♪♪ -Welcome to Windows to the Wild, I'm Willem Lange.

Today we're in northern Maine, where a spring tradition-- -We are making maple syrup.

-Goes far beyond the maple sugaring season.

But first, New Hampshire's granite can be found on some of the country's most impressive structures, from bridges and buildings to presidential burial sites.

Some of that granite came from a mountain that overlooks North Conway, New Hampshire.

Writer Marshall Hudson takes us there to walk among its history and ruins.

♪♪ Fly over Rattlesnake Mountain, and you'll see the scars.

They’re from a time when heavy machinery claimed this hill and cut through the quiet landscape surrounding it.

♪♪ So we're walking up the spur line that would have taken us into the red stone quarry.

This was all railroad track at one point.

-Marshall Hudson is a retired land surveyor.

Over the years, he's been just about everywhere in New Hampshire that most people don't get to.

He discovers treasures from the past that were left behind.

Marshall writes about them for New Hampshire Magazine, and sometimes he invites me along to hear the stories.

Marshall, it's the usual pleasure.

[Willem chuckles] How are you?

Good to see you-- -I'm in the pink, thank you, thank you.

And we’re-- We’re-- You tell me we’re at a place called redstone right?

-Redstone-- Today it’s Redstone Village Redstone used to be a company town, for a granite quarry.

It was a big granite quarry back there and you can see Rattlesnake Mountain, and if you look close, you can see the cuts in it where the granite blocks have come out.

-Huh!

♪♪ What now looks like the remains of a granite carcass was once very much alive.

As many as 350 workers quarried granite blocks from Rattlesnake Mountain.

They became part of buildings and monuments from Laconia to Cuba.

♪♪ Some of the granite for President Grant's tomb was cut from this mountain.

♪♪ -I understand this is their waste pile.

Their tailings.

When you pull the granite up, you have good, usable granite, and then you have leftover scraps.

♪♪ -The Maine & New Hampshire Granite Company began carving blocks of Conway granite from Rattlesnake Mountain in the 1860s.

♪♪ The village of Redstone, now part of Conway, New Hampshire, grew up just below the quarry.

This was the company town.

-Yes.

-Post office, railroad station, -All of those things.

Boarding house-- -Company houses-- -One room school, company housing.

They had a church, they had a pool hall, they-- All those things that you would have in a small town.

They're all owned by the company.

-Yeah?

So who found the quarry-- We don't know, or do we?

-I read where there were two guys that found the quarry because they, about 18, right after the Civil War the railroads were building everywhere.

-Yeah?

Cross country and connecting the cities.

-Yeah.

-And there was a need for cubic blocks of granite, for railroad culverts and railroad bridges and overpass and underpass and tunnels.

So there was a demand for quarry and a couple of guys went up in here thinking this might be a place to get, granite quarry for the railroad.

And some of it did get used for that, but they quickly discovered that the granite was better suited for structures like this.

It was a softer granite that could be shaped and molded, and it could be carved and etched.

♪♪ -Walk with Marshall and you'll see what it took to turn this, ♪♪ Into this.

♪♪ -Okay so this would be the remains, there were two of them, coal-fired boilers and so the railroad cart came in here with coal, and guys would shovel coal into these boilers, and the tubes would have water in them and you heat the water and make steam and the steam powered these compressors over here.

♪♪ And now these two neat looking items, it's kind of a combination steam engine and air compressor.

The steam would-- Steam engine would power the compressor, the compressor, build up air pressure and there were two of them.

And then the, the compressed air ran through pipes ♪♪ underground and up into the quarry and then they could tap onto the pipe with pneumatic jackhammers and pneumatic drills.

♪♪ -How’d you find it?

-How did I find it?

I had worked for the U.S.

Forest Service, back in the 70s.

In, in Conway and Bartlett, so I knew people who lived in Redstone, and then when I started writing for New Hampshire magazine, a friend suggested this would be a good article.

Yeah.

He and I came in here and looked around and, took pictures-- -And it was wasn’t it?

-I, made an article out of it, so.

