ASK THE ARCHIVIST
By JACQUELINE HAUN
Sundae School
Throughout a century’s worth of different owners and locations, triumphs and heartbreaks, Lawrenceville’s iconic Jigger Shop has been part of the School’s allure – and lore.
I
t’s always been about the snacks. What would come to be known as the Jigger Shop started out on the southern corner of the village’s Phillips Avenue and Main Street in a large, white frame house that served as the home, office, and drugstore of Dr. Edmund DeWitt. In the late 1880s, DeWitt set aside a portion of the pharmacy to serve as an ice cream counter, delegating the running of this part of the business to Alfred “Al” Bogart. According to historian Roland Mulford’s 1935 history of the School, the ice cream sundaes served in DeWitt’s drug store came to be known as “jiggers” after Winslow Mallery of the Class of 1890, “wishing a hurried helping of ice cream called out, ‘Hey, Al! Gimme a couple of those, er – what-doyou-call-’ems? That jigger you have in your hand!’” DeWitt’s “jigger” referred to the thennewfangled conical ice cream scoop, which had only recently replaced a large spoon as the usual way to dispense ice cream. The name caught on, and a Lawrenceville legend was born. The jiggers themselves could be extravagant in their preparation. A 1910
Scribner’s Magazine article described them as “a tall soda-water glass half full of marshmallows. Over this [the server] poured a thick chocolate syrup. He put ice cream on top of this, an inch or two of whipped cream on top of the ice cream, gave a stir, and the
‘jigger’ was ready. The counter was lined with glass bowls filled with chopped nuts and syrup, breakfast foods, chopped bananas and syrup, chopped oranges, pineapples, etc., which, mixed in various combinations, are daily devoured by the young Laurentians [sic].”
Students in search of snacks in 1943 bellied up to the counter at the second Jigger Shop, located in today’s law offices across Phillips Avenue from TJ’s.
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