Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

It was operational for many decades. You could hear the pigs squealing as the trains were bringing them to slaughter. Some said you could smell the plant from Bradlees which, was close by. As the reporter in this story, I am passing on comments of those who have memories of the Squire Slaughtering and Curing establishment.

It burned down on September 1, 1978. Here are my friends’ recollections:

“I do remember it well. It was a prime employer of Italian immigrants in its day in the first half of the 20th century. My grandfather took me when he visited friends who worked for Squire’s in the early 1950’s. It was dingy and dim and animal carcasses hung on hooks while they were ‘dressed.’ I remember the well-worn wooden floors were saturated with blood. A grim and horrid memory for me. I believe it was acquired by Swifts and then abandoned. I was not sorry to see it burn down.” Wow!

“The slaughterhouse itself …. was in Somerville.”

“Squire’s meat plant was across the street from Hacienda restaurant.”

“When I was a kid, my friends and sister would go over there and tried to save the pigs. I think we were about 11 years of age. The workers would tell us to get lost and stop hanging around.” Sweet!

“We used to hook school and watch the hogs get loaded off the truck and into the factory to become bacon. They had these prods that would shock them if they weren’t cooperative.” Bullies!

“I was there with my dad who was a Somerville fire fighter. We were at my aunt’s house near the top of Ten Hills for dinner (a Sunday). The alarms came in and he responded and took me along. I think that I watched safely with a battalion chief from McGrath Hwy. which had been shut down because of the blaze. I’ll never forget it.”

“I worked at Milton Ladders in 1959, you could hear the sheep baying going to slaughter.” Sad.

“The night it went up in flames the sky was lit up like it was daylight.”

When the fire burned it down, they say it burned for days. It must have smelled like Redbones Barbecue. It was Somerville and East Cambridge’s biggest pig roast ever. A bidda a bidda a bidda that’s all folks!