One of the many joys of working as a docent at the Denison Homestead is the privilege of holding up a household object and asking museum guests to guess what it is. This particular object, which normally resides on a shelf in the Colonial Kitchen, is one of the most reliably mystifying to our guests. What would you think it is?
It’s a candle snuffer. But it isn’t meant to put the candle out. According to Merriam-Webster, the word “snuff,” from the Middle English, snoffe, was originally used to refer to the “charred part of the candlewick”; to “snuff” the candle was to trim the wick. Many people today may not even realize it, but our modern wicks, which burn away as the candle burns, are an innovation. For centuries, the wick would remain as the candle burned down, causing the candle to smoke and dim. The snuffer, which is more or less a pair of scissors with a box on one arm and a flat plate on the other, is used to trim off the burned part of the wick and catch this “snuff” in the box, preventing it from flying off and reigniting. This annoying but completely forgotten task was once performed by a significant portion of our ancestors many times a day.
The earliest English settlers in New England rarely used candles at all, because they were short of livestock and lacked animal fat for tallow candles. Instead, they used splint lights or burned fish oil in lamps. Later, after the colonists were more established, candles became more common. Candles were normally made from beef or mutton fat, or a combination; more exotic fats like bear were sometimes used, but fat from pigs was avoided because it smelled terrible. The “chandler” or candlemaker was a respected colonial craftsman, and candles were available to purchase, but in the 17th and 18th centuries farm families like the Denisons often found it more economical to make their own. This task was usually done in the fall, after the animals were butchered. First, a 18th century farm wife like Lucy Denison would have had to make her wicks. They could be as simple as a rush or a strand of flax, or as complicated as twisted linen or cotton thread. The next step was to boil the fat and skim out the impurities. This was repeated several times. Then the candles were formed. Dipped candles were made by hanging wicks over a stick. She would dip the wicks in wax, hang them on a frame or between two chairs to dry, then dip them again and again until they were thick enough to call candles. The farm wife could make candles faster if she had tin or pewter candle molds. In some areas, there were itinerant chandlers who brought their molds and helped the farm wife make her candles; in other places the women of a community would bring their molds and gather together to make candles, like a hot, smelly a quilting bee.
Beeswax candles were available; the colonists imported honeybees, which are not native to the Americas, and raised them in straw skeps.
But beeswax candles were more expensive than tallow and not often used by families like the Denisons. Around 1751, New England manufacturers figured out how to make candles from spermaceti, a waxy substance found in the head of the sperm whale. Spermaceti candles became one of the most prized products of the whaling industry. They burned brightly and cleanly; the light given by a spermaceti candle came to define the unit “candlepower.” But they were also expensive, so however important they may have been to the economy of New England, they were rarely found in ordinary New Englanders’ houses. The colonists also had bayberry candles, made from the waxy, greyish berries of the bayberry shrub, myrica pensylvanica or myrica cerifera. The berries were boiled and skimmed several times to produce a light green, gently fragrant wax. Since it apparently took 4 to 15 pounds of berries to make a pound of candles, they were never a common form of lighting.
Tallow candles were the most common type, and also the worst. Not only did they burn faster and less brightly than beeswax or spermaceti candles, they also smoked, gave off black soot, and smelled exactly like burning animal fat. They were prone to go rancid if not used quickly, and they were tempting to rats. A tin candle keeper like ours was meant to keep them safe. Tallow candles also needed to be snuffed more often than others.
How often? Luckily for us, Benjamin Thompson did some research. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, was a prolific inventor best known for the Rumford stove. He also invented a “photometer” to measure light; in 1789 he used it to measure the light given by a tallow candle. He found that the light was reduced by 84% in 29 minutes after the candle was snuffed. Clearly, these candles needed to be snuffed frequently. Rumford would probably have recommended switching to the new, improved oil lamp he had invented; indeed, over the 19th century more efficient lamps and cheaper commercial oil helped lamps replace candles in many settings, even as gas works expanded and scientists began to discuss electric light.
But candles were improving too. In 1823, the French chemist Michel Chevreul separated tallow into its components, glycerin, stearic acid, and oleic acid, and realized the stearic acid by itself could be used to make much cleaner-burning candles. Around 1820, also in France, the first self-snuffing wicks were used. These were made of braided cotton. The braid made them curl back into the candle flame, so they were burned away. By 1831, manufacturers in France were making self-snuffing “stearine” candles which burned brightly and cleanly for a fraction of the cost of spermaceti candles. And in 1834, Joseph Morgan of Manchester, England invented a machine which could manufacture 1,500 candles an hour. The most efficient farm wife could hardly compete with that.
Sources:
Caroline Davidson. A Woman’s Work is Never Done. London: Chatto and Windus, 1982.
Arthur H. Hayward. Colonial and Early American Lighting. New York: Dover, 1962.
Helen Brigham Hebard. Early Lighting in America. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1964.
Gordon Phillips. Seven Centuries of Light: The Tallow Chandlers Company. Cambridge: Granta, 1999.
The Rushlight Club. Early Lighting: A Pictorial Guide. 1979.
More Information:
You can watch a reenactor at Mt. Vernon make dipped candles on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlVXAx66ee0
Benjamin Thompson, made Count Rumford by the Elector of Bavaria, lived a fascinating life; besides an illustrious scientific career and many inventions, he was a Royalist spy who apparently wrote to General Gage in invisible ink. His birthplace in Woburn is now a museum: http://members.toast.net/willycw/rumford_museum/index.html
You can read about the invisible ink accusations here: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3724&context=jclc