jendobyns

There were some listed in that Gutenburg Project on-line book on Pirates and Privateers I posted sometime back. I'm no good at finding and posting those links, maybe soembody who's good at it will come to the rescue?

OK, so it wasn't that hard:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24882

Bo

Awesome! Glad you found it. Thanks!

Try here or here actually here would be better as it's all the search results

Man, you just come up with the best stuff! Thanks! I could get lost in those documents for hours!

Looks like a tierce is a type of cask, according to this definition: A cask whose content is one third of a pipe; that is, forty-two wine gallons; also, a liquid measure of forty-two wine, or thirty-five imperial, gallons. 2. A cask larger than a barrel, and smaller than a hogshead or a puncheon, in which salt provisions, rice, etc, are packed for shipment.

Merhaba, and welcome to the pub Gio!

Are you looking for ships engaged in any particular trade or region?

Almost everything was transported by sea at some point or another, from bullion, silks and spices to timber and coal, and the common cargoes varied extensively depending on where the vessel was sailing to and from.

I'm looking primarily for ships leaving from the areas ten degrees north or south of the equator, in the new world, which would have been carrying cocoa beans, roasted nibs or perhaps even chocolate that had been processed into cakes (although that last is unlikely). I'd like to see how the stuff was transported from it's point of origin to Europe and the colonies and what form it was in when that was done. I have some information that indicates it was transported as beans to be roasted and ground at it's destination, but no paperwork showing it as ship's cargo. It would be nice to demonstrate Ship X listing so many bags, barrels or crates of cocoa beans for a specific voyage.

While ships bearing cocoa are my specific target, any listings of cargo are always welcome. I love primary sources! It's how one finds olives being imported in Philadelphia, or worsted tape coming from Europe.

Willie that looks just like what I've been seeing around when searching for patrol box.

Now I just need to get me some plans and come up with one.

Mistress Dobyns, I wasn't really looking for something period correct, which is why I was thinking of disguising it in a barrel or a sea chest. The idea was that I could bring my coleman camp stove (for the morning coffee and maybe light cooking), this way I could use it and just close it up and tuck it in the box.

In that case, for fun you might like to check out the Medieval Encampments yahoo group photos. There are all sorts of disguises for modern stuff on there. For example, someone designed a camp kitchen "box" which can hide a small coleman stove and a dish pan side by side, as well as the tanks and some storage space, in a version of an aumbry cupboard. It's not as portable as the patrol box, but it's kinda cool because it looks like a piece of furniture. There's lots of potential for making something that looks period, but isn't. Your idea of hiding it in a sea chest might be the simplest of those, you could have the top section for the stove, and hide the tanks underneath on one side, with storage on the other. Hmm, now you have me thinking wether or not I could retro-fit any of my existing boxes to do that. I have the stove and tanks. Just what I need, another project! (Not!)

My personal tendency is to go towards period camp items, not because I'm a period snob, but because I do events at sites that are fairly strict a lot of the time, and I don't have space to keep a separate set of non-period camp stuff. After enough years of that, period mode sort of becomes the default. Doesn't mean I don't admire the ingenuity of people who want to make camp work for them with conveniences. In fact, I rather enjoy seeing what people can come up with.

Mistress D.

Has anyone here found any good links for sites with ship's manifests that list the cargo, not just the people, on ships that were captured or at least shipping goods during the GaoP? I'm looking for primary source material for researching a program I'd like to work on for events. And while I know there were things besides gold, gems, silks and spices on those ships, it would be nice to see them listed.

So far all I'm finding is genaeology oriented web sites, which hasn't helped much.

Mistress Dobyns

While visiting at PIP, one of the attendees mentioned that they had seen period plans for a German portable kitchen box. I don't remember who it was or where they had seen it. I've asked many times since, but no one has come forward or found one that I know of, but evidently such a thing does exist.

Willie Wobble has a very practical set-up. We should ask him for pictures.

I love those camp boxes, they're so practical, but I don't own one because I can't document it. And while I haven't seen any plans that match that style that are in period, there are sources on either side of the GaoP which show field kitchen equipment packed in boxes of various shapes and sizes (George Washington's "mess kit" and the Scappi book come to mind). If you locate a period reference, with pictures, for a BS style camp box, please let us know! I'll share if I find one, too.

