Gallery Primitives G

The Virtual Apple Parer Museum. Dedicated to the exhibition and educational study of antique apple parers which have both historic and artistic value.

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Mosher

The Mosher is a cord-powered straddle board parer. Reuben Mosher (1787-1866) and Amos Mosher (?) of Galway, New York were granted a patent for their parer on December 28, 1829 (R. Mosher & A. Mosher, 1829). The cord-powered mechanism is essentially a pulley system that uses a large wheel to drive a smaller wheel providing a speed advantage. With every turn of the crank the apple rotates approximately 2.75 times.

Many hand-guide paring knifes require the operator to keep pressure on the apple. The Mosher hand-guided paring knife has a handmade spring mechanism to keep pressure on the apple using spring tension. A view of the underside shows the pins that help to secure the posts.

The full label on this parer would have read:

MOSHER'S PATENT
PARING APPLE MACHINES
KEPT CONSTANTLY ON HAND AND
FOR SALE BY
E. KING & SON'S
Pleasant Street, a few doors east of the Brick Meeting House
WOODSTOCK, VT.

Ebenezer King, a mechanic and farmer who lived in Woodstock, Vermont was the first manufacturer of the Mosher parer (Thornton 1997, pp. 8-9).

References

Mosher, Reuben & Amos, inventors; 1829 Dec. 28. Apple Parer. USX5764.

Thornton, D. 1997. Apple Parers. Sunnyvale, California: Off Beat Books, pp. 8-9.