William Salthouse (ship)

The 19th century was the pinnacle of Cooperage technology, the regulation of cask size and production had a streamlining effect on maritime trade and industry. The cask design was paramount to trade for two reasons; the ability to uniformly apply packing techniques to merchant vessels, and the efficiency of inspecting and calculating materials contained within stowed casks. At this time in the mid 19th century, cask had become a generic term for any type of wooden staved container, and could vary in both size and purpose. For example, cask sizes ranged from a 9-gallon keg to a 252-gallon tun and were designed in three ways depending on the properties of the goods being stored.[7] The manifests of William Salthouse state there were at least 1000 casks of varying size stowed on board when the vessel foundered at Port Phillip Bay in 1841. The high concentration of casks in a single location provided an opportunity to gain information about 19th century cooperage technology, cask marking traditions, cask contents, and stowage methods in a merchant sailing vessel.

The excavation of William Salthouse yielded 36 cask staves, 41 partial or complete cask heads, and sample material of dunnage, hoops, and stowage materials.[3] This combination of materials acted as a representative sample for the ship, with no complete casks being raised due to the subsequent conservation problems they would present. A comparison of the casks to the statues and regulations being imposed by British North America by Staniforth (1987) showed that the quality of casks being excavated consistently fell below set standards. For example, British North American regulations held that cask heads were to be no thinner than ¾ inch, however excavated cask heads yielded measurements below ½ inch thickness. The staves of each cask were meant to have a minimum thickness of ½ inch, examination of the staves from William Salthouse show that approximately 30% of the archaeological material falls short of this mark.[7]

There is historical evidence that suggests from the late 18th to early 19th century British North America was continually enacting, amending, and repealing numerous acts of legislation related to the regulation of various facets of inspection, packaging, and shipment from their ports. These continuing changes lend to the idea that it was possible that authorities of the time recognized the difficulty to adhere to flucuating standards and had the tendency to turn a blind eye when these standards were not kept. In an interesting application of post-processual archaeology, Staniforth (1987) assesses the regulations surrounding the position of inspector, to further analyse the statutes that had been implemented. To become a cargo inspector for import/export goods, an individual was required by law to abstain from any personal investment in the goods passing through the inspection houses. However, William Watson, the inspector responsible for ensuring the quality of casks of flour aboard William Salthouse was married to the daughter of the owner of the largest flour mill on the Lachine Canal and the proprietor of the casks of flour en route to Melbourne.[7] It is likely that the variance in cask quality found in the archaeological record is the result a combination of factors, but the above examples illustrate how complex the system surrounding cooperage and inspection was in the mid 19th century.

Markings on the cask heads allowed maritime archaeologists to easily identify the goods being carried within the casks. These marking were required for exported goods and included information on weight, quality, contents, inspector, location of inspection, and year and month of inspection.[7] By gathering the data from excavated casks, we can learn more about what types of goods were important to help establish and strengthen the newly forming colony at Port Phillip Bay, and test the validity of the historical record through comparison with cargo manifests. In the case of William Salthouse, the small excavation sample has already yielded discrepancies in the cargo manifest related to the grade and quality of salted pork, and types of alcohol being shipped to the budding Australian colony.[1]

The testing of bottle contents aboard William Salthouse was an act of necessity as excavated bottles were undergoing rapid deterioration due to poor conservation efforts immediately following their excavation. The three bottle types recovered during excavation were consistent with the three types of alcohol listed on the ships outgoing cargo manifest, which stated that the vessel was carrying over 360 bottles of French Champagne, Sauternes, and Muscat at the time of its departure from Montreal.[8] However, the incoming cargo manifest published in thePort Phillip Herald stated that only French Champagne and Sauternes were aboard William Salthouse when the vessel wrecked on Pope's Eye Shoal.[1] The study of wines aboard William Salthouse would consist of two approaches, a chemical analysis and a less orthodox sensory analysis. The unscientific nature of a sensory analysis, or taste-testing, was included as a means of adding a dimension of wine style that would be lost through a strictly chemical analysis of the wines. The goal of the research was to determine how many wines and which varieties were aboard William Salthouse at the time of its foundering.

The sensory analysis of the wines was undertaken by professional wine tasters in order to establish the intangible features of wines being tested, such as sweet, dry, bitter, and so on. Two public tastings took place, in which tasters were asked to engage in discussion and note the effect of salt on the wines, as well as colour, nose and taste.[8]

The chemical analysis undertaken for Peters' 1994 study of wines aboard William Salthouse acted in juxtaposition to the 1983 study which occurred directly after the wines had been excavated. Evidence had arisen in between tests suggested there were three wines aboard the vessel, as mentioned above.[7] The oenological interpretation of the chemical analysis used contemporary samples of the desert wines as a referential parameter. The levels of acids, sugars and ethanol would therefore be compared with these modern day wines. The results of the chemical analysis found that William Salthouse wines all fell within the parameters of contemporary Sauternes. However, while Muscat today is a fortified, aromatic wine with high sugar levels, it was traditionally an unfotified wine that did not require additional spirits.[8] Therefore, the presumption that the wine styles of Sauternes and Muscat had gone unchanged for the last 150 years was incorrect, and influenced the resulting conclusions of the oenological analysis.

While few answers were drawn from the analysis of wines aboard William Salthouse, the investigation itself proved to be an exercise in formulating new methods and attitudes in archaeological analysis. Importantly, these studies shed light on the weaknesses in conservation techniques and recovery methods which you subsequently be addressed.

The amount of salted meat aboard William Salthouse at the time of its wrecking provided an archaeological deposit capable of providing a comparative sample in order to assess the presence of salted meat remains in food bone assemblages on Australian historic sites.[9]

Packing methods and meat grading could not be included in the archaeological investigation because samples of meat included in the investigation were highly disturbed, meaning they were not in situ at the time of their recovery. Conservation restraints made the excavation of intact casks too costly, however, analysis of both beef and pork carcasses artefacts recovered from William Salthouse found that these examples of imported salted meats would be indistinguishable from Australian terrestrial sites in Australia due to commonalities in butchering techniques. Similarities between the butcher marks on both ribs and vertebrae recovered from the wreck and Australian butchered meats from the First Government House make the cuts of meat indistinguishable.[9] This similarity merits further consideration, since the square cutting of beef samples shows a high degree of similarity. Butchering practices are further complicated by factors such as type of carcase, quality, meat bearing capacity, consumer taste, economic climate and the source of trade training. The range of external factors that impact use of meat type require investigations to address the relationship of site occupants to forms of supply, and the butchering mark morphology and frequency.[9]

The salted meat recovered from William Salthouse has shown that distinctive similarities between butchering techniques used on packed meat and borne slaughtered meat are evident, however further research on packaged meat aboard William Salthouse, as well as research on terrestrial site assemblages is required. This investigation showed that consideration must be given to the historical context and social climate that influences local butchering patterns.