A Middle-School Investigation into Whether a Sugar House Once Existed in the Woods

Background Information: I first heard the story in 1977. I think the first time was from a first-grade teacher who had been some years at Westford School and recalled that a rutted remnant of dirt road and tumbled-down stone wall at the (then) edge of the school grounds, had once been the access to a building just above the maple tree line. She thought it might have once been a sugar house. At the time, looking over that area, I found the flattened building. The wood portions that had made up the structure had decomposed, and the corrugated sheets of roof tin were lying on the ground in an overlapping jumble. 

Over the years, I'd wondered about this structure from time to time. It only occurred to me about ten years ago that a more involved investigation might provide interesting data and facts about what had once existed on the site. In thirty or so intervening years, the corrugated tin "disappeared" (probably hauled around by kids playing in the woods or blown away by winds.) The rutted track disappeared when Rope Athletic Field was added to the school campus. In April of 2020 and again in 2021, the Shackleton hiking Group (see Misty Meadows Vernal Pool Project) identified the specific location of the remains of the structure, some 44 years after the original story was related to the instructor. A plan was forming...Having completed archaeological digs on (then) school nature trail areas twice before through the guidance of a local professional archaeologist, I was confident that middle school students could carry out the work with fidelity to acquire data necessary to answer the question:

What evidence exists to support the idea that a sugar house once existed on the site? Is there evidence that can target when the building was in use?                                                                                       

 Getting Started:

 This shot shows seventh-grade researchers at the dig site. Notice the string gridwork outline their work zone. This method of dividing a site into specific dig "pits" is called the Wheeler-Kenyon method. It allows a systematic approach to remove spoil and (hopefully) revealing artefacts that will add understanding about the dig site. Notice the investigators have on gloves and safety glasses - a safety requirement for the project. Their spoil will be put into the bucket in the background and sifted at another workstation.

In this image, we see the tools used to conduct research. the scientist-student is using a trowel to scrape away soil (actually more organic humus than soil at our dig site) and collected. The prescribed method is to pull this material toward oneself whilst pushing it into a dustpan at one's knees. The collected soil is then tipped into the bucket for further sifting. Other tools regularly used include brushes of different sizes and shapes, "edging" tools (sticks of different sizes and shapes) to define partially exposed artefacts, and in the background is seen a collection bag being filled with a recently freed artefact. The gridwork allows for quick and reliable identification of where in the site the finds were made. Using the SW data stake as an initial reference point, a find located in north 300, east 200 meant that three squares up and two squares to the right is the location where the find took place. Every artefact is labeled in this manner for when it is processed for cleaning and analysis in the lab.  

Here seventh-grade researchers are sifting spoil. The person at left is shaking the device forward and back to have the collected material fall between the screening. Simultaneously, other members of the team are looking for smaller artefacts, and are scraping soil matter on the screening to increase the rate of processing. The "clean" spoil is collected on a tarpaulin under it. When the site is closed up for the season, all the soil is spread back onto the squares that have been processed. The goal is to leave as little disruption to the landscape as possible. It's important to remember too that conducting a dig destroys the original placement and number of artefacts "in situ" (at the site.) This work can never again be repeated, so it's critical to know as much about what and where material moved when the dig was underway. Maps make this a permanent result.

Some evidence of use was on the surface of our dig site. These students are standing with metal originally thought to be part of the roof. Later research into sugaring operation machines from the late 19th - early 20th century made clear that the metal at the right was part of the evaporator pan. The cast metal was likely the frame into which the baffle boiling sections were placed. 

The team on the right located several important artefacts including this hoe head. What would a hoe be doing in the woods in a building? Well, let's remember that we're researching the past - the land looked very different in 1900 than it does today! Also, if it WAS a sugarhouse, the hoe head gives an additional clue...one side of the head is scraped flat. It was suggested that when the firebox was scraped clean of ash, this hoe was the device for pulling the ash forward out of the firebox. Makes sense, right?