[Willem chuckles] ♪♪ -Some of the massive blocks chiseled from the quarry were moved out to giant lathes.

They spun at high speed and were shaped into columns.

♪♪ -Now this was a rough lathe for getting those, blocks roughed in.

And then you put them over here to a fine lathe or a polishing lathe.

♪♪ In your, your granite column, would fit in here, and those holes I showed you in the column down below would have, would have gone in here.

And the other one would have gone in there.

And that's on a trolley they move up and down so you adjust it for the length.

And then the polishing tools would have been here.

♪♪ and the rough granite coming off that one would have been here mellowing down.

♪♪ You got sawdust and you got curly shavings coming off the wood lathe.

Well you’d have that here but it would have been like being sandblasted.

It had chunks of granite sandblast coming at you.

And not just breathing it but even if you had a mask on so you weren't breathing it into your lungs, I would think you'd be getting sandblasted.

♪♪ But I wanted to show you this piece of granite.

-Oh yes-- -Look how smoothly polished it is.

-Okay.

-It's-- -Engaged column that says.

-Yeah, it's not actually a true column.

It's flat on the one side.

-Yeah-- -So that it can fit up snug against a building rather than be free standing.

[overlapping dialogue] It would have been tucked.

And this is actually green stone, not redstone, even though it comes out of Redstone Quarry.

They had both red and green in the quarry.

Look how smoothly polished it is.

-Yes, that's nice.

-And I'm told that this was destined for Grand Central Station, New York.

It was ordered and cut and manufactured for Grand Central Station.

But there is some flaw in it.

And so it got rejected and left by the side of the rails.

I don't know what the flaw is if you look it over it’s, pretty nice.

♪♪ -Signing up for a job at the quarry meant you worked hard for a paycheck, but it did attract skilled stonecutters.

They earned about $2 a day.

♪♪ -Of course it varied with the decade that we're talking about and what the demand was at the time and how busy they were but it wasn't uncommon to work at least six days a week and work long days.

I remember those myself, 12, 14 hours kind of thing and of course, it depended on the season and the weather and daylight and that kind of thing.

♪♪ And they often died young from inhaling the, the dust, and days before-- -Granite dust is not exactly the world’s best inhaler.

-Not good for you.

[Willem sighs] ♪♪ -It's reported that the last block of granite left Redstone Quarry for New York City in 1948.

♪♪ Now it’s all quiet.

No more granite, ain’t quarried any.

♪♪ Not here anyway?

-Nope.

-They still had it in Barre, Vermont.

-They, they, suffered a downturn during the depression.

They, they still made granite and they stayed in the black, but it wasn't, big profit.

-Who could buy it?

-And then during World War II, there was very little demand for granite.

Everything was for the war effort, so they converted some of their buildings to things they could make for World War II.

♪♪ I think one of the surprises, I guess, would be the fact that so much is left behind.

♪♪ I think probably when they went out of business, they were hoping they were going to be back in business, and so they left a lot of equipment behind.

I understand they sold a lot of smaller items that they could, but the bigger items, the cost of moving them off the mountain wasn't worth it.

So they just left big pieces of equipment, big derricks, big compressors, big lathes.

♪♪ -What remains is a reminder of the ingenuity that helped build a community at the foot of Rattlesnake Mountain.

The property, now owned by the Nature Conservancy and the state of New Hampshire, is open to the public.

♪♪ Enjoy the outdoors while taking a step back in history.

♪♪ -I think it's kind of neat that it's now kind of protected and preserved.

There's a lot of history there, but Mother Nature is doing their best to reclaim it.

The buildings that are left are succumbing.

-Yeah this would be a good healthy woods here in a few years.

And here it is today, quiet.

♪♪ Yup, a nice, nice little place.

Nice little place.

♪♪ As the snow begins to melt in northern New England, maple syrup begins to run.

We share a story about a family in Maine who get together every spring to continue a tradition that began generations ago.

♪♪ [vapor sizzling] We are making maple syrup [Ewen chuckles] the old fashioned way with a wood fire.

♪♪ I’m Roderick Ewen Farnham Jr.

