The majority of collections that remain at Staatsburgh relate to life "upstairs" in the mansion. When the family gifted the mansion to New York State in 1938, the rooms upstairs were left largely intact, while servants' spaces were not. By 1938 several of the rooms in the basement were used as storage areas and they were no longer furnished as they would have been earlier in the family's occupancy. In addition, many of the tools used by servants are not part of the collections. Items that were consistently used were often discarded when they were in poor condition and no longer useful. In addition, as the technology improved, housewares and tools were upgraded. Taking this into consideration, we are especially excited when we have servant related collections that we can share. Several of these artifacts were relegated to a closet in the maids quarters and they were not uncovered or accessioned until decades after the rest of the house.
One of those items is the object that we see below, the Everedy Bottle Capper, which was used to secure a cap on a bottle almost as tight as at factory. This object was first invented and manufactured by the Everedy Company in 1923, which is the approximate date of this item.
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| Everedy Bottle Capper, circa 1920s |
