Category: historic preservation

Documenting Historic Vermont Sugarhouses

A new project was recently launched in Vermont to document the many historic sugarhouses that dot the the state’s rural landscape. Be they abandoned, inactive, or currently in use, the project, led by Dori Ross, a maple syrup maker and founder of Tonewood maple products company, is aimed at creating a well-illustrated record of old sugarhouses, and where possible and appropriate, helping share information on preservation tools and funding opportunities for these iconic symbols of the maple syrup industry.

Sugarhouse Vermont website for documenting historic sugarhouses.

A major tool in gathering information on where these sugarhouses are found is on the Sugarhouse Vermont website where sugarhouse owners can fill out an online form to share details and information on the sugarhouse’s location as a prelude to a more intensive photo and written documentation by the project team.

Dori Ross, Sugarhouse Vermont project leader.

In addition to sugarhouse documentation and creating an inventory of old sugarhouses, another long term goal of the project is to publish a photo history book as a tool to preserve and share the story, beauty, and histories of Vermont sugarhouses. I am pleased to be a part of the project team as an advisor and the project historian and I plan to contribute a chapter on the history and evolution of the sugarhouse for the book. In addition to myself and Dori Ross, our project team has the assistance of Sawyer Loftus, an experienced journalist and University of Vermont student made available through the support of the UVM  Center for Research on Vermont.

If you own an old or just plain older sugarhouse, or know where a less well known  historic sugarhouse is located, please consider contacting us through the information provided at the Sugarhouse Vermont website. You can learn more about the project at the Sugarhouse Vermont website or read and hear more about it in a recent Vermont Public Radio story that aired on April 8, 2021.

Archaeological Investigations of Old Sugaring Site in Minnesota

The spring 2020 edition of the Minnesota Archaeological Society newsletter features an article titled Boiling Arch Archaeology by Nicole Foss. This article, available here, describes recent archaeological investigations that documented the remains of two u-shaped boiling arches in Interstate State Park, near the St. Croix River and Taylors Falls, Minnesota.

One arch was constructed of bermed earth, stone, and brick while the other, probably later arch, was built poured concrete with three walls and a concrete floor. Historical research and archaeological investigations determined that the arches were probably open air boiling sites used by local syrup makers of European-American descent in the late 1800s to mid-1900s.

Archaeologist have been recording the remains of former maple sugaring and syrup making sites in the upper midwest for the last 40 years, although it is only in the last 20 years that there has been an increase in recognizing and documenting boiling arches as important features of many sugaring sites of both Euro-American and Native American sugarmakers. The report of finding these two arches is a valuable contribution to the historic archaeological record in Minnesota.

In addition to providing permission to share the newsletter article here, site investigators Jacob Foss, Nicole Foss, and David Radford were kind enough to share a few additional photographs from the site.

Photograph of earth and stone u-shaped boiling arch at Hobb’s Woods maple sugaring site, Interstate State Park, Minnesota.
Photograph of the remains of the concrete U-shaped boiling arch at the Hobb’s Woods maple sugaring site in Interstate State Park, Minnesota.
Photograph of a metal maple sugaring spout found at the Hobb’s Woods maple sugaring site at Interstate State Park, Minnesota.