Mt. Moosilauke (1886) - Spruce Oil
". . . One of the unique industries of this upper portion of the state is the distilling of oil from the boughs of the spruce and fir, which grow abundantly here. It is carried on extensively in Benton, and is an object of interest to any one in search of the picturesque. The art is primitive in the extreme, the appliances crude, and the distilleries themselves mere shanties in the woods, or near them, beside some convenient brook.
A short journey to the woods among the mountains brings the visitor to a type of the general class - a rude building loosely boarded, with a still ruder chimney protruding from the roof, a vat or tank of matched plank outside and a huge pile of boughs, redolent of the odor of spruce, which has already passed through the operation of distilling. The tank is the only well made part of the establishment. It is of plank, carefully matched, and may be 10 x 12 feet each way, and eight feet in depth. It is supplied by a close-fitting cover of boards which can be pressed upon the mass of boughs by means of large wedges driven beneath the cross-beams of the frame.
A pipe from the distillery enters the tank at the bottom, and another returns to the building from the top. With the tank full of boughs from the spruce or fir and cover securely fastened down, everything is ready for the steam, the process of generating which is the simplest imaginable. A sap pan, or something very like it, is set over a rude arch of stones, and over the boiler is a wooden contrivance much like an inverted horse trough to hold the steam, or a part of it. A lead pipe from a nearby brook supplies the water for this crudest of boilers, and another carries the steam to the bottom of the tank outside. The pipe that returns to the distillery from the tank is of lead and ends in a great coil that fills a barrel and which, surrounded with cold water, is the worm.
The evening is the best time for a visit, when the little distillery is ablaze with light, which shines from every crevice of the coverings and roof and forms a weird contrast with the somber forest around. Within, the great arch is filled with blazing wood, there is a great noise of hissing and escaping steam, and a heavy fragrance, the distillation and condensation of the odors of the forest, well-nigh overpowering to unaccustomed nostrils. The distiller's children play about the spluttering boiler and roaring fireplace, while he himself and his assistant ply the fire, chop fresh wood or watch the oil as it drops slowly and steadily from the worm. . . ."
From "Along the Ammonoosuc," pp. 412-421, The Moosilaukee Reader (Vol.2). ©1999.
