Shall We Have Christmas?

By: Kajsa Sabatke, Manager of Public Programs

We're introducing a new program at the museum this year. Some of you may have come to our Holiday Lantern Tours in previous years. This year we've moved from the tours to focus even more on the experience of the winter holidays in the nineteenth century. If you're looking for a chance to visit The Farmers' Museum and experience a quieter and more historic atmosphere than Candlelight Evening, I hope that you'll come to the museum on Saturday, December 3, between 4-8pm. (And the week after that, please come and see the entire village aglow for Candlelight Evening.)

Our new program is called Shall We Have Christmas? During the nineteenth century, Christmas was not the major holiday that it is today. It was celebrated in similar, smaller-scale ways, though. Shall We Have Christmas won't be as large of an event as Candlelight Evening, but activities will be taking place in many of the buildings: holiday gift-making in the More House, singing and socializing in the tavern, wagon rides, holiday foods in the Lippitt House, greeting card printing in the printing office, remedies for winter ailments in the pharmacy, and decorations in the church. 

In addition to the staff who'll be talking about the holidays in each building, you'll be able to hear more about the holidays from quotes by people who wrote about their experience of the holidays in the mid-nineteenth century. Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of James Fenimore Cooper and also an author, shared many holiday observations in her book, Rural Hours:

The festival is very generally remembered now in this country, though more of a social than a religious holiday, by all those who are opposed to such observances on principle. In large towns it is almost universally kept. In the villages, however, but few shops are closed, and only one or two of the half dozen places of worship are opened for service. Still, everybody recollects that it is Christmas; presents are made in all families; the children go from house to house wishing Merry Christmas; and probably few who call themselves Christians allow the day to pass without giving a thought to the sacred event it commemorates, as they wish their friends a “Merry Christmas.”

Gwen Miner, our Supervisor of Domestic Arts, has also found quotes from historic diaries from the region that related to each of the buildings that will be open.

We hope to see you for at least one of our holiday events in December!

Seeing the Details, Part 2

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

After writing my last blog post titled "Seeing the Details" about a 19th-century photograph in the Plowline: Images of Rural New York Collection, I received an email from Steve Kellogg, Supervisor at the Field Blacksmith Shop at The Farmers' Museum. The email was very enlightening and conveyed some great information regarding pressed hay in the 19th century that I thought I would share with you.

Detail, 19^th Century Farm Scene, 1880-1890, by W.H. Bell, F0003.2011.  Plowline: Image of Rural New York.  The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

As it turns out the two "sleds" that I noted in the foreground (seen in the detail above) are the "bobs" to a farm bobsled. Steve notes in his email that the bobsleds were used in winter for farm hauling and, in this case, were probably used to haul pressed hay.

Most notable from his email is the following information, which really sheds some light on why farmers in the image were pressing hay in the winter months: 

"The hay was cut in mid-summer and had been in the barn for months. Why are they baling it when it clearly was already stored in the haymow loose? Judging by the A-frame, chain, and hay hook the baled hay is very hard to move by hand."

Detail, 19^th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

Steve also notes the following about how the pressed hay was used:

"You pressed the hay to ship it by Canal or Train to NYC. Rectangular bales fit efficiently into a rail car. New York City had a lot of livestock, and a voracious appetite for good hay in midwinter. You would make more money selling it in winter than you could selling it in the summer. Therefore pressed hay was an excellent crop to sell in midwinter. The photo not only documents the farm family using expensive equipment, but also producing a high-value export at the same time."

I found this information very helpful in explaining why this type of work would be done in winter as opposed to summer, and I hope you find it an interesting comment on hay pressing and sales in the late 19th century as well.

Many thanks to Steve Kellogg - who also has a blog - for the follow-up email and information!

New York Winters: The Fun and Foils of Snow

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York
In a small way, I think that I moved north just in time.  That may sound a bit odd, so let me explain.  In May I moved back to Upstate New York, having lived in Southcoast Massachusetts and in New Jersey for the last nine years.   While living in both places, I really can’t say I experienced more than a handful of snowstorms on par with those experienced annually in Upstate New York.  I will admit though that I did get accustomed to school or work closing each time a few inches or flurries fell or sometimes when snow was simply forecasted!   So, needless to say, getting accustomed to a fifty mile round-trip commute and winter driving again has been a little bit of a learning curve for me this winter.  Given the number of winter storms, whether Nor’esters or Blizzards this year that have hit the areas where I formerly lived – I do think that I moved at the right time.  For this year anyhow.  But, I know that even though we have been fortunate that the coastal storms didn’t track more inland and all that record snow didn’t fall on us…we well know Central New York sees and has seen its fair share of the white stuff.  Evidence of this can be seen in images from the Plowline: Images of Rural New York collection.   I would like to share with you a couple images that I like (and some that I find a bit scary) from this collection.

