portant articles for setting the table was the
trencher. These were made of wood, and often were only a block of wood,
about ten or twelve inches square and three or four deep, hollowed down
into a sort of bowl in the middle. In this the food was
placed,--porridge, meat, vegetables, etc. Each person did not have even
one of these simple dishes; usually two children, or a man and his wife,
ate out of one trencher. This was a custom in England for many years;
and some very great people, a duke and his wife, not more than a century
and a half ago, sat side by side at the table and ate out of one plate
to show their unity and affection. It is told of an old Connecticut
settler, a deacon, that as he had a wood-turning mill, he thought he
would have a trencher apiece for his children. So he turned a sufficient
number of round trenchers in his mill. For this his neighbors deemed him
deeply extravagant and putting on too many airs, both as to quantity and
quality, since square trenchers, one for use by two persons, were good
enough for any one, even a deacon. So great a warrior and so prominent a
man in the colony as Miles Standish used wooden trenchers at the table,
as also did all the early governors. Nor did they disdain to name them
in their wills, as valued household possessions. For many years college
boys at Harvard ate out of wooden trenchers at the college mess-table.

I have seen a curious old table top, or table-board, which permitted
diners seated at it to dispense with trenchers or plates. It was of
heavy oak about six inches thick, and at intervals of about eighteen
inches around its edge were scooped out deep, bowl-shaped holes about
ten inches in diameter, in which each individual's share of the dinner
was placed. After each meal the top was lifted off the trestles,
thoroughly washed and dried, and was ready for the next meal.

Poplar-wood is an even, white, and shining wood. Until the middle of
this century poplar-wood trenchers and plates were used on the table in
Vermont, and were really attractive dishes. From earliest days the
Indians made and sold many bowls and trenchers of maple-wood knots. One
of these bowls, owned by King Philip, is at the rooms of the
Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. Old wooden trenchers and
"Indian bowls" can be seen at the Memorial Hall in Deerfield. Bottles
were made also of wood, and drinking-cups and "noggins," which were a
sort of mug with a handle. Wood furnished man