OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 13 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 February 27, 2005 ************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E, Kelley Tid Bits - part 13. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sugar Camps Whether it be to taste a harvest feast, to pick the lucious berry, to find the nuts of autumn, to drive the prowling fox, or to gather the blossoms of May, there was no blither time for people who seek a closer walk with nature, then when they share in the charms of the old-fashioned 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 charcol, more lasting than the logs from which they came, show that 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 so very bad, if the venison were real. In a pioneer's home, sugar was not until 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 dig out troughs from solid blocks. Still, in extreme necessity, the axe sufficed. Next to the rifle, it was the pioneer's choicest possession. On rainy days and during the 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 sleds to the trees, where others came to fit the spiles and fix the vessels to catch the trickling sap. Then, convenient trees felled across the brooks for footbridges, and wood was gathered from lightening blasted trunks that were dry and quick to burn. A little 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 brooks, while the roguish rider performed antics on the horse's back. Then the inspector, mother came to give the final cleansing touches. On the " master sugar day, " the constant 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 long night 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 and sugared 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 more fragrant with mellow memories of pioneer gladness than maple sugar making. Chemical experts today state that the old time ways were all wrong and that maple sugar water must 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. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Earliest of Homes It is indeed, a special task to truly tell the traits and trials of the first pioneers to come. Whoever recall the fireside talks of an ancient grandshire or his saintly dame, outworn in making others glad, who told tales they heard in sunny youth, from those who came when all the world was woods, have fine but fading scenes in what has become a legendary age. Even the free spirit of the doubting Thomas is abroad demanding to see and touch the print of nails. But the wounded hands and tortured side are gone from a mortal gaze. The pioneers are as extinct as their Shawnee opponants. Except for the memory of their virtues and the legacy of their achievemant, they are the people whose like will never be seen again. No pen can write the page to make them seem as they once they were. The homes they built, the tools they used, the dress they wore, the scenes they viewed, have so changed that scarcely aught remains but the words that told their thought and make their life akin to ours. If they could repeople the " old clearings " it is doubtful whether their surprise or our wonder would be greater. The rugged independence of some fell little short of indifference as they trusted to luck afoot and chanced any change with a rifle, a knife, and a hatchet. Others packed traps and ax on a horse or put their little all in a cart. The more fortunate loaded a wagon with spinning wheel and impliments from the farm left behind, while reluctant cattle and swine lengthened the march. All were guided by the " star " of hope. Yet, many a woman's heart must have faltered as the miles became many and the days grew weary before their selection was found. Much literary skill has been employed in describing the pioneer house, as if one was the pattern for all. Plainer statement may give a more truthful idea of the conditions than is obtained from the ornate rhetoric of those who have seen little but imagined much. The cabin was a log pen, square or nearly so, and high enough to stand erect, under a bark or brush roof, with the earth for a floor, until time and chance permitted the architect to improve the design. The logs were chopped and shaped at the ends to fit them closer and to lock them firmly in place. The next step was to cut out spaces for the door on the side and fireplace at the end, which often delayed by the hurry of life, that required planting in season, and game for food. The inmates often crept into such shelter through half-cut doorways, while the fire was kept outside. The same has occurred all over the woodland of America, and, where there was no wood for a cabin, the dugout on the hillside, or sod house on the prairie, has repeated the scene of home planting. Amid all the hurried work, one of the first objects was a better roof. This was made of what was called clapboards, which were frequently brought by, or made on the flatboats, by those who came down the river. The impliment used for riving or splitting such boards or shingles, was called a frow, which came next to the rifle and ax as an indispensable tool. With a frow and a drawing knife a skilled woodsman could cover and floor, and even weatherboard his house, and fix the staves for cooperage. The pioneer who practiced borrowing a frow was shiftless, for it was needed most of the time at home, and the man who could not use a frow was pitied. Notwithstanding the importance of this once familiar and still used tool, it is not one that is easily bought at the time. Even the word " Clapboard," which was a product of the frow, once universally used for roofing in the timbered regions of America, has lost meaning, [ which is not given in Webster's dictionary ]. The " hearts" or triangular pieces left from riving the clapboards, were used to " chink." or fill the cracks between the logs, and when they were neatly done, and plastered with clay, the walls were good, alike against summer heat and winter cold. Split sticks were built into a crib for the chimney, that was thickly daubed with clay to keep the fire in and the cold out. As soon as time could be found, puncheons were hewn for the floor, and leaves were piled against the outside walls as winter drew near. Skins soon had from the game around, were spread on the floor for beds. After awhile, a post with a fork was set at proper distance from the walls to hold poles or bars for the support of clapboards for an elevated bed. It was some years before bedcords were in common use. There can be little hearty belief for any adequate expression for their life of pathetic paucity-- we dare not call it poverty, for the pioneer were self-reliant and asked no favor that could not be gained through honest effort. Perhaps no small degree of their reputed health was due to the wide-open fireplace, that radiated warmth while it swept the room with constant ventilation. The fire had no encouragement from iron. Blocks of stone answered for the great brass andirons that came fifty years later and are now regarded as relics of middle age. The bodies of hickory saplings were sufficient for the functions of a poker and tongs, and a clapboard reduced to the shape of a paddle, served for a shovel. A nearby peg held the johnny-cake board, stained with dough and browned with fire. A few had, and all wanted, a dutch oven, a shallow, flat bottomed kettle to set over live coals on the hearth, while more coals were heaped on the dish like lid. A corn or wheaten loaf baked in this way had a special taste. The wooden bowl for mixing the bread from the meal, in a handy sack hung beneath a shelf that held a few plates and cups and a vessel for the precious salt. In a few days after the start of the cabin, venison and bear meat might be found hanging at the best places for drying. Blocks of wood served as seats, to be rolled to a home-made table or bench, which completed the furniture. The rifle rested within instant reach on pins, from which the powder horn and bullet pouch always swung when not in use. Other pegs held extra clothing, and bunches of herbs and roots gathered with care and to be used with faith. Until cranes could be fixed, the boiling and stewing was done in camp kettles hung over the fire by hooks and chains from the lug pole, that was built into and across the chimney. Meats were hung and turned before the fire, while the drip fell into a pan beneath, from which the roast was basted. The modern frying pan was unknown, and broiling was accomplished by placing the meat on the clean, hot coals. It is all but useless to tell the incredulous of the surpassing flavors of such cooking. Today it is somewhat imitated, but not attained with the flavor in the expensive grillrooms of modern age. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits to be continued in part 14.