OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 107 ************************************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ohfiles.htm ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 April 27, 2008 http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/know.htm ************************************************ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio Tid-Bits -- Part 107 Sugaring on the Reserve by Byron Williams ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Part 107 " January 1, 1801, the new century opened with snow all day, and ice floating in the River." " Sunday, February 22, 1801. In consequence of very fine weather our people spent all the past week in boiling sugar." Whether it be to taste a harvest feast, to pick the luscious berry, to find the nuts of autumn, to drive the prowling fox, or to gather the blossoms of May, there is no blither time for people who seek a closer walk with nature, than when they share in the charms of the old-fashion sugar camps, once common and now forever rare. When the white man came, the huger maples here and there bore the scars of mangling tomahawks: and heaps of ashes and charcoal, more lasting than the logs from which they came, showed the Indians knew where and how to get the sticky sweet that he mixed with bear grease and thickened with parched corn to eat with venison, which does not seem very bad, if the venison were real. In the Reserve pioneer's home sugar was not made by himself. The machinery positively required was an ax, auger and kettle. More might be handy, such as a gimlet for making spiles and more kettles to hurry the boiling. If the auger failed, the more dextrous could make a flat spile for an ax-cut channel, which badly marred a tree. It was also well to have an adz to ig out troughs from the solid blocks. Still, in extreme necessity, the ax sufficed. Next to the rifle, it was the Reserve pioneer's choicest possession. On rainy days and during long winter evenings, spiles were made, and troughs that were to last a lifetime were shaped and scooped and smoothed and soaked free from acid or bitter taste. Another trunk large enough for a war canoe was dug out for a reservoir and placed near the kettles, hung in a row by logs, or set in a furnace that climbed a hillside to a chimney of " cat and clay " that finished the end of a log house open to the south and covered with long boards of riven oak. When disappearing snows, relenting frosts and brighter skies were the welcome harbingers of spring, and while the chattering crow, the jabbering jay and the babbling blackbird met in many conventions to proclaim the good times coming, the sire, expert in needed lore, went forth " to tap the camp," Troughs were brought on a sled to the trees,where others came to fit the spiles and fix the vessels to catch the trickling sap. Then, convenient trees were felled across the brooks for foot bridges, and wood was gathered from lightening blasted trunks that were dry and quick to burn. A lttle later the girls and smaller boys came racing with buckets to empty the troughs into a barrel reclining on a sled drawn by a pet of the stable along the banks or across the riffles of the brooks, while the roguish rider peformed antics on the horse's back unknown to modern gymnasiums, or bent her head to dodge the drooping branches threatening her glossy curls with the fate of Absalom. And the inspector general, Mother, came to give the finishing touches. On the " master sugar day," theconstant drops all but mingled in a stream as they stirred the pellucid, crystal store below with the dimples of a ceaseless smile. Ere long, the threatened waste required the " boiling down " to begin at once. The night long fires were kindled and, as the moon put on a golden glow, the reducing syrup was dipped from kettle to kettle steadily replenished from the gathering waters, until the trickling mass was ready to be cleared off; after which the solid cakes or crumbly harvest was borne in triumph to a guarded shelf in the sylvan home. And thus the sweet toil went on from day to day and night after night till even the saucy squirrels ceased to wonder at the fierce invasion of their antique domain. When the season was over, the reward was many gallons of syrup and many pounds of the most delicious sweet that regales the taste of man. Of all they did, nothing is fragrant with mellow memories of the pioneer gladness than maple sugar making. But the primeval trees are losing their greenness and soon not a " camp " will be left to prove the reality of what even now seems an Arcadian tale. In the few camps still to be found, the early implements have been replaced with labor saving and care taking devices. The word has been given by chemical experts that the old time wooden ways were all wrong and that maple sugar water must not touch nothing but metal through every stage of the changing process. Such a product may be " pure," but it is not more dainty nor joyful to the taste, for the sap of the tree and the heart of man remain the same. Most of this, howver, came later. An ample supply was possible only to the most fortunate of the earliest reserve pioneers; for the sugar harvest was limited by the lack of kettles. In short, there was a lack of everything but fortitude for the task. Their hearts vanquished, though many fell before plenty smiled. " +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid-bits continued in part 108.