Grinding Away

          Anyone that has stopped in at our museum has probably seen this stone before, but it may not have caught your attention as it isn’t in one of our buildings. Believe it or not, the stone out front is actually an artifact in our collection – one very large, heavy and rugged artifact that has thus taken its place outside of our museum.

            William Redstone moved to Springfield Parish in 1836 along the Joliff Brook. Some land he purchased and some he leased from the Trinity Church in 1837. It was here that he built two watermills, one a gristmill and the other a sawmill, both on the Joliff Brook. One was located at his home, where the water came from a head pond at the foot of Bull Moose Hill Road. The water flowed down a flume or ditch to the gristmill. The second mill was across the highway from where Roy Northrup lived. This mill, with its undershot wheel, was used for sawing lumber and in its later days it may have been used for grinding buckwheat.

These mills were taken over by William Joliff, an Englishman. He came to New Brunswick in the year 1830, a son-in-law to William Redstone. Mr. Joliff did very well with his mills until his interest turned to prospecting. Later this place became home to Thomas Marr who was the last to operate the mills. Eventually, it became the property of the donor, William Tremain.

Following is some brief information on how millstones actually work. Millstones come as two pieces, a base or bedstone that doesn’t move and a runner stone that sits on top of the base and does the grinding of material. The runner stone is connected to different pieces that lead to the source of power – water. The surface of the millstone is divided into furrows that continue on as smaller grooves, called feathering or cracking. Our millstone only seems to have furrows – it doesn’t appear that the grooves get smaller continuing outwards. When the two stones are set against each other the patterns and movement allow for the stones to create a grinding action.

Next time you’re in be sure to stop and check out the millstone by our door! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millstone

Happy Canada Day!

             Today’s post is a little bit different, but in light of the Canada Day celebrations taking place today we thought it fitting to share with you a piece from our collection with details of Confederation. As stated within the first few pages of the book titled ‘Confederation’, “This book was compiled from reproductions of actual newspapers of the day for the Rolland Paper Company Limited as its contribution to the celebration of Canada’s 100^th birthday.” Most already know the facts and dates of Confederation, so we wanted to share a few excerpts from newspaper articles that may be of interest. Since none of us were around to grab the daily paper in 1867, we thought it might be neat to highlight some lines from different papers.

            

          Toronto, Monday, July 1, 1867 – The Globe, “With the first dawn of this gladsome midsummer morn, we hail the birthday of a new nationality, A united British America, with its four millions of people, takes its place this day among the nations of the world. Stamped with a familiar name, which in the past has borne a record sufficiently honourable to entitle it to be perpetuated with a more comprehensive import, the DOMINION OF CANADA, on this First day of July, in the year of grace, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, enters on a new career of national existence. Old things have passed away. The history of old Canada, with its contracted bounds, and limited divisions of Upper and Lower, East and West, has been completed, and this day a new volume is opened, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia uniting with Ontario and Quebec to make the history of a greater Canada, already extending from the ocean to the head waters to the great lakes, and destined ere long to embrace the larger half of this North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”

          

             Halifax, July 1, 1867 – Morning Chronicle, “DIED. Last night, at twelve o’clock, the free and enlightened Province of Nova Scotia. Deceased was the offspring of old English stock, and promised to have proved an honour and support to her parents in their declining years. Her death was occasioned by unnatural treatment received at the hands of some of her ungrateful sons, who, taking advantage of the position she had afforded them, betrayed her to the enemy. Funeral will take place from the Grand Parade this day, Monday, at 9 o’clock. Friends are requested not to attend, as her enemies, with becoming scorn, intend to insult the occasion with rejoicing.”

            Friday, July 12, 1867 – The Ottawa Citizen, “Confederation Day appears to have been generally well-observed throughout the Dominion. But in Nova Scotia, in the strongholds of Anti-Unionism, the day passed over without jubilation. This, of course, is no more than we might have predicted, for, weeks ago, Mr. Howe and the anti-Confederate journals recommended that the day should be devoted to fastings and humiliations. The recommendation of Mr. Howe was followed by at least one Quebec Rouge – a Mr. Laberge – who, as mayor of Dorchester, withheld his sanction and authority for the holding of a celebration. When asked to convene a public meeting to take into consideration the celebration of the day he refused to do so on the ground that he believed Confederation to be a public misfortune, and that , before rejoicing, the people should wait at least one year to see how the Union should work.”

            Montréal, Samedi, 6 Juillette 1867 – La Guêpe, “L’Évènement de la Confédération est signalé par les signes les plus étranges, les choses les plus inouïes et les monstruosités les plus étonnantes.”