Then again, I have seen period furniture, case pieces up on legs, that might be "confiscated" from a home and pressed into service in a pirate camp kitchen. But those pieces would have been rather fine to drag out to camp for PiP.

Mistress Dobyns

<br>Hi, I'm Mistress D's source and also the Goddess of Cheesecake. I just made six of them last week...<br><br>Anyway, I read through a few of the threads and it drives me nuts to see stocking misinformaton. So here is a lot of info based on some of the questions & comments various places in the forum. I have many many slides, but I don't have the rights to publish (which includes posting on the internet)<br><br>Most stockings you can make or buy will be a compromise of some sort. By sharing the information, I hope to enable people to make their own decisions and compromises. Short of hand-knitting them yourself, I don't know of any source for 100% accurate stockings.<br><br>

<div><br></div><div>Mistress D.</div>

So perhaps, if you read this the way I do, the early cotton stockings _might_ be made out of plant based cotton, but wouldn't be fine

yarn like the silk ones.

My stocking oriented friend also surfed around this list and ran across the thread on striped stockings from back in 2005. Says they aren't historically accurate for the period, but hey, they're comfy and look cool, and historic accuracy isn't everyone's priority. I'll try to dig up the date on horizontally striped stockings for those who care, though, and put it up on that part of the forum. I think that horse got beaten to a pulp on another list I'm on.

Mistress D.

Ok, doing a bit more reading in Jeremy Farrell's _Socks & Stockings_, which has a primarily English focus:

In 1688-9, tailor Robert Graham charged for making silk drawers and "sowing fine cotton stockings to them" for William III. Pantyhose? :-)

in 1698, Celia Finnes noted spinning cotton and knitting it into stockings. Most likely hand knit.

1699, a household inventory mentions a cotton wheel (spinning wheel)

Farrell uses the term "stripes" for vertical and "banded" for horizontal.

Galerie des Modes shows 1" vertical stripes in 1787, and getting narrower in the 90s.

Ribbed stockings in 1786 were also described as "striped."

Farrell suggests the vertical rib and horizontal band combined might be "diced" stockings, which are mentioned in 1763 — a clothing description that includes a frock suit. I presume this to mean it was not Scottish diced hose. It's from a description; he does not cite any images or extant examples from that era. No info on whether this was done with colors or textures.

Farrell goes on to say banded hose became popular in the 1790s among "Jessamies," English counterparts to the French Incroyables, and cites a watercolor, "Le Petit Coblentz," which you can see here:

http://www.allposter...s_i1738175_.htm

Moving along to the extant stockings, we see bands for women as early as a selection shown at the International Exhibition of 1862.

From the Great Exhibition of 1851, we see men's socks (short socks, not stockings) with bands.

Welcome to the pub! Glad you finally found it and could share this useful info!

Perhaps you'd like to introduce yourself to the rest of the folks here?

Mistress D.

Unfortunately most modern wool is over processed and the oils have been striped out of the yarn ....a good washing in lanolin shampoo or lanolin added like a fabric softener in the final rinse cycle will add a lot to the comfort level of your socks and wool sweaters.

And if you're allergic to lanolin, as some people are, you can rinse them in water with some hair conditioner in it (yep, the stuff you get in the grocery store next to the shampoo). This softens the wool, and is used after the fulling process by some weavers to give the woolen product (socks, scarves, whatever) a softer hand. If you're not allergic to your conditioner, you shouldn't react to it on the stockings.

Linsey-woolsey is a fairly scratchy material on it's own, so some tender parts (like the back of your knees where the garter holds them in place) may just not be happy with it being there after a while. But after you've softened the linen part by wearing them a lot, they may become more comfortable. There's a reason linsey-woolsey is not upper class fabric *G*

Good luck!

Mistress D.

Foxe, could you expand on the little cryptic bit of info at the bottom of the inventory, and tell us what book or collection of records this came from? Thanks!

Yes indeed. It comes from the records of the High Court of Admiralty (HCA) in the National Archives at Kew. HCA 1/17 is the records of indictments and subsequent proceedings filed at the High Court of Admiralty, 1713-1724. The lists come from f[olio] 163 of that file.

