Hello readers! I’m Carlie, and I’m the Agricultural Exhibit Designer at the Backus-Page House Museum. Throughout the summer, I'll be sorting through various tools in the barn to get ready for the exhibit! Every Tuesday I’ll be sharing some of what I learned on our blog!

It's been a long day working in the fields. After hours of trekking through mud and dirt, you're walking up the walkway when you freeze. Your wife wouldn't be too happy if you walked through the clean house with your boots on, so you walk up to the metal beam protruding from the ground, and scrape off your boot.

The boot scraper would have been an essential item for any farming family. First, it was a quick and easy way from preventing a mess. Secondly, it would help eliminating a lot of fighting within a family, I'm sure the people cleaning the house would be irritated when the children and other family members ran through it with dirt on their feet.

While the boot scraper in our collection is located in the front hallway, in the 1850s it would sit outside the house. The base of the item would be underground, with just the second block and the metal coming out of the ground.

Although this wasn't the boot scraper that belonged to the Backus', it still would have been an essential item for their household. There are even some stories that Andrew Backus, the first homeowner of the house, would forget to scrape his boots before coming inside, leading to a very irritated Mary Jane. 

Do you or someone you know still use a boot scraper? Let us know in the comments below!

HERITAGE FARM SHOW

Demonstrations include threshing, historic agricultural displays, antique tractors & equipment, food, and music.

Website: backuspagehouse.ca

Date: 

Saturday, August 31, 2019 - 10:00 to Sunday, September 1, 2019 - 16:00

Location: 

Backus Page House

29424 Lakeview Line

Wallacetown, ON N0L 2M0

Toolsday- Ice Tongs

Hello readers! I’m Carlie, and I’m the Agricultural Exhibit Designer at the Backus-Page House Museum. Throughout the summer, I'll be sorting through various tools in the barn to get ready for the exhibit! Every Tuesday I’ll be sharing some of what I learned on our blog!

The other day I made myself an iced coffee before I started my day at work. I brewed a pot of coffee, and then poured it into a cup filled with ice. Later that day when I went rollerblading, I had a nice cup of ice water to cool down. 

In the 1800s however, it wouldn't have been as easy as pushing a button on the refrigerator to get a cube of ice. Additionally, ice wouldn't have only been used to chill drinks. Instead it would be used to keep food cold, fresh and edible. 

Having a pair of ice tongs would have been very useful. It allowed a family to move blocks of ice (you wouldn't have had small cubes) from the lake into an icebox. This ice would be used to keep food cold. However, many families would save money in the winter by storing perishables in a cellar, outside, or other places that would be cooled by the elements.

If you want to learn more about the tools here at the Backus-Page Museum, or want to come see our collection with your own eyes, then come by the museum!

Toolsday-The Honey House

Hello readers! I’m Carlie, and I’m the Agricultural Exhibit Designer at the Backus-Page House Museum. Throughout the summer, I'll be sorting through various tools in the barn to get ready for the exhibit! Every Tuesday I’ll be sharing some of what I learned on our blog!

This week it was way too hot to be going through the barn, so I decided to talk about a 'tool' that doubles as one of my favourite buildings on the property-the Honey House! 

The honey house was originally built between 1828-1831 on William Pearce Farm, where it stayed until 1967 when it was willed to the Elgin County Pioneer Museum. A year later, it moved again to a new home in St Thomas. On April 1st, 1978, tragedy struck. A group of vandals burnt the Honey House to the ground! However, years later, a group of students from Parkside Collegiate Institute in St Thomas built an exact replica of the Honey House. We want to give a huge thank you to the teacher who led the project, Mr Thomas and Mr Hatherall!

It wasn't until December 2006 that the Honey House moved to it's current location at the Backus-Page House from the former Pioneer Museum.

Now that I've explained the history of the house, it might be worth mentioning how this would have been used as a tool. 

A descendant of the original owners of the house, Rebecca (Pearce) Waite (1909-1994) explained that Honey House would have been used to attract bees in the hope that they would make their honey inside the house. This would be a huge convenience, so settlers wouldn't have to look for hives. In the settler times, people would have put containers of honey around the house. If they were lucky, wild bees would come to the house, crawling through the holes in the side. Then, they would create honey inside the boxes stored within, which would later be collected. 

This wasn't exactly a safe procedure. In fact, children were often warned to stay away from the Honey House to lessen the chance of being stung. This was especially important because there wasn't the same information about allergies back then as we have today.

So there it is, a brief history of the Honey House! If you're interested in seeing it for yourself, then come to out our Civil War Reenactment on July 27th and 28th.  See you then!

Hetchels-Toolsday

Happy Toolsday, Folks!

Hello readers! I’m Carlie, and I’m the Agricultural Exhibit Designer at the Backus-Page House Museum. Throughout the summer, I'll be sorting through various tools in the barn to get ready for the exhibit! Every Tuesday I’ll be sharing some of what I learned on our blog!

I've noticed that a common theme for tools in the 1800s was that they definitely looked like they could be used as a weapon. Clearly, function was more important than beauty in the agricultural world, a big jump from today where you can purchase bedazzled tools if you want.

The Hetchel (sometimes called a hackle or a hatchel) was used to detangle flax fiber in a way it could easily be spun into yarn. 

The sticks pointing out of the base are actually nails, and came in a variety of sizes. When the yarn needed to be very fine, a hetchel that had nails that were very close together. However, to reach a state where the thin hetchel could be used, the flax first had to be pulled through a wider toothed hetchel. 

When I read this description, I compared it to brushing hair. I have very thick, curly hair. When I use a large brush, my hair is detangled, but still keeps the curly shape. However, when I use a comb, my hair is separated more rigorously, and feels much softer.

The process was long, but necessary. First, someone would have to break off the hard shell on the outside of the flax. Only then could the flax be pulled through the tool in order to divide the material inside.

The result was two different fibers. 'Tow' referred to the material that was caught and remained inside the nails when the process was completed. 'Line' referred to the long strings of fiber that had been combed through. Both were used to create yarn, although they were very different end products. Yarn made from tow was often very coarse, while yarn made from line were highly valuable. 

With all of that work to do, if someone forget a step, they'd probably get a lot of "flax".

If you want to learn more about the tools here at the Backus-Page Museum, or want to come see our collection with your own eyes, then come to out our Civil War Reenactment on July 27th and 28th.  See you then!