Bucket

Description

Coopered wooden bucket painted yellow-brown with "Rice" painted on the exterior in black. Pine staves and bottom. Iron rings around the base and 2" below the lip. Arched iron handle attached via a piece screwed onto either side. Round birch handle cover.

Notes

The inscriptions, "Beans," (#1958.10761.1) "Rice," (#1953.6355.1) Rice," (#1955.7174.1) and "Oatmeal," (#1957.8957.1) suggests that these pails were used in or around the kitchen. As further evidence, the bean and oatmeal pails have the letter "K" incised on their bottoms, probably identifying them as belonging in the kitchen. It is not known if the pails were used to transport the beans and grains from a storeroom or if they were used as canisters around the cooking area, in which case, they may have had lids. These four buckets are painted and inscribed in such a way that they are clearly a set.[1] Although they share a common construction detail that identifies them as having been made either at Canterbury, NH, or Enfield, NH, differences suggest that they were made at different places or times before being painted as a set. The staves are joined together with a v-shaped, tongue-and-groove joint, a characteristic that identifies Shakers pails as having been made in New Hampshire. Variation in the design of the bail plates, the metal pieces that attach the wire handles on the pails, and the incised "K" on the bottom of only two of the pails indicate they were made at different times or places or by different makers. The bean and oatmeal pails have oval bail plates, an usual style, rarely found on Shaker pails. One rice pail has a diamond-shaped bail plate and the other a metal strap that extends above the rim of the pail. The diamond-shaped plate is also found on two pails in the Shaker Museum and Library collection (#8082 and 8084) that have "FW" stamped into their bottoms, the initials of Francis Winkley (1759-1847), the office deacon or trustee responsible for marketing Shaker products. Although the four pails were painted and inscribed at the same time, the two with the letter "K" incised on their bottoms had seen service in the kitchen prior to being painted as a set. [1] A pail that matches this set, labeled "Beans," was acquired from the Canterbury Shakers by George E. and Gladys C. Jordan of Epping, NH. It was sold at auction by Willis Henry Auctions, Inc., in 1991, lot 90. The pail has the metal strap style bail plates and is inscribed "CO FP" on the bottom. Another container, labeled "Corn," in nearly identical letters but having no connection to the Shakers was in the Mary Earls Gould Woodenware Collection. See: Gould, Early American Woodenware & Other Kitchen Utensils (Springfield, MA: The Pond-Exberg Company, 1942), p. 190, plate 118.