Pots And Kettles Of All
Sorts Find More Frequent Mention In The Early Inventories Than Anything
Else, Except Muskets And Swords, And Were Probably More Numerous Upon
The Ship Than Any Other Cooking Utensil.
A few claimed to be from the
Pilgrim ship are exhibited, chief of which is a large iron pot, said to
have been "brought by Myles Standish in the MAY-FLOWER," now owned by
the Pilgrim Society.
Hardly an early Pilgrim inventory but includes "a mortar and pestle,"
sometimes of iron, sometimes of "brass" or "belle-mettle" (bell metal).
They were of course, in the absence of mills, and for some purposes for
which small hand mills were not adapted, prime necessities, and every
house hold had one. A very fine one of brass (with an iron pestle), nine
and a half inches across its bell-shaped top, - exhibited by the Pilgrim
Society, and said to have been "brought in the MAY-FLOWER by Edward
Winslow," - seems to the author as likely to have been so as almost any
article for which that distinction is claimed.
The lighting facilities of the Pilgrims were fewer and cruder than those
for cooking. They possessed the lamp of the ancient Romans, Greeks, and
Hebrews, with but few improvements, - a more or less fanciful vessel for
oil, with a protuberant nose for a wick, and a loose-twisted cotton wick.
Hand-lamps of this general form and of various devices, called
"betty-lamps," were commonly used, with candlesticks of various metals,
- iron, brass, silver, and copper, - though but few of any other ware.
For wall-lighting two or more candle sockets were brought together in
"sconces," which were more or less elaborate in design and finish.
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