For Every Meat There is a Turn

QUESTION: I love old mechanical things. Recently while rooting through a box of old junk at a monthly flea market, I came across an unusual item. It looks like a round can from which protrudes a cylinder. On the end of the cylinder is an odd-shaped ring and in the side of the can is a hole with a place to insert a key. Can you tell me what this is and something about it, if that’s possible?

ANSWER: It looks like you’ve found an antique spitjack. However, some of its parts are missing.

Today, you can go to any supermarket and purchase a fully roasted rotisserie chicken or turkey breast. But back in the 18th century, that wasn’t possible. All meats had to be slow roasted on a long pole called a spit over the fire in a huge, walk-in kitchen fireplace. And to do that evenly, it took man or woman power. Wives, children, servants, or slaves had to stand by the fire and slowly turn the meat until it was done. This had to be one of the most boring jobs in the 18th and early 19th centuries, so no one enjoyed doing it.

Roasting meat on a spit dates as far back as the first century B.C.E. During Tudor times, someone even came up with an ingenious way to have a dog provide the power to turn the spit—the dog ran in a treadmill linked to the spit by belts and pulleys. But it wasn’t until the 18th century that things got a little easier for cooks. It was then that the weight or clock jack came into being.

Descending stone, iron, or lead weights powered most of the spit-turning mechanisms, or more commonly spitjacks, used by Colonials and their British counterparts. In England, cooks referred to them as weight jacks, but in America, they came to be known as clock jacks because they used a clockwork mechanism to wind a spring used to turn the spit.

Earlier jacks of this type had a train of two arbors or spindles. Later ones had a more efficient train with three arbors. Those made and used in England had a governor or flywheel set above the engine as opposed to being located within the frame and to one side—to the right for a two train works and to the left for one with three trains. These weight jacks also contained a flywheel within the frame, usually at the
in a bell-like arch at the highest part of the frame.

In 1792, John Bailey II, an American clockmaker, patented the first steam-driven jack. However, the Turks used a mechanism similar to Bailey’s jack back in the mid-16th century.

Another type of roasting jack, the smoke jack, appeared in the early 17th century. This jack moved by the flow of the smoke from the fire over the sails of a horizontal wheel which lay sideways. By placing the wheel in the narrowest part of the chimney where the motion of the smoke was the fastest and where the greatest amount would strike the sails, the mechanism would slowly turn the spit, thus roasting the meat. But this type of jack had its downside since the speed of the jack depended on the draught of the chimney and the quantity and strength of the fire in the fireplace.

The type of jack you purchased is called a bottle jack because of its bottle-shaped hydraulic lifting device. A brass shell contains the clockwork motor. Introduced in the late 18th century, it replaced the earlier and simpler dangle spit. When the cook set the weights, the spit turned, eliminating the need for manual labor for approximately 30 minutes, after which the cook would have had to readjust the weights. Bottle jacks continued to be made and used until the early 20th century.

If your jack had all of its parts and was in better condition, it would sell for around $400.

A Victorian Necessity

QUESTION: I have several old cast-iron doorstops that I’ve picked up here and there over the years. I wouldn’t go so far as say that I have a collection, but I have maybe a half dozen. Can you tell me anything about these doorstops?

ANSWER: Your doorstops are most likely from the late 19th century or the early 20th. The British made what they called “door porters,” after door attendants, around 1770, after the invention of the butt-hinged door, which closed automatically. To prevent the door from closing by itself, people began to prop heavy items in front of it, thus the name “doorstop.”

Makers of early doorstops made them not of cast iron but of molded earthenware and fitted with an upright rod, or handle, about 18 inches long, which eliminated the need for bending down to move the stop from place to place. In succeeding years, doorstops might be fashioned from earthenware, wood, marble, or glass—several New England glass companies created glass doorstops shaped like turtles  during the 19th century. All were heavy enough or sufficiently weighted to work well.

However, makers created doorstops mainly from bronze, brass, and iron. Brass ones—usually with a weighted base—often resembled a solid bell sliced in half and fitted with a long handle. Around 1810, handles generally disappeared from doorstops. Newer, knobbier shapes—some with built-in handles that permitted easy grasping came into vogue. Yet the Victorian brass doorstops with rod-like handles can still be found today.

The early 1800s heralded brass doorstops in a broad variety of classical and traditional designs. A bit later—in response to improved techniques in the casting of iron—a long and fanciful parade of cast-iron doorstops began their prolonged march from English iron factories. Some were full figured while others were flat backed and similar to the popular Staffordshire-pottery images of cottages and animals that captivated English hearts during the 1800s. Figures of Punch and Judy, Shakespearean characters, and such historical persons as Benjamin Disraeli and the Duke of Wellington emerged.

Though iron became an building material, cast-iron doorstops didn’t appear until after the Civil War. These doorstops varied greatly in size. A frog-shaped doorstop might measure little more than three inches high while a cat might be as tall as 19 inches. Others ranged from 6 to10 inches high. Those issued from the 1850s until about 1900 were heavier than later ones, as they appeared when brass and iron were less costly and more freely used.

The majority of metal doorstops found nowadays at antiques shows and shops originated during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and their design is often the key to determining their vintage. A figure of a Scottie dog, for instance, points to the 1920s and 1930s, when this breed of dog was popular and appeared on everything from jewelry to playing cards. Similarly, a painted, stylized vase of bright-blooming flowers corresponds to the 1920s–30s Art Deco period.

Thayer & Chandler of Chicago, maker of artists' supplies, and Hubley, a toy-maker, both issued doorstops. In the early 1900s, Thayer & Chandler helped popularize the baskets or vases of flowers that collectors now favor.

During the past 10 years, prices of doorstops have risen markedly. It's not uncommon to find an unusual or rare figural—two kittens in colorful painted attire or an American Indian—selling for hundreds of dollars. However, an aware buyer can find antique doorstops for under $100—some for even as little as $50. Most sell in the $75-90 range. Rare ones can go for as high as $300. It’s important to look for old doorstops that still have a amount of their original paint since repainting decreases the value of an old piece.

Many collectors acquire doorstops to those with a specific motif, such as those with a nautical flavor—lighthouses, clipper ships, mariners---or others with a Western theme---Indians, cowboys, stagecoaches. There are also collectors who seek monkeys, ducks, clowns, gnomes, and so on.