Embedded Files
Mrs. Benjamin Webster moved to Cabot with her husband in 1783, hauling possessions on a hand sled, through deep snow, to the Plains. There she "tapped some trees and made 40 pounds of sugar," while her husband returned to Peacham. John Fisher, told this in his history of Cabot, published by the Vermont Historical Gazetteer, in 1881.
There is no description of the tools and techniques pioneer women used for this. It takes at least 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. In Vermont, sugaring season starts mid-February to early March, when daylight temperatures rise to above freezing and drop down below freezing at night. This makes sap flow. There is a brief season before trees start budding and sap stops flowing. It was a race against time to gather sap and make maple sugar, an important commodity for wilderness families.
Native Americans taught settlers to make maple syrup and sugar. They ate “sapsicles,” icicles of frozen maple sap on the end of a broken twig in winter. As ice forms, some water evaporates, leaving a sweet treat behind. The early method was making V-shaped slashes in tree trunks. Lacking metal pots, Native Americans boiled sap by dropping hot rocks in containers of hollowed logs, birch bark, or clay.
Early sap spouts
and bucket
likely in a large wooden pail. If it was cold enough to freeze, she may have discarded ice above the heavier, sweet sap. Removing ice cuts boiling time.Later settlers had "sugaring parties." They went in the woods for days to harvest sap. They boiled sap down to maple syrup and sugar
in a clearing in the sugar bush. They gathered sap in buckets, on foot, sometimes using a yoke across their shoulders to carry buckets. They built crude shelters at first; in the 1850s, "sugar shacks" appeared. Later horses or oxen pulled a sled with a large sap gathering tub. In 1858, the first crude evaporator was invented. By 1872, a two-pan evaporator was available. By 1900, evaporators were manufactured with flues to circulate hot sap and provide more heated surface area to reduce water content faster. There were many advances. Boiling outside is still done in a few backyard operations, but modern sugar houses have stainless steel equipment.
Cabot has several
modern maple sugar making operations. The Goodrich Farm, in East Cabot, has produced maple products for seven generations, beginning in 1840. The picture on the left is Inez Abbott gathering sap for her parents about 1910. Later she married Wendell Goodrich. He continued the maple syrup business, as did his sons and grandchildren. One son, Glenn Goodrich, has a large sugar-making operation. Glenn invented an efficient evaporator.The Hill family were Cabot sugar makers. They used oxen to gather sap
and for other tasks on their West Hill farm. At right, George E. Hill's mother, Lucia, watches the evaporator. These photos are from circa 1910, when George was in his early 20s. His father, George F. Hill, died at age 49, in 1911. Young George and his mother carried on the farm. George, with a good education, taught at nearby West Hill School.
A modern sugaring operation on West Hill, is operated by the Bothfeld family at Dunstable Farm. They, too used oxen many years for farm work. At left are two Bothfeld sons and neighbors at a lunch, during sugaring in 1950. Third from the left is Maurice Wheeler, whose family sugared. Below, two Wheeler children, one of them possibly Maurice, in sugar woods. One drinks sap from the big wooden bucket while the other catches drips from the spout. These youngsters look young, but older children were expected to help. School closed for "spring break" around prime sugaring season, so farm youngsters could
distribute buckets and gather sap. They brought in wood, to keep the evaporator steaming, did chores in the sugar house, fed oxen or horses, and carried messages or equipment. When sap ran exceptionally well, someone had to man the evaporator to keep up with the flow, sometimes boiling all night. The Boltons, on Cabot Plains, owned sugar woods where Benjamin Webster's brother, Nathaniel, probably lived, on Bayley-Hazen military road. The "Webster Lot" was sold, in the 1950s, to Barbara and Bob Davis, who also sugared.
This is the Bolton sugar house about 1930. It was in a pasture, part of the Petit farm, next to a large stand of maples, on the pioneer Webster farm. Down the road from the Webster's sugar woods, Maple Glen Farm was well known for maple syrup. The owner, Alonzo Foster, invented an improved sap spout (at left) that would accommodate a bucket and had a hook to secure a cover, to keep debris and animals from the sap. Alonzo's daughter, Linnie, married E. Payson Walbridge, who continued to farm and sugar operation for many years. Now it is part of Burtt's Apple Orchard, owned by Keith Burtt, who built a new sugar house, taps his own sugar woods, and acquired other lots to enlarge his sugaring operation.
Talbert's Maple Farm has been owned by one family since 1930; it is west of Cabot Village aerial view. Marcia Maynard and Ken Denton started Cabot Hills Maple, east of the village in 2000, with a new sugar house and modern equipment. Blaisdell's Maple Farm also began, east of Cabot Village, in 2000. In 2012, Ackermann Maple Farm built a sugar shack to start their business. Many sugar makers invite the public to see how syrup is made and buy products at the farm or via the Web.
Syrup, in the 1930s, was $1.50 to $2.50 per gallon. In World War II, there was a ceiling price of $3.39 per gallon. In 2010, a gallon sold for about $51. Vermont has strict purity rules for maple products.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse