Guest Post: Andy on His Civil War Reenacting Fiddle

Everyone who has read my blog has heard me refer to my significant other, Andy. Andy has kindly written a post about his Civil War reenacting fiddle:

Since Christmas I have been excited. You see, for those of you who may not know me personally, for a little over a year now I have been learning to play the fiddle.  For about two years, I have been loving music from all over Ireland.  Well for Christmas, Steph bought me an antique fiddle (1920ish.)  She said this one was for when we go out reenacting.  So, since then I have wanted to make this violin a bit more correct for the Civil War time period.  Fortunately, violins have not changed very much over the last few hundred years.  The major changes I have to make are the removal of the chinrest and the conversion from steel to gut strings.  The other change I want to make is to the tailpiece.  You can see in the picture there are three tailpieces.  The black one that is not attached was the original.  It is broken, and the previous owner replaced it with the smaller sized one currently on it.  The brown one is one I am going to replace it with, because I want to have the proper size on the fiddle.

You can see from the close-up that the tailpiece was attached with a piece of wire.  I am going to replace it with a piece of catgut.  I begin by removing the things I am going to replace.  Most of the time you don’t want to take everything off at once, but as I am replacing the tailpiece and tailgut there isn’t much choice.  After unwinding the strings from the pegs, I can take off the old tailpiece.  I put the bridge aside for later

Before I can put the new strings on, I will need to prepare the new tailpiece.  There are a few things needed for this.  I need the length of tailgut I bought, some stitching gut (or an old gut E-string) and a lighter or source of flame.  When the end of the gut is burned, it unwinds and becomes stiff.  The stitching gut is tied around the ends as reinforcement.  These wider ends prevent the gut from slipping through the holes in the tailpiece.  Once the tailpiece is ready, I can begin to attach the strings.

The strings come in double lengths, so you can clip them in half—you actually get two strings (except for the G-string, which is wound with silver—that one is a bit more expensive!).  The strings don’t use ball ends like many steel strings, but they do use a similar technique of holding themselves in place.  The string is held in place by a knot tied in the end.  The package of these strings shows you how to tie the knot—you need to burn the end of the string to prevent it from slipping from the knot.

I had problems at first with the G and E strings, because they are thinner and the knots were small. By tying extra knots, I got them to stay.  The strings take a lot longer the stretch than steel strings, but they sounded great after they were able to stay in tune for more than 20 seconds.

Thanks, Andy! The above photo is of Andy's modern fiddle along with his "Civil War" fiddle. We are currently trying to learn to play the fiddle and guitar together--a huge task for us! We are hoping to record something so you can hear how the gut strings sound. Civil War tuning is lower than today's modern tuning, the sound is more melancholy. We were hoping to get a good Irish song recorded in honor of St. Patrick's Day, we'll try tomorrow.    

Civil War Era Civilian Vest

 

This is a civilian vest that I sewed for Andy, so he could have something kind of nice to wear to the balls over his muddy soldier clothes. I sewed this a long, long time ago and never finished sewing the button holes.

I don't know why I have such an aversion to buttonholes, they aren't particularly difficult and it is the only thing preventing this vest from being wearable.  

The vest is made of a heavy patterned tapestry cotton with a white cotton lining. The buttons are original bone buttons.  I'm pretty sure this vest really isn't for dancing but to forward Andy's secret desire to be Sherlock Holmes (the original one of course!) :D He is currently reading to me the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I am enjoying it very much. He is very good at reading and uses different voices and accents for each character. It's a real treat.   

 During the mid 1800s, no gentleman would be without a vest and a coat. Working class men and many soldiers did not adhere to the normal rules of society and many are photographed in just their shirts.

Sarah Morgan, a proper young lady, who was 18 years old when the war broke out, visited sailors in the South and remarked in her diary "He, the doctor and the Captain, were the only ones who possessed a coat in the whole crowd, the few who saved theirs, carrying them over their arms. Mr Read more than once blushingly remarked that they were prepared to fight, and hardly expected to meet us; but we pretended to think there was nothing unusual in his dress. I can understand though, that he should feel rather awkward; I would not like to meet him, if I was in the same costume."

The vest itself was not hard to sew and sewed up rather quickly. This was my first time sewing a nice lining and not one just to add body to a garment. I think it turned out rather nicely. Hopefully, I will finish this soon to keep Andy from going around in just his shirt. The horror! :D If anyone is interested in learning how to hand sew buttonholes, there is a really good tutorial on the blog: Art, Beauty and Well-Ordered Chaos.   

