Can Christmas past be our Christmas “present?”

By Jack Etzel

A local historian’s expertise about an earlier time

Lib Hunter

A director and former chairwoman of the Hampton Historical Commission, Lib Hunter, is the person we sought to tell us how the early pioneers in the later part of the 1700s celebrated Christmas. (She and fellow historian, Debbie Rassau, recently co-authored a 328-page hardback book titled Historic Hampton Township.)

At Hampton’s Depreciation Lands Museum, she informs and entertains visitors of all ages with the stories of life just after the nation’s birth. The museum on Pioneer Road, just off of Route 8, contains a preserved church with a cemetery, a blacksmith shop, a wagon house holding a Conestoga wagon and tools, and much more. The museum is closed during the winter months, open April through November, but features a Holiday Open House, Sunday December 10th from 1 to 5 p.m. From Hunter’s perspective, we wanted to hear about Christmas past.

North Hills Monthly Magazine: Lib, how would a family celebrate Christmas several centuries ago?
Lib Hunter: They didn’t do much decorating for Christmas like we do today. They’d just go outside and cut down a Christmas tree. They would also bring in greens, and make garlands from the greens. They would use a variety of berries, but especially holly berries that might be fastened to the garlands. As for other decorations, it was a matter of making them themselves.

NHMM: What would they make?
Hunter: They made all kinds of things using pinecones, acorns, and whatever berries they could find. Later on, stringing popcorn and cranberries became a popular decoration. The earliest settlers used candles on their trees, which was very dangerous, but that was the only light that they had to use.

NHMM: Before we go any further, what time period are we talking about here?
Hunter: Shortly after the Revolutionary War. It would be the 1790s until the early part of the 1800s.

NHMM: In those times, gifts must have been hard to come by, given no stores and no malls.
Hunter: Yes. In the 1700s, the gifts that people gave were nearly always handmade. They were gifts that, for example, the father would make out of wood. At the museum we have a program called Pioneer Christmas, and our young visitors can play with some of the wooden toys like the ones that the children back then played with, and they just love them. There was a toy that was a button on a string. You take a long string and a large button, and there’s a way to make a buzzing sound when you pull on the string. And, there was a stick with a propeller on the end, and there were notches on the stick. You would rub another stick over those notches and the propeller would turn. They had another one that they called “stick dice.” One side was painted red, and the other side was painted white. There were three of them, and you threw them. If the red side was up you got one point, and you got two points if it ended up white.

NHMM: These took a lot of parental imagination.
Hunter: Oh, yes. They had another game that they called the “peach pit gambling game.” You took a peach pit and painted it white on one side and left the other half natural. You put the pit in a little bowl, predict which color would come up, and then dump it out on the floor.

NHMM: You’re on a roll. You have more?
Hunter: Oh, I could go on and on. They made little dolls for Christmas out of dried corncobs. They used scrapes of cloth and dressed up the corncob in a little dress. If they could find anything to mark it with they would make a face, and then they would tie a small scrap of cloth around the head to make a little headscarf.

NHMM: In those times it would have been hard to just survive. This part of the country was considered “way out west.”
Hunter: It certainly was. But, if you farm you can do that just about anywhere. It was mostly woods. They would cut down the trees to build their houses, and then warm their homes with firewood. It was necessary to clear the land of trees, so that they could create a farm to produce their own food. Occasionally, a peddler would come by and would have things to sell that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. A lot of times, that might be some kind of cookware, or something else very practical like cloth. But since we’re talking about Christmas time, there was one special thing that everyone in the family would probably agree was the most precious gift they could get.

NHMM: I can’t wait to hear about it. Every good interview needs a happy ending.
Hunter: Not only was it a favorite present, but it was very rare. An orange!

NHMM: An orange?
Hunter: It was a lot harder to get an orange this far north back then, and it was so special that they would wrap it with calico cloth and tie a ribbon at the top. That was a rare gift.

NOTE: Remember the Depreciation Lands Museum
Holiday Open House, Sunday December 10th from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, contact 412-486-0563.