Description:
Black-leather cartridge box with a leather strap with "HANOVER / RIFLEMEN / 2d REGt." in white letters on the front of the flap. The interior has a chunk of wood drilled with 18 round holes used ot hold cartridges. The Hanover Riflemen was a volunteer company located in Hanover, Massachusetts, a town midway between Boston and Plymouth. Volunteer militia companies were the elite of the citizen army and enjoyed preferential placement in the line of march or at review. According to a 2003 phone converstion with Carol Franzosa, president of the Hanover Historical Society, the Hanover Riflemen existed from about 1814 to 1822. In HD 2003.37.6, a book titled "The New Military Guide; ... Compiled for the Use of the Militia" by John Farmer, printed in Concord, New Hampshire, by Hill and Moore, 1822, there is a listing for a Hanover 23rd Regiment on p. 10. These boxes held rolled paper cartridges of black powder used in firearms; there are some remnants of a newspaper inside the box still bearing gunpowder residue. Initially, cartridges were carried loose in these boxes; later wooden inserts bored with holes, each large enough to carry a single cartridge, were added, which both prevented the cartridges from breaking and added additional protection from the weather. The number of holes varied, but were usually from 20-30 so that the box might weigh between 5-6 pounds. The extreme rarity of a triple set of militia items (also canteen, HD 2003.7, and knapsack, HD 2003.37.9) from the same unit makes this assemblage the only known such set in existence.
Label Text:
Weighing about five pounds when fully stocked, this portable box was essential for fighting soldiers during combat. An inner wooden compartment features 18 drilled holes that held and protected individual paper packages of gun powder.
Subjects:
Leather; Brass Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2003.37.8 |
