My first job out of high school was at a home weatherization company.  We worked on a lot of old houses that dated back to the mid-1800s.  These houses were framed with hand hewn beams.  In the attic of these homes I invariably found one of these hand carved pulleys.  We left them where we found them, but my current home is of the post and beam construction and lo and behold, when I removed the lathe upstairs I found another one.  The whole thing is carved by hand, right down to the axle.  There is a nail hole toward the end of each of the side brackets.  Old square nail holes.  They were obviously used for a specific purpose, and were made by the carpenters on site apparently.  What would this purpose be?

Here is another view. Made of local hardwood. 

And here is a view of the timber framing I am talking about.  You can see the axe marks on the beams. 

I remember reading a story set in the late 19th century, where a person said they had wires in their walls but not for electricity.   Was there any wire found near these pulleys?   We think of houses with servants, where there were call bells that rang in the kitchen, but it may have been for the front door too.   Or back door, ringing a different bell.   I have helped out in a local museum, a large 1905 house, that had a bell system in the kitchen.   It actually looks like a wall clock, but the hand on the face  points to the room the bell was rung in.   Lots of wires in those walls, imagine the pulley system that enabled it to go round corners.   Wires or heavy cords, and you found them in several homes?   This could be it. 

Purpose?  You got me.  I've never seen anything like this.  It seems like a lot of carving.  Square nail holes... Truly square, like hand wrought?  Or rectangular as in machine cut nails?

Quote from: Branson on December 31, 2012, 07:51:32 AM
Purpose?  You got me.  I've never seen anything like this.  It seems like a lot of carving.  Square nail holes... Truly square, like hand wrought?  Or rectangular as in machine cut nails?

Sorry, they are rectangular machine cut.  There are a couple of pairs of holes.  This was nailed to something more than once, and presumably used more than once. 

Quote from: john k on December 30, 2012, 10:33:08 PM
I remember reading a story set in the late 19th century, where a person said they had wires in their walls but not for electricity.   Was there any wire found near these pulleys?   We think of houses with servants, where there were call bells that rang in the kitchen, but it may have been for the front door too.   Or back door, ringing a different bell.   I have helped out in a local museum, a large 1905 house, that had a bell system in the kitchen.   It actually looks like a wall clock, but the hand on the face  points to the room the bell was rung in.   Lots of wires in those walls, imagine the pulley system that enabled it to go round corners.   Wires or heavy cords, and you found them in several homes?   This could be it.

No bells or servants here.  This is an old farmhouse with one room up and one room down.  And a pit for a cellar.  With a field stone foundation gathered up locally.  The house was built in the 1850s after the Western Reserve of Ohio was opened up.  (The original house has had three modern additions and seems to be an aftetthought when looking at the place now). The pulley was not finished in a manner to be used on a permanent basis.  It's just some kind of field expedited jobsite tool. 

a one man operation of getting the beams to the second floor or attic. maybe shingles to the attic for the roof.  bob w

The house is framed by using hand hewn beam construction.  The beams are joined by drilling holes and using hand carved wood pegs, driven into the holes.  Machine cut nails were brought from New England and are also used in the house.  There was nothing here at the time except for a lumber mill and several shops in a village (now the county seat) 5 miles away.  The cellar is basically a pit, and the foundation is made of locally gathered field stones.  The floor joists are trees, split in half and debarked.  There is some cut lumber in the home.  The floor planks and the roof planks are rough cut full 1 inch boards, varying in widths but on average about 14 inches.  Hardwood maple.  Obviously cut locally.  The upstairs ceiling is made by crossing 4x4 boards across the ends of the squared timber framework and applying lathe and plaster.  The roof is made by the more or less modern cut rafters and the aforementioned planks with a standard pitch. There is a house down the road that was built in the same time frame, built and occupied by John Brown and his family during his time in Ohio.  (The John Brown that later led the raid on Harpers Ferry).  These were all farmhouses in this area. 

During my time in the weatherization program I worked on several of these type homes and I always found one of these pulleys somewhere in the attic area.  I more or less knew that if I looked hard enough I would find one here.  I removed the old lathe and plaster to expose the beams and there it was.  One and one only, always found upstairs in the rafters.

Quote from: amertrac on December 31, 2012, 08:54:50 AM
a one man operation of getting the beams to the second floor or attic. maybe shingles to the attic for the roof.  bob w

No, this isn't strong enough for that.  The thing is about 9 inches in length. The axle is between 1/4" and 3/8" and would not support any heavy weight.  It may support various hand tools if they were brought up by twine, but that doesn't make much sense, going to all that trouble to make one of these for that. 

Here is another view of the post and beam construction.

I tried to look up this kind of construction on the internet, and apparently it is called Timber Framing.  There is an excellent article on Wikipedia about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQpdkqEgHng    There are also a lot of good videos on youtube about timber frame and timber framing and hewing. 

I'm afraid we will never really know for sure.
  But since you are finding them frequently and always light construction like this?

I would propose a WAG, for bringing your tools up.
  Looks like it would hold a toolbox big enough it would be a pain to haul up the ladder.
I wouldn't leave my tools laying around a job after a day.  Now, but especially in 1850! Tools are expensive now, but must have been a real pain to get at any price in 1850, in rural America. 
And yet tomorrow I would need them back on the second level until the job was finished.
    So a quickly made disposable pulley for that, makes sense to me anyway.
  yours Scott

Curious as if you need to haul something from the ground, a pulley is not necessary, unless the person doing the hauling is on the ground. The small axle size will limit the load to a couple of pounds max - OK for a lunch box or a flask of something to drink???

Is there any more detail you can provide on exactly where they're being found.  Pictures of them as found?  I'm understanding you're finding them unexposed (behind some sheathing/wall)?  Is there any pattern with the number of floors/stories in the structure?

Are you finding any rope, line, twine, or wire?  Are you finding one per house/structure, or many?

Why would one leave them behind if it's some tool to assist in construction ONLY?  I've built and then burned drawing/plan tables on the job......but they are very simple to make, big/bulky to carry around and store, and I never really know when I'll need it again.

Quote from: Billman49 on December 31, 2012, 02:41:21 PM
Curious as if you need to haul something from the ground, a pulley is not necessary, unless the person doing the hauling is on the ground. The small axle size will limit the load to a couple of pounds max - OK for a lunch box or a flask of something to drink???

agreed that pulley is not necessary, but lends a helpful hand if you're trying to lift something as to clear the side of the structure you're lifting from .........e.g. mounted extending out past the structure like so |---o     maybe off the end a ridge board.