Fort Brewerton & Oliver Stevens Blockhouse Museum

06/01/2026

Today’s Mystery! Guess the item from the Museum collections. Comment below what you think it is. I will post my answer on Friday!

05/30/2026

Volunteer Opportunities on 6/6 & 6/13 between 10am & 4pm. We are looking for greeters while the Blockhouse is open during the archaeological dig. Can you give us a few hours? Leave a message here or call 315-427-1994 for more info.

05/27/2026

05/26/2026

05/22/2026

Museum Monday’s Mystery was a darning egg or sock darner.
It was a tool for repair worn fabric or holes by running thread through the grain of the fabric, reversing direction and filling it in like weaving.
This can be done at a very simple, crude level or at a very fine level, employing different patterns and colors. The most skilled darning sacrifices a little bit of the original items fabric to make thread, yielding an invisible repair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darning

This kind of repair work was essential for the first settlers, as they would likely have considered it wasteful to throw away an article of clothing just because it had a hole in it. In the case of first settlers like Oliver Stevens, who were here by themselves, the only option was to repair the item.

One of my favorite stories in the book “Mexico Mother of Towns” is a story of clothing repair

“Towards spring when the snow began to thaw, I had been in the snow considerable, and my buckskin pants were very wet above my knees. When I went to bed, in pulling them off, it stretched them much beyond their usual length. In the morning I got up before light and attempted to pull on my pants but could not, they were frozen as hard as a bone. I was in trouble.
A remedy soon came to mind. I recollected Uncle 'Lishar had the day before been breaking flax before the door; the brake was there yet, and I could limber them in that. I took my pants in hand, went out, found the brake, and commenced breaking right smart until I thought they were sufficiently limber. I then went in, made a light, and to my great astonish-ment, found that I had broke them all to pieces! Told our folks what had happened, I had no others to put on, and the consequence was, I had to go to bed until my Mother pieced them down, or grafted them and had to use the blue buckskin as we had no other in the house."
John M. Richardson
page177-178

This darning egg was donated in 1965 by J Elet Milton.

05/18/2026

Today’s Mystery! Guess the item from the Museum collections. Comment below what you think it is. I will post the answer on Friday!

05/15/2026

Museum Monday’s Mystery was an antique folding pocket knife.
Dating to the 18th century, these knives are a little simpler than what we used today.
Many don’t lock open or really have any safety features. These just have simple back spring that snaps the blade into the open position. To close it, you just push on the back of the blade and nothing stops it from going back into the handle.
We have several of them in our collection, one excavated from the Fort site.
We also have bits and pieces of pocket knives and other blades excavated from the Forts earthworks.
It is tempting to want get it working again and it’s probably possible, but it would involve destroying parts of the knife to open it up and it would be a pitted mess as observed in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUcOvuLIoZ4

I have a reproduction I purchased from Townsend’s that I used to demonstrate its function on tours instead.
This pocket knife was donated by William Ennis

05/13/2026

The Blockhouse Museum door will be open this Saturday 5/16 12-4pm. Come and see what's inside!