Problem Solved . . . in 1851

In November and again in December, Gossips published posts about what seemed to have been a vexing problem in Hudson in 1851: the general custom of not placing numbers on houses and buildings and therefore not referring to those numbers when providing directions to a particular home or business. On more than one occasion, the editor of the Daily Star shared accounts of visitors to Hudson getting lost in the search for their destination or being so put off by directions that relied solely on landmarks that they didn't bother coming to Hudson at all.

On August 19, 1851, however, the Daily Star reports that the problem will finally be corrected. On August 6, 1851, the Common Council passed an ordinance requiring that the owner or occupant of any building fronting on any street in Hudson must place a number on that building. The ordinance gave them two weeks to comply once they had been informed of the correct number for their property. The penalty for noncompliance was one dollar for the first week and fifty cents for every week thereafter.

Here is the article that appeared in the Daily Star.

Here is the actual ordinance as it appeared in the Daily Star. 

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