IMH 75:2 187-188

"Chronicles of Upper Burnet" (1)

1881

Sunday, March 27th

There was a good sugar-day-tolerably good that is-to day.
Wat boiled all day and had as "visiting statesmen" Father
twice myself twice, and Alvin twice. We were not all there at
anyone time very long however. Then there were Dan Bain,
Isaac Kent(79) and two boys, two of the Garrison boys and a
Benge boy and lastly John Kivett. So that he was not lonesome.
It was a partly cloudy, sunshiny day which began cool and got
warmer before night. Aside from the sugar camp there is noth­
ing noteworthy I believe. Wat boiled down all the sap he had
which took till ten o'clock in the night

Teaching Note: Although it is a small concern, ask the students how Wat got home
after dark. The kerosene lamp was likely his source of light. In 1881, John D. Rockefeller
was doing very well at selling kerosene generally used for lamps. Of course, there was
little need for gasoline as the first practical gasoline engine was not yet invented. It would
be another decade or two before an engine of any sort would find itself on a farm in Indiana.