You’ve heard of bad jokes. How about fowl tales? Here is a collection of 19th century chicken and egg oddities collected from Northern New York historic newspapers:
Are drumsticks that come from a four-legged chicken half-price at the grocer? “A curiosity in the shape of a four-legged chicken, five days old, is exhibited in one of the windows of I.N. Scott & Sons grocery store, Ridge Street [in Glens Falls],” The Morning Star reported on May 25, 1894. “It is the property of Alexander Bovair, Coffin Street.”
“We can talk of big eggs in our neighborhood, those weighing 3 1/2 to 4 1/4 ounces are quite plenty. Mr. B. Breed’s hen take the lead,” the Crown Point correspondent reported in the Ticonderoga Sentinel on March 2, 1877.
“On Monday a hen owned by Charles Brown laid an egg measuring 8 by 10-and-3/4 inches inches in circumference. It was a hard-shelled egg and perfect in formation, both outside and inside of the shell, containing both the white and the yolk, as in ordinary eggs, excepting that on the small end was a soft shell about the size of a nickel,” the Queensbury correspondent reported in The Morning Star on January 25, 1895. “Mr. Brown intended to save the egg, but unfortunately, it got broken and he found inside of it another hard-shell egg the size of a common hen’s egg.”
“C.P. Rayder, Pattens Mills, left at The Star office yesterday an egg that measured 7 ¾ by 6 ¾ inches, the product of one Wyandotte hen. Mr. Rayder’s hen stands at the head of the list, so far as reported,” The Morning Star reported on May 3, 1894.
“This is the season of big eggs,” The Morning Star reported on May 4, 1894. “An egg shell measuring eight and three-fourths by six and one-fourth inches was left at the office yesterday by C.H. Ames as evidence of the ability of one of his Brahman hens.”
“Sanford Bentley, a farmer living on the County Line Road, brought to Glens Falls on Saturday four hen’s eggs weighing twelve and three-fourths ounces,” The Morning Star reported on March 11, 1895. “The eggs were from Plymouth Rock hens, two of them having been laid on Saturday. They can be seen at Cronkhite’s Store, Warren Street.”
“Two eighteen-pound Brahma hens strutting among several baskets of eggs, with a showcard reading ‘Eggs laid while you wait,’ were a unique attraction in the window of Leighton’s grocery store on Warren Street [in Glens Falls] Saturday,” The Morning Star reported on March 18, 1895.
“J. Q. Ashley yesterday brought to The Star office two eggs laid by Domonick fowls, the circumferences of which were eight and one-half inches by six inches. The larger egg weighed four ounces and the smaller three and one-half ounces,” The Morning Star reported on March 23, 1895.
“A Brahma hen owned by S. B. Chamberlain, 33 Grove Avenue, laid an egg yesterday that measured eight by six and a half inches in circumference and weighed four ounces,” The Morning Star reported on April 20, 1895.
How about a quarter-pounder breakfast sandwich? “A hen owned by Ezra Harris of [Harris Bay] East Lake George distinguished herself the other day by laying an egg weighting four—and-one-half ounces, and was eight-and-a-quarter inches in circumference one way and six-and-three-quarters inches the other,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on September 18, 1890.
“Mrs. Davignon, Hudson Avenue [in Glens Falls], is the owner of a hen that produced an egg weighing three-and-three-quarter ounces,” The Morning Star reported on October 1. “It measures seven inches in circumference one way and eight inches in the other.”
“James Croning, William Street, contends that his Brahman poultry will not take a back seat when the question of eggs is up for consideration,” The Morning Star reported on March 31, 1894. “And to sustain his position, he exhibited at this office yesterday an egg measuring 8 ½ inches.”
“Mrs. Nathan Fuller has a hen which recently hatched a four-legged chicken. Mrs. Fuller has the chicken preserved in alcohol,” the North River correspondent reported in The Morning Star on June 8, 1895.
“Wonders will never cease,” The Commercial Advertiser of Sandy Hill, now Hudson Falls, reported on March 31, 1881. “Charles Conklin has a hen that laid an egg which measured 8 ½ inches around it. Who has a hen that will beat that?”
“Mr. Simmons of The Mansion House has a Brahma hen that lays and egg reaching every day 6 x 8 1/4 inches. One or two days in the week she leaves off the ¼ inch mark, but never gets under the 6 x 8,” the Elizabethtown Post & Gazette reported on March 18, 1880. “This hen is valued at $100, and Mr. Simmonds will give the same for one that will match her.”
Photo: A Silver-laced Wyandotte rooster.
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