Historians of a small Maryland town were recently stumped by a 100-year-old mystery contraption stored in their archives for almost three decades. After turning to the public for help, the Dorchester County Historical Society has finally figured out the odd machine’s original purpose.
According to WBOC on October 29th, the Dorchester County Historical Society in Cambridge, Maryland, had spent weeks trying to determine what its “Neild Museum gadget” was originally designed to do. Although it displays clear signs of age, the tool is still in working order, and consists of two horizontal spinning pins–one of which is topped with pegs–installed on a ceramic countertop. The machine appears to originally have been operated by hand, but archivists note that a motor system was added later to help automate its task—whatever it was.
WBOC notes that a “similar contraption” was donated to DCHS by a fellow historical society in Delaware in the 1990’s, although the accompanying documentation lacks any photographs to positively match with the machine. After asking the public to chime in last month, Facebook commenters offered a number of theories for the device, including a clothes wringer, a leather tanner, a planographic press for lithographs, and even a meat tenderizer. According to DCHS executive director Zoe Phillips, however, the machine appeared to have very local origins.
“We potentially think it was a Maryland beaten biscuit maker created by a man who was trying to help his aunt with [her] business,” Phillips told WBOC. “[T]he belief is that this would’ve helped beat the air out of the dough as the biscuits were being created.”
[Related: Ancient, mysterious 12-sided object still baffles archeologists.]
On November 1st, Phillips said Dorchester County could finally close the case: The machine is, in fact, a mechanical beaten biscuit maker.
“The man who transported it to our Society confirmed it was the same machine he brought here from its previous home in 1992,” Phillips said in an email to Popular Science.
While the exact origins of Maryland beaten biscuits remain clouded by time, historians believe the baked goods originated at plantations located in the state’s southern and eastern regions. The biscuits were likely developed as a workaround for a lack of leavening used to lighten and soften the dough, and consisted of lard, flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. The earliest biscuits were made on top of hardwood tree stumps and often involved beating the dough using the back of an ax handle—possibly an influence from Indigenous culture’s approach to beating corn for various recipes. Beaten biscuits could be a time-consuming and tiresome task, so a machine that simplified the process would have been a welcome solution for many bakers.
But now that the mystery is solved, one lingering question remains: Who will be the first to taste test a batch of beaten biscuits made with the Neild Museum gadget?