Crowe's Roof Hatchet

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 7:57 pm

Well, for a Holiday present, I wanted to post 4 similar news items on the Crowe's roof hatchet found- for Bigsteve and Yooper. But I don't see their names as having visited recently.

Is anyone interested?

theebmonique · Post by **theebmonique** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:12 pm

Yes..post them...that would be great..thanks !

Tracy...

stuartwsa · Post by **stuartwsa** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:37 pm

Absolutely!!

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:37 am

Here ya go!

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:57 am

#2

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:59 am

#3

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:01 am

#4

theebmonique · Post by **theebmonique** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:24 am

Thanks Kat !

Tracy...

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:37 am

Thanks for all that, Kat. I had no idea that there was a few different sources for the story, I think I've only ever seen one of them. If it was the murder weapon, it doesn't make much sense if the murderer was an outsider that they would leave the house and toss the hatchet up there. But, if it was an insider like Lizzie, it might be a possible place to just get it off the property. And yes, I do recall that someone had come forward and claimed that the hatchet was their own, a roofer or handyman.

I recently just reread Kent and his timeline for Andrew's murder which he gives as approximately 8 free minutes to do it in. I wonder if it would have been possible for Lizzie to kill Andrew and go to the barn, rinse the hachet blade and then throw it up on Crowe's barn roof? I do recall we had a thread going in the past where Harry had brought up this point and that there was no way Lizzie could have gone out, picked up pears and gone into the barn and puttered around for 20 to 30 minutes. It still seems incredible that Andrew's murder happened at all in that short amount of time.

Angel · Post by **Angel** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:32 pm

I have a question. Exactly when was the gilt on the skulls found? Was this before or after the hatchet was found? And did the public know about the gilt found on the skulls? I'm trying to figure out if this was indeed a plant put on the roof for the sake of sensation, or if it could have possibly been the weapon.

snokkums · Post by **snokkums** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 2:05 pm

Thanks Kat. It was interesting to see and read. Where did you find them?

RayS · Post by **RayS** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 2:30 pm

Any hatchet on the roof in plain sight would have been found after the murders. I suspect it could have been seen from one of the windows of the top floor of the Borden house, and others. IMO

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 2:01 pm

These were 4 out of 7 items I believe were published on the Crowe's roof hatchet that was found. We don't have all 7. One in Rebello was dated June 17th and is headlined:
"It Was McDonnell's Axe/ Alibi Established for the Hatchet on Crowe's Barn," Fall River Daily Herald, Saturday, June 17, 1893: 8.

The reference to gilt was in a letter to Knowlton by Dr. Draper, dated May 31st, 1893, pg. 212. The Knowlton Papers.

The Crowe's roof hatchet was found 10 days into the trial.
Apparently these medical experts knew each other and may have discussed the findings, pre-June 5, 1892 when the trial started, possibly. But I don't know. I don't have a sense of how close Knowlton kept his prosecution info, nor how buddy-buddy the Defense may have been with access to this info. But I believe the defense did see this in their private exam of the skulls May 28, (pg. 206). We don't know of the significance to either side.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 1:35 am

Common Sense in the Household, by Marion Harland, 1872.

On cleaning knives:

Clean with a soft flannel and Bath brick. If rusty, use wood-ashes, rubbed on with a newly cut bit of Irish potato.
This will remove spots when nothing else will.
Keep your best set wrapped in soft white paper; then in linen, in drawer out of damp and dust.
Never dip the ivory handles of knives in hotwater.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:05 pm

I seem to remember that someone claimed to be the owner of the hatchet, someone who had been working in Crowe's yard at the time.

Once again, several possibilities exist for the presence of the hatchet on the barn or shed roof. It might have been a hoax, which falls apart if the hatchet was claimed by anyone.

It might have been a practical joke played by co-workers, but I doubt it. I have worked in an environment where the people supplied their own tools to do a job. Tools are expensive and represent a fair portion of a person's income, probably more so back then. We didn't touch anyone else's tools without asking. They were always loaned freely if requested. Even if the owner of the hatchet had been hated by his co-workers, I doubt that they would have let him go home without returning the hatchet. Hiding the hatchet might have been grounds for dismissal, the individual is non-productive while carrying on the search and the perpetrator is the cause of it.

The claimant legitimately left the hatchet there himself and had forgotten about it. He would have wanted that particular hatchet back REALLY bad! He probably would have replaced it by then and would not have needed it. A laborer who identifies himself as the owner of a hatchet found near the Borden residence at that time would have needed deep pockets. Attorneys don't work cheap.

It could have been the murder weapon and the claimant wanted a souvenir.

