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Maple Sugar Making
from the recollections of Laban Becker Harley circa 1870-80
I remember making sugar as early as 1864 or 1865, at which time we built a small furnace of brick, on which the sugar water was boiled, while the boys and I played around. When Grandfather Harley came to live with us from Illinois; (father having gone out after him the late 1860's or early '70's,) he made the first maple sugar I can recollect being made the family. He set two posts in the ground and put a kettle on the crosspiece hung on the top of the posts.
Abraham Harley II, Grandfather of Laban Becker Harley. Born 1790, died 1880, aged 90 years.
Grandfather was still with us when father and I built the first furnace in the south end of the woods. We made a little improvement. Father and I came to Dayton and he ordered a big pan six feet long, three feet wide and ten inches high. So we had the pan on the furnace at the front end and one kettle between the pan and the chimney. This was about the time they built the railroad in 1879.
We moved some of the old materials and got some new sandstone from Lyman Wheelock's. This furnace was built in the northeast end of the woods, the field on the east having been cleared by that time. The reason we put the camp at the north end was because it would be closer to the house. It had been so far back in the woods that when we went to meals or finished boiling late at night we would have too far to go to the house to take the syrup home.
We kept a couple hundred two gallon crocks in the attic of the old wash house between seasons and in the spring when the season came in we had to bring these crocks down and wash them. We hauled them to the woods and placed them at the root of the trees. We would often do that when there was still snow on the ground so we could haul them on a large home-made sled to the woods, a distance of a quarter or half mile.
In the meantime, when the weather was warm enough, we prepared the furnace, got the pan and kettle in shape, got the hogsheads out, soaked them and got them to hold water. As soon as the weather opened up and was warm enough, we went around and tapped the trees, boring a half-inch hole and putting in foot-long "spiles" made of elder, kept over from year to year. As the weather warms up, the sun shines in the daytime and freezes after night, we have to gather the water once, often twice a day. Then we hauled the water to the camp on sled or mudboat, the hogshead containing the water as gathered up from the trees.
Sometimes we had to make two or three trips back to the trees. Sometimes we had so much sugar-water that we could not keep up with the boiling. Then we had to boil all night. Instead of boiling in a given amount of water and finishing it, we kept adding water time after time until we had used up about ten barrels or five hogsheads full, then began boiling that down till it would be thick enough to take off, what we call the "maple syrup state". When the whole mass reached this stage I pulled the pan off the fire onto a small platform or rack and dipped it out in buckets and poured it into this ten-gallon keg. We kept this keg on a rack (so it couldn't fall off) on a sled and hauled it home to the wash-house. There we strained the syrup through a flannel sack into a wash boiler or other container to leave it settle.
After two or three boilings we had a large kettle in the wash house into which we put the strained syrup. Maybe you wonder why the syrup would have to be 'settled". It was on account of white sand settling in the bottom. Some camps had more than others. This wasn't really white sand, but was substance resembling white sand. We had to re-boil this syrup into molasses, a thicker substance than the syrup; thick enough to spread with a knife. I think the molasses we made was heavier than the syrup they make nowadays, because now the syrup you buy has to be 11 pounds to the gallon.
If we wanted to boil again right away, we pulled the empty pan back onto the fire, filled it with water, and the boiling began again. The strained syrup would accumulate at the wash house for several days or as long as we kept bringing fresh syrup to add to it. Sometimes a "run" would last only a few days, another spell of freezing weather making it necessary to wait until a thaw so we could boil again. Sometimes a heavy rain would put so much rainwater in to the crocks that someone would have to go around and empty it all out, because too much rain water mixed with the maple sugar water would make the syrup too dark.
As to making "sugar", my earliest recollection was that we made more sugar than we did molasses. At that time we didn't even have the "soft white" or "Coffee A" sugar, but had to depend entirely on maple sugar. Later white sugar came in, although I cannot recall what year that was. When we wanted to make sugar, we took the syrup, strained it and boiled it longer untill it became granular. Then we took it off the fire, set the kettle to one side, and stirred it once in a while to let the steam out. We kept stirring while it was cooling all the while. As it cooled it would get like corn meal, coarse ground. We would keep stirring it till it got cold enough so we could scoop it out of the kettle, and put it in a large barrel in the attic. Sometimes there were small lumps, but mostly it was of an even smoothness. The stirring, mashing, mauling process in the kettle was what made the sugar fine. The more it was stirred, the finer the sugar. To make the maple sugar cakes, we took some out when the "sugar" stage began to be reached, and put it into small corrugated molds, made out of tin, and allowed it to harden.
About the last "run" of the season we'd boil three or four barrels of water into one, put it into hogshead or barrel, bring it to the house, set it in the wash house someplace, then put yeast into that. The yeast made it ferment. In a short time it would be "working", and we would have "sugar water beer," which was something like root beer, though perhaps not as strong. This would not keep very long. After the weather got too warm, the beer would sour.
After the season was ended, we went around, pulled the spiles, collected the crocks, (if we had time), and put all into the attic of the wash house to await another "sugar-making" season. After white sugar came in we made almost all molasses, although at first we used to make more sugar than syrup. Later it was the other way around. A good yield was 75 gallons of molasses, meaning that about 750 barrels of water had been boiled. That would, however, have been and extraordinary run. We always had plenty of molasses and sold a lot. When mostly sugar was made, we would have at least a barrel of sugar to show for our efforts. The sugar was nice and yellow when it was made right. If you boiled it too long, it would get darker. All this was done without benefit of a thermometer. All was by experience, none of it was book knowledge. What people did those days they had to do by their own knowledge, they could not get recipes from books.
After the season was nearly over, then would be a good time to finish the thing up by having a little wax to had around. What was left in the pan we would boil down until it reached the wax stage. This could be dipped out with a spoon and eaten and enjoyed greatly by all those present. Sometimes I would roast some eggs for the boys. I scraped live coals from the mouth of the furnace, made a hollow place, made a nest of wet ashes in the coals, then put live coals all around the eggs, leaving them to roast and get deliciously done; mealy.
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