The Case of the Spurious Saltbox

Duncan Virostko, Museum Assistant

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.” ~ William Shakesphere, Midsummers’ Night Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

Keen-eyed visitors to Dunham Tavern today, glancing at the wall flanking the great open hearth in the Keeping Room, will spot a small wooden box hanging from the wall bearing the inscription “1756.” A docent might explain that the box was used for storing precious salt, a preservative and seasoning that was essential to early 19th century cooking. A more in depth tour of the museum would reveal this to be the object with the earliest date on it.

Saltbox, Dunham Tavern Museum, Keeping Room

Saltbox Inscriptions: “1756” & “I H”

But is it really that old? Any object with such an early date naturally invites closer examination. So I decided to take a closer look at the enigmatic box to confirm its antiquity, and learn more about its provenance. 

That led me on a deep dive into the acquisition records of Dunham Tavern, early woodworking practices, and the antique trade of the 1940s… and the startling revelation that the box is not what it appears to be.

Details of saltbox joint, showing large rose head nails and smaller square nails.

A close examination of the box reveals several interesting features. The lid is hinged with leather, which has been no doubt replaced many times. Meanwhile, the joints of the box are held together with nails. Several of these are the “rose nail” head type commonly associated with the 18th century, and are clearly hand forged. They are large, and crude, suggesting they are of great age. The remaining nails are, in contrast, small square nails more typical of the 19th century.

Besides the inscription “1756” on the body of the box, there is another hand carved marking “IH” on the interior of the wood. This could be a maker's mark, or the remnant of the Christogram “IHS”. 

But looks are deceiving. Consulting with both our records and other experts and collectors of early Americana, this box is almost certainly not from 1756.

An 18th Century Saltbox, with wood jointed corners visible. (Bohams.com)

There are many criteria for determining the age of such an artifact, the first of which are details of their construction. In the 18th, and early 19th century, wood joinery was the primary way of fastening things together in woodworking. A good example of this is the illustrated 18th century saltbox, recently auctioned, which shows wood joints at its corners. These interlocking joints called dovetails, and hide based glue, helped to hold the box together. Such work would have required skilled joiners to execute, but such people were common in that period. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, however, wood joinery fell out of favor. So a new solution for the more hurried and less skilled woodworker arose: using metal nails to act as joints. This kind of construction was more common around the 1850s, not the 1750s!

Scandinavian Corner Cabinet, 1762, Dunham Tavern Museum, Library

Interior of Door, showing inscription: “1762 FIS”.

A comparison with the corner cabinet in Dunham’s Library, made in Scandinavia in 1763, shows another inconsistency. While rose nails were commonly used in the 18th century, the rose nails used by skilled furniture makers of that period are much smaller and more delicately made than the large crude ones used on our salt box.

Comparisons with the same cabinet also show a difference in the age of the wood. The corner cabinet’s wood is older and more worn and patched than that of the salt boxes’, although neither are free of blemishes. A salt box, being a utilitarian item, would have lived a much harsher life than that of a well appointed corner cabinet. This renders the present state of the salt box miraculous, if it was indeed from 1756!

All these inconsistencies point towards an interesting conclusion: although the salt box is historic, it doesn't come from 1756. Yet physical evidence and personal doubt are not enough to confirm such a hypothesis. If such a box entered the collection, how was it not seen for what it seems to be? 

Original forged iron door hinge, showing hand forged nails. Note that even at the largest size, these rose nails are smaller and more skillfully forged than those on the 1756 marked Saltbox.

To answer that question, I traced the history of the artifact by its accession number down through the years. The box’s identity had become muddled thanks to errors in the 1987 description of its provenance and in recording the date on the box during an inventory in the 1960s. The oldest record of the box I found was in a 1948 collections inventory, listing it as on display in the Tap Room. It provided the final word on the box’s strange clash of date and construction details: “The Committee now believes the saltbox was erroneously dated. It was was probably made about 1850.”

First recorded inventory in Dunham Tavern records showing the Saltbox notes it’s dubious dating.

At last! The pieces of the puzzle all fit together, my suspicions were confirmed, and the mystery was solved. The Salt Box’s spurious date and inscription are the work of some dishonest, fortunately long dead, antiques seller. An existing Salt Box of the 1850s, suitably old looking but worth little at the time, was converted into a valuable relic of the Colonial period. He added some carvings by hand, and refinished the piece to cover his tracks. But adding a date was not enough. Any knowledgeable collector would be able to tell that it was held together with nails some hundred years newer than the purported date. The solution was to make some large, crude rose nails. It was an unusual but not impossible way to hold the box, and the fraudulent story, together. Any newer nails could be explained away as later repairs. The trick worked: somebody bought the box!

 It’s not clear how it entered the Dunham Tavern collection. The Tavern was, in the 1940s, operated by the Society of Collectors. This group of antique collectors would often travel to large antiques auctions outside of Ohio, with the hopes of procuring artifacts for the museum. This may have been how the box was acquired. Under such circumstances it would have been easier to sell such a fraud. Determining the Saltbox’s true age required close scrutiny. A fast paced auction would not have afforded a collector the opportunity to examine what they were buying in detail, especially if the box were a part of a larger lot. Even now, buying an antique is something of a leap of faith in the first place, tempered only by knowledge and experience.

By 1948, the error was noted by the collections committee. So why was the saltbox retained? There are two likely reasons. Firstly, the true age of the Saltbox, being from the 1850s, fits the Dunham Tavern’s own period, so on this account it is accurate to the house. Secondly, the collections committee's remarks were forgotten and later recorders failed to question the 1756 date. This is an important lesson for us all: we cannot take the seemingly obvious at face value. Only a careful, unbiased consultation of all the evidence can reveal the truth of a matter to us. It is important to always investigate for yourself any historical claims you encounter. Come to your own conclusions based on the evidence available, and question your own biases in your research.

Sources:

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/18046/lot/146/a-late-18th-century-oak-salt-box-or-candle-box/