MAPLE SUGAR IN COLONIAL TIMES 



BY LAURENCE R. GROSE 



DEPARTMENT OE FORESTRY, BATES.COLLEGE 



IN THESE times of sugar shortage, we read with 

 especial interest certain remarks on maple sugar that 

 come down to us from Tench Coxe, worthy citizen of 

 Philadelphia in Revolutionary times. Coxe was a pa- 

 triot, an amateur political economist, but above all a 

 promoter; and the enterprise he was promoting was 

 nothing less than the United States of America, in the 

 cause of whose prosperity he turned his ready pen to 

 account. It is in the pages of his "View of the United 

 States" (Philadelphia, 1794) that we come across his 

 "estimate of the capacity of sugar maple lands of Penn- 

 sylvania and New York to supply the demand of the 

 United States for sugar and molasses. 



"The information of William Cooper, Esquire, of 

 Cooperstown," says he, in developing his estimate, "is 

 that there are easily made from a tree five pounds weight 

 of sugar, and that there are fifty trees on an acre at a 

 medium ; but suppose only four pounds to be produced 

 by a tree and forty trees on an acre, and supposing 

 the whole demand of the Union, 42,084,140 pounds, 

 then 263,000 acres will yield a supply for the United 

 States. It need not be observed that there are very 

 many more than 263,000 acres of sugar maple lands 

 in each of the eight following counties: (in New York) 

 Albany, Montgomery, Otsego, Tyoga, Ontario ; and (in 

 Pennsylvania) Northampton, Luzerne, and Northum- 

 berland. Also that the sugar maple tree is found in 

 many other parts of those two states, and of the United 

 States. 



"It will be frankly admitted that the result of the 

 above estimate has a wild and visionary appearance ; but 

 as it is made upon facts, very carefully ascertained, and 

 as the whole calculation is exposed to examination, it 

 will not be unreasonable to give some faith to it, until 

 exaggeration of fact or error shall be pointed out." 



This was in 1790. A year or two later, Coxe satisfied 

 himself that the total consumption of sugar and molasses 

 in the United States was 26,000,000 pounds. "It is cer- 

 tain," he writes, "that every farmer having one hundred 

 acres of sugar maple land, in a state of ordinary Ameri- 

 can improvement (that is, one-third covered with ju- 

 dicious reserves of wood and timber, and two-thirds 

 cleared for culture of grass and grain), can make one 

 thousand pounds weight of sugar with only his necessary 

 farming and kitchen utensils, if his family consists of 

 a man, a woman and a child of ten years, including him- 

 self. It would therefore require the attention of 26,000 

 of such small families occupying (at one hundred acres 

 each) 2,600,000 acres of those lands to make (at 1,000 

 pounds each) 26,000,000 of pounds, or a quantity of 

 sugar equal to all the molasses and sugar, annually con- 

 sumed in substance in the United States. The operation 

 in a family is as easy as to make household soap or 

 cheese, or to brew ale or beer, and as there is in this 



country much more than twice the above quantity of 

 sugar maple land, in situations not too southern, the 

 only object that requires attention is to give, as fast 

 as possible, generality to this simple, profitable, and 

 comfortable manufacture." And he adds that the peo- 

 ple of Pennsylvania had already paid considerable at- 

 tention to the possibilities of this manufacture, especial- 

 ly since '-'the great and increasing dislike to negro slavery, 

 and to the African trade among the people of that state, 

 occasioned this new prospect of obtaining a sugar, not 

 made by the unhappy blacks, to be particularly inter- 

 esting to them." 



In writing so of maple sugar, Coxe was doubtless 

 adopting information and suggestion from Benjamin 

 Rush, a famous Philadelphia surgeon and chemist, whose 

 own calculations with respect to sugar, as expounded in 

 1 791 in an open letter to "Thomas Jefferson, Esq., Sec- 

 retary of State of the United States, and one of the 

 Vice-Presidents of the American Philosophical Society," 

 had led him to the following eloquence of prophesy: "In 

 contemplating the present opening prospects in human af- 

 fairs, I am led to expect that a material share of the 

 happiness which Heaven seems to have prepared for a 

 part of mankind will be derived from the manufactory 

 and general use of maple sugar, for the benefits which I 

 flatter myself are to result from it, will not be confined 

 to our country. They will I hope extend themselves to 

 the interests of humanity in the West Indies. With 

 this view of the subject of this letter, I cannot help con- 

 templating a sugar maple tree with a species of affec- 

 tion and even veneration, for I have persuaded myself 

 to behold in it the happy means of rendering the com- 

 merce and slavery of our African brethren in the sugar 

 Islands as unnecessary, as it has always been inhuman 

 and unjust." Dr. Rush's letter was rightly enough ad- 

 dressed to Jefferson, who was known to permit the use 

 of maple sugar alone in his household, and who even 

 planted maples on his Virginia farm with sugar harvest- 

 ing in view. 



It is scarcely necessary to say that these early visions 

 of the coming importance of maple sugar never took the 

 shape of realities. As a source of general supply, maple 

 sugar has never been more than a good big drop in the 

 American sugar bucket. Yet in countless pioneer fami- 

 lies this native sweetening was in sole and daily use ; and 

 each year since, many millions of pounds have been made. 



To the settlers and to the Indians, maple sugar was an 

 everyday matter ; but to the early travelers, in search 

 of gossip or information to retail to their eager and 

 curious fellow-Europeans, this product was invariably a 

 cause of wonder and remark. A long list might be made 

 of those whose tales of journeying in America referred 

 to the tree and its useful sap. Yet, strange to say, no 

 one of these early references makes it clear beyond doubt 



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