Salt: A History

 

Salt is one of the most common elements on our planet and is essential for all life. As far back as 6000 B.C., salt has been an integral part the history of the world and a fundamental element in the rise and fall of countless civilizations. 

Throughout history, salt has been highly valued and even used as currency. Did you know the term salary was derived from the word salt? Countless treaties and wartime strategies revolved around the making or denying of salt and it was closely tied to the rise of power and dominance by rulers. 

Salt is the subject of generations of lore, tales and idioms. Terms like "not worth his salt" and "salt of the earth." In many civilizations, salt has been extensively used for the improvement of luck, wellbeing, cleansing and purifying. 

Today we hear that "salt is essential for all life" and the media blasts that we consume too much salt in our daily diet which is detrimental to our health. And is there a "healthy" salt?

Google says: There isn't a single "healthiest" salt, as all types are primarily sodium chloride, and the differences in trace minerals are negligible for most people. However, sea salt and pink Himalayan salt, which are less processed and retain some trace minerals, are often considered slightly healthier than table salt. 

(Thanks to a Salt Lake Visitors' Guide for this info. And Google.)

FamilySearch Library: Updated & Wunnerful

 

The eager researchers still queue up and stampede into the FamilySearch Library when the doors open at 9:00. Some things never change. But there have been a long list up changes to "our favorite library" since you were there last.

For openers, the entire first floor is now a Discovery Center where an army of experienced volunteers guide visitors to discover their ancestry. There is a new and expanded snack room on the first floor. 

On the second floor, ALL the cabinets of microfilm are GONE and the huge now-open area is filled with computer stations... with each station having TWO monitors! All our beloved books remain on the third floor. Down on B-1 and B-2, the International floors, the layout has completely changed too. 

There are more helpers.... from your computer station you sign up for a helper with your particular question and they will come to you! Copies are now free, as are flash drives. (Gee, first no more dimes and now no more copy cards. :-) 

Even the restrooms have been redone (at least the women's rooms). There is new carpeting, new signs and displays and no more rather obnoxious loud speaker announcements. 

The Salt Lake Airport is now almost overwhelmingly HUGE! The main corridor has this "salt waves" (what I call it) art work as a welcome display. 

Makes me eager to go back even as I type this. When shall we go? 

FamilySearch Center Portal

 

Perhaps you're missing out on a research bet? And if something is free, why not consider using it? Well!

The FamilySearch Center Portal is exactly what those words signify. At any designated FamilySearch Center, any researcher can access FOR FREE, a long list of websites that otherwise would be accessibly by personal subscription only.   Did you catch that: FREE?

Think your research might be helped by looking into one of these:

• 19th Century British Library Newspapers
• Alexander Street Press (indexed information of Civil War history: soldiers, battles, photos and maps)
• American Ancestors (formerly New England Historic Genealogical Society)
• Ancestry (Institution version..... databases but not Trees)
• ArkivDigital (Swedish Church Records0
• British Newspaper Archive
• FamNet (New Zealand records)
• Findmypast (UK ancestry)
• Fold3 (U.S. military records)
• GoldieMay (suite of software power tools for genealogists)
• Irish Ancestors
• MyHeritage (library edition.... no trees)
• Paper Trail (records of the Oregon Trail and other westward migration trails)

All of these wonderful opportunities but don't overlook checking out the nearly 2,000,000,000 names in the FamilySearch trees!! This database is compiled by folks like you and me and while it may contain errors and inconsistencies, it also can provide great clues. 

Click to www.EWGSI.org for a list of the area's FamilySearch Centers. Find one near you and GO!

Eggs: Easter & Other

 

The traditional act of painting eggs is called Pysanka. A pysanka is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated using a batik method. Egg dyes were once made out of natural items such as onion peels, tree bark, flower petals and juice. Today we buy pellets! 

