The Sand Creek Sugarbush: Traces of an Extractive Agricultural Industry in Portage County, Ohio

Summary

During Fall 2013 and Spring/Summer 2014, The Mannik & Smith Group conducted a Phase I archaeological survey of approximately 4,700 acres at the Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center in Portage County, Ohio. A total of 83 loci of historic activity predating the establishment of the military base in 1940 were recorded during the survey. Among these were three sites, all located along Sand Creek near the center of the modern base, that have been identified as early 20th-century maple sugar house locations. The discovery of these three sites, all presumably representing a single larger sugarbush, has provided the opportunity to re-think the approach to site significance evaluation as applied to previously recorded maple sugaring locations in northeastern Ohio. In particular, landscape characteristics associated with these sites are emphasized over the presence or absence of extensive subsurface deposits.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Miners, Loggers, Farmers, and Hunters: Investigating Labor in North American History   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 558