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Archiver > VERMONT > 1999-05 > 0926747479


From: "Jackie M. Botala" <>
Subject: [VERMONT-L] more old papers...
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 22:51:19 -0700


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Tin Peddlers

Tin peddlers, a familiar sight on country roads, carried all
sorts of tin ware in their horse drawn vehicle, often taking old
rags in payment. The rags were eventually made into paper
and the thriftly housewife saved every scrap, both cotton or
woolen. Prices varied from a cent and a half to two cents
a pound.
The peddlars carts were simular to a stage coach and
about as large. Brooms and mopsticks made a hedge along
the back. The interior was devided into two or more com-
partments filled with every kind of tinware, pans, pails, basins,
dippers, dinner horns, graters, tin bumblers for children, tin
plates with the alphabet in raised letters around the rim.
They also carried glassware.

(Contributed by Ella Covey, Underhill)
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"Jim Crow"

The peddler that is most vivid in my mind, as a very small
child, was Jim Crow, tall and thin, an Uncle Sam type of man.
He came to our house about twice a year.
I can see just how his cart looked as he came up through
the cedar-hedge and up the drive to our door. It was a very
high closed in cart, painted red and yellow trimmed. If the
weather was fair, pots, pans, household knives, farming tools
and a row of whips would be hanging on the sides. Some
of them rattling as the cart went over the rough road.
Jim Crow was known as a tin peddler and exchanged
his ware for old rags and newspapers.
Jim often stayed overnight at our house and paid for his
lodgings with tinware.
I remember that he once gave me a whip which I consid-
ered beautiful and kept until I left home for college.
The last time Jim Crow came to our house I was about
eight years old. What became of hime I never knew.

(Contributed by Evalena Osborne, Ferrisburg)

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