September 2006 News from Readers

Here are two more responses from readers who want to add to our list of “Pieces of the Past” (see our April 2006 and later newsletters):

From a reader in Erie, Pennsylvania: My grandmother’s zither table is made with oak from Captain Oliver Hazard Perry’s ship Niagara. The inlaid table was built by my grandfather, who left a note listing the woods he used. The oak was from the brig Niagara, Perry’s second and smaller flagship, which he commanded during the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. The ship was scuttled in Lake Erie in 1820, then raised and rebuilt in 1913. Local residents took some of the wood. We guess, like Captain James Lawrence, they cried “Don’t give up the ship.”

From a reader in North Windham, Conn.: I have three recycled artifacts made from something historic. One is a piece of wood with a nailed label that says, “From the Yew Tree, Stoke Poges Church.” Supposedly Thomas Gray sat under the tree in 1751 and wrote his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” The second is a piece of wood with a paper note saying, “Section from the old ship Constitution (1812).” The third is a piece of stone from the Washington Monument with a hand-painted picture of Mt. Vernon on the front. My grandmother probably got it in Washington, D.C., in the 1920s or ’30s.” We hope it was from scrap left when the monument was finished in 1884 or from a later repair.

A subscriber in Bay Village, Ohio responded to our comments about 1950s cashmere sweaters (March and May 2006): I had to write and share the label on mine. I purchased a pink cardigan at Altman’s in New York for my honeymoon (in the early ’50s). They didn’t cost as much in those days. My mother got one for herself, too. Hers, unlike mine, is still wearable. The label says, “Made in Scotland by Lyle & Scott-100% pure cashmere.” I plan to wear it this coming season.