A blog dedicated to Early American History Lovers, Civil War Reenactors, Living Historians, and people that love the past. Lots of Historical Recipes and Patterns!
Today, a few friends and myself visited Bartram's Gardens in West Philadelphia. The gardens were started in the 1700s by John Bartram and his son, William Bartram.
They were well known botanists during their lives and traveled all over the country to collect samples for their collection. They learned to care for and propagate many unique New World plants. Many New World plants and seeds were sold to the wealthy in Britain.
During the 18th century, traveling was difficult. John and William rode on horseback and traveled by small boats as far away from Pennsylvania as Florida and the Mississippi River to gather specimen. They were widely acknowledged as being adventurers, according to a personal account, they claimed to have beaten an alligator to death with a club, to save on bullets.
The Continental Congress took a day trip to the Bartram's home to see the gardens in 1784. George Washington visited the gardens in 1787 and thought the wild, hodgepodge of plants was distasteful.
During a trip to Georgia, they discovered a tree with brilliant blossoms. They named it Franklinia after John's best friend, Benjamin Frankin. By 1803, wild Franklinia trees became extinct. All current Franklinia trees are descended from the one that the Bartrams collected.
It is very cool to see the variety of plants that are native to the U.S. Our group was more interested in the "Kitchen Garden" as we all love to cook 1700s style. Many plants that we think of as weeds were eaten as vegetables or used as herbs. Purslane, dandelion and sorrel were common in cooking.
One of the neatest things to see was a period cider press carved out of stone, right along the Schuylkill River. The juice dripped out of a small hole into a large stone carved basin. The amount of cider made must have been astronomical!
The gardens run right along the river and even include a modern day picnic area complete with a baseball field. We had a lovely picnic together talking about colonial recipes and the gardens.
It was a very picturesque area you would never know that you were in the city. Visiting the gardens is free, tours of the buildings are a few dollars. Our tour guide was very nice, he even let us taste a fig off one of the trees. They taste a lot different than the dehydrated kind! It was nice of them to give us a tour, they only offer them on the weekends. It is amazing that the gardens are still being kept up after hundreds of years. Bartram's is the oldest botanical garden in North America. You can find more information at Bartram's Garden.
When I am at reenactments, my shoe comes untied about a
thousand times. Each and every time, my significant other, Andy, always ties it
for me. It is a life saver because in a corset and with all of that fabric, I
can't reach my feet and would look silly and perhaps show more than I wished if
I attempted to tie it myself.
People laugh at us but it was actually very
proper for a gentleman to tie a lady's shoe. It was also his duty to help her
on with her shawl and any other assistance she might have needed-- ladies'
clothing was very frivolous as many of us have realized as we try to adapt to it. It
is very sad for us if we drop anything on the ground.
Behavior in the
Street.
"-When you meet a gentleman with whom you are acquainted, you
bow, raising your hat slightly, with your left hand, which leaves your hand at
liberty to shake hands if you stop. If the gentleman is ungloved, you must take
off yours, not otherwise.
-Meeting a lady, the rule is that she should make the
first salute, or at least, indicate by her manner, that she recognises you.
Your bow must be lower, and your hat carried further from your head; but you
never offer to shake hands; that is her privilege.
-The right, being the post of honor, is given to superiors and
ladies, except in the street, when they take the wall, as farthest from danger
from passing carriages, in walking with or meeting them.
-In walking with a lady you are not bound to recognise
gentlemen with whom she is not acquainted, nor have they in such a case, any
right to salute, much less to speak to you.
-Should her shoe become unlaced, or her dress in any manner
disordered, fail not to apprise her of it respectfully, and offer your
assistance. A gentleman may hook a dress, or lace a shoe, with perfect
propriety, and should be able to do so gracefully.
-Whether with a lady or gentleman, a street talk should be a
short one; and in either case, when you have passed the customary compliments,
if you wish to continue the conversation you must say, “Permit me to accompany
you."
-Don't sing, hum, whistle, or talk to yourself in walking.
Endeavor, besides being well-dressed, to have a calm, good natural countenance.
A scowl always begets wrinkles. It is best not to smoke at all in public, but
none but a ruffian will inflict upon society the odor of a bad cigar, or that
of any kind, on ladies.
-Ladies are not
allowed upon ordinary occasions to take the arm of any one but a relative, or
an accepted lover, in the street, and in the day time; in the evening—in the
fields, or in a crowd, wherever she may need protection, she should not refuse
it. She should pass her hand over the gentleman's arm, merely, but should not
walk at arm's length apart, as country girls sometimes do. In walking with a
gentleman, the step of the lady must be lengthened, and his shortened, to
prevent the hobbling appearance of not keeping step. Of course, the
conversation of a stranger, beyond asking a necessary question, must be
considered as a gross insult, and repelled with proper spirit."
