For the Foodies

Elizabeth J.J. Brown's cook book (ca. 1860) has come into the lab for repairs. And what a sweet little thing it is, especially the title page:

The Historical Society also owns Martha Washington's Cook Book. Last June we had a Solstice Potluck with staff and interns using the recipes from Mrs. Washington's book. It was quite successful and we've been anticipating the second annual potluck all winter. But perhaps the format will need to change in honor of the Chews the year?

The cookbooks are interesting to compare. Both are written by one writer and were started at both ends. Each has interesting instructions and measurements. For example, Elizabeth has a recipe for Morning Rolls, which calls for "a piece of butter the size of an egg and a 1/2." However, Mrs. Washington's book was clearly written before foods of the new world became part of the diet. There is no mention of tomatoes, potatoes, or squash. Her book is also organized into two sections; one of "cookery" and one of "sweetmeats." Elizabeth's book is full of food from the new world including recipes for catsup of tomatoes and of mushrooms, and references for straining things "as you would for squash." There does not seem to be a logical organization of Elizabeth's book.

Some of the more fun recipes include the "Kisses" above, and the Plumb Gingerbread. Although we have yet to find the plumbs in the gingerbread.

There are interesting recipes for Pickled Walnuts, and sevreal recipes for oysters, (boiled, fried, baked, or as a pie). A few of the eyebrow-raising items include: "Oily Mixture" and one "To Turtle Calves Head."

Along with recipes written down, there are a few dozen given to her by others, hastily written on scraps of paper or cut from the newspaper. She has several for Summer Complaint; this one sounds the yummiest - while others call for Gum Arabic and Laudanum.

And finally, one of the more interesting recipes to compare directly with Mrs. Washington's book is for Tomato Tart.

Without a doubt, the favorite surprise success recipe at last year's potluck was Mrs. Washington's Lettuce Pie. While the recipe sounded easy none of us trusted it to be any good. But Annie put it together it was the hit of the day. I suspect this one could be quite tasty with homegrown tomatoes completely ripened. I also suspect that it could inspire a very nice savory tart as well.

Fashion Tips from the Collection

These photographs from Elizabeth Brown Chew's scrapbook are perfect for a Friday afternoon chuckle. Enjoy!

David Sands Brown and Camden County

I finished processing the David Sands Brown and Company series and found it to be a good example of the entrepreneurial spirit associated with the economic development of the United States, especially if looked at from a micro-history-based point of view. After taking American History classes that only covered the major aspects and events of the United States past, looking at the papers in this part of the Chew collection gave me a new perspective on how just one individual took a neglected town and propelled it to progress through sheer will power and financial savvy.

Between the 1840’s and his death in 1877, David Sands Brown was a determining figure in the development and industrialization of Camden County in New Jersey, particularly Gloucester City. After working at his brother’s firm, he established his own dry goods enterprise and went on to become a successful and influential textile merchant in the South Jersey-Philadelphia area. He also served as Director of Girard Bank from 1840 to 1843 and founded, among others, the Washington Manufacturing, Washington Mills and the Gloucester Manufacturing companies.

According to Jeffery M. Dorwart, author of Camden County, New Jersey: the making of a metropolitan community, 1626-2000, Brown contributed to the development of urban neighborhoods through two other corporations he initiated: Gloucester Land Company (which provided housing to workers employed at his factories), and the Gloucester Saving Fund and Building Association that assisted workers in buying their own houses. He also bought Gloucester Iron Works and played a key role in planning and building the Camden, Gloucester, and Mt. Ephraim Railroad.

The papers that I processed are rich in details and descriptions of the daily operations of Brown’s enterprises and show different aspects of the development of Gloucester City. They are also rich in their variety. Besides business correspondence, accounts, financial reports and deeds, this part of the Chew collection features fabric samples, maps, broadsides and business cards, and even printed texts of songs about his companies. These songs are interesting in that they show a differing perspective on David Sands Brown so-called good business intentions. There is also a large group of maps, blueprints, and ground plans offering a visual description of the industrial and urban development of Camden County.

In these papers we can also see a chronicle of David Sands Brown relationship with the Chew family. His daughter Mary Johnson Brown married Samuel Chew (1832-1887), who became Brown’s business associate and treasurer and took charge of his estate after his death in 1877. Papers that document both the personal and professional relationships of the Chews and the Browns can be reviewed in Series X-Samuel Chew (1832-1887), Series XI-Brown and Johnson Families, and the papers pertaining to Mary Johnson Brown in Series XVI-Cliveden.