The Art of the Bookshelf

I love books. I guess the proper term would be "bibliophile." There is an ongoing debate about whether the books on your bookshelf should be books you love to read, every book you own, or books that you may or may not have read that you feel represent yourself. I guess an entirely different debate would be whether or not to "display" books at all. I really don't see having a bookshelf as a way of displaying books, it's more like book storage to me. Why own a book that you will never be able to find because it's buried in a box in the attic?   

I don't keep any books that I wouldn't want to read again or that I feel I would never need to reference again. I don't feel a need to keep every book I read, especially fiction. Although, I do keep the classics.

I feel that my books do represent myself. I think everyone would know my interests if they saw my bookshelf. It seems silly to me to even buy a book that you didn't want to read. I had never even thought that people would buy books they didn't plan on reading, just because it is the kind of book that a person that they wish to be seen as would read. I have seen a lot of "book lists" and comments on blogs that indicate people actually do this. For what purpose? If you want to be the type of person who reads English translations of French archeological work in South America, why aren't you reading and enjoying those books? I don't understand this and am slightly offended by this. It feels as if a person who does this is allowing a book to lie for them. :D Maybe I am thinking too deeply about this. I guess it would not be lying if you wanting to use a book to motivate you to become a better person (such as "one of these days I'm just going to read that 10,000 page Shelby Foote trilogy and enjoy and learn all I can from it.)    

I have my books organized by subject and sometimes sub-subject. It seems a little bizarre but I like to be able to find the books I need when I need them. It could be worse, I could be card cataloging them with a book scanner. :D

I'm a big fan of information and sharing information. I've been thinking about cataloging some of the historical books and research books that I have to loan to researchers and reenactors. Books are expensive and I feel that some reenactor's impressions and research suffer from not having access to some of the better researched books (which can cost upwards of $35-$100.) It's not that I don't want to benefit the authors but I do think people are more willing to spend large amounts of money once they have perused a book and realize that the book is worth the investment. I don't know why this is but a lot of the reenactors that I know are reluctant to share their information in an effort to remain a "top authority" on a subject. I think there is always something new to be learned and discovered and information hoarding just leads to making everyone look bad, we are only as strong as our weakest link. Maybe I will make a page on my sidebar listing my books, perhaps it will inspire people to do the same. Happy reading. :D

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and Dixon's

Yesterday, Andy and I went on a day trip. We normally go on day trips in the summer because we both work and find it hard to find time to take long trips. We usually pack a picnic lunch and some snacks and have a fun day singing together in the car until we get there, and then taking photographs and enjoying a good walk. Today was such a nice day that we drove out to Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop to look at all of the neat stuff they always have in there and we went out to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. It was such a nice day out; we didn't even have to wear heavy coats! Despite this fact, when we got to Hawk Mountain, there was still at least six inches of snow still on the mountain top.

The route to Hawk Mountain is a scenic one of dense woods and large open fields. It is dotted with creeks, wildlife and old barns with bright "hex signs" touting their Pennsylvania Dutch roots. The mountainside was slippery and hiking though snow made it a little more difficult than it normally is to hike up there. There were still lots of other people hiking there too.

The mountain itself has a lot of well kept secrets and historical folklore.  












Warning: Do not read the rest of this post if you do not like ghost stories, or if you are going to be home alone tonight and don't feel like being spooked out all night. :D 

One spooky folk story surrounds Schaumboch's Tavern on Hawk Mountain Road. The Gerhardt family, were among the first non-native settlers of the mountain. In February 1756, members of the Lenni Lenape Native American tribe, who inhabited the mountain, destroyed the Gerhardt house killing a man, two women and six children after destroying another house nearby. Jacob Gerhardt, only eleven years old when the Native Americans attacked, ran during the attack and managed to survive. The Pennsylvania Gazette at the time reported that the Leni Lenape took scalps from the fallen. A record of this incident from 1844 can be read here. Jacob Gerhardt, returned to the mountain and built the house that is now known as Schaumboch's Tavern. 

