On Cranberries and Clipper Ships

This is the week where I'll eat cranberry sauce for the first time this holiday season, and a vintage tea towel I bought the other day had me delving into a unique connection between tea and cranberries … perhaps.
This tea towel came from my friend Nancy's delightful Carriage House Antiques and Gifts in Senoia, where I always attend the holiday open house in early November. This piece caught my eye since it featured cranberries and seemed perfect for Thanksgiving decor.
It says cranberries were "first cultivated in Cape Cod, 1816," and indeed, it appears that was the year that Captain Henry Hall, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, became the first person to be successful at cultivating cranberries in the US (bless him!).
But my goodness, were cranberries really served aboard clipper ships, those speedy ships that became known for quickly delivering tea from China? According to an article on the site cranberrycreations.com, "During the days of the clipper ships, captains kept barrels of cranberries on board to prevent scurvy." Who knew?
And I read in several places that yes, New Englanders in 1677 sent ten bushels of cranberries back home to King Charles as a diplomatic gesture. How delightful that a simple tea towel had me exploring cranberry history!

I love cranberries and homemade cranberry sauce, but my family likes the canned variety, so Lord willing, that's what we'll be having tomorrow. I did, however, buy two bags of fresh cranberries at the store this week so I can experiment with some recipes in these two vintage recipe booklets I've found over the past year. However you like your cranberries (assuming that you do!), I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!