Waverly Jumbles

Governor George and Prudence Ridgely Howard named the home and lands that his father, Col. Howard, gave them "Waverly" after the enormously popular 1814 Sir Walter Scott novel Waverley. His brother Benjamin's wife, Jane Gilmor Howard, included a recipe for the rose water flavored cookie in her charity cookbook Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen in 1873.

George and Prudence liked the name so much they named their fourth son William Waverly Howard, born in 1825.

The name.  Although later sources claim that Col. John Eager Howard (namesake of Howard County) gave the house and land to his second son when he married Prudence Ridgely (1791-1847) in 1811, the first record I've found, thus far, shows them spending money on Waverly in 1817.  That's three years after the novel came out (1814) not three years before (1811), which makes sense.

As for that extra -e- in the Scottish title.  In the USA a larger majority of the advertisements for the book left the e out.  Other words changed across the Atlantic such as color for colour, airplane for aeroplane or plow for plough.  An ad from 1815 for Baltimore's "Robinson's new & increasing Circulating Library...Just Received, A few copies of Walter Scott's new novel of "Waverly; or 'Tis Sixty Years Since."  Ten copies more are expected daily."    

Mrs. B. C. Howard, Jane (1801-1890), married George's brother Benjamin Chew Howard (1791-1872) in 1818 and visited "Waverly" yet in her 1873 cookbook she spelled it with an e.  Three years earlier, another Baltimore cookbook Miss Tyson's Queen of the Kitchen, A Collection of "Old Maryland" Family Receipts spelled the recipe Waverly Jumbles.

Howard, 1873 - Waverley Jumbles
"One pound of flour; three-quarters of a pound of brown sugar; half a pound of butter; two eggs; half a nutmeg grated, two table-spoonfuls of rose water, or, if you prefer it, lemon peel grated, and juice."

Tyson, 1870 -  Waverly Jumbles.

"1 pound of flour, 1/2 pound of butter, 3/4 pound of brown sugar, 2 eggs, ½ of a nutmeg, 2 table spoons of rose water, or any kind of seasoning. Cream together the butter and sugar, add the beaten eggs, and then flour, roll them out thin and cut with a shape [cookie cutter]."

Colonial Recipes from old Virginia and Maryland Manors, 1907  JUMBLES  (Waverly)

"One pound flour, 1/2 pound butter, 3/4 pound brown sugar, 2 eggs, ½ nutmeg (grated), 2 tablespoonfuls rose water. Roll out long with hands and join in rings (very good). Mrs. George Howard, Waverly"

Early jumbles were rolled and twisted into a circle or like pretzels.  Roll ‘ropes’ of dough about ½ in wide and 2 ½-3 inches long.  Twist into a shape or join into a circle.

President Monroe's Waverly Jumbles...or not. more HERE
More on Waverly HERE

©2016 Patricia Bixler Reber
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