The History of The Hen Fever Part 1

The History of The Hen Fever.

by George P. Burnham.

PREFACE.

In preparing the following pages, I have had the opportunity to inform myself pretty accurately regarding the ramifications of the subject upon which I have written herein; and I have endeavored to avoid setting down "aught in malice" in this "_History of the_ HEN FEVER" in the United States.

I have followed this extraordinary _mania_ from its incipient stages to its final death, or its _cure_, as the reader may elect to term its conclusion. The first symptoms of the fever were exhibited in my own house at Roxbury, Ma.s.s., early in the summer of 1849. From that time down to the opening of 1855 (or rather to the winter of 1854), I have been rather intimately connected with the movement, if common report speaks correctly; and I believe I have seen as much of the tricks of this trade as one usually meets with in the course of a single natural life.

Now that the most serious effects of this (for six years) alarming epidemic have pa.s.sed away from among us, and when "the people" who have been called upon to pay the cost of its support, and for the burial of its victims, can look back upon the scenes that have in that period transpired with a disposition cooled by experience, I have thought that a volume like this might prove acceptable to the hundreds and thousands of those who once "took an interest in the hen trade,"--who _may_ have been mortally wounded, or haply who have escaped with only a broken wing; and who will not object to learn how the thing has been done, and "who threw the bricks"!

If my readers shall be edified and amused with the perusal of this work as much as I have been in recalling these past scenes while writing it, I am content that I have not thrown the powder away. I have written it in perfect good-nature, with the design to gratify its readers, and to offend no man living.

And trusting that _all_ will be pleased who may devote an hour to its pages, while at the same time I indulge the hope that _none_ will feel aggrieved by its tone, or its text, I submit this book to the public.

Respectfully,

GEO. P. BURNHAM.

CHAPTER I.

PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE.

I was sitting, one afternoon, in the summer of 1849, in my little parlor, at Roxbury, conversing with a friend, leisurely, when he suddenly rose, and pa.s.sing to the rear window of the room, remarked to me, with considerable enthusiasm,

"What a splendid lot of fowls you have, B----! Upon my word, those are very fine indeed,--do you know it?"

I had then been breeding poultry (for my own amus.e.m.e.nt) many years; and the specimens I chanced at that time to possess were rather even in color, and of good size; but were only such as any one might have had--bred from the common stock of the country--who had taken the same pains that I did with mine.

There were perhaps a dozen birds, at the time, in the rear yard, and my friend (_then_, but who subsequently pa.s.sed to a compet.i.tor, and eventually turned into a sharp but harmless enemy) was greatly delighted with them, as I saw from his enthusiastic conversation, and his laudation of their merits.

I am not very fast, perhaps, to appreciate the drift of a man's motives in casual conversation,--and then, again, it may be that I am "not so slow" to comprehend certain matters as I might be! At all events, I have sometimes flattered myself that, on occasions like this, I can "see as far into a millstone as can he who picks it;" and so I listened to my friend, heard all he had to say, and made up my mind accordingly, before he left me.

"I tell you, B----, those are handsome chickens," he insisted. "I've got a fine lot, myself. You keep but one variety, I notice. I've got 'em _all_."

"All what?" I inquired.

"O, all kinds--all kinds. The Chinese, and the Malays, and the Gypsies, and the Chittaprats, and the w.a.n.g Hongs, and the Yankee Games, and Bengallers, and Cropple-crowns, and Creepers, and Top-knots, and Gold Pheasants, and Buff Dorkings, and English Games, and Black Spanish and Bantams,--and I've several _new breeds_ too, I have made myself, by crossing and mixing, _in the last year_, which beat the world for beauty and size, and excellence of quality."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "So you have made several new _breeds_ during _one_ year's crossing, eh? That _is_ remarkable, doctor, certainly. I have never been able yet to accomplish so extraordinary a feat, myself,"

I added.

"Well, _I_ have," said the doctor,--and probably, as he was a practising physician of several years' experience, he knew how this reversion of nature's law could be accomplished. I didn't.

"Yes," he continued; "I have made a breed I call the 'Plymouth Rocks,'--superb birds, and great layers. The--a--'Yankee Games,'--regular knock-'em-downs,--rather fight than eat, any time; and never flinch from the puncture of steel. Indeed, _so_ plucky are these fowls, that I think they rather _like_ to be cut up than otherwise,--alive, I mean. Then, I've another breed I've made--the 'Bengal Mountain Games.' These _are_ smashers--never yield, and are magnificent in color. Then I have the '_Fawn-colored Dorkings_,' too; and several other fancy breeds, that I've fixed up; and fancy poultry is going to sell well in the next three years, you may be sure. Come and see my stock, B----, won't you? And I'll send you anything you want from it, with pleasure."

I was then the editor of a weekly paper in Boston. I accepted my friend's kind invitation, and travelled forty miles and back to examine his poultry. It looked well--_very_ well; the arrangement of his houses, &c., was good, and I was gratified with the show of stock, and with his politeness. But he was an enthusiast; and I saw this at the outset. And though I heard all he had to say, I could not, for the life of me, comprehend how it was that he could have decided upon the astounding merits of all these different _breeds_ of fowls in so short a s.p.a.ce of time--to wit, by the crossings in a single year! But that was his affair, not mine. He was getting his fancy poultry ready for the market; and he repeated, "It will _sell_, by and by."

And I believe it did, too! The doctor was right in _this_ particular.