            As most know, Confederation Day wasn’t all smiles– there were many different emotions on this day 149 years ago. Some happy, some not so happy, and in Montreal, some just in awe at what was happening!

           

             We will be open until 4pm today if you want to stop and visit the Old Jail or our new Steamship Exhibit! We hope you enjoy a wonderful Canada Day, though, wherever you may be celebrating!

Fresh Cut

            There’s something about the smell and sight of a freshly cut lawn that brings memories of summertime and sunshine to many. The practice of keeping lawns freshly cut for the duration of the warm months may be fairly recent, but the activity of mowing lawns is not.

            In the 1830s lawn mowers were invented and put to good use. Mainly used for keeping sports fields under control and play ready, some reel mowers were purchased by those with large gardens that needed to be kept ever so perfect, like those at Oxford Colleges. Eventually, more thinking and tweaking took place until there were mowers large enough to be used by farmers and drawn by horses. Scythes were replaced by these more efficient mowers.

At some point in time the rotary mower equipped with a motor came into play, and now most of us make use of a ride-on or push mower that has a motor. We doubt very few people would want to use one of these old push reel mowers to mow their lawns on a hot afternoon – especially those of us with large lawns.

            Our push reel mower consists of a wooden shaft and handle, three twisted blades, and a barred drum for catching and throwing grass clippings. Marked in raised print on the cast frame is: "New Easy Lawn Mower 1888 Blair MFG. Springfield, Mass. U. S. A.  Pat'd Oct. 7, 1879, Nov. 16, 1880, Sept. 16, 1884". It may not seem very appealing to you but, with the rise in HST coming, this push lawn mower that requires nothing but man power could be a pretty economical choice. Not to say that we’d put our artifact on loan, but it may be worth looking into finding one of these!

            We've included a short clip of the push mower moving to give a better idea of how this would have cut grass! Basically the spinning bars would push the grass up against the low blade-like-bar, and that would                                               allow the grass to be cut.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/05/23/in-praise-of-the-push-reel-mower/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_mower

http://americangardening.net/victorian-vase-appeared-in-1888-lawn-mower-ad/

Bad Hair Day

            After being extremely busy setting up our new exhibit, we're back with more strange and wonderful things to share with you! Today’s post is of something that many never would have laid their eyes on before. It may strike you as very odd at first, but following this post you may realize just how common these wreaths are. We would like to share with you a little bit about the hair wreath in our collection. To make matters even more interesting, we actually happened upon a website for a museum in Missouri dedicated completely to hair art.

            While the hair part may not sit very well with you, the wreath itself is quite a piece of art. It is intricately designed and put together – it just seems odd that it is made from someone’s hair. The hair for this wreath was from a relative of the artifact’s donor. Her hair was very long and as it loosened and was brushed out, it was kept in a container. When she passed, her daughter fastened the hair with beads and wire to make this wreath. A quote we have accompanying the artifact’s information suggests the commonness of this art, “The hair, sorted as to length and shade, was then woven into many different designs. Fine wire was used as a foundation for weaving flowers, stems and tendrils. Tiny beads were set in the flower centers." – Antiques Journal, May 1962.

            As you can see, as strange as it may seem to, one – keep somebody’s hair, and two – make a piece of artwork out of it – the whole thing was fairly normal. In fact, there was a time when many pieces of jewelry were assembled from hair (we also have an earring made from hair!), and then worn by men and women alike. We were able to find out on the website for Leila’s Hair Museum why the wreath was made in a horseshoe shape and not completely enclosed - the open ends of the wreath allowed for more hair to be added in the event that the family grew. As mentioned above, the information that we have states that the wreath was made from the hair of the donor’s relative, but maybe it is actually a mixture of different family members’ hair.

The hair wreath as part of the "Wayside Inn"
 in our Steamship Exhibit

            

          The best part of this whole thing? This hair wreath is on display as part of our Steamship Exhibit until the end of the summer! So, if you would like to check out this very odd, yet interesting artifact and some other neat objects you are welcome to stop in, as we are officially open this week! Our hours are Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm for the whole summer.

http://www.leilashairmuseum.net/index.html

Razor Sharp

            We have been extremely busy this week starting the process of setting up our new Steamship exhibit, and so we apologize if our hidden history posts have been a little on the short side, or if we miss a day next week! Our plan is to be open for June 27^th, so we are under a bit of a time crunch getting everything prepared and in place. Our post today is about a sharp little object used by many men for many years.

