Ontario Agriculture Week: The Honey House

 Hey there pioneer pundits! It’s me, Stephen McLachlin back with another post for Agriculture Week, but this time things are going to be a bit different. Instead of continuing our series on farming in the Talbot Settlement over the years, I wanted to dedicate a post to our very own honey house here at the Backus-Page house museum.  

So far, our description of a Talbot settler’s diet must sound quite bland, but even in the 19th century a settler could still indulge their sweet tooth. There were two main kinds of sweeteners at the time, maple syrup and honey. Maple trees were common enough that settlers had access to maple syrup, though their process of acquiring it was much less refined than modern techniques.  

To collect the sap, settlers would use an axe to cut into the tree and insert a basic spout which would drain sap into a pot or trough. The sap would then be boiled over a fire and either milk or the white of an egg would be added to thicken it into maple syrup.  

Honey was also available for those who were willing to work hard enough to get it. By melting honey and wax on a hot stone, settlers could attract honeybees, which they would then follow back to their hives. After finding these hives, settlers could either smoke the bees out and take the honey, or if they were up for the undertaking, they could cut down the tree and hollow a portion of the trunk to make into a hive.  

Our very own Honey House, which would have been built between 1828 and 1831, used a similar method to attract bees, but its personal history makes it so much more to us than just a place to lure bees. 

The Honey House was originally built around 1830 on the William Pearce Farm in Wallacetown by a travelling carpenter, who crafted tiny slits in the “windows” of the house so that bees could get in.  

After the death of Steward Pearce, William Pearce’s grandson, the Honey House was willed to the Elgin County Pioneer Museum, where it stayed for ten years (1968-78). 

In 1978, vandals burned the Honey House to the ground, but students at the Parkside Collegiate Institute built an exact replica which was gifted to the Backus-Page House Museum in December 2006.  

And that’s how the Honey House made its way to us, pretty cool stuff eh? There’s a book with more information in our gift shop, and if you’re interested in learning more, call us at 519-762-3072 or email us at info@backuspagehouse.ca. 

 

References 

Clutterbuck, Mary. The Honey House. Backus-Page House Museum, 2007.  

Guillet, Edwin C. The Pioneer Farmer and Backwoodsman: Volume Two. University of Toronto Press, 1963. 

Jones, Robert Leslie. History of agriculture in Ontario 1613-1880. University of Toronto Press, 1946. 

Winson, Anthony. The industrial diet: The degradation of food and the struggle for healthy eating. NYU Press, 2014. 

Ontario Agriculture Week: The Early 1800s

 Welcome back everyone! Did you like yesterday’s post? I thought it was pretty fun, but we covered a lot, so today let’s take it a little slower. My name is Stephen McLachlin, and I’m from the Backus-Page House Museum. This series is going to cover farming from the founding of the Talbot Settlement in 1803 all the way to the early 20th century, all from the comfort of your own home!  

In the early 19th century, the settlers brave enough to live in Ontario found an abundance of challenges standing between them and a prosperous farm.  

Traditionally, less adventurous farmers in that time period would have been able to plough their fields, but this was not the case with farmers in Ontario, whose fields were covered in tree stumps and large rocks. 

This meant that farmers would have had to rake the entire field by hand or get their work animals to pull the top of a fallen tree, that they called a “rough drag”, over the soil. Either way, the difficult terrain made even the most basic farming extremely uninviting. 

Removing stumps from a field was no easy task either, the roots of the felled tree would eventually rot away, but farmers could expect to wait seven years before the stump could be removed. 

 

Even after all the physical obstacles were removed, Ontario fieldwork was far from a pleasant undertaking. Swarms of biting insects, ranging in size from gadflies to horseflies terrorized both animals and farmers alike. 

To combat the pests, farmers wore netted headgear, layers of grease, and used smoke, which all served as makeshift bug repellant. 

The difficulties didn’t end once the crops were planted, however. Frost was a constant threat to farmers, as was excessive heat or humidity, which would also destroy crops.  

Harvesting was hardly easier than planting, the sickles used by farmers were essentially the same tools as the ancient Egyptians used 4000 years ago for the same purpose, though they were made of sturdier material than their archaic counterparts. 

Farmers would have had to bend over and grab the stalks of wheat, then cut them with their sickle, laying the crops to the side to be collected by other workers. Most farmers could not afford to hire extra hands, so family members and neighbors were often called upon to help. This process was strenuous and slow, adjectives that neatly summarize the farming industry in that time. 