But I go by my middle name which is Ewen, and my mother was born on this property.

This is the Davis homestead land.

Been in the family since 1842.

♪♪ -We're in Elliotsville, Maine.

It's about a 2.5 hour drive north of Portland and right next door to Monson.

♪♪ -That's a beautiful site right there.

-Yeah, yeah, it is working, isn't it?

-Yeah?

-It was Ewen Farnham’s great grandfather who began the tradition of tapping trees on their land.

Ewen’s grandfather took over the task in 1900.

Yeah, a lot has changed in the world since then.

But at this camp, one tradition has survived.

-You’re getting her all cleaned up Tim?

This is a family operation.

And you can't do it without family, there’s-- You can't do it by yourself.

And they're busy boiling down the sap that we collected during the week, in the boiler, and making in the end product maple syrup.

♪♪ -As predictable as the return of springtime itself, Ewen leaves the comfort of his Scarborough home and takes off for camp.

♪♪ It's remote and doesn't have much in the way of conveniences, but Ewen keeps coming back.

♪♪ -Why do you do this?

-Well, because it's in your blood, you know, it's every year you say, no, I'm not going to do it next year and, you know, when the spring starts to come and your blood starts to thin a little bit.

♪♪ The trees are waking up and it's a spring ritual to do it.

So you do it and I guess right now we’re, or at least I am looking at passing it on to next generation.

♪♪ -Alright, now it can be bottled at any time.

I'm Tim, this is my father, Ewen.

-Right.

I'm the oldest one here.

-There’s a little bit of a famil family resemblance, I'm told.

-Okay, Let's see-- Oh we've got a-- Oh, this is very good.

-It's a family tradition.

Yep, it's a family tradition.

Going back since longer before-- Since I can remember.

I can remember my grandparents working here [machinery buzzing] doing the maple syrup operation.

I call it kind of a family hobby gone wild.

We don't do it for the money.

We do it for the fun and for the togetherness.

♪♪ ♪♪ [doors shutting] -Look around and what you see is family.

Their roots are as strong and deep as the maples they tap.

Each member, young or old, has a job to do while they catch up on family business.

♪♪ -I am Alison Russell.

I am a fourth generation Farnham I think if we're counting back from the great grandparents that started Honeymoon Maple Works.

♪♪ I'm here to socialize.

I help a little.

I'm very good at filling the bottles, but I'm really here to connect with family and catch up with everyone.

-My name is Nathan Farnham.

I'm the son of Tim Farnham and the grandson of Ewen Farnham, and I got a day off from work to come up and help with the first, first boil of the year.

♪♪ -How long have you been doing this for?

-For, I mean, pretty yeah, pretty much, pretty much as long as I can remember my, my whole life.

I would get passed through the window before there was a door in, in the camp when I was a baby.

♪♪ -This is my brother.

I'm his, his sister, and he's now the oldest of our generation, and I'm the youngest of the generation.

♪♪ My job is to get-- [Barbara chuckles] I don't have an assigned job.

I'm probably in charge of the bottling.

♪♪ Very important thing, is at the end of the day, nobody can take any syrup away until we count up.

-Here's one of our old labels with all the names.

[indistinct chatter] It's a great way to be outdoors.

We typically take a nice long walk in the woods, and I think, I think the tradition feels really important.

It keeps us all connected [machinery buzzing] and, and it serves as a, as a home base to keep that extended family coming together.

-I remember, you know, me and my cousin Dylan, we would we would come up here and not even partake in, in anything of the actual sugar works.

Just enjoying being up here like we would tromp around through the woods for, for hours just, just experiencing, you know, nature and experiencing the, the difference from, from, you know, your everyday life.

♪♪ -Take a stroll with Ewen around the camp and you get a feeling that you're walking back in time.

♪♪ -Did you see the nice new, old ice box we have?

You did see the new outhouse?

-I did, is that usable or?

-Yeah.

Yes it is, no it's usable.

♪♪ [dinnerware clattering] Yeah.

I guess it's time to put a piece of wood in.

♪♪ Oh yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ [metal clanking] ♪♪ ♪♪ [metal clanking] ♪♪ So what I wanted to show you while you're here.

