Anatomy of a Madeira Letter – Rates

The three letters featured in this post, dated 1808, 1811, and 1817, highlight the different rates charged for sending letters from London to Madeira using the British Post Office. These letters were carried by postal packet thus in addition to the recipient’s address and endorsement, they bear the rates charged for delivery.

The port city of Falmouth, located in the south-west corner of England, was home to the Post Office’s Packet Service for nearly two centuries.[1] In sending a letter from London to Madeira, the rate was calculated by adding up the inland cost of sending the letter from London to Falmouth. and the Falmouth packet rate to Madeira. The letters dated 1808 and 1811 were rated based on the same scale set forth in the Postage Act of 1805[1].

Falmouth is located some 270 miles from London. In 1805, the inland rates for England charged 11d. for a 200-300 mile journey. The Falmouth packet rate for Madeira was 1s. 7d. The total rate then is 11d. + 1s. 7d. – 1d. = 2s. 5d which is marked in red in the upper right-hand corner of the cover. The letter is also marked “40” for the 40 Centimos collection fee in Madeira. I do not have any further information about this fee.

The second letter was rated 4s. 10d. or twice that of the previous letter. This was the charge for a double letter. The reason for which is found in the correspondence itself, where we learn that “Under this cover you will receive Copies of my last letter…”.

The Postage Act of 1812, increased the inland rate for London to Falmouth by 1d. to 12d or 1s. and the packet rate to Madeira was increased by 1d. to 1s. 8d.[2] The total rate then is 1s. + 1s. 8d. – 1d. = 2s. 7d.

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[1] Hemmeon, J. C. “The History of the British Post Office”, 1912. URL: http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/downloads/files/historical-studies/The%20History%20of%20the%20British%20Post%20Office%20(1912)%20-%20J.C.Hemmeon.pdf

[2] “Postage Act 1805, (45 Geo 3 c.11, 12th March 1805)”. The Great Britain Philatelic Society. URL: http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/sources/acts/1805-03-12_Act-45-George-III-cap-11.php

[3] “Postage Act 1812,(52 Geo 3 c.88, 9th July 1812)”. The Great Britain Philatelic Society. URL: http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/sources/acts/1812-07-09_Act-52-George-III-cap-88.php

“We were in time favored with your letter”: Anatomy of a Madeira letter

Assorted Madeira letters from the author’s collection.

I have enjoyed reading many 18th and 19th century letters regarding Madeira wine both online and in person. The survival of these letters is amazing. There is a thrill I feel whenever I have viewed them at libraries or from the collection of Mannie Berk (The Rare Wine Co.). The descriptions found within, of various wines, vintages, and even oak staves, have appeared in many posts on this blog. I have, however, never addressed the physical letters themselves.

Over the last few months I acquired a small collection of letters addressed to the firm of Cossart, Gordon and Company at Madeira dating from 1763 – 1840. That these letters are even available for purchase stems back to the late 1970s and early 1980s when many were sold off for philatelic value. It is these letters that I have largely purchased. Over the next few posts I will present pictures from my collection to illustrate the anatomy of a Madeira letter.

A drinking “bee” in the Yukon circa 1899.

This unusual photograph shows six young women sitting around a table drinking wine in White Chapel, Dawson in the Yukon territory. White Chapel was the prostitution district of Klondike City.  The women are all sporting hats, glasses and bottles of wine, and puppies!  There is also a dog.  Good times are clearly being staged for there are at least ten bottles of wine and a small cask.  Unfortunately, there is not enough resolution to make out what the labels are.

A drinking “bee” at White Chapel, Dawson. ca 1899. Alaska State Library. [1]

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[1] A drinking “bee” at White Chapel, Dawson. ca 1899. #ASL-P41-053. Alaska State Library. URL: http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cdmg21/id/6586/rec/13

Drinking wine from skins somewhere in Asia circa 1919-1920

This image shows five men inside a building or a tavern that contains several wineskins.  The men are dressed in three different manners all of which reflect the cooler temperature.  The two men who sit in the foreground have some sort of wooly vests that match their hats.  The two men that are standing in the background have dark long coats with buttons and darker hats.  The fifth man appears to work with the wine, he has an apron on and is filling up a large metal pitcher.  There appears to be a brazier on the floor.  A few of the skins are probably from ox, one of which is on a shelf or rack several feet off of the ground.

