Old-Time Sugaring

By Jennie Shurtleff

Our ancestors undoubtedly looked forward to the advent of spring not only because of the promise of warmer weather, but also because it provided the chance to make maple sugar. In early times, refined white sugar was a luxury, and many relied on locally-sourced sweeteners, such as honey and maple products, to flavor their food.

White settlers first learned how to make various maple products from the Native Americans. In 1609, Marc Lescarbot wrote Histoire de la Nouvelle-France. In this book, Lescarbot shared that the Micmac Indians collected and distilled maple sap. To collect the sap, early Native Americans scarified trees with a y-shaped gash. Since they did not have metal tools and implements, they then collected the sap that dripped from the gashes and boiled it in carved-out wooden tubs. These wooden tubs were heated by dropping hot rocks into them. For the Native Americans, and later white settlers, usually the main goal was not to make maple syrup as an end product, but to make wax sugar, grain sugar, or cake sugar. All three of these products were made by further processing and evaporating the maple syrup.

Wax sugar is what we commonly call “sugar on snow.” It had a chewy, taffy-like consistency that was created by boiling maple syrup until it was very thick and then pouring it on snow. Grain sugar was a soft, granulated sugar similar in consistency to brown sugar. It was made by evaporating syrup to a point that it would crystalize as it cooled. Lastly, cake sugar was made by evaporating syrup to a point that when it was poured into wooden molds, it would harden into a firm block or cake that was easier to store and transport than syrup.

Since most of the syrup in the 19th century was boiled down into different forms of “sugar,” the buildings that first began to be used to make maple products in the 1850s were called “sugar houses,” not “syrup houses.” It is also why the Windsor County business directories, that were published in the late 1800s and early 1900s, list the size of farmers’ “sugar orchards,” not their “syrup orchards.”

Nathan Cushing’s sugar house. In the 19th century, Nathan Cushing was a prosperous farmer who lived on what is now Old River Road. (From the collection of the Woodstock History Center. ©Woodstock History Center.)

Prior to the use of sugar houses, maple products were made on outdoor stone arches. While an outdoor stone arch may seem crude, such arches were a vast improvement on the techniques that were commonly used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. According to Charles Morris Cobb, a teenager living in West Woodstock in the mid 1800s, his uncle (Henry Cobb) had told him that in the early 19th century “people went off into the woods to sugar with only the following tools, viz, an ax, a neck yoke, gathering pails, and two five pail kettles. They would chop down two trees, dig out the snow from between them, put up two crotches, make wooden trunnels, hang on the kettles and build a fire. And they would make wooden troughs and spouts or spiles, and tap the trees with their ax.”

By the 1830s, the technique of “tapping” trees with an ax had largely fallen out of favor. The flat, chip-like spiles that had been inserted into gashes to direct the sap into pails were replaced with rounded spiles that were tapped into holes made by augers. The small auger holes were less injurious to trees than the gashes, which in many cases killed the trees.

Wooden spiles showing the evolution of early sugaring technology, from the flattened “chip” spile (on the left) to the more sophisticated rounded spile with a hook (on the right)

In the spring of 1850, Charles Cobb set out sugaring on a small lot owned by his family. One of the many obstacles that he soon encountered was damage due to livestock. His family’s calves had apparently spent the winter in an open-faced shed. By April, a crust had formed on the snow, and the calves, which had been confined to the area around the shed, found that they were able to walk on this crust. Not surprisingly, they decided to go adventuring. Their journey included a stop where Charles was trying to sugar. The calves tipped over a number of the buckets that were set out to catch the sap, as well as gnawed on the spouts.  One can imagine that wooden spouts, soaked with sweet tasting sap, were an attractive novelty to the calves!

Neck yoke commonly used for carrying sap. This neck yoke, which is in the Woodstock History Center’s collection, is similar to the one used by Charles Cobb for his journey carrying two buckets of syrup.

In addition, when Charles went to his “boiling spot” (the place where his arch and kettle were set up), he found them covered with snow. It took Charles until 3:00 that afternoon to get the kettle boiling. He notes, “I made out after half freezing to death to boil in two pails full.” When he returned to the arch a few days later, he “syruped down” and made two pails of maple syrup. He decided to carry the two pails down to his Uncle Henry’s place using a neck yoke. Although he doesn’t elaborate on his journey through the snow carrying the two buckets of syrup, he does state that he “arrived there in anger and glory with almost one pail full. I never had such a walk in my life.”

When Charles returned to the sugar lot a few days later, many of his tubs were once again frozen and filled with snow. Despite such trying circumstances, he writes in his journal, “I’ll do the best I can - I’ll be there tomorrow, spouts in hand, and gather and boil.” A week or so later, on April 23, Charles notes that a neighbor, John Raymond, had told him that they were likely to have “a tremendous run of sap when it come on warm, and advised me to have the trees bored over, but I didn’t wish for any large amount of sap to boil in that old arch. Long ago, when I round to the trees, I hoped before looking into the tub, that instead of being full there was none in it, although I lamented when I lost a pailful. This showed that sugaring was not agreeable....”

The first batch of syrup that Charles took to his Uncle Henry’s place was “sugared” by Henry’s wife, Laura. From the 16 quarts of syrup, Laura made about 15 pounds of maple sugar. During the course of the season, Charles and his father made enough maple syrup to make about 100 pounds of maple sugar, although the maple syrup for about 25 pounds of that sugar was “mostly used up” before it could be converted.

While the extent of the difficulties that Charles experienced may in part be due to bad luck and his inexperience, they were also hardships endured by others. In the 1850s, technological advancements were being made in many industries, including sugar making. One of the most important of these sugaring advancements was the evaporating pan, first patented by D.M. Cook of Ohio in 1858. By 1864, David Ingalls had improved upon the evaporating pan by adding baffles at the bottom that helped direct the flow of the sap as it passed through the evaporator.

Some improvements in recent years have further refined the process of making maple syrup. These improvements include the first pipeline system (1959), reverse-osmosis technology for sugaring (1970s), and a special spile, invented in Vermont, that prevents the back flow of sap into the tree, thereby improving both quality and production (2007). Another sugaring invention that was created right in our own backyard was a special “piggy back pan” that reuses the heat and steam that is generated by the evaporator, thereby reducing the amount of fuel required to process the maple syrup. This clever invention was created by Gordon and James Richardson who live just outside Woodstock.