The Hen-and-Chickens Kettle

The economy of using antiques to decorate with in northern New England homes gives us a …very rare… old witch's kettle. I have touched on this economy of decoration in the earlier Old Pickles in the Window post. In the short form it is the practice of keeping and displaying damaged and common "not valuable" antiques that …ABSOLUTELY DO… send the same refined aesthetic message as a perfect, fine form and "valuable" antique. The view from the rural northern New England home is that to keep the latter cannot be done for cashing it in is irresistible and money-wise proper. Right behind that commercial impulse is the "I know", "I like" and "I want" of these same objects by this same person. The way that is found to display one's alignment and full embrace with this embedded aesthetic is to use common and damaged "of no cash value" to send the right message. THIS WORKS PERFECTLY, silently and beyond refute. The plain dirty pickle bottles in the back stair window are a classic of this …decorative school. Should one NOT be sensitive to this secret decorative code, one is quickly found out with one's comments of value, perfection and refinement. Once found out, one receives a qualifier of one's "I know" that is a black spot… forever.
With the cast iron witch's kettle comes a two tiered display of this aesthetic alignment. Foremost, commonly encountered and easily understood, it the display of a "broken" …but otherwise perfectly aligned with the "GOOD ONE" design requirements… true old witch kettle. I include a set of photographs of a seriously cracked mid 19th century kettle having a Bangor, Maine makers mark. As already noted, for front porch and outside display, a crack is "GOOD!" for it drains water and …makes the kettle inexpensive to purchase for it is shunned as "damaged" by collectors and dealers. For example, this particular kettle was "give it to you" by a local picker who simply tossed it beside our barn because it is "no good", "no money" and of "too little value as scrap iron". "TOO BAD HUH!" was the picker's final verbal appraisal.
To the knowing eye… the crack is SPLENDID and that "Bangor, Maine" mid 19th century maker's mark is …golden. OUTSIDE use perfect, front porch use perfect, drain ready and "WOW MAINE MADE!" too …one attempting an actually hunt down one this fine will quickly discover that THIS example offers much more to the decorative eye and is actually… very hard to find.
From this spire of perfection the "bring home and display" climbs down the condition ladder to… old busted-up cast iron fragments of kettles. Often times it is a found treasure brought home by a hunter's "I found it in the woods… down below the old Chapman cellar hole. Nice huh.". This is promptly appropriated "by the wife" who nestles it into "just the right spot" of her …garden decoration plan (that never considers a fancy mail order cast cement & bronze sundial …or such). Ever after the odd-to-the-unknowing-eye JEWEL remains displayed FOREVER and is most always "NOT FOR SALE".
Continuing with the Bangor, Maine made theme, I show in the photographs next a large and true fragment of a witch style kettle. With a badly chipped top rim, massively cracked, all feet broken off, rusted traces of old forest service green porch paint, a large hole in the bottom…, even a real Maine woods shot-by-hunter bullet hole AND … a bold Bangor, Maine mark, this is a "best example" of the decorative bottom of the witch kettle type. It is a rusted fragment relic and a prime one at that.
What happens VERY, VERY, VERY occasionally to a specimen like this last is a …great northern New England garden decoration rarity. By the last quarter of the 19th century and continuing to the early 1960's, very occasionally these kettle fragments would by used as garden planters holding Hen-and-chickens. These would be "started" and then left alone forever to "live there" "like that". The "like that" is the decorative key. The hen spreads it's chicks (new baby hens) in little chains that creep away and …OVER THE EDGE… of the kettle fragment. A very old planting has dangling chicks that resemble dreadlocks. The more of this dangling there is …meaning the older and more established the colony… the more decorative, the more aesthetic and the more desirable this planting becomes. A true old one is VERY, VERY scarce and commands a premium in the in-the-know antiques marketplace. They are also very, very hard to purchase when found "kept" by an old family. Generally they pass from mother to daughter and are NEVER "for sale". It has only been in the last decade, with the newest generation "I HATE THAT" indolence that a few true old ones have been found… and purchased. Most fine specimens, confronted by the new indolence… PERISH… due to neglect.
The pictured kettle fragment is a perfect example of this. Once, thirty years ago it flourished fully draped in "MY GRANDMOTHER'S" hen-and-chicks. We tried to buy it. "No". The old woman died. We tried to buy it. "No." said her daughter "I'm taking that" and sold the old homestead and… did take it to her new home. We tried to buy it. "NO!". Eventually SHE died. We tried to by it. It was gone. The heirs knew nothing about it. In a mid Maine April, during a purchase visit, I spied it. The snowplow man, plowing the yard, had long ago plowed the old kettle into the woods at the end of the driveway. GONE were the hen and her chicks, gone was the old soil. I expressed interest and dragged it out of the woods. "THAT?" "You can HAVE that!" the heirs said.
I have seen about a dozen of these true hen-and-chickens kettles in my career and purchased only three of them. I know where four are and keep my eye on them. They are the rarest form of the old cast iron witch's kettle found in a northern New England home. I tag a few hen-and-chickens photographs on the end and recommend a simple goggle of that name should one be unclear about the succulent.