Butter Churn

Object/Artifact

-

Vermont Historical Society

Name/Title

Butter Churn

Entry/Object ID

2012.42a-b

Description

Yellow swing churn, bearing the stenciled label, "Davis Swing Churn/No. 5/Pat'd./Manufactured by/Vermont Farm Machine Co/Bellows Falls VT" in black paint on both long sides. The sides are further decorated with stenciled black decorative borders. There are two turned wooden handles across the top on either end, and metal brackets in the equivalent location on the bottom to attach the church to a wooden frame (now missing). The top of the churn has a door with a clear glass pane to view the contents. The churn has a 13 gallon capacity.

Use

Swung or rocked on a wooden frame to make butter.

Context

Manufactured by Vermont Farm Machine Company in Bellows Falls, VT.

Acquisition

Accession

2012.42

Source or Donor

Jorgensen, Kathryn O.

Acquisition Method

Gift

Made/Created

Manufacturer

Vermont Farm Machinery Company (1871-1921)

Date made

1877 - 1900

Place

Village

Bellows Falls

Town

Rockingham

County

Windham County

State/Province

Vermont

Country

United States of America

Continent

North America

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Secondary Object Term

Churn

Nomenclature Primary Object Term

Tool, Dairy

Nomenclature Sub-Class

Food Processing Equipment

Nomenclature Class

Food Processing & Preparation T&E

Nomenclature Category

Category 04: Tools & Equipment for Materials

Material

Wood, Paint, Iron, Glass

Interpretative Labels

Label

Butter "Swing" Churn, 1877-1900 Vermont Farm Machinery Company (1871-1921) Bellows Falls, VT Wood Gift of Kathryn O. Jorgensen, #2012.42 The Vermont Farm Machinery Company, based in Bellows Falls, patented this "swing" churn in the 1870s and manufactured it for a number of years after that. Butter is the consolidation of the fat solids contained in milk; farmers would skim the cream from jars of milk as a first step, and then pour the cream into a churn, which would agitate the cream and encourage the fat solids to clump together. On a small scale, this can be done by hand, but in order to produce butter in bulk, some kind of mechanization is necessary. The Davis Swing Churn appeared in a number of sizes, holding between 4 and 50 gallons of cream, depending on the model number. This Model No. 5 could hold 13 gallons of cream. (The Model 9, which held 50 gallons of cream, no longer fit on a frame, and had to be suspended from a ceiling.) The company claimed that the gentle swinging action of the churn did not "injure" the butter.