Ash Hopper: This ash hopper was used to make lye soap. Rainwater mixed with ashes created lye. Lye was then mixed with animal tallow to make soap. In 1938, Eison Lyles, a former slave on the Lyles Plantation in Newberry, told a WPA interviewer of his experience making soap with an ash hopper. Read selected passages of this interview.

Photo courtesy of Lexington County Museum