First of all, I wouldn’t want something like this happening to me:

Do you see that little black speck (in the photo above) to the left of center? Yes, that is a nearly buried car!

The above photo seems more like what I remember as far as upstate winters when I was a child growing up in Washington County.  I can remember snow banks almost this high along my grandparent’s long driveway-they lived at one of the highest points in the town.   I especially remember driving my sister back to SUNY Oswego with my Father, getting to Fulton and seeing walls of snow like this on either side of the road. My sister and I didn’t think it was so funny, but my Father couldn’t stop laughing at my sister’s “good fortune” and choice of school.

Snow can also mean a lot of work, regardless of age:

Aside from the not so fun and hazardous side of snowstorms, some fun lies in them too.

And of course, it does give a serene and tranquil look to the landscape, no matter where you live.

Images above, in order of appearance:

Snowstorm in Oneida County, NY, 1947.  Dante Tranquillle.  Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0001.2010(165)j.
Winter Scene with Snow Plow, 1969.  Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0001.2010(051)b
The Dezemos Shoveling Snow, ca. 1940-1945.  Photographer unidentified.  Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0006.2010(168).
George Dezemo on the Farmall H, Date and Photographer unidentified.  Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0006.2010(076).
Maple Sugaring in Lewis County, NY, 1950.  Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0001.2010(069)dd
Haymarket, New York, Date unidentified. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0001.2010(182).

Ice Harvesting in our Backyard

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York


Since first cataloging images of ice harvesting at Millers Mills last May, I have many times returned to the images for another look. For whatever reason, the photos captivated me – soon becoming some of my favorite images in the Dante Tranquille Collection on Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

 
The tradition of ice cutting and harvesting beckons back to the early 1800s, and a time when people began to find ways to keep meats, dairy and produce fresh for longer periods of time. Before that time, Americans often stored their perishable foodstuffs in deep wells, springs or storage cellars, or opted for salting or drying their meat. In the early part of the 19th century, ice houses began cropping up on family farms where ponds or lakes were present or nearby. Ice harvesting became a community affair taking place in “good ice-makin’ weather” during January and February, at which time the entire community would work to fill everyone’s ice houses in a matter of four to six weeks. Farmers gathered up their axes, saws, ice hooks, sleighs and teams of horses to join in the effort.

Ice harvesting is not an overly complicated process, requiring as few or as many different tools as desired. The harvester could use as few as three or four tools, however, over the course of time around sixty tools were invented to help in the process.

So, how complicated is ice harvesting? Here is an illustrated look at ice harvesting with photos from Millers Mills taken in 1958.
Snow was usually removed from the ice with a horse-drawn scraper.

A hole was then bored in the ice and the depth of the ice measured.  In early times, axes and saws were employed to cut through the scored ice-later giving way to markers and ice plows with teeth, each tooth progressively longer than the one before it that carved a straight line in the ice.  The ice was marked out like a grid, and then cut through with a four to five foot ice saw or was broken apart with a bar.

Hooks, tongs or a horse rigged to the block, were used to extract the block of ice from the water. 

Ice blocks were then slid across the ice and moved to a sleigh, wagon or other mode of transportation and taken to the ice house where they were unloaded using perhaps a tool or two, human muscle and a plank.

Would you like to try ice harvesting yourself? Then join in on a traditional ice harvest in Millers Mills located in West Winfield, New York on Sunday, February 13, 2011 starting at 11 am. This is a long standing tradition there, dating back so many years that no one actually knows when it even began as a community winter event. Traditional tools and methods are used right down to the team of horses and sleigh. Only one modern convenience is used and that is the gas powered machine used to score the ice the day before to the harvest. The harvest is a fundraiser sponsored by Grange #581. What do they do with the 300-500 blocks of ice? They store it in the ice house until the summer when they make ice cream for the town’s Ice Cream Social. A lot of work, but for a sweet reward!

To see more photos of the 1958 Ice Harvest in Millers Mills visit Plowline: Images of Rural New York.


Images above in order of appearance:
 Scraping.  Illustration from Scribner's Monthly, 1875
Ice Cutting. Millers Mills, 1958. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.F0001.2010(008)f.
Ice Harvesting, 1958. Dante Tranquille.  Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0001.2010(103)a.
Ice Cutting. Millers Mills, 1958. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0001.2010(008)b.
Ice Cutting. Millers Mills, 1958. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.  F0001.2010(008)g.

