Box, Food Storage
Food storage box with seven tin containers, Canterbury, NH
Description
Large pine box. Hinged lid with bread-board ends. Painted gray, a layer of blue underneath, and varnished or shellacked interior. Inside are six open cube containers, and one rectangular, of heavy tin-plate, with rolled top edges. Lid is scorched where hot edges of containers touched.
Notes
Designed to be pulled or pushed by hands in the fields, this cart would have been useful for hauling light items like tools, leaves, fruits or vegetable. It is easy to picture an image of this cart carrying six full apple baskets from the orchard. Each wheel has fourteen spokes that angle outward from the axle to the wheel rims. The cart is displayed in the exhibition galleries as it is shown here, bearing a food box that is through to have been used in the fields at Canterbury. The pine box features a hinged lid and holds seven tin containers. It is evident that some of the containers held something that left burn marks on the unpainted bottom of the lid.