What Happened to the Potatoes? by Alan Borer

In these days of giant food conglomerates and carefully monitored supply chains, it is hard to realize that Otterbein President Walter G. Clippinger had to “shop around” for basic groceries and supplies.  And while we enjoy our mashed potatoes and gravy on Thanksgiving, those potatoes had to grow and be packed by someone, somewhere  Now we think of ‘potatoes’ and “Idaho” in the same moment.  But in the fall of 1916, hungry students looked much closer to home, and Clippinger wrote to V. M. Snyder in the hamlet of Ten Mile, West Virginia.

            Tenmile (as it is spelled now) is in Upshur County, West Virginia, near the county seat of Buckhannon.  You would be right if it sounds like a place off the beaten path, but in the early twentieth century, a number of Upshur County kids went to Otterbein.  Like many contemporary hamlets, Ten Mile had a post office, a couple of general stores, a mill, and a church or two. One of the general stores was run by Valentine Monroe (V. M. ) Snyder (1871-1938). 

            Somehow or other, Presdient Clippinger found out that Snyder had potatoes for sale.  Sensing that this would be inexpensive student chow, Clippinger bought 29 sacks of potatoes, or 50 bushels.  Snyder wrote a receipt on September 26, 1916, and noted that these spuds were “all he could get at this price.”[i]

            Snyder was a merchant, not a producer.  Clippinger was an educator, not a dietician, but he was not above a little dickering.  In his polite reply, he mentions that he could use 150 bushels more and would pay $1.00 a bushel instead of the original 80 cents.[ii]  Snyder replied on October 4 that, ”If I get any worth while will write you.”[iii]

            The President was out on a business trip in early October.  When he got back to Westerville on October 17, he was disheartened to find his first shipment of potatoes had not arrived.  “The first shipment has not yet reached us. . . . I think you had better get your freight man to send out a tracer.”[iv]  A week later, still no potatoes.  Snyder wrote again on October 25:  “I have asked agt. [agent] twice to trace shipment of potatoes – if they do not land soon advise and will wire tracer.”[v]

            By the 26th, Clippinger had about written off the potatoes.  “If they are not to be found it will be a loss for both of us,” the president wrote.[vi]  He went so far as to contact the “station” in Westville, Ohio, (Champaign County, between Urbana and St. Paris), which sometimes got deliveries meant for Westerville.  The potatoes had now been in shipping for a month.

            Then, low and behold, two days later, the potatoes arrived in Westerville.  Clippinger hurriedly wrote to West Virginia:  “You will be pleased to know that the potatoes, all but two sacks, arrived this morning.”[vii]  The President was so pleased that he offered $1.10 for any more that Snyder could procure.

            At least two processes were at work here.  In the time between the Civil War and World War I, America underwent a transportation revolution.  Purchase price and delivery time of staples dropped drastically.  Clippinger’s estimate of 10 days for a roughly 230 mile trip seems laughable today, but was very reasonable by 1916.  Railroads and telegraph were making the world smaller.  The distance was the same; it was the expectation had ballooned.

            Another new expectation was fresh food year round.  Potatoes, of course, are not pineapples or bananas, which were still luxury items available only to the wealthiest consumers.  But the telephone, telegraph, and parcel post forced prices for everything down, and expanded their availability through the calendar year.

            By the way: if any of our readers stumble across two sacks of fossilized potatoes, addressed to Walter G. Clippinger, please place in nearest compost pile.

Alan Borer

[i] V. M. Snyder to Walter G. Clippinger, Ten Mile [sic], WV, September 28, 1914, Otterbein University Archives.

[ii] Clippinger to Snyder, September 29, 1916.

[iii] Snyder to Clippinger, October 4, 1916.

[iv] Clippinger to Snyder, October 10, 1916.

[v] Snyder to Clippinger, October 25, 1916.

[vi] Clippinger to Snyder, October 26, 1916.

[vii] Clippinger to Snyder, October 28, 1916.