Memories of the Mohican Market (and the bakery next door)

We got a huge response to the Mohican Market photo we printed last week. In fact, calls were still coming in on Monday when we were putting this week's Insider together! (Sorry to the three people I didn't call back). Below are the responses we were able to compile.

-Katie

As you went in (the market), on the left, there was a dairy counter where you told the clerk what you wanted. They wrapped it up and you paid them. Further down on the same side was the meat counter where you also told the clerk what you wanted. He weighed it, wrapped it, and you paid him. My dad worked there part time at the end of the week on the meat counter. After the war and butter was scarce, someone would come and tell us Mohican’s got butter and we were allowed to go get our 2 pounds, the limit. It sure made my mother happy. She refused to eat margarine, the white stuff you made yellow by stirring the color into it. As a teenager I worked at W.T. Grant’s, a few stores to the right of Moghican’s.
The S&H green stamp store was several stores to the left of Mohican’s by later in time, my son redeemed my stamps for a baseball glove.
-Beatrice Cummings

I thought telling you where the Mohican was, would be a piece of cake. I got downtown, with the photo in hand and discovered my memory was not all that precise. I clearly remember: it was on the east side of Main St., south of the Eagle Hotel and North of where Brown& Saltmarsh was located. It took me awhile; but I'm 99% sure that Pompanoosuc Mills is where the Mohican was located. My parents did not shop at the Mohican. Every Friday night (payday in Concord) we went to the A & P on Park Street.
The Mohican sort of became the "First National" supermarket. Concord's first "supermarket," The First National, was an adaptation to the increasing use of the automobile. (Later the train station would be torn down, another change for the change in transportation mode.) The First National was built about where the Hess Station and Burger King are now, near the Everett Pike. The land in that location allowed for a huge (by 50's standards) parking lot.
-Thomas Duffy

The Mohican Market was in Manchester, on Hanover Street, almost on the corner of Chestnut. It sold meats and groceries, baked goods and gave out green stamps. The car is a 1952-or 1953 Chevy or Oldsmobile. The store next door was a bakery. I don't know the mans name that worked there but he was a midget and he left there and went to Ferredi's market to work. His name might have been Jimmy, but I am not sure. I was in grammar school at that time.
-Faith Laro

I remember S&H Green Stamps well. From time to time my mother would sit me down at the kitchen table with a wet sponge and make me paste the stamps into the little collection booklets. Although I could look longingly at the catalog of goodies available by redemption of the stamps, Mother always got to pick out what she wanted.
-Linda Bell

My grandmother used to walk from her apt. to do her grocery shopping and I went with her. Here is some more for you. When I was 6 years old, I lived on Main Street with my mother and sister (my dad was in the service). We lived between Carlenes and Lillios Market which is where the big Banknorth building and parking lot sits now. Carlenes was a bar but I know they served food. My grandparents lived over Lillios Market. My grandfather used to have me go in the back door of Carlenes to the kitchen and get him some pickled eggs. He never let me use the front door because it was a beer joint, as he called it. Next to Lillios Market were the stairs to go up to my grandparents apartment and next door to that was The Bakery Boy Bakery where I would go a few times a week to buy the best éclairs for 10 cents each. I still remember them.
After a short time, my parents moved up stairs above my grandparents to a nicer apartment than we had in the ally between Carlenes and Lillios. I remember the very wide stairs leading up to my grandparents and then the wide stairs going up above their place and we lived there for awhile and I would walk to Walker School everyday. There was a park where Hess is now that I would stop in everyday also and there was also a drug store in that area called Fortiers Drug Store. I would buy an ice cream cone there once in a while, which were also 10 cents.
I also remember the S&H Green Stamps. As a matter of fact, I used to save those myself when I was first married, so they stayed around for awhile.
Anyway, I lived on Main Street in Concord so have a lot of memories of not only what I mentioned but also Angelos Restaurant where you bought a bucket of spaghetti for a buck, the little markets, the park, the drug stores and also the drug store where the Prescription Center sits where we would go and sit at the counter and buy a pepper burger as a once a week treat.
-Regina Morse

The car is a Buick, no later than a '52. Probably no earlier than a '49, although I am not positive of that. The first post-WW II Buicks didn't start really changing body styles radically until the '53 model year, so telling them apart can be fun. [Why, yes, I've had a few Buicks in my 65 years. Why do you ask?] If you could get a decent blow-up of the plate on it, you could narrow down when the picture was taken. Remember, this was Way Back When, and you got new plates every year.
-Glenn (Penacook, of course)

