Some Weighty Matters to Measure

On 14 August 1682, Randall Vernon, a merchant from England, sailed from Liverpool to Pennsylvania on one of the ships in William Penn’s fleet bound for the new colony. Randall carried with him a parcel of thirty pounds of woolen cloth, two dozen woolen stockings for men, ten ells of English linen, and one fourth cwt. of wrought iron. It appears he was going to be doing some buying and selling with these goods, but exactly how much did he have?

Seeking the answers to these two lesser known measurements—ells and cwt—proved quite interesting! Let’s have a go at understanding Randall’s burden as well as some other measurements you are likely to encounter as you do your own family research.

An ell was a measurement used for cloth, indicating about forty-five inches, basically “from the fingertip of an outstretched arm to the opposite shoulder.” (“English Units,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_units) In Middle Low German, an el(l) was the length of the lower arm. Also, in German and Dutch, you may see the surname Ell, which was an occupational name derived from a dealer in cloth or a tailor.

Cwt is an abbreviation for hundred weight, which, today in the U.S. is equal to one-hundred pounds. However, in England it’s 112 pounds, so Randall’s wrought iron would have weighed thirty-one pounds.

Although the U.S. came to rely on English acres, early St. Louis land was measured in arpents. An acre began as the amount of land that could be plowed by one team of oxen in a day; today, an acre is 4,840 square yards. An arpent was roughly an acre, but since the French foot was larger than the English foot, yardage varied, and the arpent usually turned out to be a bit larger than an acre.

Understanding weights and measures over time means realizing that it all depended on who was doing the weighing and measuring. The French, Germans, and British all had different rules. The British didn’t begin to standardize their system of weights and measures until 1824, and it wasn’t until 1878 that the current British Imperial System was defined. Ironically, as the British were abandoning their old system, the U.S. was formalizing its system based on the old British one. Hence, our measurements vary from theirs.

(Image above shows surveying chains and fastening posts, c. 1580, Germany, public domain)

Websites for Weights and Measures

Here are some articles and charts you can use to help you decipher how many pounds in a stone (fourteen) or chains in a furlong (ten).

"Glossary of Ancient Weights and Measures" : https://www.hemyockcastle.uk/measure.html#other

"Old Units of Length" : https://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/tech/oldleng.htm

"Arpent" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpent

“Imperial Units,” Encyclopedia Britannica : https://www.britannica.com/topic/Imperial-unit

“Conversion Calculator,” Calculator.net : https://www.calculator.net/conversion-calculator.html

“English Weights and Measures” : http://home.clara.net/brianp/quickref.html