CHS Newsletter November 2016

Here are some scenes from previous years’ Christmas Open House. Please read information about this year’s holiday events inside this newsletter.

Photos by Mary Mierka

Photographs by

Our next meeting will be on Nov.15th at 7 pm in the Sprague Mansion. It will feature our annual new members welcome and the awarding of the Volunteer of the Year. The speaker will be Mark Dunkleman, historical artist.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Katy Cabral Stepney (Social Media) OFFICERS Martha Cornell (Gift Shop)

Frank DelSanto (Program)

Sandra Moyer Steven Frias (Finance) President David Griswold (Publicity) James Hall (Curator) Tom Worthington Fred Joslyn (Ways and Means) Vice President John Lonardo (Hospitality)

Gregg Mierka (Property Management) Mary Mierka Secretary Mary Mierka (Events and Rentals) Sandra Moyer (Endowment) Tristan Poirier John O'Leary (Nominations) Treasurer Lydia Rapoza (Joy Homestead) Herbert Zakrison (Buildings and Grounds)

Directors at Large Ed Garcia Eleanor Sasso

The Cranston Historical Society's mission is to protect, document, interpret and expand understanding of Cranston history.

1351 Cranston Street Cranston, RI 02920

(401) 944-9226 www.cranstonhistoricalsociety.org email: [email protected] facebook: www.facebook.com/cranstonhistoricalsociety President's Note

By Sandra Moyer

It’s hard to believe that the Cranston Historical Society’s year is nearly over and that this will be last newsletter of 2016. The theme for this newsletter is winter and our articles on historical aspects of the ice business, milk sleds, cold weather clothing and cooking reflect this. Even our biography of Amasa Sprague centers on the most well- known aspect of his life – his murder- which happened on a winter day in 1843.

November 15th will be our last general membership meeting. As is our tradition, this meeting will welcome our new members and honor our Volunteer of the Year. This year the Board of Directors has chosen Katy Stepney. Katy is a member of our board of directors and also assists Mary at many of our events. Most importantly, she is the tech savy person who created our new website last year and has maintained it with new photos and event announcements ever since.

The November meeting will also have a speaker. Mark Dunkleman, president of the Civil War Round Table, will speak on the Gettysburg Battlefield mural he researched, designed and painted along with RISD artist Johan Bjorkmann. It is an 80 foot mural of the first day of fighting in Gettysburg. Mr. Dunkleman is a scholar, artist and musician. He has written several books about the Civil War.

Although our meetings are finished for the year, we still have our holiday events culminating in our annual Christmas Open House at both the Sprague Mansion and the Joy Homestead from 1 to 4 pm on December 4th. At the mansion, the entertainment will again be provided by Sharon Albert and her group of wind instruments. The decorations will be created by the Western Cranston Garden Club and the Edgewood Garden Club.

Speaking of Christmas, one holiday gift came early this year. You will remember that Talbot’s store in Garden City offered to host an event on Sept. 16 in which 10% of the store’s receipts for that afternoon and night would be donated to the Cranston Historical Society. We have been told that we will be receiving a check for over $540. I would like to extend our sincere thanks to the store and its manager, Ellen Fay and commend them on their generosity and civic mindedness.

The last mailing of the year will arrive in your homes in a few weeks. It will be our annual fund appeal. We like to send it at the end of the year since many people want to get the tax deduction for this year. These funds also come at a good time of the year for us since rentals fall off during the winter, but cold weather brings increased heating and snow removal costs. Membership

By Mary Mierka

Membership Dues If you have not sent in your dues yet, please forward it to us soon.

Welcome New Members Robert/Ruth Riccitelli, No. Providence Tajuana Littlejohn, Coventry Elizabeth McKenna, Providence

A Cordial Thank You: A Team Tree: For free work in August a-teamtree.com

Home Depot-Johnston: Providing 4 impressive Antique-looking black Mansion front entrance urns Scituate Rotary of RI Inc.: Donation for Mansion fireplace restoration Herb and Sandy Zakrison: Generous donation to fix air conditioning system

Please support our Other Business Supporters and Donors:

All The Answers, Inc.,-Warwick, Mailing & Printing Services alltheanswersinc.com Climate Controlled Systems Inc.-Cranston, A/C & Heating Services climateri.com CWS Gases Co. (Cranston Welding Supply)-Cranston Since 1946 cranstonwelding.com EMC (Energy Management & Control Services)-Cranston, providers of building control/ energy & integrated facility management systems emccontrols.net Forest Hills Nurseries Inc.-Cranston, Retail/Wholesale plants/nursery foresthillsnurseries.com North-Eastern Tree Services-Cranston northeasterntree.com Parmelee Poirier & Associates, CPA parmeleepoirier.com Rhode Island Civil War Round Table-RIs premier Civil War discussion group ricwrt.com Rhode Island Dental Arts-Cranston, All dentals services ridentists.com Stiller Distributors-Cranston, Distributor of commercial/residential flooring stillerdistributors.com TreePro Services-Coventry treeprori.com Calendar

