Accession Number

1986.008.0836a

Alternate object names

Vice;Handheld Vice;Clamp

Creation Date

circa 1620

Description

A small, hand-held vise is one of many tools found on the wreck of the Atocha, but this one would have been used for relatively fine tasks, such as in the repairing of musket parts or jewelry. The body and clamps of the vise are made of wrought iron, but bronze screw threads and a bronze bushing were added for smooth turning and tightening.

Exhibition Label

Case Caption (2023):

The Carpenter & The Cooper 

A galleon had to be repaired constantly. Storms snapped masts and spars, salt spray corroded iron straps and fasteners. Sailing in the tropics posed additional hazards as barnacles and other destructive sea life attacked the hull and warm water encouraged every part of a wooden ship to rot.

 Every galleon carried professional carpenters and coopers. These men brought their own equipment and kept their chisels and knives sharp using a rotating grindstone. A cooper, so called for his experience making barrels, was also the ship’s blacksmith, fashioning iron bar “blanks” into replacement parts as required. The carpenter made all the structural repairs to the hull and bulkheads but would look to the cooper for his supply of nails and fasteners. The carpenter had to know how to build a longboat from scratch. He also had to be capable of constructing a boat that could carry survivors to safety if the ship wrecked far from a port.  

One of the carpenters on the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, either Pedro de Huerta  or Juan de Barte, marked his tools XXX to make sure they did not get stolen. Both men drowned. Aboard the Santa Margarita, the coopers, Gerónimo de León and Juan Miguel, were both lucky enough to survive, as did Diego de la Rocha, a carpenter on their ship.
Object Caption (2023):

Handheld Vise
Iron (c.1620)
Gift of Jamestown Inc.
1986.008.0836a