A Virginia hogshead after 1705 was 4 8 inches high and 30 inches at its
widest diameter. When first introduced it rarely was prized to more than
800 pounds of tobacco, but by the Revolution the 1200-1300 pound range was
quite common. The increase was achieved by the more rigorous compression
(prizing) of the tobacco. Obviously the moisture content of the tobacco was
critical, as was the rate at which the compression weight was added. If you
did it to fast, you simply turned the tobacco to pulp as the juices were
latterly squeezed out of the leaves.
As for handling, an experienced laborer (usually a slave in Virginia) could
easily roll the hogshead up and down ramps, onto ships and into wagons --
though most often the hogshead was actually rolled overland in the tow of a
horse. Illustrations of this appear in Tatam's book on tobacco cultivation
-- (published around 1800, but reprint in the 1960s or there about under the
editorship of Herndon).
I have actually rolled a number of hogsheads when I worked at Colonial
Williamsburg, and found them very maneuverable. Of course I was working
with empty hogsheads, but even so, I'll stand by their inherent
maneuverability!
-----Original Message-----
From: Ronald L. Whitaker [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, 28 January 2002 1:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: early 19th C. packing crates
Peter. That gives me a much better understanding of those measurements.
And
thanks for the additional references. The hogshead measure of 1300 lbs
sounds
like a mighty challenge for man to load and beast to haul given the status
of
roads during that period. Would it have been typical to load into smaller
units for land transport and then transfer to larger storage to lade onto
ships? Ron
Peter Bergstrom wrote:
> A tierce is one/third of a hogshead, while a barrel is typically half a
> hogshead. Two hogsheads make a tun.
>
> But unfortunately it's not quite that simple. Traditionally a tun
contained
> a ton of wine -- that is the liquid measure and the weight measure were
> supposed to be the same for a tun of wine, but they rarely were in
reality.
>
> Likewise a hogshead of tobacco started out at about 500 pounds in the
1630s.
> At that time four hogsheads were rated as a ton of freight -- which was
just
> about right. But over time the size of the hogshead was increased and the
> amount of tobacco prized (that's tobacco speak for squeezed) into it
> increased so that by the Revolution a typical hogshead weighed nearly 1300
> pounds.
>
> While we're on the subject of confusing measures, the weight of the
> container -- referred to as the tare -- also varied from barrel to barrel
> and hogshead to hogshead. So in practice you always needed to know both
the
> gross weight and the net weight of a container and its content to be sure
of
> what you were paying for goods and what you paid for packaging.
>
> As I recall a barrel of flour was supposed to be 31.5 gallons, but
somebody
> will need to double check that before they rely upon my memory.
>
> Besides the OED, I'd recommend two books on mensuration by Ronald E.
Zupco.
> I forget the exact titles, but its something like _The Handbook of
Medieval
> Metrology_ or maybe _Dictionary of Medieval Metrology_. The other is
> something like _A Dictionary of English Weights and Measures_.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ronald L. Whitaker [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Saturday, 26 January 2002 4:19 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: early 19th C. packing crates
>
> Peter identified such containers as tierce, barrel, hogshead and tun.
Would
> a
> typical storage reference been in wet or dry measure and what would have
> been
> the relative capacity of each of those containers mentioned?
>
> Ron
>
> Joe Mosier wrote:
>
> > As Peter Bergstrom says barrels of various sizes were the norm. In fact
> > they were normative enough that goods packed in another fashion were so
> > labeled in newspaper ads. The Norfolk Herald regularly listed cargos in
> > their shipping news section. Dry goods from Europe would usually be
> > indicated in a listing that might read: "ship Paragon, Dickson, 52 days
> from
> > Liverpool, salt & crates, Wm. Pennock"
> >
> > Joe Mosier
> > Library Archivist
> > Chrysler Museum
> > Norfolk, Virginia
> >
> > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
instructions
> > at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
> --
>
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>
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