Papers related to all the companies Brown established can be found in this series of the Chew Family Papers and in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s Manuscript Collection 1586, David S. Brown & Co. Records, 1828-1910.

Greenwich Island Meadows surveys

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on the papers of the Brown and Johnson families that are included in the Chew Papers. Mary Johnson Brown Chew's family and ancestors owned large sections of what is now the First Ward of Philadelphia, Southwark, Passyunk, the Navy Yard, and Tinicum. David Sands Brown, among others, developed land along the Delaware River to accommodate his growing manufacturing businesses, which were headquartered in Gloucester City, New Jersey.


This survey shows William Jones' Meadow, which is part
of Greenwich Island (Surveyed by John Lukens, 1770)

This land passed down through the Johnson family from William Jones (a grazier in Kingsessing Township) to his daughters Mary (Morris, Pancoast) and Elizabeth (Garrett), then to Martha Morris, who married Joseph Johnson, a ship chandler. Johnson ran a booming business from his wharves in South Philadelphia during the late-18th century into the mid-19th century, and his descendants further developed the land as industrialization allowed for more manufactured goods to be moved from place to place. (Stay tuned for an upcoming post on the companies associated with David Sands Brown and the development of Gloucester City.)

As I was sorting through the various deeds that make up a large portion of the material in this series, I was trying to create a mental image of how all of these plots of land fit together. One day, I found a series of maps and surveys that helped me to create a picture of the area the deeds described, and I realized how vastly different the land is today. Aside from the Tinicum Wildlife Refuge, this land has given way to industrial development. Here are a few representations of William Jones' meadows as they were in the mid-1700s.


The first survey was done by John Lukens in 1768.
The second is the original survey done by Nicholas Scull in 1759.

Last night, as I was returning from the New England Archivists' Conference, my flight passed over the area that these surveys portray. I looked out the window and imagined what these waterways and marsh lands would look like without the grid of roads, parking lots, and buildings. I tried to conjure the land as the Swedes found it, before they drained marsh land for grazing. I perform these kind of thought experiments a lot as I sift through documents that shift my relationship to the land that I walk on every day, navigating the grid of Philadelphia's streets, or hanging in the air above this place that is at once so familiar, and so surprisingly new.


This lithographic plan shows the emergence of the South Philadelphia
that we know today. This "Plan of proposed Wharves & Docks with
Railroad Connections in the First Ward" was made for Titus S. Emery
by L.N. Rosenthal's Lithographic shop in 1867.

Conserving the Chew Papers: Mold Removal

This is the third in a series of blog posts devoted to the conservation being performed on the documents, books and manuscript materials in the Chew Family Papers Collection. See the first post on enclosures, here, and the second on paper conservation, here.



From the basement to the attic to the stables, most of the Chew Family Papers were stored for many years in unstable environments. As a result, portions of the collection arrived to the Historical Society with significant amounts of mold. In order for the material to be processed (remember this post from May 2007?), these documents had to be treated by our mold technicians.



HSP has a designated mold removal facility with its own ventilation and air filtration system. The technicians wear Tyvek suits, nitrile gloves and respirator masks. Mold removal entails vacuuming with a HEPA-filtered vacuum and wiping book covers with alcohol.

Preservation Technicians Anni Altshuler and Watsuki Harrington vacuuming moldy documents.

For the safety of researchers, items that have been cleaned for mold are clearly labeled, as seen in the image at the top of this post.

Whitehall Plantation

The records pertaining to Whitehall, a plantation the Chews owned in Kent County, Delaware, have garnered significant attention because of the detailed records the Chew family kept about the operation of the farm and the treatment of the slaves who worked there. Though there are deeds indicating that Benjamin Chew took ownership over this property in the 1760s, the majority of records that document the plantation's operation date from the period of 1780-1803, when Benjamin Chew sold the property.

