217-year-old sweater — still ‘pristine’ — found in unopened package, UK archive says
A carpenter living on the Faroe Islands off the northern coast of Europe packaged up a handmade red sweater and a small note.
“My wife sends her regards,” the note read. “Thank you for the pudding rice. She sends your fiancé this sweater and hopes that it is not displeasing to her.”
The gift was sent on a ship in 1807 and intended for Copenhagen, Denmark. It never arrived.
Instead, the unopened package ended up in an archive in London, the U.K.’s National Archives said in a Feb. 29 news release. When archivists finally opened it, they found a 217-year-old sweater still in “pristine” condition.
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The well-preserved sweater was “handknitted in vibrantly colored fine wool” and made in a traditional knit style of the Faroe Islands, the archive said. A photo shows the red garment and its pattern of black and white diamonds.
The Faroe Islands are a self-governing archipelago within the Kingdom of Denmark. The islands are about 250 miles north of the U.K. and about 800 miles northwest of Copenhagen.
“This is a tremendously exciting find,” Margretha Nónklett, an official with Denmark’s National Museum, said in the release. “There are very few pieces like this and we have none with this particular design. It would have been handmade at home with hand-dyed wool.”
The sweater was mailed by Niels C. Winther in August 1807 from the Danish islands and intended for “Mr. P. Ladsen in Copenhagen,” the archive said.
The cargo ship carrying the sweater, the Anne-Marie, sailed toward Copenhagen “unaware that war had broken out” between the U.K. and Denmark, archivists said. British sailors overtook the ship, imprisoned its captain and crew and seized the cargo.
The sweater was forgotten — until now.
The 1807 shipment also included other items, such as wool stockings, silver coins, other currency and some barley samples “being returned to sender with a note complaining about the quality,” archivists said.
The ship’s captain, who was eventually released, reported the cargo as “49,000 pairs of woollen stockings, eight tons of dried fish, 100 cases of candles, 250 barrels of tallow (animal fat), 19 barrels of train oil (whale oil) and 10 barrels of feather.”
Amanda Bevan, an official with the National Archives, said the 217-year-old sweater ”is a rare example of a parcel surviving in the Prize Papers, (a collection) which often contain letters consigned to ships for delivery by sea,” according to the release.
The packages were opened as part of an ongoing project to digitize the contents of the National Archives. The preserved barley is undergoing further analysis, the archive told McClatchy News.
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