Chapter 3 - "Jack"; Notes from Lost Man's Lane Cabin, by Richard Le Breton.

"Hey! That's my "jack", Jack!"

The leathern jack dates back to the eleventh century and was the most convenient means of hiking a cool beverage to your mouth, because being made of leather, it will not shatter like glass, dent like tin or pewter or dry out and crack like wood. Yet, they were firm enough to be of assistance for a clout, cuff or buffet in a bar room brawl.

Jacks were so-called because the French, during the Napoleonic Wars, saw the British drinking from these large leather containers and thought they were drinking from their jack boots. Such tankards were called Blackjacks because they were dyed black as shoes.


Tankards came in all sizes, with all sorts of marvelous names like "fiskin" and "furkin" and "bombard" and "gill" cup, although such names may have been arbitrary and not scientific in their distinctions. The jack pictured above was a gift and is a bit larger than a shot glass.

Jacks and tankards were made by Cordwainers, or shoemakers, when they weren't making shoes. The body of the jack is made of sole leather stitched at the handle through four thicknesses using an awl and a boar's bristle needle or steel needle and flaxen thread waxed with bee's wax. The bottom is of leather or sometimes of the same wood the shoemaker used to make heels. The dye is shoe dye and the finish is applied as one would shine one's shoes.

Use the tankard long and well.