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Dr. Claris ease Buffalo office (Image courtesy of Mike Smith)
The Great Horse Healer:
Dr. John T. Claris
East Buffalo Veterinary Hospital 1882-1926 By Peter Jablonski
hen I was a young boy growing up on the East Side of W Buffalo, known as the meatpacking district, my friends and I would roam and explore the fields behind the odd-num-
bered houses of Metcalfe street bordering from William to Howard Street. There was a whole new world to be discovered for the inquisitive minds. Praying mantis that camouflage themselves amidst the tall goldenrod and woe to the unwary grasshopper who crossed its path as they faced immediate decapitation. Some rocks and minerals needed to be studied and kites that needed to test their wings. On one of the many excursions, I came across a horse hoof and treasured it in an old cigar box from my Uncle Bronislaus who enjoyed a good cigar after a tiring day in the press room at Polish, Everybody’s Daily Newspaper and later the Courier Express. It would be years later when my dad, Fred Francis Jablonski, wrote his book Dynamics of East Buffalo Ethnic Neighborhood
that I learned our little Eden in the city was once the site of the Crandall Horse Barns. Aha, that’s where my horse hoof came from. Crandall was the largest horse auction house in the world according to Dr. Claris’s book The Diseases of the Horse. Mr. A.D. Cronk, along with A. B. Crandall, formed the Crandall Horse Co. and could accommodate 2,000 horses, having sold 1184 in one week averaging 100 horses a day for the year. In a single year 100,812 horses were shipped from East Buffalo and 7,596 had been purchased here and shipped to Europe. There were many injured animals on transit and much sickness due to inclement weather. This provided Dr. Claris with a lucrative client for his business. When my dad lectured to local WNY historical societies he told the story of a great conflagration in 1943 of the Crandall Horse Barns, on the birth of my cousin Sue Rozak, which caused an evacuation of the houses on that block of Metcalfe Street. I have