Starting a farm in the early 1800s was a daunting task, but Canadian settlers overcame all obstacles with impressive resourcefulness and ingenuity to make a living.  

References 

Guillet, Edwin C. The Pioneer Farmer and Backwoodsman: Volume Two. University of Toronto Press, 1963. 

Jones, Robert Leslie. History of agriculture in Ontario 1613-1880. University of Toronto Press, 1946. 

Ontario Agriculture Week: The Before Times

     Woah, would you look at the time, it’s Ontario Agriculture Week already! I’m Stephen McLachlin from the Backus Page House Museum, and today I wanted to take this opportunity to look back in time to see what the life of a farmer in the Talbot settlement would have been like throughout history.

The Backus Page House Museum does not claim to be a voice for the Indigenous peoples mentioned in today’s post, we are only using existing archaeological evidence to construct a rough image of early agriculture.

No summary of agriculture in Ontario would be complete without first discussing the agricultural advancements of the area’s First Nation groups prior to contact. There is evidence to suggest both neutral and six nations Iroquois groups originally lived in this area of Ontario, so we will be referring to the indigenous peoples of Ontario as Iroquoian, though distinctive Iroquoian culture didn’t fully develop until roughly 1000 CE.

The first evidence of plant cultivation was in the Archaic Period, which lasted from roughly 8500 BCE to 1000 BCE. People would have assisted edible plants that were found in the wild, but this was only the first step towards basic horticulture. At this time, the Iroquois would have moved seasonally, making any permanent agriculture difficult.

By the Early and Middle Woodland Periods (1000 BCE-500 CE and 500-900 CE respectively), the Iroquois had begun to construct larger settlements, though they were still only using them seasonally. By this point, the Iroquois had begun cultivating the famous “three sisters” crops, beans, maize (which we know as corn), and squash. This early agriculture was still small scale, but crops were now being planted and grown intentionally, a major leap in progress toward modern agriculture.

In the Late Woodland Period, lasting from roughly 900 CE to 1650 CE, the Iroquois constructed massive permanent settlements complete with longhouses and defensive barriers that may have been built to keep attackers out. With the construction of permanent settlements came expansion of agriculture as well, with large fields of crops replacing the smaller scale endeavors seen in the Early and Middle Woodland Periods.

That brings us to European contact, which seems like a good spot to end today’s post, but before I go, how about an agriculture fun fact?

The corn we’re familiar with is called “green corn”, and it wouldn’t have been what the Iroquois would have harvested. Instead, they would have waited until the corn hardened into “flint corn” which could be used to make the staple food “hominy” and was much easier to store.

 

References

Anderson, Jacob M. The Lawson Site: An Early Sixteenth Century Neutral Iroquoian Fortress (London: Museum of Ontario Archaeology, 2009).

 

Donations of Talbot Items by Steve Peters to Backus-Page House Museum

Steve Peters, pictured here with Cultural Manager, Angela Bobier, has donated six items relating to Colonel Thomas Talbot to Backus-Page House Museum from his personal collection.  Included in the donation are the following:

A wooden rocking chair reported to have belonged to Thomas Talbot dated to 1850.

A framed engraving of The Right Honourable Lord Talbot de Malahide from 1863 by J.B. Black of London UK based on a photograph taken in 1854 by Maull & Polyblank, photographers.  The engraving was purchased when Malahide Castle in Ireland auctioned off the contents in the early 1970s and a quantity of items were acquired and brough to London, Canada.  James the 4th Baron, Lord Talbot de Malahide is the Grand Nephew of Colonel Thomas Talbot through Thomas' eldest brother, Richard Wogan Talbot and his son James Talbot, the 3rd Baron.

  

A framed print of the interior of Colonel Talbot's home at Port Talbot give to Steve Peters for his contributions to Elgin County.

A framed drawing of Malahide House at Port Talbot  by J. Ferguson 1927

 

A framed Land Deed dated June 15, 1840 to Neil Campbell for the SE 1/4 of Lot A on Concession 10 in Aldborough Township signed by Thomas Talbot, Jeffrey Hunter and Mahlon Burwell.

A brick from the demolition of the Talbot house at Port Talbot.

Staff of the museum are setting up a portion of an upstairs room dedicated to the founder of the Talbot Settlement and these items along with a few currently in the collection will be on display soon.  Watch for the announcement!