April 1978 April 1978 the QUARTERLY
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Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association April 1978 April 1978 THE QUARTERLY Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association VOL. XXIII APRIL 1978 NO. 2 CONTENTS C. Richard K. Lunt 3 Inheritance and Future Shock or Politics in the Sugar Bush 7 Views and Reviews Architecture fiom the Adironduck Foot ha; Secret Island; Hopkinton Maple Festival Cookbook Marion Clark Baker 10 How Clara Washed 11 What If We Give a Party . and Everybody Comes? Photographs and commentary on the Gala Opening of the Silas Wright House and Museum Norman W. Pauling, Jr. 15 "In Anticipation of 'The Beans' " Carolyn Jenner Swqfford 17 A Musical Revue: The First Hundred Years of County Musical Entertainments THE QUARTERLY is published in January, April. July and October each year by the St. Lawrence County Historical Association. As a courtesy to authors and the editor, the Association asks anyone wishing to reproduce all or part of material included in THE QUAR- TERLY to submit a specific request in writing at least 30 days in advance of its anticipated use. Extra Copies may be obtained from the History Center, P.O. Box Cover: A pleasant early spring scene in 1978 on Boyd Pond Road in the Town of 8, Canton, N.Y. 13617. at $2.00 Russell, which could just have easily been photographed a hundred years plus S.25 postage and handling. before. Maple sugaring methods - traditional and contemporary - are examined herein, beginning on page 3. Photographed by Ronald Nolland for the Editor: Varick A. Chittenden Center for the Study of North Country Folklife. April 1978 3 Old and new methods, side by side, on the Allan Newman farm, Canton-Ogdensburg Road. (Photo courtesy Ogdensburg Journal) Inheritance and Future Shock or Politics in the Sugar Bush by C. Richard K. Lunt Folklorist Dr. Dick Lunt examines closely the various methods of maple sugaring stiU practiced actively in St. Lawrence County. Fw more than just an explanation of techniques and technology, the author considers the various "states of the art" against the context of the people who use them and their attitudes toward their annd rite of spring. His analysis was first presented as a paper to the fall meeting of the New York Folklore Society at Cooperstown in September, 1977. Maple sugaring is an occupation that hood lugging slopping buckets and piling useful to a greater understanding of has always fascinated me. Perhaps many wood on fires under foaming washtubs, ourselves. of you also began life in a family where it with the eventual result of a few. was an annual practice to bleed all the meager, shared quarts of heavenly syrup, I shall describe some of the variation in neighbor's maple trees for the sweet sap which lasted about a week. sugaring techniques and then focus on with which you subsequently risked Now that I am grown, and a folklorist, some of the questions that arise because steaming all the wallpaper loose while I find considerable difference in my of it. I shall be concerned ultimately with you boiled it on the kitchen stove. One approach to the subject. I still love it, why we sugar at all, for instance, and year my mother and the lady next door both the occupation and the products, but what folklorists can learn from such talked their households into consolidating I find now a greater need to understand traditional behavior. I suspect that, their sap and boiling outdoors, probably maple sugaring and its people than indeed, "syruping" as a profession or as a thus threatening to steam God's wall- simply to enjoy them. I suppose this is pastime shares a great deal with many paper off. But if not the wallpaper, at the scholar's curse, but one which I hope other traditional occupations and that we least the cooperative effort stuck, and I will serve to illuminate some important may be able to show some perspective on can now remember all through my child- questions and provide some answers that fact. 4 April 1978 First, then, the matter of maple sugaring methods: Doubtless, most of you have observed or experienced as I have a great variety of techniques used to gather and boil maple sap into syrup. Many of you may have read such sources as Scott and Helen Nearing's The Maple Sugar Book, which presents a useful historical per- spective on the process from its aborig- inal origins to the state of Vermont practice in the 1930's. We all suspect that it is fundamentally a simple process which theoretically anybody can carry through successfully. Let us quickly note, however, that there are degrees of success possible in syrup making, and further that the history of experience in syruping presents some pretty strong traditions which the rank amateur would be well advised to study. There are, in any case, some durable time-tested meth- ods involved, and a good many highly SmaU lean-to sugar shanty from an early twentieth century post card view. variable ones. (Photo courtesy the History Center) As I present these methods I would trunk lines leading to roadside collecting by thermostat, and the finished syrup is like to urge two notions upon you which tanks. Everything is set up well in assessed on the basis of a celsius may enrich and clarify your understand- advance of that treasured first sap run thermometer and a hydrometer measur- ing of them. The first is the concept of which produces the highest percentage of ing specific gravity. Coth filtering of the "state of the art" as applied to any form sugar with the least mineral contamina- hot syrup immediately precedes the of technology. Engineers and historians of technology have evolved this term to tion. This yields the Grade A Fancy filling of containers, either tin or plastic. Syrup. When the sap runs it is trans- Some of the later syrup is diverted for refer to the most highly developed body the production of maple cream and hard of technique known in any technical ferred from collecting tank to the sugar process. There is a state of the art of house tanks by truck or tractor-drawn sugar. Often this operation takes place in maple sugaring which can be described trailer. Boiling begins quickly before the a kitchen within the same sugar house where electric beaters whip the sugar for any point in the historical develop- sap can begin to ferment. The boiling equipment in its most and rubber molds form the finished ment of sugaring. There is a state of the candies. It is interesting to note that art now which is remarkably efficient. recent form in St. Lawrence County Even though it is not much used, it is a usually consists of oil fired brick arches even in these modern operations the firing is still usually done by the men and matter of considerable interest to us. built in a cement floored sugar house. Perhaps we can explain that fact. The boiling equipment in its most the candy making is done by the women! This group of producers, which is very The second notion is really only an recent form in St. Lawrence County small, comes quite close to the present obsemation that sugaring behavior in St. usually consists of oil-fired brick arches built in a cement floored sugar house. state of the art. The only things they Lawrence County represents a living haven't tried which are used elsewhere history of several sequentially developed The evaporator pans are stainless steel are vacuum pumps on the collection hoses states of the art of sugaring technology. and may be covered with hoods which You see everything in techniques from conduct the steam directly outside. Firing and vacuum hoods over the evaporators. those of the 1870's to those of the 1970's. is a precisely regulated process controlled There are only a half dozen or so Most of the historical developments are still to be seen. practiced side by side. How's that for an instance of folklore as living history? I think we can explain that fact too. But first, let us take a look at the methods: The most advanced, biggest operations in the county correspond to this descrip- tion. As is customary in all but the most casual of operations. there is the formally defined "sugar bush or bushes" which is kept culled of underbrush, other species of trees and dead wood. The trees are tapped with gasoline power drills as much as two to four weeks in advance of the anticipated first sap run. Plastic spigots are installed in the tap holes after formaldehyde tablets are inserted to keep the holes from healing up and free from infection. Plastic tubing is run from tap Unloading the sap into the sugar house from the horse dmwn gathering tank to tap, forming a gravity-graded, on the John Swift farm, Colton, in the 1930's or 1940's. (Photo courtesy Marion branched network which consolidates in Swift Thomas) April 1978 burning the syrup in the pan. Boil overs are controlled by the quick application of a piece of bacon or salt pork to the hot sap. The readiness of the finished syrup is generally assessed by both the scien- tific measures of temperature and specific gravity and the traditional technique of aproning. Filtering and canning are practiced in the usual way, with cloth filters and metal or plastic jugs. The operators using this level of technique frequently use old equipment which they have gathered or inherited, and there is strong interest in economy of operation since the profit margin is small or practically non-existent.