Meetings & Events

November 15 Tuesday 7:00 pm in the Sprague Mansion General Membership Meeting – There will be a reception for the new members and the Volunteer of the Year Award will be presented to Katy Stepney, our webmaster and a member of the Board of Directors. Our speaker will be Mark Dunkleman who will speak on the large mural of the Battle of Gettysburg that he painted.

November 25 Friday 3:00 – 5:00 pm in the Sprague Mansion We ask our members to join us in decorating the Christmas tree. If you wish, bring a signed ornament to add to our collection.

December 3 Saturday 1:00 to 3:00 pm Sprague Mansion We would appreciate donations of any holiday refreshments to be served at our open house. Please bring them to the mansion.

December 4 Sunday 1:00 to 4:00 pm Sprague Mansion & Joy Homestead The annual Christmas Open House will feature holiday music, decorations and refreshments in both of our historic properties. Lifestyles

The Muff as a Winter Accessory By Mary Elizabeth Corrigan

As winter approaches, many of us begin to unpack cold weather clothing. One piece of cold-weather clothing that has fallen out of use is the muff: a cylindrical tube of fabric used by men and women to warm their hands. Muffs were padded with wool batting or down feathers and closed at each end with a drawstring to create a pouch large enough to keep the wearer's hands warm.

Earliest illustrations of muffs as a cold weather fashion accessory date to the late sixteenth century. Although gloves, mittens, and mitts were also worn, a muff made from exotic fur was a conspicuous way to stay warm and show wealth. By the 19th century, muffs had become more of a feminine accessory and were rarely used by men.

The Cranston Historical Society's collection includes several examples. The pictured example is made of Karakul Lamb, also called “Persian Lamb.” It is made from the soft, dark, dense fur of newborn lambs. Wealthy women would have worn it as it is a luxury material, expensive to obtain. Karakul Lamb was traditionally used for men’s hats in Central Asia where the Karakul sheep are raised, but during the 19th century it was a popular choice for muffs as well as for fur collars for both men and women. This muff is padded with wool batting and lined with dark brown silk satin. Brown silk cords cinch both ends of the muff for an adjustable fit. Karakul lamb muff and box Gift of Mr. & Mrs. James Lovegreen

While muffs made of Karakul, Sealskin or Mink could be quite expensive, silk or wool fabric muffs were a less expensive option and could be extravagantly trimmed with ribbons and embroidery.

Muffs were not only used to keep hands warm – they could be used as a sort of purse. People might carry letters, handkerchiefs, or coins inside for easy access on a winter's walk or shopping trip.

Of Long Ago

About Autumn & Winter Meals By Mary Mierka

It’s the fall -- harvest of vegetables and fruits were abundant in the Victorian times, including artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbage, carrots, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, potatoes, turnips, beetroot, apples, black and white bull aces (plums), figs, grapes, quinces. Many households preserved items in Mason jars for the winter. Autumn/winter meals usually included hearty soups and stews. Meal planning for mid to upper class were planned for the week. Usually breakfast was served between 8-9 a.m. Dinner was the main meal of the day, served between noon and 3 p.m. Tea and variety of cakes/finger sandwiches’ served between 3-6 p.m. and ‘supper’, generally served between 7-9 p.m. In Kate and William Sprague’s time, inviting guests to dine was an opportunity to display their wealth through fancy and rich foods, finest china and cutlery.

The Winter Bill of Fare below is a sample of fall offerings as listed in the “Cookery As It Should Be: A New Manual of the Dining Room and Kitchen”, by A Practical Housekeeper and Pupil of Mrs. Goodfellow [Philadelphia:Willis P. Hazard] 1853.

