The warm 40 degree days of spring and the freezing nights herald the maple syrup season in the northeast United States & southeast Canada, the only areas of the world having maple trees with sufficient sugar in their sap to produce syrup economically.

Early Explorers in America discovered the Indians had invented the art of sugar making by collecting sap & boiling water out of it to produce both syrup & sugar. Tomahawks were used to open trees; twigs were placed in the cracks to direct the sap into baskets collecting the liquid. Later, quills were inserted into small cracks, but the big advance came with actually drilling a hole in the tree, pounding in a wooden spout and hanging a wooden bucket on it. The Indians would collect the sap and pour it into hollowed out logs and then let it freeze overnight before it was boiled in a large kettle to remove water, leaving only thick syrup or sugar behind. Along the Onion River that runs through Sheboygan County, there has been found evidence on Indians living along the river. The word, “Winooski” is an Indian word for wild onion. The Onion River got its name because wild onions grew along the river. For over a century, maple sugar was the sugar used by most of the people in the United States.

JEWETT/DREWRYS MOVE TO WISCONSIN

In September 1846, Survarnard Jewett traveled with his wife, Permelia’s sister & her husband, James & Lucinda Stone & Permelia’s brother, Jonathon to check out land along the Onion River in Sheboygan County, WI. Survarnard returned to Vermont, signed the papers to purchase 160 acres of land, promising to give his son Glanville 80 acres if he moved west, which he did.  Glanville taught school & met his wife Olive Standish who came to Wisconsin to teach school, also.  They settled in Winooski where Glanville help build the community of Winooski at bottom of a large hill that had a natural stand of hardwoods especially sugar maples.  Like most farmers, they tapped the trees & boiled the sap into syrup & sugar for their own use.  

Survarnard’s brother, George Jewett, purchased 80 acres of land next to Survarnard in 1849.  George & his first wife had a daughter named Eveline who married David Bemrose Drewry.  Bem’s family had immigrated from Canada to Wisconsin.  Bem & Eveline had a son George Henry, who married Mina Keller & their son, Charles Bemrose married Carol Jewett.  Carol was the daughter of Clarence. & Alice Jewett, & granddaughter of Glanville & Olive.