Jacob eventually rented the house out to Mathias Schaumboch (also spelled Matthias Schaumbacher,) who lived in the house with his wife in the mid-1800s. They rented rooms out for a living and were not very popular with locals and many people who did stay in the house relayed horror stories to the townspeople, if they were ever seen again. Many people reportedly disappeared after renting from him. The townspeople, who always suspected foul play, became very suspicious of his business when he started selling army surplus, left over from the Civil War, after a peddler selling the same goods lodged there and was never seen again. On his deathbed in 1879, Schaumboch admitted to killing and robbing more than 11 people and burying them in the land around the house. He stated that he stopped counting the number of victims when the skulls stopped fitting into the well on his property. He claimed to have murdered them with an axe, cut their flesh off of them,then let their bodies lay out in the woods to be picked clean by animals.  Local lore states that he " claimed that the deeds were not his own, but that they were caused by a great evil that lives on the mountain that whispered to him constantly, urging him to murder, even while he slept, (Delco Ghosts.) I have tried to verify the Mathias Schaumboch claims and the closest I could come is this modern newspaper article: The Morning Call. Apparently, Mathias' wife was a very nice lady who was well liked by everyone who met her. 

Later in 1890, a man named Mathias Berger, who was known to be a devout Catholic, lived as a hermit in a mud hut on the mountain slope. He was known to live very simply, by living off of the naturally growing food in the forest and by gathering water from a spring, half a mile from his house. He only would go into town a few times a year to buy supplies and attend church. He went missing and a search party was sent up to look for him. He was found robbed and beaten to death. The murderer was not found.      

With all of that gruesome history you can bet that there are lots of reported ghost sightings on the mountain.(Although, there are also UFO and Bigfoot sightings there too :D) I've camped on the mountain as a child and even went for a night time hike with my girl scout troop. We didn't see anything nor did any of us experience any of the things reported. The scenery is beautiful I have never had a bad time there. Oh, and the tavern mentioned above is someone's home now, so I don't think they'd appreciate people snooping in their yard. It is by the road and worth a drive by. I hear it is open to the public around Halloween.   

"People Just Smelled Worse Back Then..." : Period Deodorants

  I hear the statement that "People just smelled worse back then but everyone smelled so no one noticed," when people refer to the 19th century. I can't claim that this statement is wrong but it does conjure images of filthy, sweaty, putrid smelling people with rancid breath.


They did have water and soap. :D I feel like we tend to forget this. They had tons and tons of lotions, fragrant soaps, perfumes, powders, and creams. If anything, they probably smelled faintly of the inside of a Yankee Candle shop. On top of all of these inexpensive products, most people had a more rigorous daily cleaning regimen than most do today. While they were not taking two showers a day, they were "sponge" bathing out of a wash basin twice a day at least. It was said that it was best to wash hair in rain water--I know of few people today who would be so dedicated. Here is a book with a little segment on "How to Wash your Mouth," from 1865. Toothbrushes were common after the 1800s and so were toothpowders (although some books recommended charcoal for tooth whitening.)

A major difference in present-day cleanliness and 19th century cleanliness is the lack of modern day deodorant. This is always up for discussion at reenactments. Some people will sneak their little plastic tubes in their gear and others are determined to go deodorantless. But for everyone who has ever smelled an Amish person, I have been trying to find period solutions. I have heard that rubbing half a lemon under the arms is an early 1800s solution but as of right now, I can’t find any sources verifying it.    
For fun and possibly practical application (of the harmless ones,) I have included the following recipes detailing 19th century concoctions:

From

-->The New Family Receipt Book (1820):

 

-->From: Healthy Skin: A Popular Treatise on the Skin and Hair By Sir Erasmus Wilson (1854)  

I think this one is particularly interesting because not only are they smelling the sweat on insane people, but also the sweat of mice. :D Interesting. I think the people visiting the doctor for smelling like onions or garlic is cute. 

From

-->Hall’s Journal of Health (1861): 

 

From

-->: The Medical World (1902)  Pg 116: 

 

-->

This is one of those I just wouldn't recommend. Formaldehyde? I guess smelling dead is better than smelling bad. :D

During the 1860s perspiring was seen as a good thing, they realized the cooling application even if they did not understand the science behind it. Excessive sweating was seen as a sign of sickness that was followed by fevers. Many doctos claimed that many sicnesses were caused by sweating and cooling off too quickly, such as taking off a jacket after a walk.

I think I may try to make this powder from 1889 from The Practical Handbook of Toilet Preparations:

*Note: The Photograph at the top is from 1864. It is of soldiers bathing in the North Anna River.