The 1860’s Cider Press
In 1986, while building a staircase and banister for a client in Decatur, Illinois, we quite accidentally stumbled upon a pile of rotten and decayed wooden sticks and pieces of metal laying half buried on the dirt floor of the client’s barn. Inquiring as to what that pile was or had been, we were told it was a cider press. Intrigued we bargained for possession of the obviously useless remains and went home to investigate and learn about the history of this particular cider press. Once somewhat cleaned and laid out on the work bench it became evident that most of the cast iron pieces had a number cast into it: CP100, CP 24 etc. The “CP” probably stands for “Cider Press” and the number denotes the individual part. The heaviest and most important part of the press is marked “CP100”, more than likely that number also denotes the model number of the press: “100”. Unlike some other presses that had fancy motifs cast into their iron parts, this “100” model appears to be the basic, nothing fancy, cider press that was available in just about any hardware store in just about any village in the Mid-West in the 1860’s. Further research revealed that the press was probably made in Pennsylvania steel country, as a lot of cast iron pieces came from that region during that period. While cleaning the individual pieces it became obvious that some parts were broken, but fortunately ALL the pieces were present. A friend, who worked at the Indiana Michigan Power Plant down the road, was able to weld the cast iron pieces back together and once sanded and painted the parts fit together like a glove! The wooden pieces that came with the pile of “useless barn floor stuff” (J) were decayed and or rotten beyond use, so new parts had to be made. The intention was to use the old parts as samples for the newly manufactured pieces.
The wooden frame of a cider press is subject to enormous pressures. That being so, the frame was generally were made out of oak or hickory wood, reinforced with steel bars and cast iron “keepers”. “Keepers” are specially designed cast iron pieces that are let into the wooden parts at strategic locations to, when all bolts are tightened, hold the unit together and make it safe to operate and use.
Hickory is no longer available commercially, so where do we turn to obtain some? This is when the story gets interesting…
In the late Seventies and early Eighties the Indiana Michigan Power Plant bought up thousands of acres, containing old homesteads in Fairbanks Township, Indiana. Our friend Wayne Norris’s great grandfather’s homestead was among the properties that the I&M acquired. Wayne’s great grandfather had planted hundreds of apple trees in the fertile Wabash River bottom lands and owned and operated the largest apple orchard in Fairbanks Township at the time. When we first moved to the country in 1980, we obtained permission to “raid” some of these old homesteads for usable “stuff”. The “Norris” homestead, for instance, had been built in the 1860’s, and thus the old doors and windows that we used in the construction of our house and studios were over a hundred and twenty years old. All of the trim and cabinetwork in our bathroom was made out of the remains of the “Norris” corncrib that had been clad in “pin” oak boards. Visibly rotten and decayed, the twelve inch wide, two inch thick boards, once passed through the planer, still yielded some fine one inch thick usable lumber. . Ultimately the bath room cabinets were built out of the “corn crib pin oak”. Beautiful!
Returning to the old corncrib we discovered that it had been built out of hickory beams that were four by eight inches. Also decayed and rotten, as the pin oak had been. Carefully some pieces were removed, hauled home and inserted into the planer; Voila! The core wood was still very much usable and we came up with a supply of perfectly good three by threes that were subsequently used to build the framework of the cider press. Here and there we fancied up that old CP 100 by routing decorative edges and inserting our own ideas of what constituted a nice looking old cider press. The tray that holds the two pallets and barrels was made out of poplar. Poplar holds up really well to moisture and takes “forever” to rot or decay. In time the poplar gets saturated with apple juice and that too prevents decay. The old timers knew how to build lasting stuff! J The press blocks of the cider press are also made out of poplar. Incidentally: the poplar came from one of the trees on the Norris homestead too… The original barrels were beyond repair, the only part that could still be used were the steel bands that held the staves together. The staves themselves were rotten; some of them were missing and or broken. Traditionally beech wood was used for apple cider press barrels (as well as wine barrels). It so happened that a year earlier (1985) we had cut up a large beech tree that had been blown down during a storm. Using the chain saw we cut one of the beech logs into planks that were “stickered up” and were drying behind the studio. Careful measuring and “fiddle farting” with the cutting angle yielded enough staves to reconstruct the original press barrels. Nothing but the best!
At this time (1986) Wayne Norris (83 years old) was very much involved in the rebuilding of the cider press. Giving advice, telling cider press stories of old and telling us about HIS orchard: When Wayne was forced to sell the old homestead to the Power Plant, he took with him some starts of the old apple trees his great grand father had planted and started his own orchard just North of Fairbanks, on the East side of IN.63.
So here we are in the fall of 1987: the 125+ year old cider press has been rebuilt using 125+ year old reclaimed corn crib hickory, 100 year old poplar and hickory wood also from the old Norris homestead and is almost operational. All we need now is apples...
“Wayne!”
So there we were: making cider with a 125+ year old cider press that had been rebuilt using 125+ year old lumber from the Norris homestead, grinding up apples from apple trees that were the descendants of the original Norris orchard – famed throughout the realm as producing the best apples. Especially “cider” apples!
Elias, seven and a half years old at the time, LOVES this old machine. “Hey Dad! Can I make some cider and sell it?” Thus the “D&M&M&M” Cider Company was born. Each fall day, after school the sponsor of the venture (that would be the Dad!) would pick up the boys in the pick up truck, collect five gallon pails full of apples at various apple “donators” and run them through the mill. Elias Donker and his classmates Eric Meyers, Adam Meyers and Aaron Metheney would take orders for cider and, usually over the week end, would grind apples into cider, bottle it in 1 gallon recycled milk jugs and sell it. …. One year (1989) they made and sold 153 gallons! That was also the year a neighbor drove up the drive way in a Fleetside pick up truck. The bed of the truck was two feet high, five feet wide and eight feet long… FULL of apples…the kids had apples coming out of their proverbial ears! When Elias was in the Fourth Grade at the old Fairbanks School the Cider Company transported the cider press to the school gym, the kids cranked the handle to their hearts content and sold cider by the glass…fifty cents a pop….a great time was had by all!
It has been a while since the cider press was last used, but this fall (2003) Ellen thought it would be nice to make some cider again. So we pulled the press out of storage, invited some friends and made cider.
Sara L. Donker
Jackie R. and her children Julia and James as well as Sara and Jackie’s Mom Jenny, all took turns cranking the crank on the old press.
It did well again – another generation experienced and learned to appreciate the ways of old.
Riverview, November 2003
Time to make cider again! So we invited our friends and
crunched up a bunch
of apples. Boy! Fresh cider tastes GOOD!! The bees like it too....incredibly
nobody got stung, even though there were a "zillion" honey bees around...