Cantina col vino nelle otri. Novarese, Vittorio. Ca. 1919-1920. Number 26659. Società geografica italiana. [1]

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[1] Cantina col vino nelle otri. Novarese, Vittorio. Ca. 1919-1920. Number 26659. Società geografica italiana.  URL: http://www.archiviofotografico.societageografica.it/index.php?it/152/archivio-fotografie/sgi_master_dbase_8563/22375

Receipt of Wine, with Order for Payment from the Third Century

I am on a bit of a kick when it comes to searching for images that I have never seen before.  Today’s image moves us back some 1600 years from India to Egypt to show us a receipt for wine.  While I am aware of extensive histories related to Egyptian wine I still find it staggering to see such original documentation.  This particular receipt details 84 keramia that were taken from one vat and 85 keramia from another.  In Roman Egypt a keramia was one of several measures used. [1]  You may find the complete translation below.

 

Receipt of Wine, with Order for Payment. Mid-IIIrd century A.D. Advanced Papyrological Information System. University of Michigan. [2]

Translation: “Phaophi 18. Herakleides has received from Eu… eighty-four keramia from the first vat and eighty-five keramia from the second vat, which equal one hundred sixty-nine keramia, equal 169. Give the price to the landowner, in accordance with the instructions concerning the contract.”

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[1] URL: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis/x-1702/294r_a.tif
[2] Rathbone, Dominic.  Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century AD Egypt. 1991. URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=ie_GhrbUbZYC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

A 19th century Indian image of a servant holding a wine bottle and tumbler

This is an interesting image given the unique wine bottle.  It has a protruding cork sealing the opening, sloped shoulder of a dark color, and a red, cylindrical base.  The manner in which the shoulders meets the base combined with the color differences suggests it might be earthenware or some other non-glass container.  If it truly were dark glass then that implies either a red, wrap around label or some sort of holder.  Any thoughts?  Were corks produced in India or were they all imported?

Wine and water-cooler holding a tumbler and bottle. [1]

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[1] Wine and water-cooler holding a tumbler and bottle. Artist: Muhammad Amir, Shaikh, of Karraya (fl.1830s-40s). c. 1846. The British Library.  URL: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_Or_176

A Chinese grape picker in a Californian vineyard, late 19th century.

This undated photograph by A.D. Marchand shows Chinese grape pickers, amongst others, in a vineyard owned by James De Barth Shorb.  This particular vineyard was located on his 600 acre ranch named San Marino that was a wedding gift from his father-in-law Benjamin Davis Wilson.  James De Barth Shorb maintained orchards and vineyards of significant size.  For example there were some 102,000 vines in Lake Vineyard and 129,000 in Mound Vineyard.  Through his efforts he expanded his father-in-law’s winery making it the San Gabriel Wine Co.  There are fascinating histories online so be sure to do a quick search for more information.

James De Barth Shorb passed away in 1896 dating this photograph to the late 19th century.  The photograph shows bush farmed vines laden with grape clusters.  There are numerous horse-drawn carriages scattered throughout the vineyard as well as empty and full boxes of grape.  The carriage in the foreground looks like one a manager would use for the carts in the background are larger and drawn by teams.  I do not see any secateurs but do like the conical hat of the man in the right mid-ground.

“J. de Barth Shorb Vineyards, San Marino”. [1]

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[1] “J. de Barth Shorb Vineyards, San Marino”. GS-Agri: grapes: 23451. California Historical Society URL:  http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/flipomatic/cic/images@ViewImage?img=chs00000583_116a

A late 18th century plan for a vineyard.

This 18th century plan for a German vineyard shows coiled vines trained on individual posts.

Plan oder Grundriß über einen Distrikt Weinberg auf Königshöfer Gemarkung gelegen, im Küttwigsrhein genannt, wovon den Zehnt Kurpfalz 2/3, dann Fürst Löwenstein-Wertheim und Reichsgraf von Hatzfeld 1/3 zu beziehen haben (Inselkarte). 1779. Landesarchivs Baden-Württemberg. [1]

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[1] Plan oder Grundriß über einen Distrikt Weinberg auf Königshöfer Gemarkung gelegen, im Küttwigsrhein genannt, wovon den Zehnt Kurpfalz 2/3, dann Fürst Löwenstein-Wertheim und Reichsgraf von Hatzfeld 1/3 zu beziehen haben (Inselkarte). 1779. Landesarchivs Baden-Württemberg. URL: http://www.landesarchiv-bw.de/plink/?f=7-294220-1

Three America Wine Auction Broadsides from the 1840s and 1850s.