This survey illustrates the plantation's layout over the 918 acres that it occupied. Some of the details provided include the locations of tobacco houses and "negroe quarters." The plantation's location was ideal for transporting crops by boat, as it was situated along Duck Creek, which offered access to the Atlantic Ocean. This land is now designated as the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

The papers in this series of the collection are rich with details about farming and animal husbandry, and offer an in-depth view of how the Chew family managed the plantation and the overseers and slaves who produced salable goods there. Benjamin Chew employed several overseers for Whitehall over the course of its operation. George Ford was overseer from approximately 1789-1797, and Joseph Porter succeeded him from 1798-1803. Their letters provide extensive information about life on the plantation--from the impact of weather upon the crops to the birthing and slaughter of animals on the farm. They discuss the slaves, who they often refer to as simply "the people", and their need of clothing and sustenance. Benjamin Chew appears to be pretty hands-off in terms of the day to day workings of Whitehall, and there are some letters that suggest that he may have been neglectful of his workers. George Ford often writes asking for supplies. In one letter, he pleads with Benjamin Chew to send linen for the slaves' clothes, as "the Boys are so naked I Cant git much work out of them..." [April 26 1795].

In another letter, Ford writes that he would have sent Chew another letter, except that he was "down the Creek after Mr Samuel Chew negors that runway from him..." [August 26 1796]. He also updates Benjamin Chew about the state of the stock at Whitehall: "the wheat that was left in the Barn I Sould for two dollars a bus marsh hay we have got about 30 stacks the sesson has been very much a gainst us or we Cold have got more our Corn is very good the back birds has bin very bad on it...."

There are letters in which Ford pleads with Benjamin Chew to come to the plantation to punish various slaves who attacked him, but equally interesting, in my opinion, are the letters that report that not much is getting done because the slaves are sick, lazy, indolent, or are receiving visitors. In a letter from August 3, 1797, Ford writes of his frustration that "the people are so slow and indlent about ther work that I have no comfort with them and some of them are solate home from ther wifes that they lose two ours time in the morning and that three or four times a weak and as for the women they are not worth ther vitles for what work they do. . . Rachel is hear amust every night in the weak and her husban which is free and bears avery bad name...."

These letters shed light on the practice of slavery, which was far more complicated than popular conceptions suggest. There were relationships between free blacks and slaves, and some of the account records describe agreements and negotiations between the Chews and free blacks who purchased the freedom of their family members.

There have been moments during the processing of this collection when I have thrown up my hands in frustration and asked "why did they have to save every scrap of paper?!", but when I look through the materials related to Whitehall, I am grateful that the Chew family preserved their history so religiously. These documents are a gift to our understanding of our past, and I am quite certain that the richness in these boxes will move people in many ways--intellectually, and emotionally. I'll leave off with just one more striking image that made the lists of slaves at Whitehall come alive for me. These two documents are measurements for the slaves' shoes, which illustrate the size of each person's foot with hash marks along a line.

Conserving the Chew Papers: Paper Conservation

This is the second in a series of blog posts devoted to the conservation being performed on the documents, books and manuscript materials in the Chew Family Papers Collection. See the first post, on enclosures, here.



From large manuscript maps to tiny scraps of note papers, there is a wide range of documents in the Chew Family Papers and a variety of conservation procedures for these papers.


One of the least invasive conservation methods for paper is dry cleaning or surface cleaning. Removing the dirt and dust off a document not only improves the appearance of the document, it keeps the hands of researchers clean. Eraser bits and vulcanized rubber sponges are the two products that are used to clean documents at HSP. Extreme care and patience is needed for this process due to the fragility of paper. Attention must be paid to any pencil markings or writing on documents so they are not removed.

The vulcanized rubber sponge is used to clean the linen backing of a manuscript map.


Paper documents are best stored flat. In the Chew collection, many items have been folded or rolled requiring humidification and flattening. Over time, fibers in paper can become stiff and brittle. Humidification helps the fibers in paper to relax. When a folded, crumpled, wrinkled, or rolled document is humidified, it can then be opened with ease and without damage to the paper.

The document is placed in a humidification chamber. The document is then unfolded or unrolled, placed between blotter papers and pellon, and put under weight.


A document is washed to de-acidify and clean the paper. Washing also reconditions the fibers making the paper pliable and malleable. Prior to washing a document, it is necessary to test to see if the ink is water soluble. The document is placed in a bath of deionized water. After twenty minutes, it is carefully removed and placed between blotters and pellons to dry.



Once papers have been cleaning, humidified and/or washed, they are ready for paper mending. HSP only uses wheat paste and Japanese papers for mending. Often the Japanese papers are dyed to match the color of the document using high quality acrylic paints. A thin coating of wheat paste is applied to a strip of Japanese paper. The glued-out strip is carefully placed on the tear, burnished into place and put under weight to dry flat.


Before and during mending. The excess Japanese paper will be trimmed.