CLAY PIPES

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CLAY PIPES. In early American history, clay pipes could be rented in taverns. The area placed in the mouth was carefully broken off before the new smoker began lighting up.

Tobacco pipes were among the first mass-produced, disposable objects in Britain. Through contact with native peoples of the Americas, tobacco pipes and tobacco were introduced to Europe as early as the 16th century, but had been used in the Americas for centuries before this.

In England the most popular material for pipes between 1600 and 1900 was clay. Shapes and styles varied over the years, but the basic design remained the same: a hand-held bowl to burn tobacco in and a stem to draw the smoke the mouth of the smoker.mPipes were lightweight, rigid and made out of inexpensive materials. They were also rather breakable.

Tobacco pipes found in archaeological digs can help researchers identify the dates when a particular site may have been occupied based on bowl or stem size and even who may have occupied these spaces. Bite marks in stems may indicate workers holding them in their mouths while working. Fascinating new evidence about some of the other ways people used tobacco pipes in the past. People routinely used tobacco pipes as weapons and as medical instruments from at least as early as the 17th century, although most of the evidence dates to the 18th century.

Clay tobacco pipes were hand-held and breakable. This made them ideal for striking or stabbing with when tempers flared.

Some of the same properties that made pipes excellent weapons also made them useful medical instruments. Evidence from medical publications such as the Lancet and surgical guides suggest that pipe stems could be used as catheters to relieve both men and women of retained urine. Pipes were also recommended for emergency tracheotomies, as straws for those who could not eat and drink on their own, and as lactation aides for nursing mothers. In 1796, Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) recommended using the stem of a tobacco pipe to remove a guinea worm, a waterborne parasite found in certain parts of Africa from an infected patient. (1)

A method of dating clay pipes is to measure the interior hole size of the stem. In the 1950s, J.C. Harrington studied thousands of pipe stems from archaeological sites and concluded that pipe stems could be dated based on their interior hole or bore size.

Harrington published that early pipe stems (1590 to 1620) had larger holes than later pipe stems. In fact, Harrington categorized pipe bore sizes into six time periods. (2)

                               Time Period                         Diameter

                              1590 to 1620                      9/64 inches

                              1620 to 1650                      8/64 inches

                              1650 to 1680                      7/64 inches

                              1680 to 1720                      6/64 inches

                              1720 to 1750                      5/64 inches

Source:

1. "Researchers Discover 18th-century Clay Tobacco Pipes were Used as Weapons and Surgical Tools," The Conversation, April 25, 2023, Online: theconversation.com/researchers-discover-18th-century-clay-tobacco-pipes-were-used-as-weapons-and-surgical-tools-204295

2. "Dating Clay Pipe Stems," Brick Store Museum--Southern Maine Archaeology Resource, Online: https://www.brickstoremuseum.org/collections/archaeology/smar/clay-pipe-stems/