I used to watch the show Pawn Stars, and I remember watching one episode in disbelief as the item shown here was highlighted.
The show's 'town idiot', Shumley, was trying to figure out what the item was. Although Shumley's grandfather got the name correct: demijohn, he was way off on what made it unique in the world of bottles. His suggestion was that this type of bottle, wrapped in a wicker casing, was used in the making of wine. And so the town idiot took up that suggestion and proceeded to push fresh grapes into the mouth of the bottle, in the assumption that wine would be miraculously produced.
The demijohn was never intended to be used in the actual making of wine ~ anymore than any other bottle would have been used for that purpose. The glass bottle, wrapped in a wicker casing was intended to prevent breakage in transit. It was simply a Nineteenth Century attempt at keeping bottles intact and unbroken as they were carried from one place to another in bumpy carriages and wagons.
The name is believed to have been derived from the French term dame-jeanne,
a popular name translating into English as 'Lady Jane'. The name was used to describe the bottle encased in wicker as early as the 1600s.
Although the name demijohn is used to describe any sized glass
bottle encased in wickerwork, in Great Britain, the name is used
exclusively to refer to a one-gallon vessel, and in the
Philippines, where the name is translated as dama juana, it refers to a fifteen-gallon vessel.
In the Appalachian region of the United States of America, including the south-central Pennsylvania region this item was called a jimmyjohn.
There is no doubt that many demijohns were used to transport wine throughout the years, but the making of wine was not their true purpose.
The butter, and margarine, that we use today is just plain dull and ugly. It's either just a cuboid (a 3D rectangle), if its what we call 'stick' butter or a truncated cone, if it's what we call a 'tub' of margarine. Either way, the sides of these three dimensional shapes are usually (as far as butter and margarine are concerned) flat and unadorned ~ hence, ugly.
During the Colonial Period, butter was a delight to look at ~ at least when it was first made ~ because it was pressed with a low-relief pattern or design.
Butter was made by most homesteaders by the following process: Milk would be collected from cows or goats and the cream would separate from the fresh milk simply by letting it sit for a while in a pan or shallow dish. The cream would rise to the top of the milk, and then it would be skimmed off and placed in a crock. The cream would be set aside in a cool place (such as a pantry or a spring house) for at least twelve hours to allow the butterfat in it to crystallize. This would make churning it a bit easier. Sometimes the cream would be set aside for a couple days ~ as additional cream would be collected over the period of those couple days, making the amount for churning more substantial. The cream would then be poured into a churn, and continual stirring and pounding would result in butter solidifying. The photos above show an upright or plunge churn with the plunger, sometimes called a dasher, exposed. The barrel or paddle churn was another type of churn in which the cream was agitated by a set of paddles inside a barrel shaped body (as shown in the photo to the right).
In addition to the soft mass of butter that was formed, there would be some liquid remaining, which did not solidify. That liquid is what was called buttermilk. The butter would be removed from the buttermilk in the churn, and it would be washed off in cold water to remove any remaining buttermilk. Then the soft butter would be placed in a wooden bowl and the person making the butter would knead it, folding it over on itself continually by using a wooden paddle. At this point, a little salt would be added to the soft butter, so that it would get thoroughly mixed in the kneading process.
As the soft butter would be kneaded, any additional moisture would be squeezed out of the mass. It was then ready to be pressed into nice conical shaped brick or block. This was accomplished by sprinkling a little flour into a wooden, plunger-type butter mold (so that the butter would come out more easily), then packing it tightly with the freshly kneaded butter.
The 'top' of the butter would take on the low relief design of the butter mold's face. The plunger on the butter mold would be pushed, resulting in the block of butter being pushed out of the mold, nicely shaped with the carved design on its top. The larger butter molds tended to provide a one or two pound block, while there are rather small butter molds designed to provide a small, individual-serving sized tab. The mold shown directly below is one of the small ones, it is shown a little larger than actual size.
All of the rest of the molds shown here are larger ones, measuring between five and six inches in diameter. As the photos show, the patterns on butter molds tended to be geometric, but some molds, such as the one shown below showing a swan, were of birds and other animals.
It's a shame that we don't use butter molds to decorate our butter nowadays. Instead, we're stuck with ugly butter ~ or worse, tasteless margarine.
I was at an antique shop last week and saw an item that was similar to one that I own. The tag on the item listed it as "grass snips".
Apparently the antique dealer had not had enough time to check on the item before placing it on the shelf. The fact of the matter was that the item was actually sheep shears. They were the type of shears that were used throughout the world prior to the advent of the electric clippers.
This type of sheep shears are still being produced and sold to those sheep farmers who prefer to shear their sheep the old fashioned way.
Two hundred and thirty three years ago, this Saturday (09 February 1780), the first draft (i.e. the forced enrollment into the army) was initiated by the Second Continental Congress. The delegates assembled in Congress called on the various states of the fledgling United States of America to furnish approximately 35,000 more troops for the Continental Army.
