Mystery artifact stashed at Revolutionary War-era site turns out to be kitchen gadget

It’s not unreasonable to assume Americans would have hidden valuables in crawlspaces during the 1700s, but a recent discovery at Saratoga National Historical Park in New York is disproving that notion in a funny way.

Archaeologists studying timbers in historic Schuyler House, built in 1777, found a mysterious object that resembles a kind of rustic magic wand.

It’s 10 to 12 inches long, with a wooden handle at one end and a sheath of metal encasing the other. A pattern of holes was punched into the metal — in the shape of a six-pointed star.

“Research can sometimes bring unexpected surprises. We got one,” the park wrote. “In the Schuyler House kitchen crawlspace ... in a cobweb-filled, dark, and hidden corner (was) something quite expected.”

What is it? Brace yourself.

“A handmade food grater,” the park service revealed. “If you’re not familiar with this kitchen tool, they’re common even today, and are used for grating dry bread into breadcrumbs or making grated cheese.”

The kitchen gadget is “in surprisingly good shape,” they noted, despite spending about 200 years sitting on a “powdery dirt floor.”

“The wood was dry-rotted in a few spots and the tinplate (sheet iron with a tin coating that resists rusting, at least for a while) was, while somewhat rust coated, still intact,” officials said.

“Tool marks were very visible. The size, shape, and tool markings strongly suggest it was a repurposed piece from a wooden bucket.”

The detailing suggests the grater dates to between 1785 and 1820, when the land belonged to Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler and his wife, Catherine Schuyler, officials said.

Philip Schuyler (1733-1804) was a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775 and later a major general who served as “third in command under Georgia Washington in the Northern Department of the Continental Army,” according to the National Park Service.

British soldiers burned his original house during the war, historians say. The grater was found in a replacement home, built in 1777 to serve as “the center of Schuyler’s extensive farming and milling operations,” the park service says.

The kitchen (where the grater was found) was added later, but historians aren’t sure when.

Park officials didn’t say what is to become of the grater.

This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 1:26 PM with the headline "Mystery artifact stashed at Revolutionary War-era site turns out to be kitchen gadget."