Images(4)

Bottle case

Date1780-1810

OriginEngland or Europe

MediumOak, deal, iron, and paper

DimensionsOH: 10 1/4"; OW: 15"; OD: 10 3/4"

Credit LineGift of Lu Lynn and Joel Sexton

Object number2014-186

DescriptionRectangular oak box with hinged lid; sides of box and lid mitered at corners, fastened with iron strips nailed to exterior edges of box; top and bottom of box pegged to sides and reinforced with nailed iron straps; interior divided into sections for bottles (only three divided sections remain out of seven or nine); interior of lid and upper portions of box lined with printed paper; iron lock secures lid to box; wrought iron carrying handles with twist in center of C shaped handle on ends.
Label TextWhile bottle cases of this type are relatively common, this example descended in the Galt family of Williamsburg and was repurposed and used by Dr. Sandy B. Galt (1838-1908) as a medicine or surgical tool chest during the Civil War.
ProvenanceThe donor related that her brother, Layland (Lee) Galt was given this box in 1978 (3/26/78) by an elderly woman in Williamsburg. Layland was visiting the town at that time and asked about the grave of John Galt in the Bruton Parish Church graveyard. He was directed to a woman (name now forgotten) who had known the Galt family. She owned the box but thought that it should belong to a member of the Galt family, even though Layland Galt was not or only distantly related to the Williamsburg Galts. (Layland Galt’s family had arrived in Norfolk but then gone to North Georgia.) She explained that Dr. Sandy Galt (buried in St. Luke’s Church in Smithfield, VA, died 1908) had used this box as his medicine chest during the Civil War. Layland Galt and his son David Peyton Galt wrote the following on the back of a postcard of St. Luke’s Church that they kept with the box “3/26/78 We saw Dr. Sandy B. Galt’s grave directly behind the church 1838-1908. We were given his surgical tool box used in the civil war.” Layland later gave the box to the donor, his sister, and it was played with by her children. A glass bottle that came with the chest was broken and disposed of.