It was not until I began to correspond with Mannie Berk, proprietor of The Rare Wine Co., that I began to look at historic wine auction catalogs.  Some of these catalogs are multi-page documents with a few hundred lots of wine.  Others are simply single-sheet broadsides.  In this post I present three publicly available broadsides from the 1840s and 1850s.  I find these broadsides interesting because they allow us to trace the movement of specific parcels of wine such as the “Bramin”, “Wanderer”, “Hindostan”, “Mandarin”, and “Odessa” Madeiras.  These last three names are new to me.

Catalogue of old wines, part of the estate of Thos. B. Adair. December 3, 1845. Duke University. [1]

There are also unique wines such as the “Old Lisbon, stood several years on the Lees of Mad[eira].” or the specific parcels of 1836 Jules Lausseau, Chambertin.  Perhaps illustrating the practice of blending Bordeaux is the lot of “Hermitage Claret” prior to the lot of Chateau Margaux.

Public sale of superior old wines … Jas. C. McGuire, Auctioneer. Washington City, D. C. [1853]. The Library of Congress. [2]

We can also learn about the types of wax seals used such as “Green Seal” and “Red Seal” Madeira.  The sale of William Plympton’s wines suggest a wide range of wax colors.  The right-most column could indicate the wax color because the lot of “Old Black Cork Madeira” is followed by color Black.  In this case he used five different colors of wax: black, red, green, brown, and yellow.

Stock of wines and liquors at auction. ca. 1855. Duke University. [3]

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[1] Catalogue of old wines, part of the estate of Thos. B. Adair. December 3, 1845. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Libraries. URL: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/broadsides_bdsmd30948/

[2] Public sale of superior old wines … Jas. C. McGuire, Auctioneer. Washington City, D. C. [1853]. An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera. American Memory, The Library of Congress. URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.20100200

[3] Stock of wines and liquors at auction.  ca. 1855. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Libraries. URL: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/broadsides_bdszz164022/

Historic Photographs of Grapevines in Illinos

The photographs featured in today’s post are sourced from the American Environmental Photographs 1891-1936 collection.  This collection features photographs taken by American botanists who sought to capture the diverse American topography.  The photographs were taken by Henry Chandler Cowles, George Damon Fuller, and other Chicago ecologists.  The Chicago location might explain why most of the grapevine photographs were taken in Illinois.

Vitis planted on a hillside [at a] Nauvoo, Illinois vineyard. [1]

I am particularly captivated by the last two pictures in this post because they bear a connection to earlier posts in the history of wine.  The second image of Vitis vulpina shows the long, thick grapevine coiling up into the trees.  If you look closely you will see a man standing in the shadows.  There are descriptions of grapes vines climbing up trees in many of the 17th century accounts that I have read.  For example I noted how Louis Hennepin wrote of the trees “cover’d with Vines, whose Grapes are very big and sweet” in my post “our Vat was a Bark-Pail”: An Account of 17th Century Wine Making in Canada.

Vitis vulpina, Bethel Hollow, Pope County, Illinois. [2]

In the post An Example of Colonial Winemaking Located in What was Briefly Maryland I quoted Colonel John Jones who wrote in 1776 of  the “immense quantity of these vines growing on the beach open to the sea”.  He did not describe what these beach vines looked like but due to the picture of Dune remnants I now have a mental image.  Has anyone see other pictures of grapevines growing on dunes or beaches?

Dune remnants with grapevine smothering Pine, Miller, Indiana. [3]

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[1] Vitis planted on a hillside [at a] Nauvoo, Illinois vineyard. American Environmental Photographs Collection, [AEP Image Number, AEP-ILS294], Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library.  URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.award/icuaep.ils294
[2] Vitis vulpina, Bethel Hollow, Pope County, Illinois. American Environmental Photographs Collection, [AEP Image Number, AEP-ILS35], Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library.  URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.award/icuaep.ils35
[3] Dune remnants with grapevine smothering Pine, Miller, Indiana. American Environmental Photographs Collection, [AEP Image Number, AEP-INN151], Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library. URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.award/icuaep.inn151