This is my grandfather, or Harry Davis’s, sap house.

And that was across the road just to the right of where the driveway comes out.

♪♪ You can see that it was all fields here and so.

♪♪ -There was a time when Ewen left Maine for a job in the city.

He returned of course, to work and continue to help tap and boil.

♪♪ -Whoa!

♪♪ Ewen can walk just about anywhere on the property, and memories of past generations come back to life.

♪♪ -You know when my aunt died, I was here a couple of years, just over a year looking around.

There was a 1938 Chevrolet in this barn.

Prime condition.

Never been so-- And then she died.

And that was in 64.

And I had just graduated from college, and I took a job in New York City.

So I was gone.

And I remember coming back, I asked my grandfather, well, what happened to the car anyway?

Oh, he says some dealer said he wanted it, so I sold it to him.

You know, or something.

[Ewen chuckles] ♪♪ So we can go down to this tree down here if you want.

It's not too far down.

So anyway, we've tapped those two trees and the line is running down.

-While the family get togethers haven’t really changed much over the years, Other things have.

-We used to have the metal taps.

We would drill the hole in the tree and we would put in the metal spiles, and we would hang milk jugs ♪♪ by wire.

♪♪ -And this tree we've we've put two taps into it.

There's one and one over there.

-And we would walk around with a five gallon bucket and empty each milk jug individually from the tree.

This line continues, goes down along the edge of the road and goes down there.

And it's that tank that’s down the road to where it is.

-And then eventually, probably in the late 80s, dad started using the, we went to the pipeline, two networks.

Right, and that's been refined over the years too.

♪♪ -And then there's the weather.

Throughout much of New England, late frosts and sudden extreme warming can bring a sap run to an early end.

♪♪ Research shows that the sugaring season in the northeast is shrinking.

-The weather in southern Maine, where you are, ♪♪ they’re at least a week ahead of us.

And then, then it's us and then if you go way up north where the big producers, are, they’re a week behind us.

So you got somewhat of a three week window where depending on where you are I mean, north can have a good year and south have a bad year.

There's a little poem over there that says, you know, when the when the sap runs, it says, Wind from the north, sap pours forth.

Wind from the south, sap has a drought.

Wind from the east.

sap runs least.

Wind from the west, sap runs, best.

♪♪ Time changes things, even those things with the strongest roots.

♪♪ On this patch of ground in northern Maine, a family lives with the past and seems determined to keep the family tradition alive.

♪♪ -I'm looking across the road here at a place where my great grandfather was.

I knew all the stories of the people that were here.

I knew where all the buildings were.

I know where things, things had been located and a lot of that is not here anymore.

It's a real nice reminder that you know you're not going to be here someday either, but at least hopefully they'll be able to tell some really good stories about you.

-As we age we've, we've seen, you know, we've seen the older generations pass on and the younger generations grow into the roles and we don't have a, new-- We don't have a baby generation yet, but probably-- -Coming, coming soon.

hopefully-- -We've got enough-- We've got enough cousins that we'll probably get there eventually.

♪♪ If you wonder why Ewen put in the wood oven earlier, it's a treat for his family when the work day is done.

Another time honored tradition.

-So part of the tradition in camp is to have a pot of baked beans on Saturday.

So about 10:00 this morning we threw the ingredients ready, had it in this woodstove oven all day, and now we have taken out, ♪♪ [metal clanking] a nice pot of fresh beans.

♪♪ -Thanks for joining us today, I'm Willem Lange.

We're going to leave you with some sights and sounds from New Hampshire's outdoors.

[birds singing] ♪♪ Support for the production of Windows to the Wild is provided by, the Alice J. Reen Charitable Trust, the John D. McGonagle Foundation, the Bailey Charitable Foundation, Road Scholar, and viewers like you.

Thank you!

-Make a gift to the wild and support the Willem Lange Endowment Fund, established by a friend of New Hampshire PBS, To learn how you can keep environmental, nature and outdoor programing possible for years to come, call our development team at (603) 868-4467 Thank you.

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