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1700's Saw Tooth Rare Lamp Adjuster Trammel
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1700's Saw Tooth Rare Lamp Adjuster Trammel
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This is a rare lamp adjuster trammel dating to about the time of the Revolutionary War or early 1800s. An nearly identical one but heavier was recovered from Jamestown dating between 1607 and 1699. I've included reference photos from the book called New Discoveries at Jamestown by John L. Cotter and J. Paul Hudson. I never saw one of these very light trammels until I had the fortune of acquiring several from a very old lamp collection in the Valley Forge area of Washington Winter Camp fame. It was also suggested that this trammel might have once held betty lamp or whale oil lamps. It is hand forged by a blacksmith and is the thinner light size. Mostly the very heavy versions of cast iron survive to today. This one has a ring at the top for attaching to a chain. Bottom is a hook to hang the lamp or small kettle handle. One shaft has a cutout saw tooth pattern so that the hanger can be adjusted from 17 inches long at the shortest position to 28 inches long at the longest position. Smooth shaft passes through an eyelet at the base of the sawtooth shaft to make the adjustment very stable. Pinned hinge locking eyelet at top. Blackened from age and from use over an indoor cooking fireplace. Many 1700's kitchens used this smaller lighter version of the pot hook but few survive because they are only 1/8 inch thick. However, they are very strong. This original item is great for hanging a early pot from in your kitchen or light oil lamp.
's some lighting history: Lighting has progressed a great deal in the last century. Prior to 1800, light was made with a torch, crude lamps or candles. The torch was usually nothing more than a handful of reeds soaked in some kind of oil or pitch, or a resin impregnated stick or in some cases just a rag soaked in a flammable material, wound around a stick and set afire. These were smoky and gave very little light. ~~The lamp was more than likely discovered sometime in the Stone Age. One of our very early ancestors probably noticed that a sliver of wood lying in an animal fat filled depression on a fire hearth had caught fire. The first lamps were probably nothing more than a shallow spot in a rock with some kind of a natural fiber wick that soaked up a flammable material such as animal fat or grease, tallow or oil. ~~As man's manufacturing skills developed, these lamps were made of stone, shells, clay, bronze, iron and ultimately steel. ~~During American Colonial times they were known as Betty Lamps. Betty Lamps were used up into the early 1800s. My collection contains a Betty Lamp that came from a logging camp in Maine. It had provisions for 4 wicks, a pick to dig in the fuel (which probably was pine pitch ) and a spike that attached it to the wall. Candles were developed about 3000 B.C. They were originally made of tallow, a form of rendered animal fat. In the 17th and 18th centuries, sperm oil was the favored candle material. Today, the much less odorous paraffin wax is used (a development that just preceded that of kerosene!). As we all have experienced, candles are slow burning and smoky. The wick is a cord located in the center of the candle. Candles still have a place in our homes today, but mostly for decoration or emergency lighting. ~~In the early 1800s, lamps burned whale oil. It was very expensive (around $2.00/gal which relates to about $200/gal in todays money); not many families could afford it. They used lard oil or some other rendered fat, or still relied on candles and the fireplace for light. Their day usually went from sun up to sun down. Whale oil lamps can be identified when the burner is present by looking at the burner. The wick holders are one or two short tubes generally about 1/4" in diameter placed close to each other. Keeping the oil fluid enough that it could be absorbed by the wick was a problem. The fuel tended to thicken when cool, so the flame was located close to the font, in order that heat might be conducted down the tubes to warm the oil and make it draw better. This lamp's burner is similar to a whale oil burner but probably burned colza oil whi... 
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