In any case, it sounds like the hatchet had deteriorated to the proper degree. There would have been rust stains on the roof around the hatchet head if it had been there all that time. If it had indeed been there since the murders, it becomes self-evident that no one would have seen it from a window or a roof, because no one did.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:12 pm

I wonder if the hatchet still exists and if there is a written or verbal history attached to it?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:52 am

Some further thoughts, if the hatchet had been claimed, the police would probably have wanted a description of it from the claimant. If the claimant had legitimately lost the hatchet while working, the police would probably want a statement from someone other than the claimant to the effect that it wasn't used in the homicide. This all assumes that the hatchet was lost on the day of the murders. If it was lost at another time and that fact can be established, then it has no bearing on the case at all. I can understand someone legitimately losing a hatchet and wanting to clear up the mystery by coming forward with the truth.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:22 am

That's one big coincidense, fot a hatchet, to be lost in that vacinity, during that time, really, what are the odds?? Does the claiment say exactly when he lost it? Was he working on that roof? Tools being that vital could he have got off that roof and left just the hatchet behind?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:57 am

If the hatchet was an important tool, I wonder why the claimant hadn't realized when and where he had lost it and gone back for it himself. If it was a vital component to do a day's work, even if it was a mystery where it had gone, it would have been necessary to replace it right away and the old one would no longer be needed. If the claimant had been working on the barn roof some time after the murders, working with others, and, possibly, the owner of the barn could corroborate the story, the hatchet owner could safely come forward with the truth without fear of prosecution.

One of the articles mentioned that it would be impossible for hatchet to be thrown from the Borden yard to where it was found. Was there a roof in the way, possibly? The article description of the barn layout is a bit confusing.

RayS · Post by **RayS** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:37 pm

Sometimes when people lose something they don't know where it happened. If you had something when you went shopping, but didn't have it when you returned home, where is it?
In the store, parking lot, outside your home? Or maybe you left it at home and only thought you had it when you went shopping?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:40 pm

The claimant might also have simply been careless as a rule. If the hatchet had been replaced right away, there would have been less need to search for the old one.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:48 pm

In order for it to have been the claiments hatchet, he would have had to have been on the barn doing something, if I lost my billfold or whatever I wouldn't expect to find it on the barn if I hadn't been there............right? So, had he been working on that barn? If so when? and did anyone else verify it?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 9:11 am

shakiboo @ Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:48 pm wrote:In order for it to have been the claiments hatchet, he would have had to have been on the barn doing something, if I lost my billfold or whatever I wouldn't expect to find it on the barn if I hadn't been there............right? So, had he been working on that barn? If so when? and did anyone else verify it?

I'm sure the police would have had an intense interest in these questions, he must have justified the hatchet's presence to them. The hatchet sounds like it might have been relatively new with gilt on one side of the head. I wonder why someone wouldn't be aware of the absence of a new tool at the end of the day, or whenever the tools were put away. I can understand inhibition on someone's part if some time had lapsed since the loss. Being seen retrieving a hatchet from anywhere near the Borden residence without having been working there recently was a risk, even if the loss was legitimate. To look for it at the time of the loss would not seem inappropriate.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 9:54 am

There is a significant paragraph in the June 15, 1893 article posted by Kat.

"So far as is known no man has been on the roof within two years. Mr. Crowe knows of none; all telegraph, telephone, electric light wiremen, roofers and several photographers agree on this. The police did not visit it in their thorough search."

Since roofers don't work for free and since it was Crowe's barn he would have to pay for any roof repairs. It seems to me he should know and he claims none in the last two years.

How and when it got there, to me, is a mystery. However, I don't believe it had anything to do with the Borden murders. I have always thought the trees would prevent a hatchet being tossed onto that barn from the Borden yard. Patrick McGowan testified he stood on the fence between Crowe's yard and the Borden's and picked a pear or two from the overhanging branches.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 10:23 am

Two years previous puts the hatchet on the roof in 1891, assuming one of the roofers left it. To be a viable murder weapon it would have been put there between the day of the murders and whatever minimum time was necessary for it to deteriorate to the condition it was found in.

