History of The Loading Block

[Penske]

There is a dated loading block in the Washington Crossing museum collection in PA. A picture of it is in one of Mark Bakers books. Not sure of the date but it is before 1770 for sure. Just don't have my books handy at the moment.

 

[Red Owl]

Well I'll jump in with a few thoughts. Let's say in all the known world someone finds a tobacco pouch in a heart shape with loops on it for a clay pipe and it is absolutely determined to have been used by a mountain man. It's the only one known to have ever existed. Now it is a nice looking item. Pretty soon if you go to a Rondy event every single guy is wandering around with a heart shaped tobacco pouch. It sort of brings up an overall incorrect feeling to the event. So, even if a particular item is pc, does that really mean it ought to be part of your gear? Hard to say but in my own situation, I try to find out what was "most common" and go in that direction.
Another example is shoes, they are on the trade lists, so at the next rondy everyone is wearing shoes because they were on a list- not really what was.

 

[Grenadier1758]

There is a dated loading block in the Washington Crossing museum collection in PA. A picture of it is in one of Mark Bakers books. Not sure of the date but it is before 1770 for sure. Just don't have my books handy at the moment.

The block is dated 1753. The provenance is not at all definitive. They don't really start showing up until the mid 1800's.

 

[smoothshooter]

I guess you are saying Madison Grant is wrong when he dated hunting bags, bags that show loading blocks attached to them? I will say that out of all the original bags I have seen, none of them contain a short starter, but that is a different topic.

The specific loading block you refer to was likely not made when the bag was made. Could have been added later. It could have been the first, second, or third one. As the holes enlarged through use the old block could have been tossed and a new one made.
I have no proof, but people have always been pretty resourceful and I would not be surprised if limited numbers of loading blocks were used here and there around the world by 1700, and in fairly common use by the 1760’s - 1780’s,
My faith in human nature, and of the fact it does not change much makes me think that members of the human race that were smart enough to make and rifle barrels, manufacture cannons, cut fairly precise metal threads, design and build battleships, build looms, watches, clocks, and ornate furniture would not have taken long to think up and make something simple out of a piece of wood with a few holes to speed up and simplify the process of loading a gun.

But again, this is only speculation.

 

[Brokennock]

There is a dated loading block in the Washington Crossing museum collection in PA. A picture of it is in one of Mark Bakers books. Not sure of the date but it is before 1770 for sure. Just don't have my books handy at the moment.

How was it "dated"?

 

[Brokennock]

Many of the assertions, including dates of manufacture/use, of older books have since been proven inaccurate. Or at least reasonable doubt has cast questions upon them. And this in no way implies that the writers were deliberately trying to mislead anyone.
As more research is done and more things are found, both items and information, what we thought we knew can change.
It isn't all that uncommon for even museums to place items together that are actually from different time periods, often based on the same misconceptions that have been floating around for decades.

But, then, when new info is pointed out that refutes those misconceptions,,,, there are a lot of people who get defensive and dig their heals in rather than being grateful for new and more accurate information to work with.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

The specific loading block you refer to was likely not made when the bag was made. Could have been added later. It could have been the first, second, or third one. As the holes enlarged through use the old block could have been tossed and a new one made.
I have no proof, but people have always been pretty resourceful and I would not be surprised if limited numbers of loading blocks were used here and there around the world by 1700, and in fairly common use by the 1760’s - 1780’s,
My faith in human nature, and of the fact it does not change much makes me think that members of the human race that were smart enough to make and rifle barrels, manufacture cannons, cut fairly precise metal threads, design and build battleships, build looms, watches, clocks, and ornate furniture would not have taken long to think up and make something simple out of a piece of wood with a few holes to speed up and simplify the process of loading a gun.

But again, this is only speculation.

That's one of the odd things about archaeology. The argument "they could've done it so they must've done it" is alluring but we see examples of things being "right in front of people" and they simply don't do them.

They had lemons, they had tea, they had sugar, but it appears that drinking tea with sugar and lemon instead of cream or milk in place of the lemon happened in the court of Katherine the Great of Russia.... after more than a century of tea drinking.

They had all the basics to make a wok, and all the ingredients to do a basic stir fry, including contact with the Orient so somebody must've seen it done and sailed back to Europe, but nope, no woks nor stir fry in 18th century, English speaking colonies in North America. Nor in England.

No documentation of them patching round ball in smoothbores in the 18th century..., even civilian shooters, even after patched ball in rifles was apparently rather well known... easy to do, seems rather obvious to us, (a lot of us do it today) especially when one sees a rifleman do it... but....nope nobody wrote about it....

LD

 

[smoothshooter]

Like others, Rob, I'd love to see the source for your statement on the ball blocks. That would clinch it for me - at least where I am on the sliding scale. Actually, I've only used one once and found no advantage in it, but it seems funny that a simple device that suddenly springs up commonly in the nineteenth century had no antecedents. A block like you mention would form the "missing link."

I have found using a loading block has several advantages, but that is a discussion for another day.