In the last column, the topic was about how early Ohio country fireplace cooks controlled the temperatures of food being prepared on an open hearth. One solution to that dilemma was the use of iron trivets, which kept the cooking vessels elevated over the embers at various heights.
The other way of doing so was through the use of trammels.
The word "trammel," not often heard today, traces back through the Middle English word tramayle and the Old French word tramail to the late Latin word tremaculum, which derives from the Latin word tres, meaning three, and macula, meaning mesh.
Essentially, the crux of the word's meaning is to catch, or hold or enmesh, as if in a net or on a hook. And that is exactly what trammels, as the early pioneers knew them, are. They were an adjustable pot hook. Using trammels, which are of three distinct types, cooking vessels could be adjusted for the correct height above the heating source.
Fireplace trammels -- the products of the blacksmith who wrought them out of iron - were either bar-type, chain-type or sawtooth. A feature all of these had in common was an iron hook that allowed them to be hung from a lug pole located in the throat of the chimney. Lug poles were made of stout green saplings that rested on outcroppings of bricks or stones up inside the chimney. Green wood was preferred because it lasted longer in the dry heat of the chimney. Even so, lug poles had to be changed out with regularity to prevent them from becoming brittle or charred and breaking.
Bar trammels were made, as the name implies, from flat bars of iron into which numerous holes were punched. A second piece consisted of a round rod with a substantial pot hook on one end and a small hook to engage any of the various holes in the bar on the other. Thus, the pot hung on the hook could be moved up or down depending on which hole the rod was hooked into.
Bar trammels are found in a wide variety of lengths, ranging from 1 foot to as long as 4 feet. With the pothook bar fully extended, some bar trammels reached 6 feet in length.
The chain trammel was a length of handmade iron links having a larger lug pole hook on one end and a smaller pot hook on the other. The pot hook, however, was crafted with a secondary hook that could be hung on any of the chain links, enabling the height of the cooking pot to be controlled.
The third type was the sawtooth trammel, so named because of its resemblance to a saw with very large teeth. Having a lug pole hook at one end and a pot hook crafted on the other, the sawtooth trammel could be moved up or down on a rod, the teeth engaging an iron crosspiece when the pot was at the desired height above the fire.
Blacksmiths occasionally created simple punchwork or twist decoration on bar and chain trammels, but saved their most elaborate embellishments for the broad surfaces of the sawtooth trammels. These are often found with dates and a wide variety of decorations that range from folk and religious symbols to decorative edging in foliage and geometric motifs. Scrolled edges and pierced decorations are also occasionally seen.
Sawtooth-type trammels are occasionally found in a very small size. These were not used in cooking, but rather to hold a betty lamp. With this type of trammel, the lighting device could be adjusted to whatever height was needed to read or work by.