From the scales we had at the Historic Upshur Museum, I learned from farmers that one of the weight was for 5 pounds and one was for 1 pound increments. Personnally I think the term pea came from a shorthand for pound or "p".
We had a photograph of a farmer with a full sack of cotton slung over his shoulder and a visitor of the museum explained to me how the metal loop at the end of the sack would be hooked on to the scale. Then the larger weight would be moved down the line on the scale where you see lines for the 5 lb. increments. When that gross weight was measure, the smaller 1 lb. weight would be moved along the "teeth" on the scale between the 5 lb. marks to determine the more exact weight.
In John Grisham's novel A Painted House there is a description of the father and the grandfather being in charge of the weighing from the wagon as the workers came in with their loads before the cotton was added to the load in the wagon which would go to the gin. Each worker's pay came from those individual loads.
Mary Kirby
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----- Original Message -----
From: Lonn Taylor
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 2:48 PM
Subject: Re: Nomenclature Help Sought
My uncles, who were cotton farmers in Wharton County, Texas, called those weights "peas." The steelyard was simply called a "cotton scale." Together they were used for weighing the cotton sacks that pickers brought in from the field before the cotton was emptied into a wagon to be taken to the gin. There are Farm Security Administration photographs taken in Texas in the late 1930s that show this being done.
All best,
Lonn Taylor
Fort Davis, Texas
On May 25, 2006, at 10:27 AM, Anne Lane wrote:
We have just been given two scales used for weighing cotton. They are what I think of as a steelyard, which would have been suspended from a hook. We also have some steel weights with hooks at the top, which may or may not have belonged with the scales – one is pear-shaped, the other a truncated cone. Any clues as to what I can call these things? Nomenclature, bless its heart, is not offering me a clue. We also have a pair of lineman’s spikes, used for climbing telephone poles. I can’t find a clue to those in Nomenclature, either. Any suggestions would be cheerfully and gratefully considered.
Thanks,
Anne
Anne T. Lane, Collections Manager
Charlotte Museum of History
3500 Shamrock Drive
Charlotte NC 28215
704-568-1774, ext 110
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