Butter crock, stoneware, blue-gray ground with cobalt floral decoration. Lip is 7/8 inch high with scored decorative rings below. Applied handle at each side near top.
Clarke Hess says this crock is known "in the trade" as a cake crock.
Several cracks: one extends 2 1/4 inches down from lip to exterior air bubble on surface, one extends down side from top to bottom (especially visible at lip and exterior. Crazing over much of surface. Salts visible at lip, inside and outside
Object ID
G.04.23.07
Credit
Gift of Sarah Muench, Heritage Center Collection, LancasterHistory.org
Handmade rectangular grater crudely fashioned with tinned sheet iron and having 14 staggered slits of 1.25" width and raised edges for cutting. All four edges are folded to back, but the two long sides are rolled over wire to stiffen length of tool.
Crudely fashioned tin tool has wear and imperfections at blades and back corners. Abrasions and corrosion scattered overall. Peeling paint or corrosion.
Masher of turned maple with 8"-long handle having a center swell, mushroom- shaped end and flared out neck under a tulip-shaped head. Top surface is flattened with slightly rounded edges. Two decorative scored lines at midpoint of head; handle has two incised lines at midpoint and at the neck has a pronounced band of beading.
Moderate to strong wear at head of tool, especially with scarring where tool was apparently used to beat an object. No finish except for handle which is darkened from use with some scarring, expecially at flared end. Mashing surface has one check across most of surface.
Object ID
2015.999.3
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Wrought iron can opener fashioned from .25" thick flat iron bar. Long flat handle ends with a scrolled-under terminal; other end is a bifurcated functional head with curving fulcrum and sharpened blade.
Stamped on top surface of handle in large letters is "P.E.WILL." See Notes
Minor pitting and corrosion, but surface is generally smooth and polished. Blad has considerable wear.
Object ID
P.00.43.1
Notes
MG-332, Folder 1 has materials about P.E. Will, noting he erected a shop in 1892. His obituary states "Phares E. Will died at his home in Penryn on Monday am aged 65 yres. 5 mos. and 1 day. He was ill with pneumonia for his last 2 weeks. He was a blacksmith for more than 40 years.
Will was a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Penryn. He is survived by wife Sarah Jane Williams Will, also his father Elias P. Will and brother Thaddeus of Lititz. He was buried in Penryn cemetery.
There is an image of the blacksmith shop & residence in Folder #1, insert #49.
Findagrave gives bio: "P. E. Will operated a blacksmith shop in Penryn, PA. He was renowned In Lancaster County as one of the best craftsman around the area. He made hand-forged tools such as meat forks, cooking turners, ladles, tobacco shears, and tobacco spears. His tools were stamped "P E Will" and are highly sought at auctions.
Mr. Will also sold Studebaker wagons from his shop. His shop was clean and orderly. At his shop all the race horses which ran on the Speedwell track were shod. Will also shod horses at Mount Gretna for the National Guard who camped there.
He had a rack/cage for shoeing unruly horses which he invented. He used a special foot rest for the horses instead of holding the horses hoof on his knee. In a 1926 interview, Mr. Will stated that he had placed more than 200,000 shoes on horses during his career as a blacksmith.
Mr. Will was also known as an author and local historian. He was a contributer of Penryn news."
Family links:
Parents:
Elias P Will (1846 - 1936)
Annie B Eberly Will (1851 - 1927)
Place of Origin
Penryn, Penn Twp.
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Finely crafted miniature copper teakettle with tinned interior. Classic late 18th-early 19th c. kettle shape with round body, goose neck spout, hinged arched handle and fitted domed lid with globular knop.
Keyed/dovetail joint at back side. Handle attached to riveted tabs with elongated tomahawk bases. Fits in oval tin box G.00.03.2.
Lancaster County or region
Provenance
Ownership by donor's father, William A. Heitshu. Donor believes she was told teakettle was a salesman's sample.
Whisk with bone handle and wrought-iron beater. Iron forms a cucumber-shaped cage of 8 ribs, 4.75" long, set into a long ferrule fitted onto the bone handle and secured with a rivet. The 5.5" long handle is rounded but flattened, especially the last half of its length which is decorated with crosshatching. At midpoint, handle is decorated with a heavy score line. First half of handle is undecorated. Rivet near handle terminal.
Provenance
The minutes found in the Journal of Oct. 4, 1912 is a listing of "old utensils" given by Geo. W. Brown, printer from Lancaster, including bayonet, scabbard, old thimble, corn husker, egg beater.
Iron cage-like beate is strongly distorted with ribs that are collapsed toward center and misshapen in lenth. Iron has scattered corrosion and pitting. Bone has soil and minor stains.
