Spinning-Wheels And Hand-Looms Were Such Absolute Necessities, And Were
So Familiar And Omnipresent Features Of The Lives And
Labors of the
Pilgrim housewives and their Dutch neighbors of Leyden, that we should be
certain that they came with
The Pilgrims, even if they did not find
mention in the earliest Pilgrim inventories. Many ancient ones are
exhibited in the "Old Colony," but it is not known that it is claimed for
any of them that they came in the first ship. It is probable that some of
the "cheese fatts" and churns so often named in early inventories came in
the ship, though at first there was, in the absence of milch kine, no
such use for them as there had been in both England and Holland, and soon
was in New England.
Among cooking utensils the roasting "spit" was, in one form or another,
among the earliest devices for cooking flesh, and as such was an
essential of every household. Those brought by the Plymouth settlers
were probably, as indicated by the oldest specimens that remain to us, of
a pretty primitive type. The ancient "bake-kettle" (sometimes called
"pan"), made to bury in the ashes and thus to heat above and below, has
never been superseded where resort must be had to the open fire for
cooking, and (practically unchanged) is in use to-day at many a
sheep-herder's and cowboy's camp fire of the Far West. We may be sure
that it was in every MAY-FLOWER family, and occasional ancient specimens
are yet to be found in "Old Colony" garrets.
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