Cutting Firewood: Preparing for Winter, Part 2

By: Garet Livermore, Vice-President for Education

Winter is a good time to cut and get up a year’s stock of firewood. Farmers at this season have less work to perform and wood is easier loaded and drawn when there is good sleighing, than in summer.  But remember one thing: Don’t attempt to warm all creation, by working hard to chop and haul fire-wood, and at the same time leave your dwelling so open that the cold wind will rush in on all sides. By all means make your house comfortable.  Bank it up and have all of its walls tight with good non-conductors of heat. While taking good care of those in-doors that can can talk, and tell their wants, never forget the dumb brutes in your barn-yard and stables. “The merciful man is merciful to his beast.” -- Editor, Genesee Farmer

In today’s world, heating bills are foremost on many people’s minds as we move into the coldest months of winter. People in early America were also concerned with heating, and they needed to work through the year to provide enough wood to heat their homes and make hot water for cooking, cleaning and bathing. Most firewood was cut in the winter when it could be easily cut and transported into barnyards for processing, but a good part of the other seasons were also taken up with splitting, stacking and moving wood around to keep fires in burning constantly through the long northern winter. Early Americans used prodigious amounts of wood to stoke the flames in their fireplaces. In Colonial times, before the improved efficiencies of the Rumford fireplace and later wood stoves, farmers had to cut, split and manage upwards of 40 cords of wood to keep their homes warm and their farms in operation.

To put those 40 cords of wood in perspective we can compare them to today’s heating bills.  According to the U.S. government, each full cord of wood contains about 15.3 million BTU units of heat, so 40 cords of wood equals 612 million BTU units to heat, light and do chores on the average 18th century farm.  If we had to purchase that heat in the form of home heating oil it would require over 5,000 gallons of #2 fuel oil.  With today’s average cost per gallon of home heating oil in New York State hovering around $3.27 per gallon, the average farm would have an annual heating bill of well over $17,000.

Today heating oil is neatly delivered to our tanks and all we need to do is turn up our thermostats when the house grows cold or call the oil company to top off our tank when it is running low. Americans of the 18th and 19th centuries spent a great deal of their time managing their firewood supply and making sure that they had enough wood to get through the winter. Farms in rural areas generally included 15 to 20 acre woodlots as part of the property. In managing their wood supply, farmers generally cut an acre each year with the assumption that it would grow back to be of usable size by the time they came back to that spot in fifteen years. Farmers also bartered for wood and, if they lived near enough to cities to make transportation worthwhile, sold firewood as a cash crop for as much as $6 per cord in the mid-19th century.

The technology of cutting firewood was vastly different in the 19th century.  In the present, people who heat with wood have a wide variety of power equipment available to make the job easier, including chain saws, hydraulic wood splitters and even motorized wheel barrows.  Until about 1870, the most commonly used tool for processing wood was the American Pattern axe.  Axes were very efficient for felling and limbing trees, but were not as good at splitting the trees into usable chunks of firewood.  For this purpose most wood cutters relied on splitting wedges and heavy wooden “beetles” or sledge hammers to split their wood.  Cross-cut saws were not often used for felling trees until the last quarter of the 19th century because they were initially not as efficient as axes and were much more expensive to purchase.


In early America settlers often performed a dual function when they gathered firewood, creating a bank of fuel for the year as they cleared land for cultivation. This was a very labor intensive activity that required help. Neighbors often worked as a group to cut and clear the woods, pull stumps and do the initial plowing to open the land for the next season’s crops. This also allowed settlers to share necessary tools and equipment like oxen with sledges, horses and plows as well as hand tools like mauls and wedges. This made full use of a community’s resources to meet everyone’s needs.

The first energy crisis in America occurred in the 1740s when a growing population and inefficient energy practices caused a great shortage in firewood in New England and other heavily populated areas. Open hearth fireplaces were tremendously wasteful. Fully ninety percent of their heat energy went up the chimney, and the fire tended to pull more cold outside air in through poorly insulated walls and windows. Benjamin Franklin developed his famous stove, then called the “Pennsylvania Fire-Place,” as a tremendous advance in wood burning technology. On being asked about the stove he had the following reply, which is as relevant today as it was then: "By the help of this saving invention our wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our posterity may warm themselves at a moderate rate, without being obliged to fetch their fuel over the Atlantic." The net effect on the lives of average Americans of this stove - and others invented in the 19th century - was dramatic. By the 1850s the average northern farm required 60% less firewood, which meant that it required 15 cords worth of trees rather than the 40 of colonial times.