Monday. Breakfast. Corn bread, cold bread, stew, boiled eggs. Dinner. Soup, cold joint, calves' head, vegetables. Dessert. Puddings, & Tea. Cold bread, milk toast, stewed fruit. Tuesday. Breakast. Hot cakes, cold bread, sausages, fried potatoes. Dinner. Soup, roast turkey, cranberry sauce, boiled ham, vegetables. Dessert. Pie & Tea. Corn bread, cold bread, stewed oysters. Wednesday. Breakfast. Hot bread, cold bread, chops, omelet. Dinner. Boiled mutton, stewed liver, vegetables. Dessert. Pudding, &. Tea. Hot light bread, cold bread, fish, stewed fruit. Thursday. Breakfast. Hot cakes, cold bread, sausages, fried potatoes. Dinner. Soup, poultry, cutlets, vegetables. Dessert. Custards and stewed fruit. Tea. Corn bread, cold bread, frizzled beef, stewed fruits, or soused calves' feet. Friday. Breakfast. Hot bread, cold bread, chops, omelet. Dinner. Soup, fish, roast mutton and currant jelly, vegetables. Dessert. Pudding, & Tea. Hot light bread, cold bread, stewed fruit. Saturday. Breakfast. Hot bread, a nice hash, fried potatoes. Dinner. Soup, roast veal, steaks, oyster pie, vegetables. Dessert. Custards. Tea. Corn bread, cold bread, stewed oysters. Sunday. Breakfast. Cold bread, croquets, omelet. Dinner. Roast pig, apple sauce, steaks, vegetables. Dessert. Pie, jelly. In the Kitchen: The screw-on top salt and pepper shakers and Mason threaded jar lids were first invented by John Landis Mason and patented in 1858. Up until this time, open salt cellars were used until the 1920s. Before 1858, open salt cellars were used for salt which came in solid form and had to be shaved off. Screw Top Tea. Cold Shaker bread, Visit us to view our fantastic collection of salt cellars. stewed fruit, light cakes.

Curator’s Corner Salt Cellars

Delivering Milk in the Winter By Jim Hall, Curator

Back then, farmer’s sitting on their stools, milked cows directly into a pail. When the pail was full it was dumped into a milk can. In the winter the heavy cans were placed onto a milk sled for transportation to the bottling shed where it was heated, or pasteurized, then bottled for route delivery. In those days the bottled milk was not homogenized and so on cold winter days if the bottles spent any time at all outside the customer’s door the cream would rise as it froze lifting the card-board stopper five or six inches into the air. If the neighborhood cats didn’t lick the cream away, the customer would slice it off with a knife and place it into a bowl and then add the rest of the milk. When the cream was melted and the milk stirred it was put back into the bottle then placed into the family’s ice box which never froze. Milk cans came in 5, 8 and 10-gallon sizes. They had either plug or umbrella covers. Plug covers had a handle in the middle and umbrella covers were smooth on top. There were also cream cans were smaller than milk cans and came in 4, 8, 10 and 12-quart sizes.

8 gallon milk can in CHS Collection

Hard snow and ice covered roads made for easy hauling with a horse drawn sled. However, as a sled gets bigger a problem develops with steering. The problem was solved by incorporating double runners, or bobs, which makes the sled much lighter and easier to steer as the front runners can be moved independently from the rear runners. To solve the problem with braking, a mechanism was used which allowed a chain to fall in front of the rear runners. To stop the sled from sliding backwards a curved spike was attached to the rear of the sled.

The wagon shown is on loan to the Cranston Historical Society from the family of Brown’s Dairy and is an excellent example of a bob sled. You will note that the driver as well as the horse is exposed to the elements. A farmer’s job was not easy.

Yarns of Yesteryear

Circa 1900 Farmer’s Bob Sled Used to Carry Milk

Harvesting Ice By Sandra Moyer

Most of us think of harvest time as being in the late summer or early fall when farms and gardens pour forth their grains, vegetables and fruits. But years ago, there was one ‘harvest’ that happened in the winter - cutting ice from ponds and lakes and storing it.

Before the time of refrigerators, ice was necessary to keep food from spoiling. Some foods like apples and vegetables might survive the heat of summer in a cellar, but dairy products and meat needed to stay cold. Thus, harvesting ice became a winter chore for individual farmers or for professional icemen who sold to the public. While a farmer may have a few farmhands to help him, a professional ice man might employ a crew of up to 75 men and cut over 1,500 tons a day.

After a foot of ice had formed on the surface of the pond, a team of icemen often worked day and night, first using horse drawn plows to make furrows halfway through the ice. Then sawyers would use 6 foot long hand saws to finish cutting the ice blocks into a manageable size. Rafters then used a pole or pike to move the blocks to a culling pen and eventually onto a moving belt into the ice house which had thick walls for insulation. Packers received the blocks

Ice cutting on the Knight Farm, Phenix Avenue. and packed them tightly with sawdust, c1915. making sure the ice won’t melt.

In the 19th century, ice houses were found all over Cranston where ever a source of fresh standing water could be found. The Arlington Ice Company, partly owned by Narragansett Brewery that realized the appeal of cold beer, harvested ice from Tongue Pond. The Potters formed the Auburn Ice Company on Fenner’s Pond. Competing ice houses could also be found on Randall Pond, Blackamore Pond, the Print Works Pond and Meshanticut Lake.

