History Mystery #13: Solution

You’ve done it again. We thought the unusual item with handles would surely baffle and perplex:

Nope! About a dozen people correctly identified this harvesting implement, found in the tool room of an antiques store. We expected one or two readers who had grown up around the fields would recognize it, but what really surprised us was the number of sleuths who were able to get the correct answer, using only the photo and the hint about locations.

For what it’s worth, we couldn’t figure it out when we first saw it. Maybe it was used for tilling the soil or planting seeds? Here are some other guesses:

• “Is it to clean snow from sidewalks?”
• “Is it a thresher or something used in harvesting?”
• “It’s a type of reaper. My husband grew up on farms as his father was a tenant farmer. He even described how this object would work.”
• “Garden tool.”
• “Was it used to cut hay?”
• “The mystery item looks like something to be used to unearth root vegetables such as potatoes.”

The actual purpose, as noted by Rita A., Victoria C., Sis K., John H., Catherine F., Jack F., Carole T., Pat B., and others was a cranberry scoop. Sheila H. provided context:

“I can only imagine that the device has something to do with harvesting cranberries, especially since New Jersey was mentioned.”

Deborah F. even had a family connection: Her father published Cranberry magazine in the 1960s and 1970s:

“I also saw a lot of harvesting going on in the bogs which were all around us in that part of Massachusetts. I actually also wrote part of an article and took pictures at an annual meeting for the local Cranberry organization one year, that was held in Plymouth County.”

The tart, airy berries have been harvested by Native Americans for millennia and were used as a food source (for instance, as an ingredient in pemmican cakes) as well as in dyes. Some tribes maintain traditions around cranberry harvests, including the Wampanoag in Massachusetts.

European colonists began to gather the wild berries, too, using the same dry harvesting approach to pick the berries from bushes.

In the 1800s, farmers figured out how to cultivate cranberries. A key innovation was wet harvesting. Fields were flooded, and the berries would detach from the plants and float to the surface. Ian saw one such bog on a Scouting trip to Plymouth, Massachusetts, with our son back in 2022: 

Why pick the fruit by hand, when a tool can get dozens of berries with every pass? There was a debate among readers about whether the wooden scoops were for wet or dry harvesting, but the record was set straight in an email from the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association:

“The scoops were used for dry harvesting to separate the berries from the vines.”

Nowadays, dry harvesting has become mechanized. Wet harvesting uses industrial vacuums with help from workers with waders and rakes as shown in this video.