Bet you didn't know that ostrich eggs with engraved decoration that are 60,000 years old have been found in Africa? That the Easter Egg Museum in Poland has over 1500 eggs on display? That the most popular chocolate egg in the world today is the Cadbury's Creme Egg; if all of these made in a year were piled on top of each other, it would be ten times higher than Mt. Everest! The Annual White House Easter Egg Roll began with President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. The term Easter comes from Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess who symbolized the hare and the egg. 

Bet you also didn't know that the color of a chicken egg shell is primarily determined by the hen's genetics and the pigments deposited on the shell during its formation, leading to a variety of colors like white, blue, brown and green. And that there are 200 different breeds of chickens? All eggs are the same inside: white and yellow. The egg carton was invented in 1911. 

Have you had your egg today? There are only 78 calories in a large boiled egg. :-) 

Home Life in Colonial Days

 

This delightful 450-page book by Alice Morse Earle was a warm-fuzzy bookstore find. By the by, it's still available via Amazon.

The entire book was a fascinating read but I'll share this with you from the chapter titled, Meat and Drink.

"Potatoes were known to New Englanders but were rare and when referred to were probably sweet potatoes...but they were not immediately liked. A fashionable way of cooking them was with butter, sugar and grape juice, then mixed with dates, lemons and mace; then seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper....and then frosted with sugar."

"Apple Pie is used through the whole year and when fresh apples are no longer to be had, dried ones are used. It is the evening meal of children. House-pie, in country places, is made of apples neither peeled nor freed from their cores, and its crust is not broken if a wagon wheel goes over it." 

"Milk became a very important part of the food of families in the 18th century. The usual breakfast and supper was bread and milk. As the family prospered, milk and hasty pudding, milk and stewed pumpkin, milk and baked apples, milk and berries were variations. It was said that children were usually very fond it this."

"Housewives pickled samphire (asparagus like), fennel, purple cabbage, nasturtium buds, green walnuts, lemons, radish pods, barberries, parsley, mushrooms, asparagus, and many kinds of fish and fruit. They candied fruits and nuts and made many marmalades and a vast number of fruit wines and cordials." 

"They collared and potted many kinds of fish and game. Salted meat was eaten and very little fresh meat for there was no means of keeping meat after it was killed. Every well-to-do family had a "powdering-tub" which was a tub in which meat was salted and pickled. Many families had a smoke house in which beef, ham and bacon were smoked."

Calgary, Alberta, Canada In 1902

 

Rummaging in a basket at a thrift store, I found a small tourist pamphlet dated 1902 touting Calgary. Published by the Board of Trade, City Council of Calgary, the little 30-page brochure was such a fun read!

"The country surrounding Calgary has been especially favored by nature in more ways than one." Then all the wonders of nature were extolled. 

"It may be safely said, for the meterological records amply prove it, that there is no place in the western hemisphere that enjoys more bright sunshine the year around than Central and Southern Alberta."

"Free homesteads may be secured within from 3 to 20 miles of the city, and improved farms and ranches can be purchased at reasonable prices."

"The capitalist will find in Calgary an interesting and profitable field for investment; the existing channels for investment are legion."

"The Calgary district offers high wages to good domestic servants. In the city of Calgary, $10 and $12 per month is the common wage for household work."

"The invalid will find in Calgary a gracing and pleasant climate to recuperate his health. The virtues of its invigorating ozone and almost continual sunshine are becoming universally extolled." 

Prices: "Butter, 18cents per pound; potatoes, 1penny per pound; eggs, 15cents per dozen; poultry, 12cents per pound; pork, 6cents per pound; beef, 2 cents per pound." 

No wonder "936 homesteads were taken up and 41,000 acres of Canadian Pacific Railroad Lands purchased during the year of 1901." (The land was purchased for $3.00 per acre.)

Did your ancestor settle permanently or temporarily in Calgary?? Sounds like a wonderful place, no? 

Union Pacific Railroad BUSES??

 

    

Bet you would never have guessed that the Union Pacific Railroad operated passenger buses! But they did, through Union Pacific Stages, Interstate Transit Lines and Union Pacific Railroad of Sun Valley.

