Howard's Very Sweet Homemade Pencil Box, 1864 for the sewing room 2nd half 19th century I

2nd half 19th century I believe

This little boot definitely has many years on it and shows some age

which I purchased from a seller in New York

I am pretty sure it is Zanesville c

but it's an unusual one

Howard's Very Sweet Homemade Pencil Box, 1864 for the sewing room 2nd half 19th century II've got a special weakness for old pencil boxes like antique school slates, the wooden frames of which often bear the carved initials of their onetime owners, so do pencil boxes tend to carry the traces of their users in a wonderfully intimate way. Which is very much the case with this very primitive one, found in Upstate New York, with HA emphatically carved into the face of the top, and then Howard, in cursive, inside, twice. And happily Howard had