A history of Vermont's maple sugar industry

by Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association

The probable way in which the Indians discovered this art is contained in one of their Legends, as given by Rowland E. Robinson in the Atlantic Monthly:

“While Woksis, the mighty hunter was out one day in search of game, his diligent squaw Moqua busied herself embroidering him some moccasins. For the evening meal of her lord she boiled some moose meat in the sweet water from a maple tree just by the wigwam. Becoming interested in her work, she forgot the moose meat, and the sweet water boiled away to a thick brown syrup.”

“When Woksis returned he found such a dainty morsel ready for his supper, as he had never before tasted. The great chief eagerly devoured the viand, licked the kettle clean and then went out and told his tribe that Kose-Kus-beh, a heaven sent instructor, had taught Moqua how to make a delicious food by boiling the juice of the maple. And the discovery soon became known among all the Indians.” To get the sap the Indians with their tomahawks cut a long slanting gash in the tree, below the lower end of this gash a notch was cut to hold a chip along which the sap would flow. The sap was caught in birch bark dishes and boiled in earthen kettles. The small quantity of dark syrup thus produced was the Indians only supply of sugar. Imagine ourselves limited in this necessity of life to a little taste each spring, and we can think what a delicacy their maple sugar must have been to the Indian. We fondly anticipate the coming of this season of the year, either for pleasure or profit. How long these anticipations have existed in the hearts of men we know not, but we do know that long before the foot of white man touched the virgin soil of New England, long before the woodman’s axe echoed among our hills and valleys, the dusky race, who freely roamed the primeval forest gathered the maple sap in the primative way. It is not improbable that the young braves and dusky maidens of the tribe, had sugar parties, ate sugar upon snow and became sweet with each as do the boys and girls at sugar parties today.

THE PRIMATIVE METHOD, OF BOILING MAPLE SAP.

The first white people to make maple sugar were the Canadians. The manufacture of maple sugar in Vermont dates back to a very early day; the first settlers like their neighbors in Canada first learned the art of making it from the Indian, who they observed notching the trees in the springtime.

For a hundred years or more the methods of production remained without material change, save the substitution of iron or copper kettles for vessels of clay or bark, and the use of better utensils. The sugar was made merely for home use; cane sugar was a luxury and often unobtainable by the pioneer farmer at any cost.

The trees were tapped with axes in the Indian way, the sap caught in wooden troughs and gathered to some central place in buckets, carried on the shoulders with a sap yoke; and if the snow was deep, snow shoes were used to travel on; the boiling was done in large iron kettles swung upon a pole in the open woods in some hollow sheltered from the wind, with no protection from the sun, rain or snow, and the numerous impurities of charcoal, ashes and leaves.

Although this was greatly in advance of the primative methods of sugar making by the Indians, the product thus secured was dark in color, strong in flavor, not altogether the flavor of the maple, and quite variable in quality. This method with slight improvements and modifications was principally used in the state until within the past 50 years; since that time great improvements have been made. But the boys and girls of today can scarcely realize the conditions incident to the sugar season even 40 or 50 years ago, nor can they fully realize the pleasures which this season brought to the young people of those times, more especially the boys. In those days it was no small matter to get ready for sugaring. Each wooden hoop on the buckets must be tightened, with new hoops to replace the broken ones. It required several days to soak the buckets and make them hold the sap. The kettle, holders and buckets must then be taken to the sugar orchard.

The boiling place must be shovelled out, and perhaps new posts set for the lug pole on which to hang the kettles. Then the big back logs must be hauled and some wood cut to start the boiling. A few new sap spouts were needed each year, and these were made from green sumac trees of proper size, and whittled to fit the auger hole; the small pith being burned out with a redhot iron. With the inch or three-fourths inch auger, one man could tap about 50 trees in a day if he did not bore more than three inches deep, which was the rule. If a new sap yoke was needed, a small basswood tree of right size was cut, and the proper length for a yoke, halved, dug out to fit the neck and shoulders, and the ends shaved to right dimensions. To make “the yoke easy and the burden light” required a good fitting sap yoke.