The Mohican Market was located on North Main Street - if I recall correctly it was 100 North Main, next door(on the south) to the Eagle Hotel. The Pompanoosuc Mills store occupies the site. My mother was the bookkeeper there for several years in the 1950's. I do not remember when the store closed but I'll venture a guess that it was in the early 1960's. At one time the store just to the south sold the best grinders (subs) I have had.
I certainly do remember green stamps, sticking them in the books and finally having enough to redeem for what ever.
-Marjorie L. Hascall

I just had to respond to The Mohican Market pictured in your insider. I worked there all through High school, from 1949 to 1951 when I graduated from Concord High School. I worked in the office and my sister, Dorothy Dane Reed, worked on the bakery counter until she graduated in 1950. We went there after school at 3 p.m. and worked until 6 p.m. It was located almost across the street from our Capitol building. When we got out at 6p.m. we would run across the street and run all the way down Main Street to Pleasant Street to catch the South Street bus home. The bus fare was 5 cents. The bus driver, Harold, was to leave at 6. but, he would hold that bus 'till he saw us coming. As for green stamps, I have the most beautiful sterling silver candelabras, coffee pot,etc.that I purchased with my green stamps. Thanks for the memories.
-Rita Dane Johnson

The Mohican Market was located across the alley, beside the Eagle Hotel. The alley is gone and there is a connection between the buildings. This is now a furniture store. Notice the curved corner at the left of the building. That is still there. I believe the Mohican Market went out of business when larger markets came to town. There was the A & P on Park Street and the First National on South Main that were more modern. These, too, have been replaced.
The top of this building burned in 1966-67 when the Eagle Hotel was a nursing home. I was the evening supervisor the night of the fire. We had a little over100 elderly, mostly bedridden, patients at the time. The fire was very close and we were very relieved when the firemen got it under control. I believe at least two floors were never rebuilt.
The small sign, A. Kauffman, Attorney At Law, over the doorway next to the market announced that Abraham Kauffman, my great uncle, practiced law there. My mother used to take me to visit him there in the 1940s.
The bakery to the right carried many different kinds of breads. Our favorite was dark rye. I believe they also had some deli items. We always referred to it as "The Bakery".
-Joyce Hill, Concord

When I was quite young in the early 1950s, my Mama would walk me downtown (to Main St) most days for several years. My parents knew the owners of he Mohican Market and I've been inside there countless times when my mother would make purchases. The store was located just south a bit from Eagle Square. Other than the A&P on Park Street (much larger than the Mohican) there were not any good sized food stores around. The store to the right of the Mohican was MMMMMMMM YUMMY! I would stand in front of the glass windows that were filled with pastry delights and wine until Mama bought me a piece of pastry...usually a raspberry square or a cream filled horn!
That car? Hmmmm Well the tail fins shout out 1951-52 to me...although it could be a '53
The S&H Green Stamp Redemption Store was on Pleasant St in the old Star Theater Building......My parents saved the stamps and retrieved many small gifts from that store...
-Johnny, Concord

I used to keep green stamps and the comic of the day under a loose floor board next to my bed. I found it because when I read at night, I would have to hide my flashlight and book.
-Jeanne Day

My husband worked (at the market), he was the last meat manager they had. I believe that car in the front is his, if it’s a Buick Roadmaster, ‘49 or ‘50. He came home from the service in Montana in that car. My niece Maureen Johnson worked there and Mr. Prescott worked on the fish department. I was told today that Eddie Meyers was the store manager. Lois Cogan worked in the office and Mr. Peppin worked, at one time, on the fruit department. Maureen still has her name tag. We have the original Mohican Market sign. Someone offered me $200 for it, but I gave it to my son a long time ago to keep it in the family.
-Joan Palisi

The market was there in 1949, the year I first came to Concord. My future mother-in-law, Lena K. Robinson, would buy her lobster there, at not more than 50 cents a pound, for a Saturday night lobster feed. A very cheap family meal. She preferred to pay 25 cents a pound and did quite often when it went on sale.
My brother-in-law, Edward P. Robinson, remembers going to the store with his father many years before 1949 to buy lobster from a man by the name of Sweetser or Switzer.
I thought the cheap lobster was nice, but I was madly in love with the honey dipped donuts in the bakery department.
The bakery and coffee shop next store was so good that the staff at the U.S.Fish and Wildlife office at the corner of North Main St. and Pleasant (over Foodees) walked the length of N. Main Street to this shop for their morning coffee.
-Mary Beth Robinson, Concord