He informed me that he intended to exhibit several specimens of his fowls, shortly, in Boston; and soon afterwards I met with an advertis.e.m.e.nt in one of the agricultural weeklies, signed by my friend the doctor, the substance of which was as follows:

NOTICE.--I will exhibit, at _Quincy Market_, Boston, in a few days, sample pairs of my fowls, of the following pure breeds; namely, Cochin-China, Yellow Shanghae, Black Spanish, Fawn-colored Dorkings, Plymouth Rocks, White Dorkings, Wild Indian, Malays, Golden Hamburgs, Black Polands, Games, &c. &c; and I shall be happy to see the stock of other fanciers, at the above place, to compare notes, etc. etc.

The above was the substance of the "notice" referred to; and the doctor, coming to Boston shortly after, called upon me. I showed him the impropriety of this movement at once, and suggested that some spot other than Quincy Market should be chosen for the proposed exhibition,--in which I would join, provided an appropriate place should be selected.

After talking the matter over again, application was made to an agricultural warehouse in Ann-street, or Blackstone-street, I believe; the keepers of which saw the advantages that must accrue to themselves by such a show (which would necessarily draw together a great many strangers, out of whom they might subsequently make customers); but, at my suggestion, this very stupid plan was abandoned--even after the advertis.e.m.e.nts were circulated that such an exhibition would come off there.

Upon final consideration it was determined that the first Exhibition of Fancy Poultry in the United States of America should take place in November, 1849, at the _Public Garden_, Boston.

CHAPTER II.

THE "COCHIN-CHINAS." BUBBLE NUMBER ONE.

A public meeting was soon called at the legislative hall of the Statehouse, in Boston, which had the effect of drawing together a very goodly company of savans, honest farmers, amateurs, poulterers, doctors, lawyers, flats, fanciers and _humbugs_ of one kind or another. _I_ never attended one of the meetings; and only know, from subsequent public and private "reports," what occurred there.

On this _first_ occasion, however, after a great deal of bosh and stuff, from the lips of old men and young men, who possessed not the slightest possible shadow of practical knowledge of the subject proposed to be discussed, it was finally resolved that the name for the (now defunct) a.s.sociation then and there formed, should be "_The New England Society for the Improvement of Domestic Poultry_"!!!

Now, the only objection I ever raised to this t.i.tle was that it was not sufficiently _lengthy_! When applied to for my own views on the subject, _I_ recommended that it should be called the "Mutual Admiration Society." But, though I was thought a great deal of by its members,--especially when the concern was short of funds,--in _this_ case they thought my proposed t.i.tle was altogether too applicable; and the original name, above quoted, was adhered to.

I was honored with the office of vice-president of the society, for Ma.s.sachusetts; to which place I was reelected annually, I believe, until the period of its death. For which honor I was not ungrateful, and in consideration of which, "as in duty bound, I have ever prayed" for the a.s.sociation's prosperity and weal.

The first name that was placed upon the list of subscribers to the const.i.tution of this society was that of His Excellency Geo. N. Briggs, formerly Governor of this commonwealth. He was followed by a long list of "mourners," most of whom probably ascertained, within five years from the hour when they subscribed to this roll, that causing the c.o.c.k's spur _to grow between his eyes_ was not quite so easy a thing to accomplish as one "experienced poultry-breeder" at this meeting coolly a.s.serted it to be! How many attempted this experiment (as well as numerous others there suggested as feasible), I am not advised. But I am inclined to think that those who did try it found it to be "all in their eye."

While these gentlemen were arranging the details of the new "society,"

and were deciding upon what the duties of the officers and committees should be, I quietly wrote out to England for information regarding the somewhat notorious "_Cochin-China_" fowl, then creating considerable stir among fanciers in Great Britain; and soon learned that I could procure them, in their purity, from a gentleman in Dublin, whose stock had been obtained, through Lord Heytsbury (then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland), direct from Queen Victoria's samples. I ordered six of them,--two c.o.c.ks and four hens,--and in December, 1849, I received them through Adams & Co.'s Transatlantic Express.

At this period there was no telegraph established from Boston to Halifax, I believe. Some of the reporters for the daily city papers usually visited the steamers, upon their arrival here, to obtain their foreign files of exchanges; and here my birds were first seen by those gentlemen who have made or broken the prospects of more than one enterprise of far greater consequence than this "importation of fancy fowls" could seem to be.

But on the day succeeding the coming of those birds, several very handsome notices of the arrival of these august Chinamen appeared in the Boston papers, and a vast amount of credit was accorded to the "enterprising importer" of the outlandish brutes, that were described in almost celestial language!

After considerable trouble and swearing (custom-house swearing, I mean), the officers on board permitted my team to take the cage out of the steamer, and it was conveyed to my residence in Roxbury, where it arrived two hours after dark.

I had long been looking for the coming of these Celestial strangers, and the "fever," which I had originally taken in a very kindly way, had by this time affected me rather seriously. I imagined I had a fortune on board that steamer. I looked forward with excited ideas to beholding something that this part of the world had never yet seen, and which would surely astound "the people," when I could have the opportunity to show up my rare prize,--all the way from the yards or walks of royalty itself! I waited and watched, with anxious solicitude,--and, at last, the box arrived at my house. It was a curiously-built box--the fas.h.i.+on of it was unique, and substantial, and foreign in its exterior. I supposed, naturally, that its contents must be similar in character.

That box contained my "Cochin-Chinas,"--bred from the Queen's stock,--about which, for many weeks, I had been so seriously disturbed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF THE "COCHIN-CHINA" FOWL!]