This digital story was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Stories: Yes." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Don Lewis (00:01): Hi, I'm Don Lewis. I was part of the committee that was formed about three years ago when a couple of old distillation pots or kettles were found on a piece of county property and then the farm museum got the idea of what they ought to do because of the uniqueness of this product to the area, to put an exhibit together here at the farm museum and I was called along with a few other guys to design how that would be set up, trying to make it like a deuced feed basically. And given what we were starting with, which is a couple of cast iron kettles with the bottom's rusted out, it wasn't much. So I was challenged by somebody to find them a real distillation system, find a real warm seat still. Which turned out to be quite an undertaking and that even though there were a huge number of these that existed in kind of a tri-county area, Carol Howard and Frederick, that they had pretty much all disappeared because of the lack of business, a lack of product to produce.
Don Lewis (01:13): So I did an eyes on, hands on look for from a document that was done by the, I guess it was Montgomery County Historical Society of one that was on Camptown road. I went to the spot where that was the last one that was known and it was gone, but I happened to be able to talk to a lady that was there that said, "You ought to go talk to Robert and Rosie Day that live in Ijamsville area, near Frederick. There'll be able to tell you more."
Don Lewis (01:47): And when I went there, I found out they had one that had been sitting there idle for like 40 years. They had bought the pieces, put it together. And so talked with them about donating it to the farm museum, which they agreed to do and here we are. Worm seed it's a weed basically that grows in this region fairly often, still can find it growing as a weed, but it was discovered in the late 1800's, I guess it was, that it actually could be used, or the oil from the seeds of the worm seed plant, could be used as an agent against worms, whether it be human or animal intestinal worms, roundworm, hookworm, that kind of a thing.
Don Lewis (02:35): The needs primarily were that of intestinal worms and animals. It was also used in humans, but there was a problem and that the toxicity, it's a very, very toxic material. So getting the dose right was important. But unlike today, and when we have very, very strong analytical equipment to be able to test for what the quality of the strength, if you will, of the material would be. All they used at that point in time was a hydrometer measuring specific gravity. So that's as good as it got. There was still a need for material and given that need, it was being laboratory produced. And the business basically phased out in the '60's. The still that the days ran did run up until early '70's for a very, very niche market. Now beyond the animal use intestinal worms, it was also used in paints for the halls of ships, because it would kill any of the sea worms that would start to eat the wood.
Don Lewis (03:39): So the Germans used a lot of this material and the paint for their ships. And secondly, the clipper ships, they used to sail so much in the day, used it as well . . .
Asset ID: 8582
For a complete transcript, please visit the Museum on Main Street website: www.museumonmainstreet.org
