Interesting History

[hholt]

This is my first year making syrup....at least the first time since I was a kid and now my hair is gray, but I wanted to pass along a story about something that happened to me when I was in my 20s working as a contract archaeologist up near Watertown NY.

We were working on the Ft Drum Army base, surveying several thousand acres of land where the new base was to be built. There were several "ghost towns" on the old base (except in New York I suppose they should be called "ghost villages") and we found every kind of 19th century historical archeological site imaginable......mills, schools, churches, farmsteads, old family cemetaries, iron foundries, you name it.

Usually we were pretty good at figuring them out, often with the help of the historical maps, but there was one kind that had us stumped for the longest time.......and these were the field stone sugaring arches. They were never on the maps, and the only artifacts we ever found with them were broken glassware fragments and the occasional nail. At first they seemed like they were just off in the middle of nowhere, but eventually, after we found a couple of dozen or so, we realized that they were usually in sugar bushes. Also, we eventually determined that there was generally one on every farmstead when you compared their locations to the property surveys. All the arches we found would have dated to 1810-1940.

Anyway I thought I'd share that little piece of maple sugaring history. It has stuck with me for the longest time. Some of the mature sugar maple stands on Ft Drum were magnificent in the fall, but tapping trees on the base came to an end in the early 1940s when the base expanded to it's present size.

[Pete33Vt]

Pretty neat history lesson. Up here in Northern Vt there is evidence of old sugaring operations everywhere. Some with the back pans, and arch some with just the field stone arch. There is one old house up here that still has the arch in the middle of it. In the spring there is a small stream that runs through the center of the house. I really enjoy checking out these old sites, I find them all the time when I am hunting.Makes you think about sugaring back in those days.

[Fred Henderson]

In a magazine called Adrondack Life there was an article written about sugaring in the Adrondack Mountains. It went on to tell about an operation that hung 50,000 buckets, had 4 evaporators going. Even had a rail line to bring things in and out. That mountain range is not far from Fort Drum. The 10th Mountain Div. that is at the fort trains and ski's in those mountains.

[hholt]

Wow 50,000 taps.....That is amazing. I wonder if they ran the train on wood rails or steel. I think a lot of lumbering operations ran on wood rails. Sugaring history really is interesting. I read a while back that anti-slavery abolitionists in New England called on Americans to make their own maple sugar and boycott the "dirty sugar" made with slave labor in the Carribean. I never would have imagined that.

Pete, Ft. Drum is where I started bowhunting, and I think I probably discovered more interesting stuff hunting than I did at work......you can cover a lot of ground scouting and hunting. I worked on the base for 4 years in the 1980s while the new facilities were constructed for the 10th Mt Division, before I was married, and spent almost all of my free time out there hunting and fishing. Aaaahhh those were the days :^)

[twigbender]

That's very interesting info. Having been a forester for 36 years, I can tell you that you'll find a lot of neat stuff in the woods if you keep your eyes open. Although I didn't find them (another forester did and showed them to me), there are several field stone "arches" on the west side of Lake Winnibigoshish in north central Minnesota. These were used by internees at a prisoner of war camp for Germans captured by the Allies and sent to the US for safe keeping. These arches look more like a stone fireplace with "legs" that extend about four feet in front of the firebox and on either side of it. I suspect that the evaporator was laid across the legs and the fire was built under it between the legs. Don't know anything about the operation other than those arches. Interestingly enough, locals claim that many POWs didn't want to return to Germany after the war, but preffered to stay here.

[Revi]

A friend showed me an old sugaring operation that was run by his grandfather. It was only about 50 years ago, but the arch had sunk into the ground and the old maples that he tapped were past their prime. It was neat to see the old maple operation. He's going to set up another operation on land that his grandfather logged and that came up all maples. He has about 500 taps on 10 acres now. It should be a great legacy from his grandfather.

[blackstrapking]

hholt,
I've lived near FT. Drum all my life and never knew any of that stuff about the place. Always just thought of it as a base, but never really thought of what was there prior to the 10th mountain division.
Jason

[Fred Henderson]

hholt,
I've lived near FT. Drum all my life and never knew any of that stuff about the place. Always just thought of it as a base, but never really thought of what was there prior to the 10th mountain division.
Jason



Many moons ago is was called Pine Camp.

[maple flats]

Fort Drum is just a little north of Crogan where the Maple Museum is and Lewis county where there is likely the greatest concentration of sugaring in NYS.

[The Sappy Steamer]

My brother in law is stationed at Fort Drum and is coming up this way this weekend to visit. I'll have to be sure and pass that along to him. I know he'll find it interesting. Thanks for the history lesson.

[nymapleman]

I was born and raised around Watertown, NY. My grandfather, Floyd Gardner, had a dairy farm in a area that was called Bedford Creek. This was part of the original Pine Camp. It was later changed to Fort Drum and then enlarged to accomidate the 10th Mountain Division. Here to Pine Camp was home to German and Italian prisoners during WWII.
History is facinating!!!!!!!!!!!!!