Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Excerpt form Ben Franklin..provisions..

(from The Autobiography of Ben Franklin)

"....the stores arrived at the camp as soon as the wagons. They consisted of twenty parcels, each containing:

6lbs loaf sugar
6 lbs good Muscovada do (dark sugar, likely a cane sugar from what I understand)
1 lb good green tea
1 lb good bohea do (this was an extravagant tea, I believe the kind dumped in the Boston Tea Party)
6 lbs good ground coffee
6 lbs chocolate
1-2cwt. best white biscuit (I understand a cwt to be a unit of measurement of 100 lbs)
1-2lb pepper
1 quart best white wine vinegar
1 Gloucester cheese
1 kegg containing 20lbs good butter
2 doz. old Madeira wine
2 gallons Jamaica spirits
1 bottle flour of mustard
2 well-cur'd hams
1-2 dozen dry'd tongues
6 lbs rice
6 lbs raisins

These twenty parcels, well pack'd, were placed on as many horses, each parcel, with the horse, being intended as a present for one officer."

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