Thank you for that info!

Well now I"m in trouble. I started looking around in the Archives web site and found, under the Black and Asian History exhibit, information about the voyages of the Duke and Dutchess, and facsimile copies of the letters of marque. I need to step away from the computer now or I could spend the rest of the day looking at this site! Thank goodness I could print that out for later. *G*

I guess I'll have to start saving up for that trip. I wonder how much it'd cost to spend a year doing nothing but research? Hmm, gotta go buy that lottery ticket....

Mistress D.

whose favorite buried treasure is found in archives and archaeology sites

Foxe, could you expand on the little cryptic bit of info at the bottom of the inventory, and tell us what book or collection of records this came from? Thanks!

Yes indeed. It comes from the records of the High Court of Admiralty (HCA) in the National Archives at Kew. HCA 1/17 is the records of indictments and subsequent proceedings filed at the High Court of Admiralty, 1713-1724. The lists come from f[olio] 163 of that file.

Thank you! Yet another reason to cross that ocean!

Mistress D.

What can I say? Two hundred years of the bits and pieces that fill out your personna's "look", starting with 1650. They say there should be more details by Sept 1., but that's already past, so best check back periodically here: http://www.colonialw...itute_about.cfm

These symposiums are high quality and a great opportunity for networking with like-minded folks. The only complaint I've ever had about one is that there's so much information, it's impossible to take enough notes!

Mistress D.

March 13-16

Costume Accessories: Head to Toe

In March of 2011, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation will host a symposium on the subject of costume accessories. The symposium serves as a complement to an exhibit in the Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum entitled Fashion Accessories from Head to Toe. The exhibit will feature Williamsburg's collection of men's and women's hats, gloves, purses, handkerchiefs, pockets, shoes, stockings, jewelry, and wigs from about 1650-1850. These objects will be arranged mostly chronologically along with large-scale reproductions of period images showing similar pieces being used.

Invited scholars from the United States, Canada, and England will present 10 lectures over two and one-half days; a day of hands-on workshops and related behind-the-scenes tours will follow. This symposium is intended to explore the production, consumption, and historic value of these varied objects of personal adornment.

While the study of historic dress tends to begin with the examination of changing cut, silhouette, textile, and decoration, it is the details of costume accessories that are often the most reflective of time, place, and person. Accessories are generally precious, ephemeral, or both. Many incorporate the newest fashions and trends more quickly than the clothing that they accompany, yet certain pieces are classics used by successive generations. They are frequently the product of the most current technologies and employ a bewildering range of materials. Costume accessories become mirrors of social and economic, ethnic and cultural, public and personal concerns. They are intimate; they are fascinating. When viewed with an historian's eye they are vastly revealing and invaluable details in the story of dress and adornment.

Program details should be posted by September 1, 2010.

As promised here is the video of us firing the CO2 Powered Pirate Cannon.

A few notes:

1)We have made a few changes including changing out the PVC sabot for one made out of Boeing Foam. Yes the stuff the use on airplanes. (Don't ask how we got it LOL)

The foam cushions the balloons and as well as reduces the strain on the tether.

2) We were able to fire an entire bag of 150 balloons out of one 10 pound CO2 tank. Even we were impressed! We even bumped up the chamber pressure to 120 PSI and fired a onion over 100 yards.

3) Our next task is to add some sort of aiming system. It is more then a bit tough to keep the cannon set at the right angle.

And now on to the show:

Hope you like it

Capn Antonio Malasses

Cool! My sons (20 and 15) were totally impressed. You may have a recruit or two for next year *G*

Mistress D.

info from my stocking researcher regarding the cotton stockings:

Deborah Pulliam said that cotton (regular old plant cotton) was around being knit into stockings by the 1720s. Unfortunately I don't have a citation beyond that.

It was at one time believed that the Brewster stocking was that early, but now there are ideas it may be later. The Brewster Stocking is cotton, per Deborah's exam with an electron microscope.

The Gest stockings in the Chester County Historical Society collection, and featured in "Fitting and Proper" are from 1765, and knit from cotton.

