Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

[Fred.Lucas]

Good day folks, long time no see. Ive been trying to find documentation for the ubiquitous corn boiler or mucket and am coming up short.

Ive seen the lid, and the extrapolated rest of the item here: http://www.civilwarvirtualmuseum.org...mucket-lid.php

But that seems like a pretty large jump from the lid to the rest of the item?

It for sure is more labor intensive than the WVM cup here: http://wisvetsmuseum.pastperfect-onl...19853;type=101

Now I did a quick check of EoG and did not see anything like the item that seems to be oh so popular in reenacting from F&I to ACW. Are there images of such an item, or is this the legacy of early 20th Century Camping how to books that wont go away?

Thanks so much,

Fred Lucas

[Jimmayo]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

FYI another picture of a dug muckett and a muckett top.

[Spinster]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Jim, were the originals hinged? or made with a separate top?

[Silas]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Although common in reenacting, I've not seen any evidence of a vessel called a mucket. I believe it's a modern sutler name for a bucket with a handle, a bail and a lid. Same goes for a vessel called a corn boiler.

This does not mean there weren't mugs with bails or boilers with lids. Jim Mayo's photo of a large mug with ear tabbed bailing wire is an example of a bailed mug. I've seen several vessels with hinged lids and bailing wires, but only a few with handles. I've seen many small boilers with lids and bails, but I don't think they were as common as the 28-ish ounce emptied food can with bail added in the field.

I like the size of the "corn boiler" when acting as part of a mess. Soup and/or coffee is my typical contribution. Someone else brings a fryer. By myself, the "corn boiler" is too big for my needs. I more often go with a former food can, opened with a bayonet and carried by a field added bail.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Agree here with Mark Silas Tackitt, I am a tin food can/bailing wire coffee boiler advocate. Simpler the better. I think it would be difficult to find surviving documentation on an item which was not issued? This is a question because these things are found dug, as Jim Mayo notes but I don't know of the paper trail for the individual piece of the mess kit called a "mucket."

Did soldiers on either side refer to them as such? On the other hand, I have read plenty of accounts of eating and drinking out of tin cans. Just curious more than anything else...what is the earliest record of the term "mucket." When I google 'civil war mucket' my book The Civil War Musket comes up.

[Jimmayo]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Jim, were the originals hinged? or made with a separate top?

I have no idea. All I know about these are in those two pictures. The dug top shows no signs of a hinge but there is a missing section where one could have been.

[rmilstead]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Guys,
FYI, in Francis Lord's Civil War Collector's Encyclopedia, Copyright 1963 pg 168, there is a picture of a "Coffee Boiler used by Daniel Heyden, Co. E, 149th N.Y. Inf." with handle, bail, and hinged top in the configuration called a "Mucket" today. He doesn't use that term, however. Not saying they were common in the day or that Lord isn't showing a cup modified later (doubtful), but the provenance does count for something. I realize a lot of Lord's stuff is dated base upon today's research or even just plain incorrect but ...
Lots of items like this were purchased from sutler's, etc. by recruits or early in the War but were replaced by simple solutions like a "peach can" boiler by seasoned campaigners. Billings describes this in Hardtack and Coffee.
Dick Milstead

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Fair enough. It is clear there were bail wired tin cookers with lids. How did the term "mucket" come to describe such a vessel?

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Don't know, Craig, but I found what claims to be a wartime use of the word, from the letters of Oliver Wilcox Norton:

http://books.google.com/books?id=sK0SAAAAYAAJ&dq=mucket%20boil&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q=mucket%20boil&f=false

This from Yorktown, VA, April 12, 1862:

"I was sitting by the fire with several others making coffee. Each of us has a small tin kettle holding three pints or so, fitted with a tight cover. We call them muckets for want of a better name. By the way, I believe almost any of us would throw away a blanket before he would his mucket, they are so indispensable. The cover of one was crowded down so tight that there was no room for the steam to escape. It swallowed the indignity with commendable patience for a time, but finally it lost all self control and exploded, throwing hot coffee in all directions, but particularly in the direction of my left foot. It was not very badly scalded, and I hope will be well in a few days."

I should add that these letters were published after the war and I couldn't find any other use of the word during the war. But, on the other hand, it doesn't seem like anything Norton would bother inventing afterwards.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Don't know, Craig, but I found what claims to be a wartime use of the word, from the letters of Oliver Wilcox Norton:

http://books.google.com/books?id=sK0SAAAAYAAJ&dq=mucket%20boil&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q=mucket%20boil&f=false

This from Yorktown, VA, April 12, 1862:

"I was sitting by the fire with several others making coffee. Each of us has a small tin kettle holding three pints or so, fitted with a tight cover. We call them muckets for want of a better name. By the way, I believe almost any of us would throw away a blanket before he would his mucket, they are so indispensable. The cover of one was crowded down so tight that there was no room for the steam to escape. It swallowed the indignity with commendable patience for a time, but finally it lost all self control and exploded, throwing hot coffee in all directions, but particularly in the direction of my left foot. It was not very badly scalded, and I hope will be well in a few days."

I should add that these letters were published after the war and I couldn't find any other use of the word during the war. But, on the other hand, it doesn't seem like anything Norton would bother inventing afterwards.

Good find. I could not locate the term.

[Jimmayo]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Fair enough. It is clear there were bail wired tin cookers with lids. How did the term "mucket" come to describe such a vessel?

They are a cross between a mug and a bucket. Short hand is mucket. That is what we tell the school kids.

[Fred.Lucas]

Re: Mucketts/Corn Boilers and the like

Thanks to all that have posted here. At least now its known the item is not fantasy. Now I just need to try and track down just how far back this item goes, as the majority of my 19th Century time is spent in the 1830's.....

Fred Lucas