Name/Title
FlailEntry/Object ID
1942.08.01Description
Grain flail, all wood, except for the leather thong holding the beater on to the handle. The handle is also called a "handstaff" or "halve." This tool was used for threshing grain in order to separate the wheat grains from the chaff. It was donated along with a scythe, and both were used in 1885 at a farm in Spanaway by American settler Andrew Simons. Handle measures 39 inches long and 3/4 inches thick, and beater measures 28 1/4 inches long and 2 1/2 inches wide at the loose end, and 2 1/8 inches wide at the hinged end. Flails like this one were used throughout the mid-19th century, and the Fort Nisqually Journal of Occurrences frequently mentions the employees thrashing wheat, barley, oats, and occasionally peas from the PSAC farms. (The Puget Sound Agricultural Company was a subsidiary of the Hudson's Bay Company)