Housewife Sewing Kit

At a glance, this artifact may look like an ordinary sewing kit, but it’s a very particular kind: a housewife, or hussif. These kits, which fold or, in this case, roll out to reveal their contents, were designed in the mid-eighteenth century as a compact alternative to a traditional sewing kit. Their portable nature lent itself well to use in the military, and soldiers in many wars, including the American Civil War and both World Wars, used these kits to keep their uniforms looking presentable. Made of metal, this particular housewife was less portable than most and would therefore have been used for domestic purposes.

This particular housewife belonged to “Mrs. Hitchcock of Hitchcock House, Wolfe Island. With the help of the Wolfe Island Historical Society, we determined that our “Mrs. Hitchcock” was either Mrs. Natilla (nee Fuller) Hitchcock (1832-1910) or her mother-in-law, Mary (nee Hinckley) Davis Hitchcock (Nov. 19, 1789-May 14, 1869). Mary Davis Hitchcock served as Wolfe Island’s first postmistress, and the village of Marysville is named after her. The Hitchcocks were one of the approximately fifteen families to settle on Wolfe Island in the first decade of the nineteenth century and were responsible for the first ferry from Wolfe Island to Kingston.