Wednesday, April 24, 2024 | St. Lawrence County, NY
POTSDAM -- The Potsdam Public Museum is seeking information on the photo seen above. Found among the museum archives, it shows a group cooking down maple sap in a large iron kettle over an open fire …
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POTSDAM -- The Potsdam Public Museum is seeking information on the photo seen above.
Found among the museum archives, it shows a group cooking down maple sap in a large iron kettle over an open fire
In the early 1700s, Native Americans and European settlers alike were using iron and copper kettles to make syrup and sugar.
By the late 1700s and early 1800s, maple sap was produced into maple sugar, a granular, solid block of maple that had a long shelf-life and could be easily transported.
Maple sugar was promoted by the Quakers and abolitionists as an alternative to West Indian “slave-produced” cane sugar. Thomas Jefferson even started a maple plantation at Monticello in 1791.
It wasn’t until the Civil War that the maple syrup industry was born, with the introduction of the tin cans and the invention of metal spouts and evaporator pans.
Most early producers were dairy farmers who made maple syrup and sugar during the off-season, according to the museum.
The museum asks anyone with information on the photo to call 265-6910.