Several teams had little result in the grid assignment they were initially given. When it became clear that these groups were (literally) off the grid, they were reassigned to another location. This location had started with glass shards on top of the ground, so our team knew there were things waiting to be found. It turned out to be even more interesting...artefacts were found under the base of the tree. In other words, over time the tree had grown on top of whatever had been discarded on the ground at that location. It proved to be a valuable area to do work at...several types of glass that placed the structure at the late 19th century (willow ware, ironstone), as well as broken glass with enough information on them, get the actual bottle shape from auction sites on the web, mean that the building existed from the late 1800s until (at least) 1956 (a Mr. Boston Whiskey design that was used only that year.) While this didn't necessarily date the start of the finish of whatever the structure was, it made a strong case for establishing that the building was in use for at least half a century.

A good deal of brickwork was found this season. The dimension of the brick suggests that it predates 1910 when local methods for production changed. The research student on the right has excavated an area that turned out to be a concrete slab running parallel to what was guessed to be the back wall of the structure foundation. What would be on a weight-bearing slab? Owing to the proximity of bricks, including bricks broken down through repeated heating (friability) we hypothesised that the location was either a heating stove or had one end of the evaporator pan on it.

The number of artefacts located at our site numbered in the thousands. 

This image gives a better sense of the site size. Investigators in the background are working in different dig quadrants. This seventh-grade researcher is holding one of the walls of the evaporator pan. The site had approximate a dozen pieces this size. One team located what is believed to have been the threshold to the structure. Buried adjacent to it was the cast-iron front door to the evaporator arch buried approximately 25 centimetres deep in the soil. The hoe head was found within a metre of this find. Most exciting was in the grid square adjacent to the threshold. Found in the ground, lined up like kippers in a tin were a variety of maple sap taps. There were four different metal designs as well as a number of uniquely shaped wooden taps. The fact that these had not decomposed in the years since lying in the ground suggests a particularly resilient wood type. One person looking at the taps suggested ash as the source. Also excavated in this area were metal straps first thought to be part of a barrel. But when it was pointed out that the straps were too small in circumference for this, it was not long before someone suggested these were from wooden sap buckets.

Year One Study - What Was Recovered

This collection of artefacts shows the most compelling evidence to suggest that the structure at this site (at least sometimes) did engage in sugaring. On the rigt side are seven whittled taps. The investigation group had a mixed opinion about which end of the tap was inserted into the hole in the maple tree - it seems likely the pointed end was inserted and sap followed the pinhole channel to the terminus of the wide end, dripping into the bucket. 

To the left are four additional metal taps, each with a distinctive shape. Some have the hook to hang the bucket built into the shape of the tap while others required a hook to be slid onto the tap. In this photo, there are four hooks for this purpose. 

Around the edge of this shot can be seen the strapping thought to make up one of two bucket binders. The straps were attached by means of a hammered rivet-like attachment. Each strap was bound by a single rivet. Three straps were recovered but only one was a complete circumference shape.

This detail shows a close-up of wooden taps. The taps were likely whittled by the same individual owing to very similar construction. Each has a slight curve to its shape. Although some splitting of the taps occurred as the recovered artifact dried out, it served to reveal a bit more of the tiny passageway passing through the tap. It's thought that the pointed end would be inserted into the tree hole allowing the sap to gravity-feed to the notched, wider end. Each tap would be 6-8 centimetres in length. Even though these samples have lain in forest soil for decades, they have little to no "punky" wood quality. It's a testament to folks living at that time to know which wood would provide a long-standing service for syruping.

Bottle tops are a useful way to establish an age for a site structure. The large bottle top with metal cap, along with the shard to its left were identified as an "Old Mr. Boston" whisky bottle. This design was used only in 1956. Now the building could have existed beyond this date, but it plants a flag into the timeline for the building's existence. 

The bottle shard located at the 3 o'clock position had enough information on it to specifically identify it too. It turned out to be a bottle from 1905.

Bottle manufacture changed around the start of the 20th century. Before this date, bottlenecks and lips were manufactured separately and attached to the rest of the bottle. After 1900, bottles were created with a single seam traversing the length of each side. Our collection included both types. This is another suggestion of the building having existed on the cusp of the 20th century.

Leather survived the years after the collapse of the structure. In this photograph, we can see at least two different soles of shoes. Both were quite small - certainly, they would be much smaller than what the average adult would wear today. Whether this was caused by the drying process, the shoes belonged to younger individuals, or the people who left them in the building were just diminutive can't be determined. Notice in the artefact located at the seven o'clock position the proximity of the eye loops suggested a shoe style worn by females that looped up to the ankle or higher. Once again this is a suggestion of a late 19th-century/early 20th-century style of footwear.

