I love this scrimshaw busk made by Adnah Rogers, Jr. for his sweetheart Mary A. Higgins. The thought that she would have worn it in her corset, close to her heart!
~ BHS Docent, Cobb House Museum
When this you see, remember me
and keep me in your mind.
Let all the world say what they will
Speak of me as you find.
Adnah Rogers, Jr.
Now e're we haste to leave our natural shore
And launch amidst the ocean's ceaseless roar
Now e're the western breeze our topsails fill
I bid my lovely girl again fairwell. [sic]
This lovely bone busk is engraved is engraved with flower designs and poetry. The carver has added palm trees and American flags together, intimating the distant reach he has traveled with his ship. C. 1850-1890
Single-piece stay busks were a rigid element of a corset at the center front of the garment. Used in "stays" and bodices from the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries and were intended to keep the front of the corset or bodice straight and upright.