The Pennsylvnia Gazette has a stolen goods ad from 1734 that includes cotton stockings.

According to Shire Album 119 "Framework Knitting" p. 10 "The first pair of cotton stockings seems to have been made in Nottingham in 1730, but it was not until improvements in cotton-spinning techniques later in the century enabled a stronger thread to be made that cotton began to supersede silk for lighter hose."

So perhaps, if you read this the way I do, the early cotton stockings _might_ be made out of plant based cotton, but wouldn't be fine

yarn like the silk ones.

My stocking oriented friend also surfed around this list and ran across the thread on striped stockings from back in 2005. Says they aren't historically accurate for the period, but hey, they're comfy and look cool, and historic accuracy isn't everyone's priority. I'll try to dig up the date on horizontally striped stockings for those who care, though, and put it up on that part of the forum. I think that horse got beaten to a pulp on another list I'm on.

Mistress D.

Pierce Cullen wasn't yer classic Caribbean pirate, but he was a genuine pirate in 1722. His leather portmanteau contained:

[HCA 1/17, f. 163]

There. Make of that lot what you will.

Foxe, could you expand on the little cryptic bit of info at the bottom of the inventory, and tell us what book or collection of records this came from? Thanks!

Mistress D.

Pierce Cullen wasn't yer classic Caribbean pirate, but he was a genuine pirate in 1722. His leather portmanteau contained:

...1 pair of boots and spurs (Good Lord... here we go!)...

LOL! Were they buc... er... nevermind. Just nevermind.

Incidentally, is there any way of knowing if the stockings listed as cotton actually cotton, as we know it today? As in, made from the actual cotton plant? Or was this term being used to describe another type of fabric? Because I keep hearing that as an explanation for "cotton" items being listed in pre-cotton-gin records.

Again, going from Montgomery, cotton was used to refer to various types of woolen goods from the 1400's on. Manchester cotton, kendal cotton, even Welsh cottons, were wool, and apparently rather coarse woolen goods at that. The term may also apply to the process of raising the nap (frizing or cottoning) or the texture of having a nap or down. At this particular point in time use of the term cotton is problematic. Woolen forms of cotton do seem to me like a more economical and durable choice than plant based cotton for stockings. Indian and Egyptian cottons still aren't cheap yet, iirc.

If you would like, I can forward this question to someone I know who has done extensive research on period stockings. She may be able to shed more light on this.

Mistress D.

Hi,

I'm not sure about how they treated street musicians, and someone else has answered the question about wether or not the rebec is OK for your place and time. The why of certain instruments, as far as wether or not women were supposed to play them, basically comes down to what was deemed appropriate for a "lady". A violin distorts the woman's form, and was therefore considered unattractive. Any instrument that needed to be held between the legs to play it was considered suggestive. An instrument that was blown was also considered unattractive because one puffs out the cheeks and distorts the face (recorder, trumpet). This info comes from a lecture I attended many years ago, and it might be appropriate to examine it further, as new information might have come to light since then.

You may want to email David and Ginger Hildebrand, who have done a lot of research on period music, and see what they say. They're nice folks. http://www.colonialmusic.org/d&gstud.htm

Hope this helps!

Mistress Dobyns

Hope I'm asking this in the right section.

One of my pirate characters is a free black Haitian woman who was a street musician before she went to sea. I asked about suitable period instruments on another forum and one of the suggestions was a rebec. From what I could find out, it was fading in popularity, but still in use. In the right hands, it doesn't sound half bad. I'm kind of leaning toward it, since it fulfills most of my requirements (portable, cheap, gender/race-neutral, etc.). Problem is, while I know it was readily available in Europe, I have no idea if they were readily available in the Caribbean. Why not switch her to a violin, you ask? Because I've heard it wasn't consider a woman's instrument at the time.

Does anyone here know about rebec in the Caribbean? Thanks!

P.S. By the way, how'd they treat street musicians back then, male or female? Thanks again!

Additional info for my answer to Silas Thatcher's question:

I just found an entry for towels on one of the Port Royal probate inventories.

