By Eleanor Breen / Project Manager, Archaeological Collections Online
This tin milk pan was probably similar to ones ordered by George Washington and sold at Henderson’s store in Colchester.
While the 22 milk pans from the South Grove excavation provide important tangible details about the material and sizes, they are only a small fraction of George Washington’s milk pans. The invoices for the 244 milk pans received at Mount Vernon during the first half of the 1760s suggest that George Washington was making a significant investment in dairying activities (Table 1). Although the invoices and orders continue through 1775, milk pan purchases from England end in 1765.
Table 1. George Washington's invoices and orders for milk pans.
George Washington was invoiced for milk pans on four separate dates, though he only placed three specific orders (Table 1). He asked for 72 earthen milk pans in 1760, 6 large and 6 small tin milk pans and 144 “midlg size & not Deep” earthen milkpans in 1762, and 96 “Welch” milk pans in 1765. In return, Washington received 60 milk pans in 1761 made of red earthenware of 6 different, unspecified sizes. In 1763, he received 6 large and 6 small milk pans (probably of tin) and 62 red earthenware milk pans of 5 different, unspecified sizes. He also was invoiced for 12 “Welch” milk pans and 2 of white stoneware. In 1765, he received his full order of 96 “Welch” milk pans, 12 of which were “large” and the rest unspecified.
As we saw last week (and similar to mugs) vessel size was a consideration for milk pans, at least to George Washington and his British factors. However, unlike mug or punch bowl capacity, these sizes were on a relative scale with no mention of exactly how much milk a pan was intended to hold. Washington’s invoices, suggest the red earthenware milk pans were sold as nested sets, since the size categories are in descending order with one size simply listed as smaller than the previous. Sizes of “Welch” milk pans appear to be less diverse.
Big cow = lots of milk!
Additionally, while difference in capacity has been related to gentility and specialization and elaboration in the realm of dining and entertaining for vessel forms like mugs and punch bowls, capacity takes on a different meaning in this context. More likely, large and small or nested milk pans were functional. Sometimes you milked a cow that produced a lot of milk, other times just a bit. Sometimes more cream was needed at the table, sometimes less. Flexibility in kitchen utensils was just as important on a large diversified plantation as was flexibility in dining and entertaining. Perhaps owning a variety of sizes of milk pans was not as important for the home-dairier.
Archaeological milk pans from the South Grove suggest that all Washington’s were not purchased from England. Accounts from Alexander Henderson’s store in Colchester, Virginia (Table 2) illustrate milk pans were regularly stocked locally. He re-ordered milk pans each year with the exception of the last for which there is documentation, 1765. Tin milk pans seem to have been the most regularly re-ordered and possibly came in two different sizes (also seen in Washington’s invoice of 1763) as reflected in the double listing for tin milk pans at two different prices. Henderson also offered milk pans of coarse brown ware and white stoneware, with the latter being the only of a specified capacity: two gallons. Interestingly, Henderson stocked at least 252 milk pans in his store over this 5 year period. George Washington was invoiced for only a few less during an overlapping 4 year period. In other words, it took as many milk pans to stock a diversified plantation as it did a small store!
Table 2. Milk pans stocked at Henderson's store, Colchester, VA.
