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| Old-timey mule-powered cane mill. |
Return with me to the misty shadows of yesterday. And let us journey through a time when all was well within the world we called ours – a time when happiness rode the winds of the evening and laughter was heard around the family fireside gatherings.
As the chilly winds of the winter season slowly creep across the countryside, many memories come to mind. One of my favorite memories is the time for the community syrup-making. The memories of hard work in the cotton fields were laid to rest and the joys of syrup-making were foremost in the minds of the country farming community.
After the sugar cane had been stripped and hauled from the field, it was time to begin to grind the long stalks of ribbon cane through the mill, pressing the sugar sweet juice from the stalks. This juice would be cooked in a large pan about the size of a large bed mattress. The pan rested on a rock foundation about three feet high. Under the pan was a roaring fire that would cook the juice until all moisture within it had been boiled out. Then the hot liquid syrup would be stored in one-gallon cans or in large barrels until the time came when it would appear on the family breakfast table.
The grinding of the cane would start as the daylight hours appeared in the eastern sky. Round and round the mule would go as it pulled the long pole that was attached to the syrup mill. As the huge flat rollers turned in the mill, the long stalks of sugar cane were fed into the rollers, and the sugar-sweet cane juice trickled in a large barrel under the mill. Down the hill a short ways was the cooking pan. The roaring fire under the pan had been started long before sunrise.
When the large barrel up at the mill had been filled, a corncob stopper was removed from the pipe that ran down hill from the juice barrel. The large pan was filled with the sugar sweet juice, and the syrup cooking would get under way.
Uncle Tony, an old black man my family looked after and cared for a number of years, was the absolute authority on the making of syrup. No one dared tell Uncle Tony how to cook the cane juice or give any advice pertaining to the operation of syrup-making. Around the cane mill, the old man’s word was the law.
As the boiling juice steamed in the large pan, the old man walked around the pan, stirring the bubbling liquid with a large-type wooden paddle. Now and then, he would remove from his shirt pocket a large spoon and dip from the pan a small portion to taste. This would go on until such a time the old man was satisfied that the boiling syrup was ready to be taken up.
Corncob stopper
Then, a corncob stopper would be pulled from the drain pipe in the corner of the pan, and the boiling hot liquid would fill the waiting syrup buckets. When the large pan was empty, fresh juice from the cane mill would be released, and the cooking would start all over again.
When the first cooking was complete, a small boy would race back to the house and quickly return with a tin plate and a fork and a sizable chunk of fresh butter. He would also have two large biscuits that would be placed in the tin plate.
Uncle Tony would see to it that the biscuits were opened and covered with the delicious hot syrup. As the large piece of butter slowly disappeared in the hot syrup, a hungry boy would do some serious eating on the hot biscuits and delicious freshly made syrup.
Most always, a half of biscuit was left in the tin plate and the small boy’s dear friend would finish it just to make sure his first syrup cooking of the season was up to his expectations.
From the time the fire was first started under the pan in the early hours of dawn, a large one-gallon coffee pot was placed on a bed of red-hot coals. The aroma of the brewing coffee caused those helping around the cane mill to make several trips by the fire to check on the coffee.
Hot coffee
Hanging in a bush nearby were several tin cups in which the hot coffee was poured. Before the day would end, several gallons of hot coffee had been consumed by those working in the syrup-making. And this small boy would slip by the syrup pan to have his dear old friend Uncle Tony pour him a taste of the strong black liquid in one of the tin cups.
As the annual syrup-making began to wind down, plans were already in the making for the final cooking. Usually, the last batch of juice to be cooked would take place in the early morning hours before preparations began to close and secure the mill until the next season.
When Uncle Tony announced that the last pan of hot syrup was ready, activity around the mill picked up. Down from the house would come a large pan of fresh hot biscuits along with another pan full of freshly fried lean meat. Forks, spoons and several tin plates were brought down the hill to the mill.
After the blessing was said, each filed by and had their biscuits covered with the boiling hot syrup. A large block of butter that was located nearby was the last stopping point in the breakfast line. An extra bucket of hot coffee had been added so that no one had to wait for coffee. A time of eating and fellowship was the order of the morning as everyone ate their fill of the fresh hot syrup and fried meat and hot biscuits.
Certain quietness
As the morning meal came to a close, a certain quietness seemed to settle around the syrup mill. It had been a time of hard work, yet much fun and togetherness had been the order of the syrup-making time. And, in looking back, I feel sure that some of the elderly present probably wondered if this would be their last syrup-making season.
The sounds of many footprints mark the shadowy pathways of yesterday. The memories that dwell from somewhere in time will forever linger in the minds of those who walked these paths and now choose to remember.
(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He also helped organize the Monroe County Museum and Historical Society and was also a past president of that organization. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)
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