“It will be
held on the Historical Society grounds from 9 a. m. until
6 p.m. on
Saturday, June 18th
and from
10 a.m. until 5
p.m. on Sunday, June 19th.
It is FREE and open to the public.
“Campers will
be demonstrating early camp life of the early 1700’s to the mid-1800’s.
Entertainment typical of the time period will be on the grounds and merchants
and traders will be on hand to sell their sixteenth and seventh century-style
wares. The Historical Society Museum will be open.
“We hope this
can become a yearly event. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
My home phone number is 937-663-5028.”
A Recent
Acquisition
The Urbana United Methodist Church has donated an 1846
“Friendship quilt” to the museum.” The pattern, known as Evening Star or Saw
tooth, contains the handwritten names of many of the early women members. Some
of the familiar names include Frances Mosgrove, Jane Reynolds, Maria Patrick,
Anne Vance, Elizabeth Hitt, Susan Happersett, and Mary Ann Berry.
The CCHS has a web site
now ( www.champaigncountyhistoricalmuseum.Org ). That will include the current
newsletter which will be posted as soon as it is published. We hope to have the
entire museum’s collection on a web site. The program software is PastPerfect.
The Historical museum would like to thank Ms Shelly Foulk for her “webmanship”
and Champaign Telephone’s (CTCN) Mr. Paul Cook and Mr. Brian Strunk for their
continuing help and guidance.
Dick Virts, Curator
-
Historical Tidbits -
Coffee,
anyone ?
By
Barbara E. Sour
The coffee grinders pictured above are on display at
the Champaign County Historical Museum. Also known as coffee mills, they are
typical of the coffee grinders that were manufactured from 1890 until the
mid-1920s. Although large, commercial grinders were available much earlier,
these smaller versions were designed for home owners to grind their own coffee
beans.
By the 16th century, the innovative Ethiopians were roasting the berries,
grinding them, and drinking the concoction we now know as “coffee.” The taste
for coffee spread. Frederick the Great of Prussia is said to have liked his
coffee made with champagne and flavored with a spoonful of mustard. Prince
Talleyrand, a French diplomat and wit, said that an ideal cup of coffee was
“black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, and sweet as love.” In parts
of the Middle East, coffee was so crucial that in some areas, marriage contracts
stipulated that a husband should allow his wife as much coffee as she wanted.
Failure to do so was grounds for a woman to sue for divorce.
Physicians prescribed
coffee as a medicinal drink, using it to treat an astounding variety of ailments
including headaches, kidney stones, gout, smallpox, and measles. One
practitioner, however, did caution that adding milk to coffee “may bring on the
danger of leprosy.”
A Dr. Napheys
wrote: “In hot climates and swampy regions a cup of coffee taken in the early
morn protects from the malarial poison in the atmosphere and fortifies the
system against excessive heat. It is wise to use it but once a day under
ordinary circumstances, and this at the morning meal.”
Coffee did not made an appearance in Japan until the 19th century. Surprisingly,
in a country where green tea had been the national beverage for nearly one
thousand years, the people readily developed a taste for the new beverage. The
Japanese also espoused the somewhat unusual habit of lying nearly submerged in a
bed of roasted coffee beans for it was believed that coffee beans contain
elements beneficial to healthy skin.
Music
lovers may be familiar with the story of Bach’s Coffee Cantata (1734). It
was a satirical operetta which provided an insight into bourgeois attitudes. It
tells of the efforts of a stern father to check his daughter’s propensity for
coffee-drinking by threatening to make her choose between a husband and coffee.
Unperturbed, the daughter sings an aria beginning, “Ah, how sweet coffee tastes
— lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine.”
In America,
coffee found its way into popular songs with phrases such as: “You’re the cream
in my coffee;” “Let’s have another cup of coffee….;” and “I love coffee. I love
tea. I love java jive and it loves me.”
In early America, coffee, like tea, was expensive. To alleviate the limited
supply and the prohibitive cost, people became accustomed to using substitutes.
Well-to-do families made it a point to have real coffee on Sundays but the rest
of the week they, too, used substitutes. A brew made from burnt rye or wheat
soaked in rum was common. Other alternatives for coffee were drinks made from
sweet potatoes, barley, peas, parsnips, dandelion roots, acorns, dry brown bread
crumbs, and the skin of codfish.
By the late
1700s, coffee had found its way to the Western frontier. There is a written
account about William Ward, Sr., the founder of Urbana, Ohio, and his wife,
Margaret, preparing coffee for a guest. The Wards had settled on a farm between
Urbana and Springfield when Moses Henkle, a circuit rider, stopped at their
cabin. Henkle later wrote about the meal that was served. “They only had a one
gallon pot in the house; in this they boiled potatoes, and after they were done,
boiled coffee in the same pot….”
Many people
did not know how to prepare coffee but boiled the whole coffee-beans in water,
ate the beans, and drank the liquid. Only through time and exposure to the
correct method did they learn how to fix an acceptable cup of coffee. Today, the
twenty-first century, coffee remains as popular as ever. Some like it with cream
and sugar; others take it black. Royal B. Hassrick in his book, Cowboys and
Indians, speaks of “black coffee so strong a spoon was sure to float.”
The United
States is said to use approximately one-third of all the coffee grown in the
world. In addition to the full, rich aroma of coffee which adds to the pleasure
of drinking it, scores of Americans, every morning, depend on the caffeine to
wake up and begin their day.
Barbara E. Sour,
Trustee / Editor