9 new ozenbrig towells at 00 05 00 (so that's 5 shillings)

The link for that particular inventory is here: http://nautarch.tamu.edu/portroyal/archives/Inventories/Vol1/1-190.htm

Ozenbrib=oznabrig=osnaburg: Coarse, unbleached linen or hempen cloth first made in Osnabruck, Germany. It was commonly used for trousers, sacking, and bagging. (Montgomery, Textiles in America)

Nothing soft and fuzzy about this stuff ;-) The entry also goes on to say that the modern "osnaburg" found in fabric stores is a cotton muslin with dark flecks added to create the appearance of unbleached muslin.

Flannel, again according to Montgomery: Made of woolen yarn "slightly twisted in the spinning, and of open texture, the object in view being to have the cloth soft and spongy, without regard to strength...All the sorts are occasionally dyed, bleached by the steam of burning sulphur, in order to improve their whiteness" (Beck)

Hope this has been of use!

Mistress D.

source:

http://footguards.tr...ostofliving.htm

The source was there, listed, but you missed it. And the soldiers' pay is still there but another page, you'll see the link once you open it.

I perceive my pay in kind. Namely, in gaining potential crew for my games listed in my signature - both Age of Sail RPGs. (Yes, who hears me would say I did it only interested... No, I didn't. But it was one among the links in our ressource pages I compiled.)

Thanks! There was definitely more info there than I was capable of filtering at the time *L*

Mistress D, herder of cats

Elena,

That is a great list. Can you cite the source? I'd like to share it with my group, and we're always on the lookout for good references.

I've "snipped" the post you sent to cut down on clutter in the reply, but I'm interested in the whole thing *G*

Mistress Dobyns

4 farthings = one penny (d)

(remember that 'farthing' was originally 'fourth-ing')

2 halfpennies = one penny (d) (pronounced hay-pennies)

12 pence = one shilling (s)

Ten shillings and sixpence ("ten and six") = half a guinea

Twenty shillings = one pound £

Twenty-one shillings = one guinea

Private Man

Guards regiments: 10d

Line regiments: 8d

I'm being lazy and not walking downstairs for the reference books, but from memory flannel in the period was wool, not the soft fuzzy cotton we know today. Twill or plain weave, woolen or worsted thread, smooth nap. There are even recipes in the period that tell you to use a flannel for straining things, those are definitely supposed to be wool.

I also seem to remember that towels _might_ be of the lighter Turkish variety, but there are also common weaves like huckaback that make a fairly absorbent cloth which makes good towels and I'm pretty sure it is period. I don't have any references for the type of terry cloth towels we have now. Some still life paintings of the time show a cloth that could be napkin, table cloth, or towel, on the table. Some have texture and these might be a form of huck, or diaper. So using the art work could be a starting point for looking for the right fabric for a period appropriate towel when you go fabric shopping?

Years ago I got two different pieces of huck toweling from a vendor called Carolina Calicoes. They are a natural colored cotton (but could also have been linen), shrank up quite a bit once washed, one turned out nice and absorbent, the other not so much. And they are part of my kit to this day.

Mistress D.

ok, time for the questions !!!

there is listed a flannel waistcoat...does anyone know if it is like the flannel we know today ??

and the towel... curious to know how close the towels of today were to those back then...(pretty much so we can hang out period correct towels to dry instead of our sponge bob towels we currently have !! )

what is a mail pillion ??

Another article/update on the ship. Preservation work is taking place in Maryland.

http://www.wbaltv.com/education/24775082/detail.html

Diosa the only thing obviously missing is the drive cords from the fly wheel to the bobbin wheel but those are easy to replace .....

Also missing are the treadles on two of them, and the third doesn't really appear to line up or match the one it's attached to in the photo. And without close-up or detail photos of them, I'd be worried something else is wrong. But if you're up for it, there appears to be enough pieces to cannibalize if you can do the work.

An alternative to Ebay for these things is the Spinners and Weaver's Housekeeping (or House cleaning?) pages. Sort of a spinning and weaving specific auction site.

Good luck!

Barbeque -

2 tablespoons vegetable oil,(one that can withstand high heat)

Historically, would a vegetable oil have been available at the time? Or would they have used olive or a nut oil or collected grease from cooking?

Jas. Hook

A reasonable oil for the period would be olive oil.

Mistress D.