Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article
April 24, 1988
By Deborah Curtis Drummy
Vigo County Historical Society
Scurrying, scampering mice may escape traps by only a whisker
“If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The question “Are you a man or a mouse?” always carries the implication that the former is unquestionably superior. Perhaps so, but if the literature throughout man’s history tells the truth, the mouse has long presented a formidable and universal challenge to mankind’s comfort and peace of mind and continues to do so.
House mice consume man’s food and damage clothing and other domestics. Field mice cause extensive damage to crops in both fields and storage. Adding to the problem is the fact that the mouse is an extremely prolific mammal. One pair can easily become thousands within just a few generations.
Man’s challenge over the centuries has been to control the mouse population since elimination of the problem is virtually impossible. Hundreds of traps have been invented. Indeed, the phrase “to build a better mousetrap” has come to mean marketing success.
The term “mousetrap” first appeared in English near the middle of the 15th century, so it’s obvious that man has been waging his war on rodents for some time. Some of the first traps were box traps which took mice alive to be drowned or otherwise destroyed by their captors. Clever inventors designed some of the box traps to repeat their action, allowing capture of several mice without resetting.
Killer traps have been more popular, ranging from makeshift deadfalls to the break-back type popular today. The break-back traps became widely available early in the 19th century and have since become the most widely used mousetrap.
This week’s historical treasure is a variation on the guillotine type of mousetrap, which consisted of a block of wood with one to four holes in the sides. Bait was attached to a lever at the back of each hole where another hinged lever served as a catch for the back lever and guillotine. A mouse poking its head into the hole in search of the bait would trigger the mechanism and meet its fate.
This trap, on display in the General Store at the museum, works in a similar fashion, although its operation consists of an upward chop of a wire marked “Easy Setting Choker, Lovell Mfg. Co., Erie, Pa. U.S.A.” It was donated in 1981 by Ruth Hoyt.
A similar trap is sold today under the Victor label, but the block now is made of plastic.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.