One way to dispose of a hatchet might be to remove the handle and drive the head into the ground in a yard or garden. The resulting disturbance of the ground surface would be minimal and easily covered up. It could later be removed with little difficulty. The handle could be burned in a stove and the ashes might even resemble a rolled-up sheet of paper.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 8:25 pm

That's a good idea yooper, but would there have been time for the handle to completly burn leaving no trace of the wood? And wouldn't the stove had to have been pretty hot to do that? Wouldn't it still be pretty warm when Mrs. Churchill arrived and sat with Lizzie in the kitchen? Actually, I think Andrew threw the "sheaf of paper's" he was reading into the stove when he went to the kitchen after he had read them and before he went upstairs. Somehow that just makes sense.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 8:48 pm

Paper tends to move as it burns, it doesn't retain its shape. A single piece of wood thrown on top of coals would retain its shape. The question is whether there was time for a hatchet handle to burn to ash.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:04 am

If it was the handle, wouldn't someone, an investigater, be able to tell the difference between ashes from papar and that of wood? aahh but then maybe that's why Lizzie said she'd put a stick of wood on the fire to get it going to heat her flats.......just incase there was anything left of the handle. What do you think?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:51 am

I guess ashes are ashes, paper is made from wood. It always struck me as odd that someone would find ashes which resembled a rolled-up sheet of paper. I know from experience that a rolled-up sheet of paper will resemble something else after it has burned, the ashes more or less fall apart rather than retain the original shape. A paper cylinder would burn from the bottom up, ashes would have to hold up the unburned paper at the top and the heavier top would collapse the ashes at the bottom. Paper tends to twist and turn as it burns so it would contort rather than hold any shape and the movement would quicken the collapse. A hatchet handle is about the size of a piece of kindling wood and probably made of kiln dried hickory, it would readily catch fire, but would not burn overly fast for its size. It would retain its shape after turning to ashes.

I assume that to resemble a rolled-up piece of paper it would be necessary for the ends of a cylindrical shape to appear hollow. The investigator would have to see the object end-on to make the determination. If he looked in the firebox from the top, through the removable plates on the stove top, this might be impossible. There may have been a firebox door on the front of the stove, up high, and usually on the left side. It may have been possible to see what was in the firebox end-on from the door. Otherwise, looking down from the top, it would only have appeared to be the side of a long cylindrical shape.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 12:51 pm

hhhhmmmm, back to the head of the hatchet then, I wonder if anyone has ever gone over the yard with a metal detector? That is an excellant place for the head of the hatchet to have disappeared, no fuss, no mess, maybe just a little adjusting of grass etc. over the top.She wouldn't have ventured to far out into the yard to do it, as someone would have seen her, but that still leaves alot of area to do it.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:11 pm

Did the barn have a dirt floor? It may have been a bit conspicuous to be beating the yard! The hatchet head could possibly be removed at a later time, just a shovel needed for the task.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:39 pm

I gathered together from the primary documents Officer Harrington's testimony regarding what he saw in the stove. Harrington did not testify at the Inquest. They seemed preoccupied in not trying to insinuate Dr. Bowen did anything wrong. I note that the "cylindrical" description doesn't appear until the trial.

Witness statements, page 6 -

"Dr. Bowen had scraps of paper in his hand, on which there was some writing. He and I spoke about them, and he tried to put some of them together. He said “it is nothing, it is something about, I think, my daughter going through somewhere.” If I recollect correctly, it was addressed to Emma; but about that I am not sure. The Doctor then said “it does not amount to anything”, and taking the lid off the kitchen stove, he dropped the pieces in. There was very little fire in the stove, and the ashes which were on top looked as though paper had been burned there."

Preliminary, page 394 -

Q. This does not in any way effect Dr. Bowen. For any reason did you look in the stove?
A. Not at all.
Q. Not at all? What did you see in the stove?
A. I was going to tell what he had in his hand. When he took the cover off the stove, the fire was very low, and there appeared to be, or there was, rather larger coal, or larger remains of something that appeared to be burnt paper, and it was quite large. I should say quite large judging from the size of the stove, comparatively speaking.
Q. Why did you say it looked like burnt paper?
A. Because I have seen burnt paper before, that is all the reason.
Q. Where was it?
A. On the back part of the fire place, or the fire part, whatever you call it, the fire part of the stove.
Q. You mean the place where the fire is?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. What sort of a fire was it that there was there?
A. I could not swear that, but there was a small red spot down in the center.
(Mr. Adams) Not a blood spot.
A. A small spark of fire there that looked to me like coal, but that I would not swear to.
Q. You could not tell whether it was a coal or wood fire?
A. No Sir; but that is the impression I had at the time, it was coal.

Trial, page 567+ -

"Q. Now then, did you observe anything as he [Dr. Bowen] lifted the lid from the stove?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Go on and state what you did and what you observed.
A. I noticed the fire box. The fire was very near extinguished. On the south end there was a small fire which I judged was a coal fire. The embers were about dying.It was about as large as the palm of my hand. There had been some paper burned in there before, which was rolled up and still held a cylindrical form.
Q. Now will you describe that roll of burned paper by measuring it with your hands, please?
A. Well, I should say it was about that long. (Indicating) Twelve inches, I should say.
Q. And how large in diameter?
A. Well, not over two inches."

