Huckster was king of customer satisfaction

The orders that arrived at No. 25 10th Street in Charlottesville might have been penciled on a scrap of paper or inked on embossed stationary.

The lists could have come from the hand of a person living in a stately home on Park Street, or from an elderly widow who knew the exact amount of coins and bills tucked away in her black leather snap purse. Regardless of origin, J.L. Duffill provided each customer with an exemplary level of service.

Today the word “huckster” is likely to be associated with a type of person engaged in a shadowy scheme of some sort with the aim of fleecing others. But back around the turn of the 20th century, when Duffill had the distinction of being the city’s only huckster, the word meant something quite different.

A noble profession

In those days a huckster most often referred to a person honestly engaged in the sale of edible goods to individuals. Duffill earned the handle by being in the business of supplying fresh fruits, poultry, vegetables, meats and groceries of all kinds to his loyal customers.

What made his enterprise different is that he delivered the orders right to the doors of his clients. Most grocery stores of that era offered home delivery as well, but Duffill specialized in it.

Because he didn’t have to manage the counter of a grocery store, he was free to concentrate his efforts on providing excellent service. This apparently paid huge dividends as far as public relations went.

One published remark that appeared in The Daily Progress in the summer of 1906 reported, “We could not very well get along without [Duffill].” The piece went on to praise his virtues.

“He is a strictly honest, absolutely reliable man, and all foods supplied by him may be relied upon to be pure and of finest quality in every respect,” the reporter wrote. There was also a mention that the merchant was a member of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics.

The term “mechanics” in this case refers to the order’s emphasis on building character, integrity and citizenship. By displaying these very qualities, Duffill earned the respect of the city.

Quality control

Imagine making a long list of sundry items and having no doubt that every item would arrive promptly on the doorstep. What a relief it must have been during those times of limited refrigeration to know with certainty that the cut of meat wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied with twine was just hours removed from its site of origin.

What a comfort for a housewife to be assured that the eggs in the straw basket were recently laid,

or the butter fresh. Such quality and service generated their own word-of-mouth advertisement, enabling Duffill to have customers throughout the city and even into the suburbs.

With examples like Duffill, one might wonder how the word huckster came to commonly mean something completely opposite of what he and others stood for.

A hint of the answer might be found in an item that appeared in the New York Times on June 30, 1912, dateline Pittsburgh.

The bold headline declared, “Woman Routs Hucksters: Mrs. Flannery Upsets Plan to Prevent Farmers Selling to Consumers.” The lead sentence declared, “A little woman routed a horde of cursing, browbeating hucksters this morning on the Monongahela River Wharf.”

The piece went on to report that Mrs. Flannery arrived in a limousine at dawn with a number of aides.

As the president of the Federated Marketing Clubs, she had received word that the hucksters’ trust was demanding that the local farmers accept their prices and was boycotting farmers who were selling directly to consumers.

Flannery was having none of that and sicced the aides on the hucksters who were intimidating the farmers. As the bullies took flight, the feisty advocate for the farmers warned the transgressors that they would be summoned before the city council to face being excluded from the wharf altogether.

Fortunately, Charlot-tesville didn’t have to deal with this problem. And during the era when Duffill was in business, his customers enjoyed a level of service rarely approached in these modern times.

Perhaps Duffill’s greatest gift was in the example he set. He based his entire business on honest, accurate and prompt service of goods that were the best available.

By doing just that, he became one of the most respected businessmen in Charlottesville.