The Kitchen Brawl at the Cookhouse
Tensions between two cooks at a Tenth Street boarding house boiled over into a full-blown street fight.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Yesterday morning about eleven o'clock, those who happened to be in the neighborhood of the cookhouse on Tenth street were attracted by the cries and noises made by two men, cooks in that establishment. For some time past, there have been petty jealousies and quarrels between these two men, and yesterday they got a little beyond their usual level and a knock-down fight ensued. After fighting about seven or eight minutes, one of them, a Dutchman, concluded he had enough and got away—not, however, before he had been badly beaten about the head and face by his antagonist. The victor and smaller man was hardly injured, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the appearance and discomfiture of his burly antagonist. As no warrant was sworn out, no arrests were made.
“The victor and smaller man was hardly injured, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the appearance and discomfiture of his burly antagonist.”
Boarding houses were the primary housing model for Fairhaven's booming labor force, often bringing workers from vastly different backgrounds into cramped, high-pressure environments. Today, Tenth Street in the Fairhaven Historic District retains its commercial character, though the 'cookhouses' have long since been replaced by bistros and boutiques.
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