TRAPPE, MD - A curious wooden contraption that mysteriously appeared at the Rural Life Museum of Trappe in August has left both historians and locals baffled, with no consensus on its purpose.
Since its arrival, the enigmatic structure has been the subject of much speculation. To address the mystery, the museum hosted an event on Saturday to test various theories about its use.
"After studying it for a year, my guess is it has something to do with pushing the pits out of peaches since we were the peach capital of the world at one time," said Bill Lampman, a Trappe resident.
Other locals had different ideas. "To me, it could be anything like making military artillery shells," said Gary Moore.
Anita Abbot suggested it might be used to punch holes in donuts, while her wife Shelley Abbott speculated it could be a bottle corker for medicine bottles. Joe Koper added, "I think it's a bottle capper."
The Myers family had their own theories. "Some type of nutcracker," said Ken Myers. Laura Myers believed it was for cracking open walnuts, Albert Myers agreed while Elizabeth Myers thought it might be a corn sheller.
Yvonne Freeman offered another idea: "I was thinking of putting holes in some leather to make vests or something like that."
Museum volunteer Amy Teets explained the event’s goal was to test these theories. "The whole goal of the museum is preserving and documenting a way of life that we don't remember well. This is a case in point of things that we don't know what they did, but were possibly very important back in the day," Teets said.
The final theory tested was a bottle corker, which museum director Elizabeth Ferguson deemed the most accurate guess so far. However, she acknowledged the potential for other uses. "It's a little awkward because it could be used for other things, and one of the possible downfalls of doing something like this is that we might discover something that it could be used for that it wasn't intended to be used for," Ferguson noted.
The search for the true purpose of the mysterious machine continues in Trappe.