From the January 11, 1980 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

For David Cronig, the second day of the new year marked his last day as manager and part owner of the grocery store he and his brother, Robert, operated for 23 years.

It was also the end of the family market business on Tisbury’s Main street, a tradition in the Cronig clan which started in 1917, and ended 63 years later when the business officially changed hands.

The store’s new manager, Bruce Levett, a partner in the firm which bought Cronig’s Market, said he has no immediate plans to change the character of the market. Traditional credit customers will still get credit, and there will still be Sunday deliveries. The market has been renamed Cronig’s Main Street.

“We want to keep everything the same, or make it better,” Mr. Levett said.

This week, David Cronig reflected on the decision to sell the store buisness, and the history of the family business on the Island.

Mr. Cronig said the decision to sell was made easier by his desire to cut down his working day and eventually fully retire.

“It was a move to consolidate our business,” he added.

Mr. Cronig will work with his brother Robert at the State road store, which the firm built in 1977 to accommodate a growing business.

The expansion was not the first. After the brothers bought the Main street store from their father, Samuel, and uncle Edward in 1956, they doubled its floor space one year later, and enlarged it again in 1960, to its present size.

The original Cronig’s was located in the back of the present building, while the Barnacle Club occupied the front. The first store was opened by brothers Samuel, Edward, Theodore and Henry Cronig.

Samuel and his younger brothers came to the Island from Lithuania, an Eastern European country now annexed by the Soviet Union. Their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Morris Cronig followed them to America, arriving in December, 1929. The elder Cronigs’ arrival on the Island was front page news in the Gazette. Refugees from the growing persecution of Jews in Europe, Mr. and Mrs. Cronig found their children living in prosperity they never knew. Morris Cronig never saw canned goods before he saw them in his sons’ store.

Henry and Theodore eventually moved off the Island, leaving Samuel and Edward to continue the business. David and Robert worked outside the family business during the 1930s, but returned to the store in 1946. By the time the younger Cronigs took over the business, Samuel and Edward had “built it up substantially” since its beginnings, David Cronig said.

Mr. Cronig would not reveal the selling price of the market business, but said: “It was a substantial sum. We wouldn’t have sold it otherwise. But people get envious about figures.”

The Main street store will keep the Cronig’s name as part of the sale agreement, Mr. Cronig said. “I hope there won’t be too much confusion.”

Cronig Brothers and Island Markets Inc., Mr. Levett’s firm, will share the use of the Cronig’s truck for freight transport, but otherwise, Mr. Cronig said, “I guess we are competitors.”

“People who want credit or deliveries will probably stay on with the Main street store,” he said. “The State Road store is cash and carry.”

Since the 1940s, much has changed for the independent grocer, Mr. Cronig said.

“Years ago, things came in bulk. I remember weighing up five-pound bags of sugar. Now they come packaged. I remember firkins of butter and lard. The old timers all used to have bad backs from lifting barrels.

“We used to do a lot of business with tug boats, making deliveries. We used to work longer hours, from six a.m. to midnight.”

More recently, Mr. Cronig said, the economics of the wholesale market have allowed independent grocers to compete on the same price level as the large chain markets. Where independent grocers didn’t even try to compete with chains, now they can, he said.

The easterly arm of the outer beach of the Eel Pond at Edgartown has been given for preservation to the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation by Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Brown Jr. who were donors of the adjoining Ox Pond Meadow some time ago.

The deed of gift is “subject to the express condition and limitation that the premises herein conveyed shall forever be held as a nature preserve for scientific, education, and aesthetic purposes, and shall be kept entirely in their present state.”

An interesting feature of the deed is its description of the Eel Pond as alternatively the “Thomas Adams Pond, so called.” It would be interesting to know the identity of this Thomas Adams and at what period the pond was known by his name.

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

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