Cutter mattock

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A cutter mattock with a long wooden handle from the Laurel Hill Plantation, South Carolina. The grubbing tool has a head with a combination iron axe blade and an adze, separated by a central eye. The wooden handle is threaded through the eye and has smaller pieces of wood wedged around the shaft. Painted in a small white rectangle at the base of the axe head is hand painted black text that reads [R440]. The shaft handle is split at the top, constructed from a branch, and is roughly squared. There is a small fragment of a paper tag that reads [[---?]T TOX / [---?]GRUB OUT / [---?]OTS / [---?]ile] and a white string that is knotted at each end.

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