The ice was delivered in horse drawn wagons to those customers who displayed a white card in their window indicating how much ice they needed for their wooden ice boxes. Around 1900, the price was about 42 cents for a week’s worth of ice.

Sketches of As electric and gas refrigerators gained popularity, ice businesses lost customers and eventually the many empty wooden ice houses that were filled with sawdust went up in flames. Now our ice covered ponds and lakes are the site of people enjoying winter sports rather than commercial enterprises.

Amasa Sprague By Kathy Sprague-Cyr

Amasa Sprague was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, April 10, 1798, the second child of William Sprague II and Anne Potter Sprague. Despite a rather limited education, Amasa learned quickly and had a mind for business. From the time he was a small child he worked in his father’s cotton mill.

When Amasa was a young man his father sent him to the village of Poquonock, in the town of Groton, Connecticut, where he opened a store. He was well liked by the people of the village for his social qualities and business talents. While living and working in Poquonock he met and married the shoemaker’s daughter, Miss Fanny Morgan. Amasa and Fanny had seven children. Three died in childhood. Of the surviving four children, one was William Sprague IV, who became a . After a time Amasa moved his family back to Cranston at the request of his father, as business was increasing in the cotton mill. His employees enjoyed working for him. Though he was friendly to those he employed he had a way about him that lead them to understand his word was law and his orders must be followed. He was a jovial man, not fond of fine clothes, and seemed more at home with the common people. It was said he was a robust man, five feet nine or ten inches tall, weighing about one hundred and ninety pounds; with a fair complexion and dark brown hair. Amasa and his brother William III continued to work with their father at the print works. After their father’s death in 1836, the firm of Amasa and William Sprague was established, known as A & W Print Works. Amasa, the senior partner, continued to oversee business around the print works. William Sprague III, the junior partner, was in charge of buying cotton, dyestuffs, lumber, etc., and selling their finished goods. The business grew under the leadership of the brothers.

The clockwork production in the A & W Sprague Print Works started to break down with the introduction a small shop down the street from the print works. The shop was owned by an Irishman, Nicholas Gordon, and licensed by the Town Council of Cranston the Spragues to sell intoxicating liquors. Many Sprague Print Works employees would go to Gordon’s shop during their lunch time, and either return unfit for work or not at all. When Gordon's license expired in the summer of 1843, Amasa went before the Town Council, and asked the Council to withhold the license from Gordon, as he was unhappy that his employees were getting drunk at lunch time. Nicholas Gordon threatened Amasa in the Council chambers. That was the beginning of the hostility between Nicholas Gordon and Amasa Sprague.

On the cold, blustery New Year’s Eve afternoon of 1843, Amasa, as was his habit, took a walk with the intention of checking in on one of his farms in the neighboring town of Johnston. (Idle gossip said he was really off to see his mistress). Later that day Amasa’s servant, Michael Costello, found his bloody body face down in the snow. His face was so mangled a doctor had to identify him. His body was brought back to the mansion on Cranston Street, where it was laid out in the front parlor. Upon further examination it was found that he had been shot in the wrist, then hit twice on the head fracturing his skull. At the time Amasa Sprague was murdered, his junior partner, the Hon. William Sprague III, was a United States Senator from Rhode Island. As soon as the news of his brother's murder reached him, he resigned his seat in the Senate and returned home, vowing to find his brother’s murderer.

Suspicion lead the authorities to the Gordon Brothers, Nicholas, William and John. After a six day trial; Nicholas Gordon was acquitted, William Gordon was released and John Gordon was found guilty. He was hanged before 60 prominent Rhode Islanders on February 14, 1845 in a prison yard that sat on the grounds of the now Providence Place Mall. More than two thousand people marched the day of John Gordon’s funeral to protest the execution. It was thought by many that John Gordon was innocent. This lead the State of Rhode Island to abolish the death penalty on February 14, 1852. On June 29, 2011, more than one hundred and fifty years after he was hanged, John Gordon was pardoned by then Governor .

Which still leaves the mystery of who murdered Amasa Sprague on that cold New Year’s Eve afternoon in 1843.

Amasa Sprague, age 45 was laid to rest in the Sprague Family Plot on Cranston Street, but his remains were later moved to . Swan Point Cemetery, Sprague Family Plot

Sprague

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1351 Cranston Street Street 1351Cranston Cranston Historical Society Cranston Society Historical Cranston,02920 RI

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Milk Milk Sleds Meeting on Meeting Nov. honoring 15 Volunteerthe of Year Mark Speaker: Dunkleman Harvesting Ice Winter Biographyof Amasa

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