The Strange History of a Strange Holiday

The history of Halloween is similar to Christmas and other holidays. It is a mixture of Pagan and Christian traditions and beliefs. 

The first Jack O' Lanterns were Celtic and were carved from turnips. When folks came to America they saw the pumpkin as a much better lantern device. 

Around the early 1900's Jack O' Lanterns began to be manufactured from paper mache'  and had delicate tissue for the eyes and mouth. These came as pumpkins with ghoulish faces, black cat faces and rare, the Devil's face also served as lanterns. Lanterns also turned into candy containers for children trick or treating. The older paper mache' lanterns functioned as both. 

After World War ll lanterns were primarily candy containers and were made from plastic. Many of these are very collectible now.

Here are some nice examples that are in the shop.

A great old paper mache' cat with wonderful features

This collection, even though it's plastic is quite rare

The strange story below tells how Jack O' Lanterns came to be: 


People have been making jack-o’-lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.” According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.