A rare event: A paintbrush survives the nineteenth century

While dismantling the Peter Campbell house, an early timber-framed structure in Caledonia, New York, for future reconstruction at nearby Genesee Country Village Museum, an interesting discovery was made in the attic: an early, handmade paintbrush (Figure 1). Old paintbrushes had a very low probability of survival, because they were, in a real sense, expendable. Once it was worn and caked with paint, there really wasn't much point in keeping an old paintbrush. So it takes an unusual circumstance for one to have been preserved for future generations. Not only has the brush in the photograph survived, but there is some fairly convincing, although circumstantial, evidence that lets us give it an approximate date.

The brush is ten inches long and made of some sort of coarse animal hair or bristles, which are attached to a hand-whittled wooden handle. The exposed part of the slightly tapered handle is six inches long and about a half-inch in diameter. The bristles are about four inches in length except those which have been worn or broken. They were rather irregularly distributed around the handle and secured with a length of cord or heavy twine, the end of which was then tied around the handle. It appears that the bristles were also glued to the handle since the space between them is filled with some dark-colored, solid material. The ends of the bristles were roughly sliced off at the top after the glue had dried. The brush is filled with dried red paint. It was obviously never cleaned or even wiped after its last use. This makes detailed examination somewhat difficult since the museum staff has decided not to remove the paint.

The bristles (Figure 2) are considerably coarser than horse hair, which was the original guess. Under a microscope they are also essentially transparent, and have a core, or are hollow. Comparison with modern "pure bristle" paintbrushes shows a strong similarity, except that the older bristles are considerably coarser. The likeliest candidate for the donor thus seems to be a pig.

The location in the house where the brush was found lets us date it with some degree of confidence. The house (Figure 3) was built after 1804, when the first sawmill in Caledonia was constructed a short distance from the site, and before 1807, when it is first mentioned in the written records. In 1857 it had some major modifications in the Greek Revival style. Marks on the framing show that the original structure had a window in the gable end of the attic. This window was removed and sided over in the 1857 remodeling, after which time the attic had no light source. It is hard to think of a reason for anyone to be in a dark attic with a wet paintbrush. It seems likely, then, that the brush was abandoned in the attic at some time after the first decade of the 1800s and prior to 1857.

There is one other intriguing part of the story One of the two studs that supported the attic window was partially painted with red paint, which is a good color match to that on the brush. Nothing else in the attic was painted. One is tempted to imagine a scenario: someone, a child perhaps, daubing paint beside the window where the light was good and then abandoning the brush. The brush was laid down on the ceiling lath away from the loose boards of the center catwalk.

I wonder what happened to the paint pot.

Author

Kenneth "Ted" Kinsey is professor emeritus of physics at the State University of New York at Geneseo. Since retiring, he has spent an inordinate amount of his time at the

Genesee Country Village and Museum. In addition to being the weekend wagonmaker, he has worked with the curator furnishing the Altay Store and also has been an architectural detective for the newest additions to the museum: the Opera House and the Campbell house.

Copyright Early American Industries Association Sep 2002
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