It has been quite busy chez Calash, with What Cheer Day a little over a week away, the Warren Commission happening tomorrow, and various and sundry other things to do, like get a Young Giant into college. But results were promised and results you shall have.
Despite my lack of chemistry knowledge, I made and used the pewter-cleaning liquor with some success.
The pewter plate spent some time sitting on its edge in a basin of the liquor, and the line is pretty clearly visible in the first image. The second shows the plate after being cleaned with the liquor and a wool rag. It’s better than it was, but there are still more experiments to do. I’d apply rottenstone, but the container hasn’t made it back to New England yet, the posts being poor and the roads infernal.
different class levels
As the silver bowl demonstrates, rottenstone on its own is remarkably effective at removing polish. It is certainly a fairly readily-available, non-toxic, period method of cleaning metals (andirons and fenders to plates and punch bowls) that can be easil;y employed.
Some people will tell you I overextend myself, and while those people may be correct, my enthusiasms compel me to do more, try more, travel more, and to that end I found myself preparing for an event by turning my 1962 Ossining kitchen into an experimental laboratory.
I was taken by Hannah Glasse’s receipt for cleaning pewter, copper, and tin in her section for The Scullion, so of course I had to try it. It’s simple enough: boil wood ash with unslaked lime for half an hour, let cool, and pour off the clear liquid. Easy-peasy, until you realize you have forgotten your high school chemistry, the Young Giant is not at home, and google searches for lime turn up too wholesome uses and unsavory quantities.
Happily, a more scientific brain than my own pointed out potash/pearl ash/potassium carbonate, which Amazon can provide in small quantities. Wood ash proved a little more challenging. Happily for me, I am one of those East Coast foodie fools with a backyard grill and a fondness for hardwood charcoal, so an overdue chore later, I had an enamel kettle of ash.
I did do a little sifting
to end up with finer ash
The receipt calls for “a pail” of wood ash to a “half- pail” unslak’d lime, boiled in four pails of soft water. Since “pails” is a general sort of term, I decided to use the quantity of wood ash I scavenged as the approximate measure of a pail, figuring that proportions mattered more than actual grams or liters. I have resigned myself to the fact that this is more art than science. Four pails of soft water included the remains of a few gallons of water stockpiled for hurricane preparedness years ago, bolstered with water from the tap.
Pail, schmail.
Fortunately, art did not turn into science gone wrong. The boiling was rather placid, considering, and dissolved the fine ash and the potash. I filtered the liquid mixture through a screen (ok, the spatter screen for my frying pan) to ensure that when I poured off the clear, it would be as clear as possible.
Boiling. Not to stinky
sacrificed to a good cause
By the time it had cooled, I had fished out appropriate containers into which I could “pour off the clear.” This recipe, seat-of-the-pants as it is, makes a fair quantity, a mason jar of which I have left with the Drunk Tailor so that he might better clean his officer’s pewter and copper, because, yes! This does work to brighten silver and copper. Tune in next time for details on getting shiny.
Front and a center: A liquor for cleaning pewter, etc.
Madora [sic] water color by Maria Caroline Temple ca 1800. Inscribed Maria C. Temple. delt.’ and ‘Vide “Young Philosopher.” British Museum 1869,0612.599
I was looking for images of maids in 1800, and came across this in the British Museum. Having no idea what Maria Temple meant by Vide Young Philosopher, I went searching. Turns out the answer is surprisingly easy: It’s a novel published in 1798 by Charlotte Smith. So it seems that what Maria Caroline Temple did was to draw a scene from a novel she’d read. I was delighted by this, as something I used to do a long time ago was to draw scenes from books I had read and loved.
With a publication date of 1798, I think we can feel pretty confident in the British Museum’s ca. 1800 date; what I was looking for was a non-satirical illustration of a maid in 1800: what did she wear, how did she comport herself? not because I haven’t been a maid in 1800 before, but because I need to be a better maid in 1800.
The things to love in this image, aside from the clothes, are the checked slipcover and window drape, the brass lock on the heavy wooden door, and the view through those wavy panes of glass. I don’t love the wallpaper, but I appreciate the evidence of it– but not as much as I appreciate the hint of drape matching that raucous slipcover.
Now I just need to hunt down an affordable copy of this clearly dramatic and romantic work of early fiction, and to find out exactly what books were being read in 1800 Rhode Island.
When not working on the Unified Theory of Living History,* I’ve been sewing for the February program in Newport. You know about the skritchy brown gown, and then there was the Great Coat Obsession. Well, here it is, in unpressed previews.
The photographer and I had barely achieved emotional détente by the time these were taken after a foray out of doors in the late afternoon, but we survived on willpower and the promise of strong beer and here you are. Two and three quarters yards were not quite enough at this length, though perhaps the coat does not have the close in the skirt. For $13, I think I’m still okay with where this is headed, though buttons will be the very devil.
My finger tips are so calloused that working touch screens is getting hard, and silk thread practically shreds when I try to make deaths head buttons. It’s still too early to give in and buy buttons, but there will be swearing ahead.
Back to the coat: there is enough wool for a cape or two, if one is pieced or false. It’s hard to tell how warm this will be, until the buttons are on and the body lined. Wearing it outdoors on Sunday did make me think about the wool flannel shift in a collection near me, and how nicely cozy that would be for winter.
![Madora [sic] water color by Maria Caroline Temple ca 1800. Inscribed Maria C. Temple. delt.' and 'Vide "Young Philosopher." British Museum 1869,0612.599](https://kirstenhammerstrom.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/89c0c-an00291773_001_l.jpg?w=640&h=610)
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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