Union Pacific bus stages ran between town where the railroad did not connect them. Locally, UP started in 1927 to run a bus route between Pendleton and Walla Walla. Soon routes to Salt Lake City and Portland were added and as decades passed, more routes were added. The route to connect rail lines to Sun Valley was completed in 1939. 

The UP sold its stages (buses) to Greyhound in 1952. 

With Grandma Google's help (:-)) I located a 21-page article, Buses of the Union Pacific Railroad, published in the Mar-Apr 1991 edition of Utah Rails. This article had a good many black-and-white photos of these old buses.

If you'd like to set aboard one of these buses, visit the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Omaha, where they boast "150 Years of Rail History."  Here's the link: UP RR Museum

Did you, or your ancestor, ever ride on a Union Pacific BUS??

Washington Place Names

 

This is The Most Delightful book! Written in 1971 by James W. Phillips, its nearly 180 pages give a bit of history for scores of places in the Evergreen State. For instance:

Cashmere:  Originally known as Mission as a result of early Catholic missions established in the area between 1850s and 1870s. Town renamed in 1903 to emulate in name, as well as fertility and valley setting, the beautiful and productive Vale of Kashmir in India. 

Hadlock:  Originally known as Port Hadlock, the town was named for founder Samuel Hadlock, who built the Washington Mill Co. on Port Townsend Bay in 1870. 

Home: In Pierce County; established as a social reform colony in 1896 on Carr Inlet by George H. Allen and named to demonstrate the group's friendship to all.

Maple Valley:  Named Vine Maple Valley by the first settlers in 1879 because of the maple trees growing along that portion of the cedar River, the name was shortened by postal officials in 1888.

Moclips:  A Quinault Indian word describing a place where maidens were sent to undergo puberty rites.

Monse:  In Okanogan County; original name of Swansea was changed in 1916 to honor Mons, Belgium, where the British fought the first battle of WWI on 23 August 1914.

Jovita:  In Pierce County; Townsite developed by the Jovita Land Co. of Seattle. 

Joyce:  In Clallam County; named in 1913 by its first postmaster J.M. Joyce, who operated a store, a shingle mill and a farm nearby.

Otis Orchards:  In Spokane County; originally a railroad flag station called Otis after an early settler; name amended in 1908 with the establishment of a post office to tie into the area's image as a fruit growing center.

Lots more to come! This book is still available if you want a copy. 

Typical Inventory from 1666 in Massachusetts

 

So often in the 17th century, a will was handwritten and was accompanied by an inventory. This inventory was mandated by law and some of the items might be sold to pay off any debts of the deceased. This was the inventory of Aquila Chase, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, dated 15 May 1666. 

I ask you: how many pages would it take to "inventory" every single one of your possessions? And would there be archaic terms then that were well known today...... like "saw and pillion." What is a pillion? What is an "Apple watch?" An "electric hot pot?" 

And take note of what you don't see: any art, music, crafts, hobbies, things we would call comfort things like fuzzy slippers or teddy bears? Could YOU cook a meal using just the utensils mentioned here? 

                                                                    Eleven swine

                                                                    Twenty sheepe

                                                        Two heifers & three calves

                                                                One steer & three calves

                                                            One feather bed/ bolster/pillows

Blanket & curtains

Wearing apparell

One new curtain

Six paire of sheets

Linen yarne

20 lbs of woollen  yarne

One bed furniture/blankett

70 bushels Indian corne

6 bushels barley

Some wheat, rye & pease

Saw & pillion

2 wheels

Muskett/swort/pike

                                                                        1 saddle/bridle

                                                            3 iron potts/hookes/tramells

                                                            Spitt/fire pan/tongues/peele

                                                        1 fryeing pan/greediron/ 2 skilletts

                                                                        Carpenter tooles

                                                                4 axes/ beetle & wedges

                                                        Pewter platters/basons/potts/spones

                                                                    Box of earthenware

                                                                        Books/ 2 chests

                                                                        Hog lard/butter

                                                                        Grinding stone

                                                                    Cart/dung pott/plow

                                                                    Yoakes & Chaines

                                                                            Old lumber

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