This detail shows the shoe loop arrangement. It suggests the style was as much about fashion as it was about necessity for use.

Why would shoes be left behind in the building in the first place? Were the shoes taken off to dry next to a stove to dry? Were these shoes that were changed out of as work was done at the structure?  We can only wonder about the history and use of these as well as the person who wore them. 

The lowly nail can tell a lot about the history of a structure. Square-cut nails were used up to the end of the 19th-century. In fact, early builders would salvage nails for reuse so dear were they to come by and use. Round nails were found too at a ratio of 3:1 over square nails. About 20% of these were bent at a similar angle. It was suggested that these bent nails might have been in walls inside the building and served as hooks to put collection buckets on when not in use.

 Also in this photograph are a large spoon, a large, square nut for a bolt.

On the right are recovered samples that seem to be from a bicycle tyre. One can imagine a child pedaling up to the structure on the bicycle. But why would the tyre shards remain at the site? Was the bicycle in the structure when it collapsed? If it was, no evidence of it was found. Was the rubber from the tyre a repurposed material for something else? The presence of these artefacts creates more questions than answers.

This image shows a number of implements recovered. The hoe head previously mentioned shows its "flattened" left side, suggesting that this was the scraping side to remove arch wood ash. 

We can also see a candle snuffer. It's handle has been forge-made with a twist.

A door pull or knocker was removed from the same area where the door threshold was identified. Notice it is still attached to the bolt that passed through the building's doorway.

The remaining two pieces were likely from one device. They appear to be a ladle coated in white enamel on the inside and blue on the outside (the same material that early coffee pots were constructed with). It was suggested that this might have been used to lift boiling sap in testing its viscosity.

Lots of day-to-day plates and cups were found at or near our site. In this photo, there are two samples of willow ware, a material used even today. It is considered a decorated "every-person" material. A piece of slightly fancier ceramic teacup can be seen in the 2 o'clock position. A crockery shard is centre-top next to the cap to an older mason jar. At least a dozen mason jars were identified. It's likely these were used to store maple syrup in as commercial cans/containers did not exist for the average syruping person(s) at that time.

The clear glass at the bottom shows the top ridges of kerosene lamps confirming that the structure existed without electricity on site. If you look carefully, you'll be able to see two distinct patterns to the lamp chimneys suggesting the building had at least two lamps in use. Some researchers suggested the building burned down. This is unlikely as ash and charcoal residue is present only in a few pieces. Had the building burned, this would have been widespread.

 Tabulation map - Teams worked together in labs to clean, categorise and tabulate artefacts recovered from the dig site. The placement of these provided further information and indications of where to avoid digging and where more artefacts are likely to provide additional information in year two work.

Summation:  Based on this initial investigation, indications are that a building existed on the dig site. It occupied at least a 3 x 3 metre area (though it's likely much larger) and that artefacts found suggest that the building existed in the late 1800s and continued to be in use into the 1950s. Evidence is strong that the building was used at least part of the time for maple syrup production. The building had both male and female visitors and at least one visitor was apt to drink whisky. There likely was no electricity at any time during the life of the structure and that sometimes people visited the building in the dark as evidenced by oil lamp chimney shards. The building had evidence of the boiling machinery including the front door to the arch, cast iron frame and metal baffles inlaid into the machine. At least four different types of maple tree taps were used including whittled taps never before seen. One person suggested that these taps were possibly a native American construction technique, but this cannot be confirmed at this time. It's clear the structure collapsed on site and probably in a westerly direction as glass shards from a window located beside the threshold of the building were found grouped together on the ground. Corrugated tin had been observed on the site 44 years ago, though no corrugated tin is in evidence today. Many samples of Mason jars were found on-site likely as storage for maple syrup made. As with nails, bricks and bottles found on site, there is strong evidence to suggest the building existed for a half-century or more beginning in the final years of the 1800s and continued in use until at least the mid-1950s. As interest in the structure didn't develop until 1977, a two-decade period of time passed without knowing the additional years the building might have survived or when the structure collapsed either from weakening or disuse by its owners.

Additional research in the spring of 2022 will extend understanding of the nature of this structure as well as the people who used it.