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Turner Sister Artist Dolls
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Turner Sisters (African American) wealthy sisters from the Cape Cod
region wrote 4 books on Peddler Dolls and Made the Dolls themselves. The
Turner sisters were members of the Doll Study Club of Boston.
(Not for sale, but for Yesteryear's Museum of Sandwich, Mass.) They are truly one of a
kind with a wonderful history that goes along with them.
Marie Celeste Turner and Grace Briscoe Turner collected
a lot of original fabric of families of Peddlers that was handed down
from generation to generation. The Museum is no longer in business and the
Sisters are gone but we have the dolls and stories to study.
Their books started in 1962 and last one 1973, They have many famous
people in them. Called CRYES OF OLD
LONDON & ITINERANT MERCHANTS OF EARLY AMERICA.
Their dolls are 10 to 12" tall. For the armature or frame they
used pliable copper wire. This they padded to give contour to the figure.
The heads are ceramic, plastic wood, bisque or carved wood. They
copied with as much accuracy as possible the old costumes found in paintings
& prints of those early centuries. The fabrics to make them as authentic
as possible, old materials were gathered from far & near. Many of
their friends contributed hard to find materials from their attics &
ancestral chests. The carts & other pieces of equipment were made
from light-weight wood & cardboard. The horses they bought.
It took many hours as well as time & labor, perseverance & research.
Hope you enjoy. There is only one of each peddler. I bought as
many as I could. These are truly one of a kind.
Most of the items which the
peddlers carry are antique miniatures. When these were unobtainable they
made them.
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Any Locks to Repair or Keys to be Fitted.
Workmen of the Road. He was the locksmith who went well-stocked with
keys to fit any lock. With his files in his hand he trudged slowly
along, ringing his bell and crying "Do you want any Locks Put in
goodly repair, Or any keys fitted To turn true as a hair. These
were peddlers of London.
Item # ADT102 SOLD |
The Turf Seller. So called the man leading his donkey laden
with two panniers filled with turf. Turf or peat was widely
used for fuel in the early days. Composed of partly decayed
vegetable matter principally found in swamps. Tops soil is brought
down making the swamp soil rich in turf. When dried in the air it
becomes a valuable fuel. This was much cheaper than coal. It
was peddled in the streets in the seventeenth & eighteenth
centuries. Costumes were passed down from generation to
generation
Item # ADT103
SOLD |
 
10" - Lamplighter, Peddler of Service, In London before the
advent of the gas lamp in 1807 the streets were lighted by oil-burning
street lamps. These of course required the attention of a lamp
lighter, as indeed, did the gas lamps. The lamp lighter went on the
his route with a wheel-barrow in which he carried a can of oil for
refilling the lamps, cloths for cleaning the chimneys & a short
ladder to enable him to climb the pole to either replace old wicks or
to trim them to prevent smoking. In some small towns it was as late as
1948 before the lamplighter eventually disappeared & electric
lighting was substituted. He usually dressed in dark clothing, tall
hat & high leather boots.
Item # ADT110
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SOLD |
In some of the old records we find mention made of the itinerant woodchopper
and splitter. All he needed in order to carry on his trade was a saw, a
well-sharpened axe and a number of wooden wedges of various sizes to use
when splitting logs into firewood.
These men
could be hired to chop down trees for the busy farmer or householder. They
would saw the tree into logs and then split these up into a convenient size
for fireplace or stove. The wedges made his task much easier.
In the early
days this was the role of the solitary woodsman, but later groups of men
drifted from place to place leveling forests of pine, oak, maple and hemlock
trees. If they were near a river or stream they would bind the logs together
and float them down the streams to a settlement and sell them. The men made
their home in the forest, living on the products of the woods and rivers.
Their
clothing was rough and heavy, suitable to their life in the woods. They wore
knee length breeches of wool, heavy woolen stockings, shirts and sleeveless
vests made of a durable homespun material. High boots of cowhide completed
their costumes.
Item ADT127
SOLD |
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