Jas. Townsend and Son Website Newsletter

Men’s Shoe Buckles Plain Brass CS-926 $50.00		Harvester’s Basket S-3401 $45.00

New Video Clips http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O68bv_EwIg
We have a lot of fun here at JTS and sometimes we like to let you in on some of it. We did a small behind the scenes video that you might be interested in. We wanted to give you the most authentic experience so we did not clean up a thing, be careful don’t trip over anything while you watch.

We have also recently added a video describing the installation of shoe buckles that you can view directly on the shoe buckle page.

If you have any ideas for a video that you would really like to see, please feel free to tell us using the contact us page.

Featured Product

The Humble Miserable Basket

So unobtrusive and humble…seldom drawing attention to itself…and yet examples were everywhere, in nearly every home and shop; tucked away in corners and under tables…carrying the hawker’s wares and storing raw goods. Have you ever tried carrying a dozen eggs at a time with your bare hands? Today we have cartons and cardboard, used grocery bags, plastic crates, and old shoe boxes. But in the 18th century, the lowly tasks of storing, carrying, rinsing, sorting, and so forth were often delegated to the humble basket.

A leisurely perusal through the “Diderot Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry” reveals the prevalence of baskets in 18th century life. Baskets were cheap to make, using readily available and renewable resources like willow, ash, grass, and reed. And the basket maker, according to Diderot’s, was a humble miserable folk, worse off than the barrel maker; working (and probably living) in a dark, damp cellar, where his even more miserable employees “adapted basketwork to a far greater variety of uses than it has today.”

The glassmaker used baskets to gather scrap glass as well as to hawk his wares. The cloth maker used baskets to wash and dry wool. The papermaker sorted and stored old rags. Study the Diderot woodprints for yourself and you’ll find baskets in the shops of button makers, bakers, patisseries, confectioners, starch makers, cork makers, candle makers, horn workers, threshers, silk processors, tobacco growers, cotton farmers, fish packers, gunpowder makers, farriers, and coin makers.

Baskets were a part of everyday life. They were efficient, convenient, strong, and lightweight. And they were common…very common, both in prevalence and in appearance.

Jas. Townsend & Son has recently expanded our basket line. Our sturdy pack baskets will turn any poor soul into a beast of heavy burden. Our potato baskets are great for carrying and storing stuffs of both the spud and non-spud varieties. And our pottle baskets are our take on the 18th century grocery tote.

Our Harvester’s Basket can be conveniently worn like a satchel or side pack. They are designed after an early example that was originally made for harvesting fruits and vegetables. But you don’t have to be a husbandman to appreciate their handiness.

All of our baskets are made with natural reed, and they’re handcrafted by our basket makers right here in Indiana (such humble miserable folk!). Keep an eye on our basket line as we continue to explore the basket’s unobtrusive role in 18th century life.

Jas. Townsend and Son Website Newsletter

Calendar - Catendar - Calalog? $0.00	Redware Pipkin $55.00	Sale! Cotton Canvas Haversack S-4010 $7.75

Special Haversack Sale

Everyone needs a haversack.

New Product - Redware Pipkin

Check out our new little cooking pot.

Errata - Regimental Coat

Our regimental coat featured in our last newsletter is still a bit of work in progress. We have been informed that as it stands it is more of a mid-war style not early lottery style. As usual, if you belong to an organization or unit please check with them about appropriateness before purchasing.

Calendar Creation

Horsing around and showing our cards

We’ve received a tremendous amount of feedback from our customers regarding the 2009 calendar we mailed out last November. We wish to thank all of you who have responded. Our desire was to take our annual holiday flyer and try to give something back…a gesture of friendship, a trifle of information, a resource, and maybe a laugh or two. We hope you’ve enjoyed it even a fraction as much as we enjoyed putting it together. If you haven’t receive one of our calendars, and if you’re willing to pay for the postage stamp, we’ll be happy to send you one…or better yet, ask for one with your next order and we’ll toss one in the box for free.

Conventional wisdom says a good magician never reveals his secrets, right? I say, why not! After all, I believe one’s appreciation for how an illusion is executed can equal one’s appreciation for the trick’s overall effect. Having said this, I’d like to invite you to peer behind the scenes, or should I say, through the camera’s lens to see some of what went into the making of the comical images of our calendar. Things aren’t always as they appear.

All of the people in our catalog are either family members, employees, or friends. Take, for instance, the three fellows in January’s picture. That’s Jon Townsend on the left; Jon’s son-in-law, Jonathan, on the right; and Josh in the middle. Josh works here at JTS in our workshop. If he’s not finishing buttons and coins, making pipes, bagging pitch, crafting leather belts, assembling tomahawks, or making letter sealing stamps, he’s either unloading a thousand pounds of clay from a semi out back, moving heavy rolls of woolen fabric, or running the mail down the street to the post office. Honestly, we’d be lost without Josh because of all he does, but don’t tell him that. In the twelve monthly images in the calendar, you’ll find him eight times. The look of pain, by the way, in January’s photo, is genuine.

Flip ahead a couple of months and you see Josh again, along with his identical twin brother, Josh (thanks to the marvels of digital manipulation!) Together they make up the band of snow-white pirates, sneaking up on the sailor who’s three sheets to the wind (played by Dave, who owns the little coffee shop around the corner). This shot was taken at a park on one of the small lakes nearby. We created the endless horizon by simply digitally eliminating the tree line.

Sometimes the changes are subtle, but nonetheless important for the over-all effect. Take, for instance, the four cheaters in November’s image: originally, Jon (back to the camera) was holding an Ace of Hearts, while Jonathan (to the right) was holding a three of clubs.

And sometimes photo manipulation is necessary because the envisioned shot is simply impractical or even impossible to capture. Case in point, in May’s image, we knew exactly what we wanted: a neighborly conversation between two industrious women being rudely interrupted by a boy, a dog, a chicken, and a goat. But how could we possibly coordinate the shot?! Well, we started by posing Sonia, our inventory specialist, with the broom, and Julie, our head seamstress, at the spinning wheel. “Click” (that was the sound of the camera). Then we asked our friend, Elijah, to jump off the porch. “Click.” Then our professional animal handler (who was removed from the photo) nudged our tethered chicken. “Click.” By the way, it was tethered because we had just spent an hour chasing the crazy bird all over the fairgrounds. Then it was Butch the dog’s turn. “Click.” And finally, the goat…the stiff-legged goat that we ended up having to drag off the porch. We found out it was part fainting goat which explained why it stiffened up the way it did when it became excited (if you don’t know what a fainting goat is, follow this link for the full effect: Goats

But the tour de force was April’s image, “Horses in the Camp.” It is a compilation of 22 separate images. Josh is there three times. Jon, Jonathan, Cydney, and Shannon are all there twice. Dicken the pony, and Shadow the white horse, each make two appearances, while Skye bucks through the shot only once. This split-second image of chaos actually took a full day to pull off. Like I said, things aren’t always as they appear.
If you’d like to see how this image was constructed, watch this short video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hrl6xpy9L0

While we try hard to be historically accurate in what we do (and we willingly admit to the occasional mistake), I truly believe it’s important that we enjoy ourselves along the way. We hope the same for you.