This tool was located in our “kitchen tool” section of the museum and has been a curious one for me since last winter while researching objects to help describe the culinary abundance from the Herring River estuary. The style of the mortar is distinctive, and the pestle doesn’t seem to match. A pestle that would work well with this mortar would need to be much larger. Maybe they were not acquired together, I surmised, and went to the acquisition books, our “bible” of historical facts about the museum objects.

I found this:“#2000.6  7/7/00

Object: A Mortar and Pestle. The pestle is made from an oblong narrow stone 6” - The Mortar hand carved from a tree trunk (or limb) 6” high, 5” wide.  

Given to Helen Olsen by Emma Fisher (Law) in memory of Louise M. Fisher and probably came from Great Island. Ben Bell, Louise Fisher’s father-in-law was care-taker of Great Island before Mr. Henderson, who owned it gave the Island to the National Seashore. Donor: Emma Fisher Law”.

Wow, these items came from Great Island, “hard to tell how old they are” is a quote from a National Park Service archaeologist. 

To me, the mortar appears to have been burned and carved, a technique used by Native Americans of New England for hollowing out wood objects from small, bowls and cups to large, canoes or mishoons. This mortar and pestle were so unusual it seemed that they could be of Native origin. Delilah Gibbs recognized as the last Indian woman in 1859, is noted on a deed from that year where she is described as a descendant from the “Billingsgate Native Indians”. 

David Weeden, a Wampanoag Historian felt that this was indeed a Native American artifact. He said these were standard kitchen equipment, still are. Most kitchens have 2 or 3 in different sizes. Different sizes, maybe the mortar from one got mixed up with the pestle from the other. Maybe they were found together, maybe they were given to a European family when the local native people moved away, I don’t know, what do you think? History so often leads us from one question to another question, however, curiosity is a healthy trait.