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Tamped Clay and Saltmarsh Hay - Artifacts of New Brunswick by Robert Cunningham and John B. Price presents a look at the way our ancestors coped with making the necessities of life, long before the days of supermarkets, malls and hardware stores, where anything the heart desires can be purchased.

Book 4018  $45.00 (Canadian Currency)  plus $12.00 shipping within North America.  Soft cover - 280 pages - published in 1976.  Appears to be first edition. Used book in good condition.

I found the details given on tin, tinkers, silver, chairmaker’s guide, wood finishes, glass making, soap, candles, nails, hammermen, trees, knives, joinery, axe, and much more, very informative.

The hundred or so illustrations add to this publication

A book about tools, furnitute, glass used by the Acadians, the first European settlers to New Brunswick's Chignecto Isthmus

A construction knee cut from a tamarack tree is just one of the many illustrations in the 280 page "Tamped Clay and Saltmarsh Hay - Artifacts of New Brunswick" - by Robert Cunningham and John B. Price that was published in 1976 and deals particularly with the Chignecto area.

The axe of the early settler was his most useful and cherished tool. They came in all sizes and shapes, from the broad axe to the froe, each designed for a specific task.

The cost of a screw was several times more than a nail, so until about 1830, screws were used mainly for attaching hinges to cabinet work. Nails were often driven into hinges and bent. To prevent the nails from breaking off, little pieces of leather were used as a cushion against the hinge.

Soap was made by placing leftover grease and fat from the kitchen into a large iron pot and adding lye which was formed from soaking hardwood ashes in water. Sometimes grease was collected in a barrel that was kept at the backdoor, lye and a stick were added and passers-by on the way into the house donated their elbow grease.

Good tallow candles were made from one part beef and two parts mutton suet. For two hours a day it was boiled gently for two or three days with the adding of a little beeswax and weak lye. The bayberry was used in making festive candles.

In 1859, Dr. Abraham Gesner distilled kerosene from local oil bearing shales in Albert County and this brought a change to lighting with the improved lamps.

Book 4018  $45.00 (Canadian Currency)  plus $12.00 shipping within North America.  Soft cover - 280 pages - published in 1976.  Appears to be first edition. Used book in good condition.

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