Greencastle, PA

Baskets and
 Harvest Home
 Exhibit

November 7 and 10, 2002
 

Exhibit

Thanks also to the following Allison-Antrim Museum members for the loan of their baskets, buckets, and firkins – Hermione Brewer, Mrs. Jack Burns, Dr. James H. Craig, Jr., Ginny Fitz, Clarisse Hicks, Nancy Pensinger, and Bonnie Shockey. 

Thanks, also, to G-A residents Yvonne Bivens, Jean Marsh, and Tina Reese for the loan of baskets, crocks, and canned goods.

“Thank you” to you for brightening the upcoming holidays with your monetary donation or donation of hats, scarves, mittens, or gloves.

Baskets

Baskets were yesterdays’ equivalent of today’s Tupperware.  They were utilitarian and used for everything from storage, carrying water, preparing meals, winnowing grains, baby carriers and cradles, screens, canoes, weirs, helmets, shields, and for ceremonial purposes.

No one knows for sure which culture made the first basket or when.  The Egyptians, Romans, and Britons were all talented in the art of basket making. It is believed that the Southwest Native Americans may have been using the coiled basketry method as early as 7,000 B.C.

Each culture used whatever materials were native to their surroundings. In America weaving materials might include reeds, roots, leaves, twigs, pine needles, rattan, yucca plant, rye straw, raffia, sweet grass, and wood from the following trees – young willow, hickory, black ash, white ash, and white oak.

The types of basket weaving methods are coiled, wickerwork, and plaiting.  Within each type, different patterns can be woven.

The warp part of the basket is the foundation upon which the weft is woven.

Coiled basketry is done by coiling the foundation material (warp) around in a spiral.  The coil is wrapped with the weaver (weft) which also connects each succeeding row to the previous.

Wickerwork is done by weaving over and under the ribs (warp which usually run up and down) with the weaver (weft) which goes around.

In plaiting both the warp and weft materials are usually made of the same materials and the warp and weft are used equally to pass over and under to make the different patterns.  Because a plaited basket is not tightly woven and often because of the weaving material used, it is more flexible than a coiled or wickerwork basket.  Its flexibility does not make it any less durable than the other methods.

Firkin

A firkin is a small wooden vessel or cask used for storage.  An example of a firkin is a sugar bucket.

Moses M. Robinson

In the exhibit in the large bedroom upstairs are two baskets made by Moses Robinson, a well-known basket maker in the Greencastle-Antrim area.  Moses died at the age of 100 on July 2, 2002.  He was born in Gainsville, Virginia on May 16, 1902.  He worked at the naval Gun Foundry during WWII and retired in 1964 after being employed by the Naval Ordinance Laboratory, Silver Spring, Maryland beginning in 1952.

Moses and his wife, Nancy, bought a house and moved to the Greencastle-Antrim area in 1960.  It was after he moved to this area that he became well-known for his basket making and chair caning until he retired from these arts in 1996.

Mr. Robinson was always willing to share his knowledge.  Charles White, director of Tayamentasachta Environmental Center, asked if he’d teach basket making to some interested students for the eighth grade Cumberland Life Festival. 

Both of my daughters, Nikki and Jodi, were fortunate to be students of his and learned to make baskets from Mr. Robinson while they were in eighth grade.  One of Jodi’s buttocks baskets is along side Mr. Robinson’s, which is on loan from Ada Leckron.  The other Moses Robinson basket is the Nantucket-style basket which is on loan from Nancy Pensinger.

The buttocks basket is known by three names - an egg basket (for which it was often used) or gizzard basket or buttocks basket because of the characteristic double bowl design on either side of the center hoop.

The Nantucket basket was first made famous in the mid to late 1800’s by the sailors who manned the lightship stationed outside Nantucket Harbor.  With nothing to do but keep the lights burning, they occupied their time by weaving what is now known as a Nantucket lightship basket.  They were often made in sets of graduated sizes that nested one inside the other.  Their unique design characteristic is that the ribs (warp) are side-by-side and are interwoven with rattan (weft) making a very sturdy, closely woven basket.

Compiled by Bonnie A. Shockey