1800 Horses To Cannery

GENEALOGICALLY SPEAKING
October 24, 2007

 

The Schuyler Jail Museum and Genealogical Center will go on its winter schedule Nov. 1. The museum section will be closed until April and the genealogy section will only be open on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Local Horse Buyer Ships 1800 Horses To Cannery –“During the past ten months Geo. Montooth, junior member of the firm of James Montooth & Son, has purchased and shipped nine car loads of old horses to the cannery that is operated at Rockford, Ill.

“These horses were purchased in Schuyler and adjoining counties as the local firm operates over a wide territory in western Illinois. Horses purchased for the Rockford firm were sold thru Jordan Bros. of Springfield, purchasing agents of the company, and were of the class known as ‘canners’ for the reason that they are slaughtered at the Rockford plant. Old and worn horses, that cannot be sold on the regular market, are the ones that are classed as ‘canners.’

“At the Rockford plant the horses are slaughtered and the by-products are many in addition to the hides. The hearts, livers and lungs of the horses are ground up, pressed and canned and this product is largely used in hospitals in the old country that specialize in treatment of anemia – lack of blood to properly sustain life.

“In the better class of animals the meat is also cooked and canned and is shipped to foreign markets where it finds ready sale.

“That one buyer should sell 1800 horses to the cannery within ten months goes to show the business is conducted on a big scale and accounts for the fact that there is a market for any kind of a horse that is not diseased.

“But buying ‘canners’ is only a side line of James Montooth & Son, as father and son have been buying horses for nearly fifty years in Rushville, and even tho the horse and mule market may be rated dull by the uninformed they made their biggest record of shipments during the past month.

“In the month of March there was shipped by James Montooth & Son 289 head of horses and mules. The mules went south, but the heavy horses were shipped to eastern markets, three car loads being shipped direct to Massachusetts.” The Rushville Times, 17 Apr. 1929.

     

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Genealogically Speaking Oct. 10, 2007 - copyright 2007 The Rushville Times - Written by Edie Fishel
Used by permission Schuyler County Historical Jail Museum
and Genealogical Center.

Copyright 2007 The Rushville Times; all rights reserved. For personal use only. Commercial use of the information contained in these pages is strictly prohibited without prior permission. If copied, this copyright must appear with the information.