Page 14 - North Haven Magazine Issue 15 Autumn 2020

Apple
Apple

Ciderer!!
Cider!

by Susan A. Iverson Cid

It ’s hard to resist at least a glass or two of orchard. Our mother planted six other va-
apple cider this time of year – the sweet aro- rieties on the lot when we were children.”
ma and crisp flavor of freshly pressed ap- The Squires property was located just one
ples pair wonderfully with the cooler days block north of Town Hall – it has a very dif-
of autumn. In our house, a gallon of it can ferent landscape now!
be consumed in just a week’s time, and it’s
always a challenge to keep enough set aside
for the “wassail bowl” made with cider that
I serve every Thanksgiving. Small Cider Press

Cider-making has a long history in North on Middletown Avenue, Robert Young on
Haven, as one would expect – apples were Pond Hill Road, and Victor Tenedine on
easy to grow, and because of its alcohol con- State Street. Tenedine also made cider vin-
tent, hard cider was a product that could egar and was known to ship cider all over
be stored in barrels without refrigeration the world during World War II to soldiers
throughout the winter. The Rev. Benjamin serving in far-off locations.
Trumbull (he lived in North Haven from
1761 to 1820) included in his orchard in- A.B. Smith & W. Taylor 1949 Twentieth-century improvements in cold
ventory the names of twenty different types storage allowed many types of apples to
of apple trees. Some of the varieties are Most people today can find apple trees be over-wintered. Because commercial
identified as good cider apples, such as the in their neighborhoods, reminding us cider production was no longer needed as
Striped Sweeting. He and his farm manager of the many orchards that once operat- a method of preserving the fruit for later
would send the apples determined suitable ed here. One of the best-known orchards consumption, the market for cider all but
for cider to a local mill, and each of them was Mountain View Farm; it was located disappeared. By the end of the 1940s an
would receive between 21 and 28 barrels! on Pond Hill Road in Clintonville and was increased concern with sanitation further
By the middle of the 1800s about two-thirds owned by Alex Smith. Smith was consid- reduced demand for the product, ultimate-
of North Haven households contained at ered an outstanding orchardist, having ly replacing the drink with bottled apple
least one farmer or farm laborer, so North received an award from the Connecticut juice. A working cider mill does survive
Haveners were still providing much of their Pomological Society in 1954. He was one today in Old Sturbridge Village, where live-
own food supply, and apples and cider were of the first in the fruit business to design stock still provide the muscle power needed
found in most people’s cellars. and build a structure for the long-term to crush the apples. No mills survive in
storage of fruit. A nearby cider mill was al- North Haven, though one can see evidence
most certainly used by apple growers like that mills once existed here – Mill Road, for
the Smiths. In fact, there were three list- example, is named so because it runs along
ed in North Haven by the end of the 19th the Muddy River which once supplied the
century – Sam Sackett on Five Mile Brook, energy for mills to operate. In the Clin-
tonville area there is a ditch, or canal, that
funneled water to a mill there. Cider as a
by-product of the apple industry seems to
have made a comeback, however, and there
are hard cider beverage products that have
become quite popular. The next time you
are looking for a refreshing autumn bev-
erage, support the local apple growers and
Mill on the Quinnipiac River grab a cider!
By the turn of the twentieth century some Many thanks to Lucy McTeer Brusic for
families continued the practice of growing the information provided in her books.
enough fruit to meet their own needs – She is the author of Apples of Our Eyes and
maybe five or six trees in their backyards. Amidst Cultivated and Pleasant Fields.
Small, hand-cranked presses were devised Cider Mill at Old Sturbridge Village Both publications were used as resourc-
that a family could use to make a few gal- es and are available for purchase at the
lons of the sweet beverage. Mabel and Origen Clinton in the Clintonville area, and North Haven Historical Society.
Sherman Squires offered this reminiscence: the Doolittle Brothers in Mt. Carmel. By
“There was an orchard here on Washing- the 1940s there were at least six in existence
ton Avenue when our father bought the lot – Birdsey on Rimmon Road, Doolittle on
around 1900. The Greening in the front Hartford Turnpike, the Downs Brothers at
(yard) is the last tree to survive from that Skiff and Hartford Turnpike, Gabriel Nutile

14 North Haven Magazine - Autumn Issue 2020