Papers-

[10TnVI]

Good afternoon- This seemed like the best place to ask this. Over the years I've seen many soldier diary/letter entries commenting on reciecing "papers" of spices, usually cayenne pepper, but also cinnamin, nutmeg, ginger, etc. These seem to usually have been recieved as enclosures in letters.
The questions I seek answer to are-
what kind/quality of paper would have been used?
Were they a manufactured item or folded ot the point of purchase?
Any idea of what they looked like or how they were folded?

Any help would be appreciated. This seems like a period appropriate way for a soldier to carry such things these days. Anything to make salt meat and hardtack more palatable:-)

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Papers-

what kind/quality of paper would have been used?
Were they a manufactured item or folded ot the point of purchase?
Any idea of what they looked like or how they were folded?

Any help would be appreciated. This seems like a period appropriate way for a soldier to carry such things these days. Anything to make salt meat and hardtack more palatable:-)

I would expect that common notepaper was used to make homemade 'papers of __________.' Some papers of _______ were purchased and others were made when needed.

In _Historic Accounts_ papers of starch were sold as well as starch being sold by the pound. Spices were purchased by weight and there was no mention of papers of spices. Also, most spices were purchased whole and then ground or pounded at home because the whole spices stayed fresher longer.

I expect that the store owner would have used paper to wrap the ounce or two of spices purchased but I don't have any documentation as to how it was done. I do know that when liquid purchases such as molasses, lamp oil, and etc. were sold that the customer had to provide his or her own container. Often a container holding the same quanity as the item was purchased at the same time. The one exception to this was liquor which was usually sold by the bottle but some store owners had barrels of liquor and was sold as other liquids - the container was sold separately.

Miss Leslie mentions making one's own baking powder and packaging the soda and cream of tartar in separate papers and combining them when needed. She did not specify any particular type of paper but I would expect that tissue paper would have been too thin and notepaper was a common in the household.

I haven't run across any documentation on how to fold them but I would think that the sides were folded in and the top and bottom were folded to the center and the package may have been tied with a string.

[Anna Worden Bauersmith]

Re: Papers-

Something else you might want to look into along the same lines of flavor are herb packets that were produced by the Shakers if you are in (or from) a location that would have had a Shaker community at that time. Some of the Shakers in Western New York grew and sold herbs commercially along with seeds. There is only a tiny amount of online info here: http://www.gcv.org/attractions/histo...c/Shaker.shtml But there are books out there if you interest.

Anna Worden

[Hank Trent]

Re: Papers-

Here's one way doctors folded papers to hold powdered medicine. I saw some originals like this in a pair of saddlebags in a museum in Columbus, Ohio. The originals were fairly long and narrow, don't have the dimension right in front of me, but I'm thinking about 3/4" wide and several inches long, though any shape can be made this way.

Hope I can explain this well enough.

Take a rectangle of paper and fold it in half (say, bottom to top). Then fold it in thirds the other way (say, left to right). This gives you two double-layer flaps, one on top of each other. Tuck one of the flaps inside the double layer of the other one, to lock them together.

The end result is a pocket, with one layer of paper forming one side, and five layers of paper forming the other. You can then put the powder inside, fold down the top and tie it with string (in an X like a Christmas package, rather than around the top like a cartridge) to hold it folded down to seal it. Or if the original sheet of paper is long and narrow, so the pocket is also long and narrow, you can fold down the top over half way, so the end of the top can be tucked in the bottom of the pocket, self-sealing it.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@Voyager.net