Eldress Hester Ann Adams
March 17, 1817 - Sept. 22, 1888
General Statement Holy Laws of Zion
"Let it be plain and simple, and of good and substantial
quality which becomes your calling and profession,
unembellished by any superfluities,
which add nothing to its goodness or durability."
Recipes:
For Coloring Scarlet
For 20 lb. of wool or cloth, take 2 lb. Alum, 2 lb. Cream Tartar. Boil these & wool for two hours. Then take out the wool, and add 26 oz. cochineal, and 12 oz. Tartar; add 1 lb. solution of tin and boil ten minutes, or more; when cool down to hand heat then put in the wool again boil and turn till deep enough.
For turning it a crimson. Fill the kettle again with clear water, heat again till about hand heat or 100 degrees, dissolve 20 oz. pearlash then put in the wool and keep turning till deep enough.
(Note: Pearlash is another name for potash. Potash is potassium carbonate from wood ash.)
Prussian Blue.
For 10 lb. of yarn, 1 lb. prussiate of potash, 1 lb. Aquafortis. Put the yarn in cold water and bring to boil.
(Note: "Aquafortis" is nitric acid.)
Dove or Slate Color.
Boil a tea-cup of black tea in 3 quarts of water, in iron, and grate a teaspoonful of copperas; boil the purple sugar paper in water with a piece of Alum.
(Note: Copperas is ferrous sulfate, a green crystalline compound. Sugar paper?)
Excerpts from Purple on Silk by Nan Thayer Ross
Introduction by Brother Arnold Hadd
United Society of Shakers
New Gloucester, Maine
2003