Trial, page 583 (On cross-examination):

"Q. So he [Dr. Bowen] threw it right down in where there wasn't any fire?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And upon some embers of burnt paper?
A. No, sir, it went down between that burnt paper and the front part of the fire-box.
Q. That is, this lay a little to the back, and that was a piece of burnt paper?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Rolled up?
A. Completely carbonized.
Q. About a foot long?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And I think you said about an inch or two inches?
A. I thought about two.
Q. Lying there all charred and burned?
A. Yes, sir."

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:57 pm

Thanks, Harry! It seems that the cylindrical form seen in the firebox is simply accepted as paper, without much further qualification. Twelve inches is within reason for a hatchet handle, either snapped off or not. The description of "completely carbonized" implies that the cylinder had charred and become black (carbon) rather than oxidized to ashes.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 3:22 pm

The thing I want to look at next is what Bridget said was the condition of the fire just before she went upstairs to her room.

If it was low or dying Lizzie would not have had much time to kill her father, change or get rid of possible bloody clothing, break the hatchet handle, hide the hatchet head and get the fire hot enough to consume the wooden handle.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 3:55 pm

Here's Bridget's testimony about the condition of the fire before she went upstairs. It's not much help as she says she didn't check it. But she does say that the fire she started early in the morning was a small one and that she didn't have anything to do with it during the morning.

Preliminary, page 26 -

Q. How did you leave the fire when you went up stairs?
A. I did not see the fire at all.
Q. When was the last time you had anything to do with the fire?
A. After getting breakfast, and washing my dishes, I did not see the fire again. I had no business with it.
......................................
Q. Had you put the soup on when you went up stairs?
A. No Sir.
Q. You were coming down to do that about half past eleven?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. Cold mutton, of course, did not require any cooking at all?
A. No Sir.
Q. You did not pay any attention to the fire when you went up stairs at all?
A. No Sir.
Q. Was it a coal or wood fire?
A. A little coal fire I started in the morning.
Q. How did you usually warm up the soup with coal or wood?
A. In hot weather, we usually used the wood.
Q. You let the coal fire go out?
A. Yes Sir.

Trial, page 238 -

Q. And where were the flats that she [Lizzie] was ironing with?
A. In the stove, in the kitchen.
Q. Do you know anything of the condition of the fire at that time?
A. No, sir; I couldn't tell how it was.

Trial, page 284, cross-examination:

Q. And you didn't even know about the fire in the stove?
A. No, sir. I didn't look at the fire at all.
Q. What kind of fire did you make in the morning?
A. I made a coal fire, not a very big fire.
Q. It was hot weather and you didn't need much fire after breakfast?
A. No, sir.
Q. You didn't look in the stove to see how it was?
A. No, sir, I did not.
Q. Were the flats on the stove?
A. Yes, sir.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:22 pm

Harrington saw coals in the firebox, something other than just paper was burned in the meantime, or coals remained from breakfast. Paper does not reduce to coal, just ash. Hardwood or coal will reduce to embers, and it doesn't take much in the way of a hot ember to get a piece of dry hardwood burning if the draft and damper are opened. It will burn rapidly with a good draft and most of the heat will go up the chimney.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:12 pm

Lizzie said she had put in a stick of wood to try and build up the fire to heat her flats. What if that stick of wood was the handle to the hatchet? A hatchet without the head is a stick of wood.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:28 pm

That's right, a hatchet handle is only kindling once it breaks. If this scenario is true, it makes her "story" a little less far-fetched in that she is incorporating just a bit of the truth in it. If she hid the hatchet head in the barn floor, then she did spend some time in the barn. Someone may have seen her coming or going (Lubinsky) and she didn't know at the time she first claimed to have been in the barn (witness statements) just who saw what and when. It would have been smart to assume that someone would see her outside, hence the barn story. She simply alters the amount of time and the reason for the visit. This makes her story about the barn necessary from her standpoint at the time the police first arrived. She couldn't very well say she wasn't there and run the risk that someone saw her.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 12:04 am

Come to think of it, this would make the original reason for the barn visit (iron--actually steel, which is made from iron) true. The whole truth was that she was dropping some iron off rather than picking some up. This could have changed to lead if the concept of iron was a little uncomfortable. The hatchet handle was indeed a stick of wood at that point, so she put a stick of wood on the fire.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:09 pm