Assembled perhaps sometime during the early 1900s, this straight razor belonged to the grandfather of the artifact’s donor. Writing this as a female individual, it is hard to believe ever having used such a thing, but even harder to imagine someone having used this razor knowing what is available today. Turns out, though, men started using this style of razor in the 1600s and it was still ongoing in the 1900s, so I guess it must have been fairly safe – or maybe it was easy enough to learn the trick to shaving! I can only imagine watching someone attempt to use one of these and the next thing you know a gash appearing right across their cheek!

This straight razor came to us in this stylish, yet still masculine, maroon case with the trademark, “The Clauss Shear Works, Fremont Ohio, USA”, during the 1970s. A company started in the late 1800s by two german brothers, it quickly developed into much more. Starting with only five employees and a handful of products to be manufactured, the company merged with Henkel Company in 1919 to form Henkel-Clauss. The merged company had more than 1,000 employees and the largest payroll in the United States in 1919.

            The blades, like anything else with a metal edge, work best when they are sharp. Apparently, the only way one could cut themselves is if they were moving the blade in the same parallel fashion as the blade itself sits. Even though this may be true, I don’t know if I would trust someone else, or even myself to place that – very sharp – blade near my face!

            Do you have or know anyone that has one of these razor blades? Better yet, do you still use a blade like this?!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clauss_Cutlery_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_razor

Noble Steed

           It is likely that most of us have the image in our heads of horses being tied to hitching posts outside of local shops in old western movies. The stereotypical cowboy would skid to a stop in front of an old country store in the bustling town and tie his noble steed to a post before going about his business. While this may be what most people believe to have been the norm, there was actually another way to secure your equine partner before leaving them alone to take care of business.  

            That other way was a horse anchor. Yes, you read that right, a horse anchor. And yes, it is exactly what you are trying to picture – a big, metal something that rested on the ground for you to secure your horse to. Although the image I described above was that of a single riding horse being tied, the horse anchor was more typically used for horses drawing a buggy or carriage. The weight would be placed before the horse, while he was tied securely to the chunk of metal. I guess you then either knew your horse didn’t have strong enough neck and shoulder muscles to move that anchor, or you hoped the horse wasn’t concerned enough to try and move it.

            The horse anchor in our collection is actually made of lead. It resembles a lead box, as it is all hollowed out, that has a wire attached to it that would be used to tie reins or a rope around. (Perhaps the anchor was hollowed out so one could toss some grain or treats into it for their horse to nibble away on?) The anchor appears to be homemade, which we can assume is true, as many times a local blacksmith would whip one together, or perhaps the horse owner himself depending on how handy he was.

            We can’t offer you much more for details on this treasure, as we don’t know too much ourselves. Again, though, we just wanted to highlight another interesting part of our history that most people would probably overlook as it would have simply been part of an everyday happening, rather than some extraordinary artifact from a fascinating day in history.

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/horse-anchor-weight-tether-equestrian-farm

Royal Execution

            The things we find here at the Kings County Museum! Today’s post highlights an artifact that we happened across while working on our database - one that widened our eyes. We have in our possession a copy of the warrant issued to execute King Charles I.

‘Facsimile of Warrant to Execute King Charles I’. The warrant was published by Publishers, Publicity Service, Toronto. The document dated January 1648 has 58 signatures affixed to it with each commissioner’s individual seal. Charles I, King of England, was tried, convicted of High Treason and sentenced by the court to be beheaded.

            Charles I was born in 1600 to King James VI of Scotland. At the age of three he moved to England following his father’s inheritance of the throne of England. He was married to the fifteen-year-old Bourbon Princess of France, Henrietta Maria in 1625 (In case you missed it - while she was 15, Charles was 25!). In 1626 Charles’s coronation took place on the second of February. Over the years Charles was a part of many conflicts, while not necessarily making or keeping some friends along the way. He ran into issues with other countries and religions, to put it simply.  

Finally, in January of 1649 it all came to an end when he was convicted of treason against England. His trial began on January 20^th at Westminster Hall and six days later he was condemned to death. 59 of the 68 commissioners present signed Charles’s death warrant. On the 29^th his children were allowed to visit with him and say their final goodbyes. Then, on the afternoon of January 30^th, the King was publicly executed.

Attached is a link to the United Kingdom Parliament page that goes into detail about this warrant and the proceedings that took place. Turns out that this warrant for Charles’s execution was later used to track down those who had signed it and prosecute the regicides for the same thing King Charles faced – treason. The commissioners who had signed the warrant and had passed away were dug up from the grave, and their bodies hung.

Not all of our artifacts have a sweet story from the good ole days to share – and this would be one! Even though it is a bit of a gory story, it is still an interesting piece of our collection. We hope we didn’t instill any awful images of beheadings or hangings in your mind!

http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/civilwar/collections/deathwarrant/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England