Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

During my boyhood there was an article which had been for many years in the cookery department of our house, but which had recently gone out of use. It was called a roasting Jack, and preceded the tin kitchen in roasting meats and poultry. I remember it well, but I have little doubt that like many another relic of the past, it found its way into the junk heap of William Nye on the approach of some muster or election day, when we boys wanted money for lobsters and lemonade and other promoters of a stomachache which, perhaps, in these days of fads would have been called appendicitis. It was an iron cylinder about four inches in diameter and six inches long, attached at the top with an intermediate swivel to the chimney crane, and at the bottom to a hook or some other contrivance which held the meat. Inside of the cylinder there was a clock work machinery, which when wound up would keep the hook constantly turning before the fire. It probably went out of use between 1800 and 1820.

There was another kind of roasting Jack, consisting of a spit resting on hooks attached to the andirons to which a wheel was affixed, which was kept turning by a chain band running from a larger wheel moved by clock work attached to the under side of the mantel piece. I have no doubt that many of my readers have seen the hooks on old andirons without knowing the purpose for which they were intended. These hooks may be seen on a pair of andirons in the Pilgrim Hall Library.

There was another article closely associated with my childhood, which I have thus far omitted to mention. How often have I sat in a high chair with a bib under my chin, and a pap spoon in hand, feeding myself out of a porringer. I supposed that the porringer was the sole prerogative of children; that it was designed expressly for their use, but I had not then learned the fictions of legendary lore, and that the world is all a fleeting show for a child’s illusion given. I learned the true origin and use of the porringer some years ago. A lady wrote to me that an elderly lady in Roxbury in somewhat reduced circumstances owned a china soup tureen which was once used in the household of Queen Anne, and would be glad to sell it. I went to see it, and found a very handsome tureen, but I saw at once on its cover a knob representing a rabbit’s ear, the exclusive mark of Wedgewood, who flourished during the time of Queen Charlotte, and made a very beautiful cream colored ware, of which this tureen was a specimen, and in honor of Queen Charlotte called it “queen’s ware.” The story accompanying the tureen was that an ancestor of its present owner was at one time attached to Queen Anne’s Court, as one of the ladies in waiting, and afterwards becoming reduced, emigrated to New Brunswick, carrying with her the tureen, which she received as a present during her service in the household of the Queen. It is easy to account for the legend of its origin by the supposition of some later owner, knowing it was called queen’s ware, that it was a part of the ware of the queen of whose household an ancestor was a member. Not being satisfied with the result of my examination I began a further investigation of the origin of soup tureens as articles of table ware, and found that in the reign of Queen Anne, they were neither used or known. The custom was to have soup brought to the table by the servants in porringers, one of which was placed before each guest. This was the design and purpose of the porringer, and this was its use until the appearance of the tureen about the middle of the eighteenth century, when it was relegated to the use of children. In my day the porringer was made of either silver or pewter, but as the fashion of its use has gradually gone out the silver porringer has found its way to the melting pot, and the pewter one to the bric-a-brac store.

There are doubtless many genuine relics of the Queen Anne period in existence. I have a hammered brass wine cooler of that period, which came down in my mother’s family from John White, son of Peregrine White, born in Marshfield about 1660. It is about the size and shape of an ordinary soup tureen, with solid brass handles and slots around its edge, in which wine glasses were hung with their bowls in the water. It was called a “Monteth,” and took its name from the inventor. The poet William King, who was born in 1663, and died in 1712, alluded to the article in the following lines:

“New names produce new words, and thus Monteth

Has by a vessel saved his name from death.”

Among the books which I have examined with reference to the articles above mentioned, is a very interesting one entitled “Social life in the reign of Queen Anne,” to which I refer the student of habits and customs in the early part of the 18th century.

In the flowers and fruits and trees of Plymouth the changes in my day have not been striking. The garden flora are the same as in my youth, except that new flowers have been introduced, and new and improved varieties of the old ones. Fashion has occasionally relegated some flowers to temporary obscurity, but in many instances has restored them to their old rank or to a higher one. In my youth the tulip filled every border in yard and garden, but in time fashion called it vulgar, and it retired from the floral social life. But it returned in due season, like a girl from a fashionable school with the flush of beauty and with cultivated taste, and became instead of the wall flower, one of the belles of the ball. The hollyhock once banished to the back yard, is now the guardian of our doorway, and nods a graceful welcome to every guest, while the sunflower, once the occupant of the poultry yard, now stands in splendid defiance under our windows, and hourly challenges the sun to do his best.

The most remarkable change in our gardens has been in connection with the tomato introduced from Mexico, and there called tomatl. In 1831 Dr. Jas. Thacher of Plymouth, who was fond of introducing new things, secured some seed and gave my mother some, which she planted. I remember the plant well, with its burdens of gorgeous fruit, which was looked upon rather as a garden ornament than food for the table. It was not long, however, before it came into general use as a summer vegetable, and finally as a preserve in cans for winter use, until it may now be said that in the extent of its use it stands next to the potato. Though long supposed to have been of Mexican origin, it has been recently found that nations in Africa had long used it, and esteemed it a valuable article of food. I have an impression that in the summer of 1831 it ripened much earlier than it does now. It is a serious objection that as a crop it ripens so late that practically the whole crop ripens at the same time, and as a perishable vegetable is rushed into the market at prices too low to make its cultivation profitable. The canning, however, of large quantities, has served in recent years to help prices by increasing the demand. A writer in Blackwood says, “the tomato is a noble fruit, as sweet in smell as the odors of Araby, and makes an illustrious salad. Its medicinal virtue is as great as its gastronomical goodness. It is the friend of the well to keep them well, and the friend of the sick to bring them back into the lost sheepfolds of Hygeia. The Englishman’s travelling companion, the blue pill, would never be needed if he would pay proper court to the tomato.”

Among the fruits brought into use in Plymouth from foreign fields, the banana has had the most striking history. I remember the first one I ever saw, and the first brought to Plymouth. It was about the year 1833 that Capt. Samuel Rogers in command of the schooner Capitol, belonging to Daniel and Abraham Jackson, brought to Plymouth several bunches of bananas, one of which he gave to Mr. Abraham Jackson, in whose yard I saw it hanging on a tree. The bunch was of the yellow variety, and Capt. Rogers called it plantain. As the demand for this fruit has increased, the banana fields of Porto Rico, Jamaica and Costa Rica have been immensely enlarged until regular lines of steamers from those places now bring into the United States twenty-five millions of bunches annually, or twenty-five hundred millions of bananas, enough to supply annually thirty bananas to every man, woman and child, including negroes. The fruit is now sold at so low a price, and is so universally used that I think it safe to say that no fruit, not excepting apples, has so large a consumption.