The American Revolutionary War was not yet concluded. Active fighting was still underway throughout the southern colonies; the siege of Yorktown would not begin for another year and a half (in September 1781). So the prospects of the need for troops to continue the fight were very real. On the 1st of February, the delegates assembled in Congress were presented with a report of the Board of War which noted the quota of troops they felt would be needed for the ensuing year's campaigns. The state of Pennsylvania's quota was 4,855 men.
The subject was tabled a couple days, and finally was put to a vote on 09 February, at which time it was "Resolved, That for the ensuing campaign the states be respectively required to furnish, by draughts or otherwise, on or before the first day of April next, their respective deficiencies of the number of 35,211 men, exclusive of commissioned officers, which Congress deem necessary for the service of the present year."
There exists, in the modern psyche, a romantic image of pirates and pieces~of~eight. The pirates, we know from historical accounts and trial transcripts, were very real. Perhaps some of their exploits were exaggerated, but there were indeed a number of them, especially English and French ones. And those English and French pirates tended to prey upon Spanish galleons. Those Spanish galleons were transporting troops to the colonies in the New World, and those troops were plundering native stockpiles of gold and silver. The gold and silver was then being shipped back to Spain in the ships that the troops had come over in. Laden with treasures and manned by reduced crews (the space for the rest being taken up by the silver and gold cargo), the Spanish galleons were easy prey for the English and French pirates. It's all very romantic with celluloid blood spurting from swashbuckling sword fights and all.
And then there's the pieces~of~eight. Before being banned from public school libraries due to PG-13 violence and language, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island was required reading for schoolboys and girls. And in the depths of that volume we first learned about pieces~of~eight.
During the Colonial Period, the Spanish equivalent of a U.S. dollar or English pound sterling was the eight reales Peso~De~Ocho, variously known in trade as Pillar Dollars (due to their distinctive design which included the Pillars of Hercules depicted on the reverse). They became known in English as Pieces~Of~Eight (which is the translation of 'peso de ocho'). There were also Four Reale coins, Two Reale coins, and One Reale coins. Four reales were the equivalent of 50% of the total dollar; they were known as four 'bits'. Two reales were the equivalent of 25% of the total dollar; they were known as two 'bits'. And one reale, or one 'bit' was the equivalent of 12.5% of the total dollar.
In the romantic version of the pirate story, a pirate would cut one of his Eight Reale coins into 'pieces' if he needed less than the total dollar amount. (A bottle of rum might have cost one dollar and two bits.) And so we have the romantic image of pirates carrying whole coins, coins cut in two, and little pie-slice pieces - because he was all the time cutting his eight reale Peso coins into smaller segments.
But we have a problem with that romantic image. Why don't we have hoards and hoards of little pie-slice segments of these coins? If the entire, whole coins could survive through the years, allowing us to find them in treasure troves and in people's attics, why don't we find the segments? The only segments that I have seen were groupings of eight segments recently cut from a whole coin in order to illustrate what the pirates were doing all the time to their own coins. Did the segments dissolve after they were cut from the whole coin? The fact of the matter is that, more than likely, the romantic image of the coin being cut into smaller segments came moreso from the name being misunderstood rather than being representative of a physical act of actually cutting the coins into segments.
The name Piece~Of~Eight did not signify that the coin was intended to be cut into so many segments. If that were the case, the design on either the reverse or the obverse would have included grooves making the cutting into such segments easier. The name Piece~Of~Eight implied that the coin was one 'piece' (Spanish: peso, meaning dollar) consisting of eight reales. If the Spanish Treasury had intended the eight reales coins to be cut into segments, there would have been no reason for them to mint the Four Reales, Two Reales, and One Reales coins.
Take notice, in the topmost image, along the left edge, is the numeral/letter: 8R signifying that the coin is a peso of eight reales. Also notice that the bottom coin, in the photo on the left, also appearing along the left edge, is the numeral/letter: 2R signifying that the coin is a peso of two reales. (I wonder why they never became known as pieces~of~two?)
Don't forget, tomorrow is Candlemas.
You thought I was going to say "Ground Hog Day", didn't you?
Even though it has recently come to be known as Ground Hog Day, the 2nd of February was, traditionally, the day set aside to celebrate the purification of the Virgin Mary and the diety of Jesus, the Christ.
The day was marked by the carrying of lighted candles as noted in a proclamation issued by the English King Henry VIII which stated: "On Candlemas Daye it
shall be declared that the bearynge of candels is done in the memorie
of Christe, the spirituall lyghte, when Simeon dyd prophecye, as it is
redde in the churche that daye."
