It Happened Here -- Pioneers and Potash

 

 

In the 18^th and early 19^th centuries settlers of the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys, and the Helderberg hinterlands of Rensselaerwyck faced the gargantuan task of converting dense hardwood forests into farmlands. Once they had harvested the timber they needed for homes and barns, fences and furnishings, they were left with the task of disposing of all the rest of their unwanted wood. Fortunately the first Dutch settlers brought with them the knowledge of how to convert their surplus wood into a useable, transportable commodity they called “potaschen”.

Grant & Eadies Store, Rte 143 Westerlo

Hardwood wood ashes contained potassium salts that were essential compounds in a variety of chemical processes. Soap making, glass production, fabric bleaching, and the removal of fatty oils from raw wool, all relied on a commodity colonial New Yorkers knew as potash, or in its processed form,“pearl ash”. As land was cleared, great quantities of wood were seasoned and gathered into piles and burned in the open air. The clearing of land was accompanied not only by the sound of axes but by the presence of great fires that burned day and night. Among the most abundant trees in these forests were elms which were one of the best plant sources of potassium salts. The ashes from these fires were collected in wooden barrels and water was added to leech the potassium salts out. The wood bottoms of the barrels were replaced with a flagstone bottom with a channel cut in it to direct the liquid off to a container. Then the water was boiled off in large pots, leaving a hard black crystalline residue known as “black salts”, a mixture of potassium salts and carbon particles. One large elm might yield as much as 200 pounds of black salts. Finally, the carbon particles were burned off in high temperature brick ovens, or kilns leaving a bluish white powder, “pearl ash”.
 

NEAR THIS SITE IN 1764
PETER HASENCLEVER BUILT AN
ASHERY WHICH WAS THE FIRST
FRAME BUILDING ERECTED IN
THE TOWN OF SCHUYLER.

COL. MARINUS WILLETT, CHAPTER D.A.R.

1976

                                                                          (Frankfort)

This refined potash became a valuable commodity domestically, and shipped to Britain where the wool industry was thriving.  Though never profitable enough to sustain itself as a business, the profits of  cottage potash production might be enough to pay the wages of an axeman/laborer to help clear the land, or enable a settler to buy extra acreage, or help sustain a family until the first crops could be planted and harvested. Of course, a large landowner or tenant farmer, clearing a large amount of land might realize a substantial income from potash. The account books of Frederick Crounse, for example, show his income from potash in 1794-1795. Crounse leased 600 acres in “Hellenbergh”, an area beneath the Helderberg Escarpment in an area known as Altamont, today.   

                                                                                                                                                                        During the American revolution Crounse and nine other tenant farmers had responded to an urgent call for food for the American army at Saratoga, providing barrels of salt pork, and herding their cattle and hogs to the army encamped at Bemis Heights. In return, the Patroon, Stephen Rensselaer forgave Crounse the annual quit-rent due on Crounse's farm for life. In the early 1790's Crounse must have undertaken a sizable conversion of his forested land to farmland. In 1794 his records show he produced 40 barrels of potash (ashes?), sold for a profit of 67£. Over the winter he bought two potash kettles, valued at 16£ each and apparently with them that year produced 27 barrels of potash (black ash or pearl ash?) valued at 87£.

One source described potash kettles as 1/2 an egg shaped with the bottom cast thick to withstand the heat of evaporating the potash down to "cake".

Large Kettle (potash?) at the Jacob Crounse House, Altamont

Warner's Lake

In a frontier economy, where cash was in short supply, enterprising country store proprietors could barter their merchandise for farmer's raw ashes or black salts. In 1823 in Schoharie County good quality hearth ashes sold for 8¢ a bushel (store credit). By mid century 100 lbs. of black salts brought $3.00. Some store owners encouraged the trade in black salts by renting to farmers the large kettles used to boil down the ash slurry. Some, increased their profits by maintaining their own ovens at their stores to refine black salts into pearl ash. Similarly, they could take the raw hides of the livestock farmers butchered, for store credit, and tan them themselves, taking the leather to trade for store merchandise from their city suppliers. A few, like Major Willis, took local manufacturing even further, turning farmer's products (grain and hides) into consumer goods (“ardent spirits”, shoes) that he could sell directly back to farmers.