From the Ladies' Indispensable Assistant, (1850) Pg.
123
I'm almost at the "scary" part of the pattern! The last time I tried to knit a sontag, the "wings" turned out to be much too tiny. I plan on making the additions that Mrs. Formby suggests on the Ragged Soldier pattern. It is starting to feel cozy on my lap, I'm sure it is going to be really warm.
I was going to switch to my really long needles for the photo so you could see it stretched to the fullest but I couldn't find them. The photo doesn't really show how big it is.I hope it fits, I will be incredibly disappointed if it doesn't. It looks a little small but the border will add a little bit of length.
I believe I forgot to mention that we need a button for one of the wings for fastening it. I am thinking of getting a pretty mother-of-pearl button for it.
I would like to put a fancy crocheted border on it, but I can't crochet. If I figure out how to crochet one, I will, if not I'll just have to knit the one in the original Godey's pattern. I can't wait for these to be finished! They look so pretty.
I really like art. I haven't done much lately, I guess I haven't been much inspired. Which I guess can be a good thing because when you are inspired you have to work on a piece or your brain will explode. Yes, you have to work on it until it is done, ignoring your family, friends and even food. I hate sharing my artwork because while I am working on a piece, it is my favorite piece, but once it's finished, I think it's crap. Everything is this post is so old, I KNOW it's not good and I know I've improved.
It's hard to share art, you just want to fix it every time you look at it. I found a bunch of old drawings on my computer, I decided to share. This stuff is at least 5 years old or so. I don't even know where most of it is anymore. The drawing at the top is a truly "lost work." Someone stole it years ago (there's a huge back story where it was "lost track of,") who knows where it is now or if it even is in existence still. I repeatedly failed art and never started drawing seriously until I dropped art. There's something about time limits and rules that just make it impossible to draw something you like or care about in the least. Who can draw or paint on a schedule and then get graded on it? It's horrible! I could never do it. My younger sister is an art major, and very good, I don't know how she does it. I'd go crazy, producing art like a trained monkey.
The model in the picture at the top, requested that I draw him this for his room. I oblidged since it was nice of him to model for the drawing, he was just some random kid in my math class at the time...I guess I should have been doing math? The next day after I gave it to him, he told me his mother complained that I hadn't signed it. I didn't really realize it until then, that I don't sign anything. I still don't. My signature is atrosious and would only make things worse.
I have a lot of doodles in my sketchbooks. Doodling is just so relaxing. I am not a good doodler, some people can doodle and it just turns out amazing. My doodles are just squiggles and shapes. It mortifies me when people look in my sketchbook. It looks like a third grader drew in it. Sometimes I even doodle with crayons. It's fun and makes you feel like a kid again.
I used to draw a lot of anime and manga. I had a couple manga stories going which a lot of people liked it was just way to much work to draw it all. I am much more of a story person. I have passed the baton to my little sister. She draws anime very very well. I help her make complete stories out of her ideas, she draws the comic, I ink it and then she colors it. We can both make comics alone but it's much more productive and fun together. She is currently working on one that sounds fun. I'm sorry I was lazy and didn't feel like writing an interesting post today. It's just so hot! I've been aching to draw something but haven't started. I cleaned off my ink pens and have just been doodling. Looking over these drawings is horrific for me. It's like looking at your baby pictures.
"Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at
sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up."
I hate math. Everyone who knows me knows that I am a firm believer in
the "when you need to know it, you will learn it," math method. I am the
first person to say "I'll never use this," and that has been the case
for most math. I normally kick myself when I need some geometry for
sewing or something but it normally only takes a minute to look up a
formula and figure it out. Not that I hate math itself, I have just never been any good at it. I know that all math is functional but I feel that teachers tend to leave out what we would really ever use certain formulas for. Since I love practical math and this math formula is easy and fun, I thought I share it:
Figuring how close guns are by using the time lapsed between the flash of it and the sound it makes is practically the same as figuring out how close a storm is by counting the seconds between when you see lightning it and when you hear the thunder. I think it is interesting that many movies will have the flash of a cannon and the sound at the same time. If you were any distance away, there would be a discrepancy due to the fact that light travels faster than sound.
To find out how far away a storm is you would sound how many seconds from after you see a lightning flash until you hear the thunder. You take that number and multiply it by 1080ft (How fast sound travels on average, temperature and medium affect how fast sound travels. At sea level, it is 1125ft.) Then divide that by 5,280 (the number of feet in a mile for us who forget,) and you get how many miles away a storm is.
Ex. 10 seconds x 1080 (How many feet sound travels in a second) / 5,280 (Number of feet in a mile) = 2.045 miles
It roughly equates to a mile every 5 seconds. Remember that for next storm!
