TOPIC:

About 15 years ago I bought a little ABW-era copper tobacco/snuff box. The box is named, and inside there is a little note with some provenance. I had hoped these two pieces of information would lead me straight to the previous owner. Nothing of the sort.






Below follows the deduction process I used to come up with some candidate previous owners of the box. As you see the process was by no means scientific (see my various assumptions) but hopefully it shows that researching an object can be both interesting and fun. Any comments are welcome!

There are a few Burgers listed on the Bloemfontein Museum website with the name Wood (mostly Cape Rebels) but there are no “Burger Dead” by that name. So, it appears that the dead Boer was not the original owner of the box. Although there are endless possibilities of how he could have come into possession thereof (a gift from an uncle, found during the invasion of Natal or in a British camp overrun by the Republican forces etc. etc.) there is also the possibility that he had taken it off an enemy POW or casualty. This site lists over 120 men who fought in the Boer War by the name of Wood with at least one C as initial. As the area on which the name is engraved is large enough for more than one initial, I assumed that the owner had just one Christian name, which shrinks the list down to around 60.

Given the simplicity of the box, the fact that it is not made of silver, the absence of multiple initials and the fact that the engraving is amateurish, I think it would be safe to assume that the box was not owned by an officer.

The list of C. Wood’s with the rank of Private, who died during the war or were taken prisoner, consists of 4 potential candidates.

Wood C 3566 Private QSA (3). 5th Lancers Reservist. Prisoner, Steenbokfontein, 01 Dec 00. Rejoined..
Wood C 15514 Private Demise: Died of disease 03 Jan 1902
Place: Heilbron
Wood C 6160 Private Demise: Died of disease - enteric fever 10 Dec 1900
Place: Ladysmith. Station Hosp
Wood C 1325 Private Prisoner. Dewetsdorp, 22 November 1900
2nd Battalion. Released 5 December
Source: ABW website

The men who died from disease can probably be excluded on the basis they died relatively peacefully in a hospital, consequently there are two candidates remaining (3566 and 1325).
I am not sure about the place where the Boer died (Bloemfontein? Bloufontein? Blaufontein?) and perhaps deciphering this could give another clue.

At first glance, I thought "Blaufontein" (possibly a misspelling of Blaauwfontein / Blauwfontein).
There was a farm called "Blaauwfontein" in the Rouxville District. And another, No 238, in the Dealesville area (c. 65 km NW of Bloemfontein).

Have you considered that the box could have been engraved by the finder?

Neville, thanks for your very valid suggestion. I guess we are back to 60 candidates......

Hi EFV,

I also enjoy researching any artifact no matter how small or insignificant.

I agree with your assumption that the snuff box was probably taken from a British/Commonwealth soldier.
C. Wood is'nt a common Boer name

My first question is "what type of leaf is pictured on the snuff box"?

It kinda looks like a maple leaf; what do our Canadian friends think? That could be another clue and help to narrow down your 60 candidates.

Edit: I probably know the maple leaf is a stretch but then what would it represent....a tobbacco leaf? But the good type...

The romantic in me (yes there's one deep down inside) was hoping it would be this officer originally raised in Canada as a young man (teenager); never the less talk about a military pedigree:





But that would be a very long shot if it was the case......I just liked his bio...

ok, putting the leaves aside and getting back on track....

The ancestry database confirms your analysis and the likely candidates are the ones listed below as prisoners:



Given the mobility of the commando unit I wouldn't be too fussed about where it was found.

My gut feeling is that you were on the right path with those two candidates being prisoners.

If you then continue with the single first name (no second initial) then a probable candidate would be C. Wood (1325)

Sturgy, thanks. If my theory stands, I would put my money on the man taken at Dewetsdorp (1325) as that town is relatively close the Blauwfontein in the Rouxville Ristrict as identified by Neville. On the other hand, Neville's suggestion that the soldier who took the box off the Burger perhaps being the artist makes a lot of sense. I can very well imagine a bored man at a blockhouse in some godforsaken desert hammering his name into a war souvenir with the back of a nail and a spent Pom Pom bullet. I don't know what the leafs are supposed to mean, perhaps Canadian perhaps nothing more than a decoration. As per my original post, I don't think this would have been done by an officer.