Toasting fork |
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Object Description
| Brief description | Toasting fork, Joseph Jourdain, Green Bay, ca. 1823. |
| Object name | Fork |
| Alternate object name | Toasting fork; Carving fork |
| Maker | Jourdain, Joseph, 1780-1866 |
| Date | ca. 1823 |
| Dimensions | 16"L x 1"W |
| Materials and techniques | Turned and filed steel body with copper or brass inlays |
| Marks | Brass or copper inlays include initials "J.J." "A.R.DP." and crescent moon |
| Original location | Green Bay, Brown County, Wisconsin |
| Location of use | Little Rapids, Brown County, Wisconsin |
| Current location | Green Bay, Brown County, Wisconsin |
| Description | Turned and filed steel toasting or carving fork with brass or copper inlays, including winding vine with leaves. |
| History |
The fork bears the initials and crescent moon mark of Joseph Jourdain, a blacksmith who came to Green Bay, Wisconsin from Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada in 1798. As the first blacksmith in this frontier trading post, then known as La Baie, Jourdain provided metal tools and household utensils for the settlement. He also provided trade goods for exchange with Menominee fur trappers, first under the employ of French Canadian fur trader Jacob Franks and later for the Green Bay Indian Agency after the United States government began to regulate the western fur trade. His skills as a craftsman are noted in the History of Winnebago County (1908)""An expert at his profession, he could fashion a razor or sword as well as an ax, or hatchet, or shovel, and made the locks for their cabins and the cranes to do the cooking for the family "". He made the spears and the fishhooks to catch the sturgeon and other fish, forged his tools to work with and made his own forge and bellows." In 1803, Jourdain entered the community of Green Bay Métis--blended families of Great Lakes Indians and French Canadians associated with the fur trade--when he married Marguerite Gravelle, the daughter of a French Canadian man and a Menominee woman. In 1834, the Jourdains relocated to the Neenah-Menasha area south of Green Bay. According to a ca. 1920 newspaper article on file at the Neville Public Museum, this fork was one of four cooking utensils "found in a log storehouse on the Eleazer Williams place near Little Rapids, which Mrs. Josephine Phillips, the present owner, recently had razed." According to tradition, Jourdain made the cooking tools for the household of his daughter Madeline (1806-1886). In 1823, Madeline (Mary Margaret) Jourdain married Eleazer Williams, a missionary to the Menominee in Green Bay who later gained national notoriety when he claimed to be the "Lost Dauphin" of France--the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The initials ARDP among the decorative inlays on the fork are thought to stand for A Rapides des Pères, a settlement on the Fox River just south of Green Bay now known as De Pere, not far from the Little Rapids home of Madeline Jourdain and Eleazer Williams. |
| Sources | "Joseph Jourdain, Early French Blacksmith" typescript on file at the Neville Public Museum; Publius V. Lawson, History of Winnebago County (Chicago: C. F. Cooper and Co., 1908), pp. 288-93; "Cooking Utensils 100 Years Old Unearthed" n.d. For more information on Eleazer Williams, see Robert L. Hall, "Eleazer Williams: Mohawk Between Two Worlds" Voyageur (Summer/Fall 2002) (available online via the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, accessed May 17, 2008): http://www.uwgb.edu/voyageur/archive_19_1_mohawk.pdf A portrait photograph of Jourdain is part of the image archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHi-23352): http://wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullRecord.asp?id=23352 |
| Related objects | Additional examples of Jourdain's work in the Neville Public Museum of Brown County include a toaster and a pothook (object #s 1366 and 3199/1658): http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/u?/wda,182 and http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/u?/wda,183 |
| Owner | Neville Public Museum of Brown County |
| Object # | 3202/3511 |
| Rights | (c) 2006 by the Neville Public Museum of Brown County. Contact owner for more information. http://nevillepublicmuseum.org |
| Digital collection | Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database |
| Digital identifier | NPM002 |
| Digital format | XML |
| Type | Physical object |
| Keywords | Metalwork; Toasting fork; Fork; Toaster (cooking and heating device); Equipment; Tools and equipment; Food Service Tools and Equipment; Food Processing Tools and Equipment |
| Date digitized | 2006-11-06 |
| Date modified | 2009-02-11 |
Description
| Object name | Toasting fork |
| Rights | (c) 2006 by the Neville Public Museum of Brown County. Contact owner for more information. http://nevillepublicmuseum.org |
| Digital identifier | NPM002a |
| Digital format | image/jpeg |
| Type | Physical object |
| Date digitized | 2006-11-06 |
| Date modified | 2009-02-11 |
