June 2006 News from Readers

Our “Pieces of the Past” article (April 2006) reminded readers of other examples of historical souvenirs. The president of the Pioneer and Historical Society of Muskingum County (Ohio) wrote that souvenirs were made from the last wooden covered bridge in Zanesville. When the Y-shaped bridge was torn down in 1900, mementos were made from the timbers. They included a walking stick, potato masher, rolling pin, knife, table, carved chair, and meat-cutting block. The next Y-bridge, the fourth, was torn down in 1984. Souvenirs from that bridge, the president said, were limited to bricks, a section of streetcar tracks, and sections of pipe railing, but they make functional paperweights.

A Dallas reader sent a picture of a 4-inch-long piece of Atlantic Telegraph cable. On a band in the center of the cable are the words: “Guaranteed by Tiffany & Co. Broadway N.Y.” We checked. Pieces of the cable were sold in 1858 during laying-of-the-cable celebrations.

A Potomac, Maryland, reader has a painting done on a slate tile once used on a New Orleans roof. Slate roofs were required in the French Quarter after a 1794 fire destroyed hundreds of wooden-shingled buildings. Our reader’s tile appears to be old, but the painting is in a style popular in the 1960s. The history of the tile is typed on a piece of paper attached to the tile’s back.

Our “what’s-it” from March elicited two new suggestions. A Waukesha, Wisconsin, reader thinks it is a carding tool used to straighten wool before it’s spun. A Coventry, Rhode Island, man says it is one of three types of Marcel irons used to straighten hair. He writes: These irons were put on top of a hot wood, coal, or oil stove to keep warm (thus the burnt wooden handle). Long hair would be laid out on an ironing board and the iron tool would be drawn across the hair several times to straighten it out.