friends and acquaintances. So that we can safely estimate the quantity of game consumed in this city yesterday, at double that shown by the annexed figures. These sales include the day prior to as well as Thanksgiving day.

	Turkeys.	Chickens.	Ducks, Geese, Small Game.
Louderback	500	- -	350
J.H. Lourie	20	50	25
Cook & Co.	300	100	1000
D'Harmony	75	200	600
Antonio	50	75	- -
Strasser	32	- -	50
Gurbinier	150	150	60
Lemoine & Co.	125	300	100
Conley	40	25	- -
A. Thompson	200	100	1000
Hart & Raymond	225	150	500
	1717	1150	3985

Turkeys sold for two dollars a-piece before the demand grew active, but after the rush commenced were held as high, in many instances, as five dollars. Forty cents per pound was usually the ruling price. Quail readily bought $2.50 per dozen; ducks, from 50 cents to $1.25 per pair; chickens, $10 per dozen, and pigeons, $5.50 per dozen. Immense quantities of eggs were sold, one firm disposed of 300 dozen at retail. Amongst the gallinaceous specimens in coops of Hart & Raymond, we observed some two or three hundred dozen of Guinea hens; rather a rare fowl in our markets.

It is fair to presume that of the seven thousand or more fowl sold, there was enough for a good "square meal" for the entire population, including men, women, children, and Chinadom.

November 27, 1857. Daily Alta California 9(220): 2.