That makes sense, and could very well be what happend to the hatchet! Even her wording "I put a stick of wood on the fire to get it going" as to "I put some wood on the fire to get it going" So, then it would not be a lie, but a half truth.............I wonder if they dug up the barn floor when they tore it down?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:38 pm

Lizzie's wording implies that the fire was down to embers at the time she added the wood. The hatchet head could have been removed after Lizzie was released.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:56 pm

Oh that's true, if that's the case then its probably lying at the bottom of the river. She surely wouldn't take the chance of it ever being anywhere near her. So, here's the course of events....she kills Andrew, somehow gets the head off the hatchet, throws the handle into the stove and goes outside to the barn and puts it into the ground, and goes back in and "discovers Andrew" wakes up Bridget, sends her away, checks to make sure it's burned properly then waits at the backdoor........what do you think?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:15 pm

The irony is that she could have glued it to her sealskin sack and worn it in public once she was acquitted! It probably is somewhere under water, though. That sequence sounds about right. Do we have an approximate time when Harrington looked in the stove?

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:52 pm

From the testimony that Harry gave above, Harrington saw what-ever it was when he saw Dr. Bowen drop in those paper scraps. So it would have been somewhere around noon.......does that sound right?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:06 pm

An hour is probably pretty close. The question is whether that is enough time to cook a hatchet handle. If there are sufficient embers and draft, it probably would be. Harrington also mentions that it appeared completely carbonized rather than oxidized. This implies that it might have been charred black like carbon or charcoal. I also wonder if the handle might have been broken off in the barn. The few extra minutes might not have made much difference in the burn time.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:11 pm

Unofficial test results indicate that it takes about 50 minutes for a 2 inch diameter stick of maple to burn to ashes when started on embers. This is in a fireplace type wood stove at an average draft setting. Keep in mind that a 2 inch stick is 4 times the mass of a 1 inch stick. I think an hour would be plenty of time to cook a hatchet handle.

I couldn't get sheets of rolled-up paper to burn down to anything resembling a cylinder no matter what draft setting I used. They all tended to unroll and contort in a matter of seconds when laid on the embers, leaving nothing but ashes in a random arrangement.

Whatever cylindrical shape was seen in the cook stove by Harrington was almost certainly not paper. If it was a relatively regular and smooth symmetrical cylinder resembling a rolled-up sheet of paper, it probably was not a piece of kindling wood.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:20 am

Oh that's great Yooper! So that leaves the hatchet handle, that would be treated and would be entirerly different then kindling, wouldn't it? It would be a hard wood too, so that might make a difference. It could be almost an hour and a half, in the stove if she killed him right after Bridget went upstairs......that would or should be plenty of time. Got any old hatchet handles laying around?

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:36 am

Sorry, no wooden hatchet handles. I have an Estwing hatchet which is all steel, both the head and handle are forged together. Tool handles are most often made of hickory which is kiln dried making it drier than air dried firewood. The maple I used is about 40 lbs. per cubic foot, while hickory is about 50 lbs. There isn't any hickory this far north, only maple, birch, and ironwood in this area for the most part.

The 2 inch maple I used was 4 times the volume and 80% of the density of a piece of 1 inch hickory. That makes the maple 3.2 times (320%) the mass of a 1 inch piece of hickory of equal length. I can't imagine a hickory hatchet handle taking more than 45 minutes to burn completely, probably a bit less.

If what Harrington saw was "completely carbonized" it only would have appeared as charred black, remaining solid and requiring less time in the stove. He didn't seem to observe anything more than to simply look at it. He didn't poke at it or try to move it, if he had, he might have found a hatchet handle.

shakiboo · Post by **shakiboo** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 4:32 pm

Holy Cow! I wonder why they never put stove and stick together to come up with hatchet handle? It was totally lost forever the first time anyone made tea and had to build a fire. I wonder when the stove was first used after that........You know it just fits together too good to not be right, then she decided to do away with the dress in the same way, and why not it worked so well the first time. Had she been a little more careful and not let Alice see her, no one would have ever known.

RayS · Post by **RayS** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:04 pm

Yooper @ Mon Jan 22, 2007 3:57 pm wrote:Thanks, Harry! It seems that the cylindrical form seen in the firebox is simply accepted as paper, without much further qualification. Twelve inches is within reason for a hatchet handle, either snapped off or not. The description of "completely carbonized" implies that the cylinder had charred and become black (carbon) rather than oxidized to ashes.

I suppose nobody has a wood or coal burning stove that could be used to test various materials. Rolled up newspaper, or office paper, etc. I think 12" is a little short for a hatchet. Paper usually comes in 11.5" size.

I wonder if that rolled-up paper was a bond or legal paper?