South Westerlo

By 1845 there were 738 "asheries" in New York State producing $909,194 of potash. The state's new canal system was a major boon to the potash industry with the Erie and Champlain canals connecting much of New York with Montreal, the major potash exporting port. During the early years of the canal system, potash, wheat and whiskey were the three biggest commodities shipped by barge.

In the 1850's mineral potash began to be mined in Germany.  Canada followed suit and the international market for organic potash collapsed. By 1865 there were only 54 asheries left in New York and many of these may have been inactive, by then.



 Marker  of the Week -- Oops!

Columbia Co. Rte. 19, Elizaville

Sometimes you think you have the makings of an interesting story but it just doesn't turn out the way you anticipate. Calendar houses are an architectural oddity that first appeared in England around the time of Queen Elizabeth I.  Architectural features would be built into a house/palace mimicking the numbers found in the calendar (365 days, 52 weeks, 12 months, 7 days, 4 seasons etc.) Large houses might be built with 365 panes of glass, 52 steps on all the staircases, 12 doorways, and 7 gables and 4 chimneys, for example. The form had a re- surgence in popularity during the Enlightenment and again during the Victorian period,  and there are approximately a dozen houses across Britain that can be called Calendar houses.  Other examples appeared in other parts of the British empire -- Ireland, Jamaica,  and Australia.  It seemed reasonable there should be some in  
the United States.  When I discovered the listing for the "Calendar House" in the State Museum NYSHM list I resolved I had to see it on my next trip into Columbia County.  Finding the marker I started up the long driveway, preparing myself for the task of count chimney bricks, window panes,  outhouses -- whatever. About halfway up the driveway I met the property manager coming out.  ( The 1773 Calendar House is rented out for weddings and for large family vacations, etc.)  He explained the original Callendar House, (two L's) in central Scotland was the ancestral home of the Livingstons and this home was named for that one. (and I didn't need to go to the trouble of counting window panes, chimneys, outhouses, etc., but I was welcome to go and take a picture of it anyway.) After some research at the Columbia County Historical Society I had more of the story.

Callendar House (also spelled Callender House) in central Scotland dates back to 1345.  The Scottish Livingstons had lost this house after they supported the Jacobin rebellion in 1715 and again in 1745,  when Lady Anne Livingston's husband, the Earl of Kilmarnoc, was beheaded for high treason.  In America, Robert Livingston (3d Lord of the Manor, grandson of the 1st Lord, Robert Livingston, the elder) had wanted to rename the Livingston Manor house on the Roeliff Jansen Kill "Callendar" after he made improvements to the house, but he was dissuaded by other members of the family.  Ostensibly this was because the American manor house, even with its improvements, was quite modest compared to the Scottish "Great House" but also, unstated, may have been the desire not to remind the British authorities so soon after the abortive rebellions of the connection between the American Livingstons and their traitorous Scottish cousins.

Generations and politics change over time.  One of the early acts of the legislature of the State of New York would be the outlawing of primogeniture and entail. When Robert, the 3d Lord died in 1790;  no 4th Lord of the manor would inherit the bulk of his estate. Instead his lands would be divided up more or less equally between his four sons. Each would inherit a paltry 28,000 acres and
(General) Harry Livingston, his third son, would move into a substantial (if not palatial) farmhouse built by Samuel TenBroek in 1773. He would name it Callendar House, and not care what His Majesties' Government thought about it. Sometime between Harry's purchase of the house, and the State's creation of the NYSHM,  "Callendar" became  "Calendar" and though I did not get to count bricks, window panes, doorways or outhouses, I did get a peek at an old and very handsome house.