Home Life in Colonial Days | Page 9

frugally extinguished during the long family
prayers each evening. Every family laid in a good supply of this light
wood for winter use, and it was said that a prudent New England
farmer would as soon start the winter without hay in his barn as without
candle-wood in his woodshed.
Mr. Higginson wrote in 1630: "Though New England has no tallow to
make candles of, yet by abundance of fish thereof it can afford oil for
lamps." This oil was apparently wholly neglected, though there were
few, or no domestic animals to furnish tallow; but when cattle
increased, every ounce of tallow was saved as a precious and useful
treasure; and as they became plentiful it was one of the household
riches of New England, which was of value to our own day. When
Governor Winthrop arrived in Massachusetts, he promptly wrote over
to his wife to bring candles with her from England when she came. And
in 1634 he sent over for a large quantity of wicks and tallow. Candles
cost fourpence apiece, which made them costly luxuries for the thrifty
colonists.
Wicks were made of loosely spun hemp or tow, or of cotton; from the
milkweed which grows so plentifully in our fields and roads to-day the
children gathered in late summer the silver "silk-down" which was
"spun grossly into candle wicke." Sometimes the wicks were dipped
into saltpetre.
Thomas Tusser wrote in England in the sixteenth century in his
Directions to Housewifes:--
"Wife, make thine own candle, Spare penny to handle. Provide for thy
tallow ere frost cometh in, And make thine own candle ere winter

begin."
Every thrifty housewife in America saved her penny as in England. The
making of the winter's stock of candles was the special autumnal
household duty, and a hard one too, for the great kettles were tiresome
and heavy to handle. An early hour found the work well under way. A
good fire was started in the kitchen fireplace under two vast kettles,
each two feet, perhaps, in diameter, which were hung on trammels from
the lug-pole or crane, and half filled with boiling water and melted
tallow, which had had two scaldings and skimmings. At the end of the
kitchen or in an adjoining and cooler room, sometimes in the lean-to,
two long poles were laid from chair to chair or stool to stool. Across
these poles were placed at regular intervals, like the rounds of a ladder,
smaller sticks about fifteen or eighteen inches long, called candle-rods.
These poles and rods were kept from year to year, either in the garret or
up on the kitchen beams.
To each candle-rod was attached about six or eight carefully
straightened candle-wicks. The wicking was twisted strongly one way;
then doubled; then the loop was slipped over the candle-rod, when the
two ends, of course, twisted the other way around each other, making a
firm wick. A rod, with its row of wicks, was dipped in the melted
tallow in the pot, and returned to its place across the poles. Each row
was thus dipped in regular turn; each had time to cool and harden
between the dips, and thus grew steadily in size. If allowed to cool fast,
they of course grew quickly, but were brittle, and often cracked. Hence
a good worker dipped slowly, but if the room was fairly cool, could
make two hundred candles for a day's work. Some could dip two rods
at a time. The tallow was constantly replenished, as the heavy kettles
were used alternately to keep the tallow constantly melted, and were
swung off and on the fire. Boards or sheets of paper were placed under
the rods to protect the snowy, scoured floors.
Candles were also run in moulds which were groups of metal cylinders,
usually made of tin or pewter. Itinerant candle-makers went from house
to house, taking charge of candle-making in the household, and
carrying large candle-moulds with them. One of the larger size, making

two dozen candles, is here shown; but its companion, the smaller
mould, making six candles, is such as were more commonly seen. Each
wick was attached to a wire or a nail placed across the open top of the
cylinder, and hung down in the centre of each individual mould. The
melted tallow was poured in carefully around the wicks.
Wax candles also were made. They were often shaped by hand, by
pressing bits of heated wax around a wick. Farmers kept hives of bees
as much for the wax as for the honey, which was of much demand for
sweetening, when "loaves" of sugar were so high-priced. Deer suet,
moose fat, bear's grease, all were saved in frontier settlements, and
carefully tried into tallow for candles. Every particle of grease rescued
from pot liquor, or fat from