Tim,
Below are the sources I most often use for coffin hardware and most address
thumbscrews. The Davidson report on Freedman's Cemetery excavations has the
most extensive list of coffin hardware catalogues that I've found to date.
But I've always wondered about the use of the term caplifter vs. thumbscrew.
The earliest form of thumbscrew seems to be the ones that are generally
cylindrical, white metal alloy, have a slotted head, usually three raised
annular bands, and appear in the 1869 Sargent and Company catalogue. I tend
to refer to these as thumbscrews in reports, even though they have a slotted
head and would seem to be likely candidates for the term caplifters rather
than thumbscrews, which I tend to think of as the more ornate coffin
fasteners of the 1870s and later, which are designed to be turned by hand.
Maybe Patrick and others can weigh in on this: are these caplifters or
thumbscrews, and what characteristics do you use to distinguish between the
two? Or are these just terms that have been grown to be used
interchangeably?
Laurie Burgess
Bell, Edward
1990 The Historical Archaeology of Mortuary Behavior: Coffin Hardware
from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Historical Archaeology 24(3):54-78.
Chicago Coffin Company
1884 Illustrated Catalogue of the Chicago Coffin Company. Chicago Coffin
Company, Chicago.
Columbus Coffin Company
1882 Illustrated Catalogue. Facsimile edition, in Trade Catalogues at
Winterthur, compiled by E. R. McKinstry, Item 618. Clearwater, New York.
Originally published by Caleb Clark, Cincinnati, Ohio
Crane, Breed and Company
1984 [1867] Wholesale Price List of Patent Metallic Burial Cases and
Caskets, Hearses, Name Plates and Handles, Plumes and Sockets, Etc.
Facsimile edition, in Trade Catalogues at Winterthur, compiled by E. R.
McKinstry, Item 621. Clearwater, New York. Originally published by Caleb
Clark, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Davidson, James M.
2000 The Development of Freedman's Cemetery. In Freedman's Cemetery:
A Legacy of a Pioneer Black Community in Dallas, Texas. Special Publication
No. 6. Geo-Marine, Inc./Texas Department of Transportation, pp. 233-395.
Garrow, Patrick
1987 A Preliminary Seriation of Coffin Hardware Forms in Nineteenth and
Twentieth Century Georgia. Early Georgia 15(1-2):19-45.
Habenstein, Robert W. and William M. Lamers
1955 The History of American Funeral Directing. Bulfin, Milwaukee.
Hacker-Norton, Debi and Michael Trinkley
1984 Remember Man Thou Art Dust: Coffin Hardware of the Twentieth
Century. Research Series 2. Chicora Foundation, Inc., Columbia, South
Carolina.
Kogon, Stephen L. and Robert G. Mayer
1995 Analyses of Coffin Hardware from Unmarked Burials Former Wesleyan
Methodist Church, Weston, Ontario. North American Archaeologist
16(2):133-162.
Little, Barbara, Kim M. Lanphear and Douglas W. Owsley
1992 Mortuary Display and Status in a Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American
Cemetery in Manassas, Virginia. American Antiquity, 57(3):397-418.
Meriden Brittania Company
1880 1880 Illustrated Catalogue and Descriptive Price List of Wm. M.
Smith's Fine Silver, Bronze, Gold Plated and Oxidized Silver Casket
Trimmings Manufactured by the Meriden Brittania Company. West Meriden,
Connecticut.
National Casket Company
1984 [1891] National Casket Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1891. Facsimile
edition, in Trade Catalogues at Winterthur, compiled by E. R. McKinstry,
Item 638. Clearwater, New York. Originally published by Caleb Clark,
Cincinnati, Ohio
Owsley, Douglas W., William F. Hanna, Malcolm Richardson and Laurie E.
Burgess
2003 Bioarcheological and Geophysical Investigation of Unmarked Civil War
Burials in the Soldiers Plot, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Cemetery, New Market,
Virginia. Archeological Society of Virginia, Special Publication No. 41.
Rose, Jerome C.
1985 Burial Descriptions. In Gone to a Better Land: A Biohistory of a
Rural Black Cemetery in the Post-Reconstruction South, edited by Jerome C.
Rose, pp. 39-129. Arkansas Archeological Research Series No. 25. Arkansas
Archeological Survey, Fayetteville.
Russell and Erwin Manufacturing Company
1980 [1865]Illustrated Catalogue of American Hardware of the Russell and
Erwin Manufacturing Company. New Britain, Connecticut. 1980 facsimile
edition, Association for Preservation Technology, Ottawa.
Stein Manufacturing Company
1882 Price List, Stein Manufacturing Company. Stein Manufacturing
Company, Boston.
Woodley, Phillip J.
1991 Coffin Hardware and Artifact Analysis. In The Links That Bind: The
Nineteenth Century Harvie Family Burying Ground, edited by Shelley R.
Saunders and Richard Lazenby, pp. 156-168. Occasional Papers in
Northeastern Archaeology, No. 5. Copetown Press. pp. 41-55.
1992 The Stirrup Cemetery Court Coffin Hardware. Ontario Archaeology
53:45-63.
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/18 5:41 PM >>>
Does anyone have any good references on coffin hardware? I'm looking
specifically for info on thumbscrews used to secure coffin lids. Thanks for
any help.
Tim Thompson
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/18 5:41 PM >>>
Does anyone have any good references on coffin hardware? I'm looking
specifically for info on thumbscrews used to secure coffin lids. Thanks for
any help.
Tim Thompson
|