Thomas Bacon, in his book, Reliques of Rome published in London on 1563, stated that "Sometyme
when the Romaines by great myght and royal power conquered all the
world, they were so proude, that they forgat God, and made them divers
gods after their own lust. And so among all they had a god that they
called Mars, that had been tofore a notable knight in battayle; and so
they prayed to hym for help, and for that they would speed the better of
this knight, the people prayed and did great worship to his mother,
that was called Februa, after which woman much people have opinion that
the moneth February is called. Wherefore the second daie of thys moneth
is Candlemass Day. The Romaines this night went about the city of Rome
with torches and candles brenning in worship of this woman Februa, for
hope to have the more helpe and succore of her sonne Mars. Then there
was a Pope that was called Sergius, and when he saw Christian people
drawn to this false maumetry and untrue belief, he thought to undo this
foule use and custom, and turn it unto God's worship and our Lady's, and
gave commandment that all Christian people should come to church and
offer up a candle brennyng, in the worship that they did to this woman
Februa, and do worship to our Lady and to her sonne our Lord Jesus
Christ. So that now this feast is solemnly hallowed thorowe all
Christendome. And every Christian man and woman of covenable age is
bound to come to church and offer up their candles, as though they were
bodily with our Lady, hopyng for this reverence and worship, that they
do to our Ladye, to have a great rewarde in heaven, &c."
More information regarding the holiday can be found on my MotherBedford website at: Holidays Celebrated In The Colonial Period .
The name silk top hat is a generally accepted name for the type of men's headgear more correctly called a top hat, but variously called a high hat, cylinder hat, chimneypot hat or stovepipe hat.
The earliest reference to the top hat, per se, comes from the 1790s. But men's hats were popular much earlier than that. During the Colonial period, men's hats took the form of the tri-corn, or three-cornered hat. The tri-corn was simply a variation of the standard farmer's hat used to shield his eyes from the sun.
The three-cornered hat consisted of a somewhat low, round crown surrounded by a wide brim, which was gathered against the crown and held in place by 'blocking' or shaping it over a wooden block form. By the 1790s, the top hat became popular. Instead of a low, round crown, the top hat took the form of a cylinder with a flat top. A flat brim, smaller than that of the tri-corn, was lifted up slightly on either side, but not on the front or back. The height of the cylindrical shaped crown varied over the years, sometimes, as in the case of the 'stovepipe' hat, reaching absurdly tall dimensions.
The first top hats, like the tri-corn, were originally made of felt, derived most often from the soft under fur of beaver pelts.
Felt for hats were also made from sheep wool or the fur from other mammals such as otters, muskrats and rabbits. The longer 'guard' hairs were pulled out of the pelt and discarded. Then the soft under fur, called the muffoon, was scraped off the pelt with a sharp knife. The loose fur was placed in a pile on a table, and the hatter then pulled and released the string of his stang (a special bow fitted with a sheep-gut string) so that the string smacked the pile of fur. As this process was repeated, the individual hairs of the fur began to stick together because of their scaly structure. The vibration of the process of smacking the loose fur with the stang also caused the individual hairs to crisscross each other in a random fashion that contributed to their sticking together. The somewhat flattened pile of loose fur was then flattened even more (into what was called a batt) by the hatter using a type of basket made of wooden slats. The batts, which were roughly triangular in shape with each side measuring about three feet, were then placed on a pile, separated from one another by a wet sheet of linen. Absorbing the moisture from the linen sheets, the batts became more solidified. A hatter would then take a pair of batts with the linen sheets in place, and knead and form them into a conical shape. The resulting cone shaped piece of felt was called a hood. The hoods would be placed into a kettle of boiling water and allowed to boil for between six and eight hours. In the process of boiling (also known as fulling), the hoods would shrink, binding the fibers together even tighter. The hoods were then dipped into the battery, which was a large kettle in which a mild acid was kept boiling. This caused the hoods to become even more solidified, and when removed from the acid bath, ready to be blocked and shaped. The shaping was done by placing the still hot, soaking wet hood over a wooden form, either low and round for tri-corn hats, or cylindrical and flat-topped for top hats, and then striking or rubbing it repeatedly with a small wooden club until it conformed to the shape of the wooden block. After the crown was satisfactorily blocked into shape, the brim would be flattened and smoothed using a wooden tool called a tolliker. The hat would then be placed in a warm oven to dry overnight. The next morning, excess material would be trimmed off the edge of the brim with a knife, and the brim would be rubbed with a pumice stone. The brim's edge would be turned over on itself to give a smooth, finished look. The entire surface of the hat would be ironed and then brushed with a fuller's brush to raise the nap. High points would be cut off with a fuller's shears, and then a final brushing was done to make sure that all of the individual hairs were lying in the same direction.
The finisher completed the process by sewing a leather or satin sweatband to the inside edge and a silk ribbon to the outside, around the crown where it met the brim. Many of the early hats were left in their natural (fur) color, but when it became fashionable in the 1820s and 30s for top hats to be black, they would be dyed prior to the addition of the sweatband and ribbons.
Around the year 1830 silk fibers began to be used in addition to, or in place of, the beaver fur. Initially a fur/felt hat would be produced and then its surface covered with a coating of shellac, onto which silk plush would be sprinkled. Later on, as the beaver fur became less and less available, the hat's structure was made from calico. The use of beaver fur in hat making eventually died out around the 1860s. The silk fibers, or plush, that were used in hat making were produced by a special type of machine up until the 1970s.
It might be noted that the fumes from the acid in the battery, around which the hatters worked, would sometimes lead to mental instability ~ hence the phrase: Mad as a Hatter.
