Milk Ewer
Milch-Ewer , also known as Melk-Ever, were flat-bottomed sailing ships with a Spitzgatt that were used from the 17th to the end of the 19th century to transport dairy products from the rural area via the Elbe and Alster to the cities of Hamburg and Altona . They were smaller than, for example, fish or vegetable ewer , but otherwise similar in shape, construction and rigging . Their reddish colored sails, which were mostly a square sheet sail and a stay jib, were striking .
The increasing demand for milk in the growing cities and the overbuilding and urban use of former pasture areas , such as Grasbrook , led to an expansion of pasture farming at the beginning of the 17th century, especially in the nearby marshes . The first records of the transport by milk ewer can be found in 1634; they are included in the account books of the Heiligengeist Hospital . It was a bill to Claus, the milkman from the Reiherstiege , who landed at the hospital wash jetty with his milk ewer and was supposed to pay one and a half Reichstaler for it.
The Ewer came from villages that were a day's journey and return journey from Hamburg and Altona. These were mainly the Elbe islands on Reiherstieg , Köhlbrand and Köhlfleet as well as the Süderelbe , especially Wilhelmsburg , Moorburg and Altenwerder . Milk deliveries also came to Hamburg by ship from the marshland and the Seevetal south of the Elbe, from the villages of Moorwerder , Over and Bullenhausen , and from the 19th century also Ochsenwerder . The landing place was the fishing bridge near the market on the Meßberg . More dairy workers came down the Alster from the former villages of Eppendorf and Winterhude , they moored at the western end of Jungfernstieg to sell their goods. In 1847 there were 12 to 16 regular milk Ewer registered on the Alster. For the year 1863, a total of 12,000 milk ships arrived in Hamburg.
The Milch-Ewer were mostly owned by milk traders, some of whom formed owner and participation communities, the so-called milk companies . Often vegetables and other agricultural products were also loaded. On the way back, travelers could use the ewer for transportation.
In the middle to the end of the 19th century, the transport options changed and shipping by means of milk Ewern declined. In 1862 the Moorburg dairy farmers bought their own milk steamer, the Moorburg , and built a landing stage. In October 1867, the milk traders from the upper Elbe region put the Fortuna steamer into service. Milk transport across the Alster was stopped in 1878.
literature
- Franklin Kopitzsch , Daniel Tilgner (Ed.): Hamburg Lexikon. 4th, updated and expanded special edition. Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8319-0373-3 , p. 214.
- Hans Szymanski: Die Ewer der Niederelbe , reprint of the 1932 edition, Salzwasser Verlag, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 3-8619-5191-6 , pp. 214 f., 283-285