Roll Out the Barrel
by Lynne Belluscio

NOV. 13, 2000 - When Jacob LeRoy arrived in town and bought Stoddard and Plattís grist mill, he knew he would need a good cooper to make barrels to ship the flour from Le Roy to New York City. In the spring of 1823, Jacob hired Daniel Anderson, an experienced cooper, to come to Le Roy and to operate a cooperage. According to his obituary, Daniel Anderson was born in 1795 in Connecticut and learned his fatherís trade of coopering, and worked with his father until he was 19. Daniel turned his attention to preaching, and in 1814 received a license to preach. He married Sarah Sands in 1818 and five years later they came to Le Roy.

Anderson built his cooperís shop on the east side of Oatka Creek (north of the Pennysaver building) and according to a brief history of Le Royís coopers and cooper shops, it mentions that Andersonís cooper shop was swept downstream after a heavy rainstorm. Anderson built a new shop on the opposite side of the creek, north of the Le Roy flour mill. It is not apparent how long Anderson remained a cooper, but in 1829, he joined the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and preached in what was known as the "Rushford Circuit" and at various times was assigned to the towns of Victor, Mt. Morris, Pike, Churchville, Murray, Elba, Sweden, Parma, Black Creek, Cuba and Friendship. He retired from preaching in 1845 and resumed his coopering business full time.

He purchased the cooper shop owned by John Brown located on "Cooper Street" - now known as lower Myrtle Street. John Brownís cooperage was producing 3500 cider barrels a year. Anderson continued in business for many years, and is listed in the 1860 census, along with James Smith, John Stage, David Miller, Robert Slawson, Richard Barnard, William Moody, Jacob Kamps, Samuel Weter, Darias Brurley Caine, William McManes, James Seeley, John Anderson - all coopers in Le Roy. (Anderson died in 1886 and was buried in Machpelah Cemetery. His name is on a memorial window in the Methodist Church.)

Coopering was an important trade in the 19th century. Over one third of all exports were shipped in barrels. Wet coopers made tight barrels for liquids such as beer, wine, cider, molasses, pitch, tar, and vinegar. Wet barrels, made of oak, had to be leakproof and durable. Dry barrels, also known as "slack" barrels, were used for flour, hardware, nails, cement, cereals, fruits, vegetables, horse shoes, fish, glassware china and other dry goods. (In fact, in the basement of the Academic Building, we have a partially filled barrel of small glass bottles that were shipped to Allen Olmsted, when he used the building as a patent medicine factory.) The "white" cooper made straight sided containers such as pails, tubs, vats, buckets, and churns.

The Historical Society has in its collection a large number of coopering tools. Drawshaves were used to trim and shape barrel staves and barrel heads. Sun planes were used to give a final smooth surface to stave ends after they had been assembled into a barrel. The howel was a tool with a sharp blade imbedded in a wooden stock and was used to cut a groove one inch below the top of the barrel. The crozes cut a groove inside the howel channel, into which the barrel head was forced into a watertight seal. Scorpers were used to shave smooth the inside of the barrel and the heading swift was used to dress the barrel head before it was inserted into the barrel. Bung augers were used to drill the bung hole into the side of the barrel.

The 1850 Le Roy census lists Darwin Simons, a cooper, who produced 10,000 barrels for $3,500. Raw materials included 150,000 staves for a value of $900 and 100,000 hoops, valued at $500. The Le Roy Salt works had a large cooperage to produce dry barrels for shipping salt.

An interesting letter in the files, from the American Steel & Wire Company of New York, addressed to the Le Roy Salt Company, dated January 19, 1922, asks if the Salt Company was still interested in ordering American Twisted Spice Wires Hoops. The accompanying catalogue includes a very detailed description of the manufacture of barrels and mentions that the barrel is the strongest structure that can be made from an equal amount of material. It has great flexibility, resiliency and is not easily dented. It also mentions, that old barrels could be burned for fuel.

In the 1850ís, mechanized coopering was introduced. Some factories produced only staves and others only heads. The United States government legislated specific standard barrel sizes. Staves had to measure 28 1/2 inches and the diameter of the head had to be 17 1/8 inch. The distance between the top and the bottom head had to be 26 inches and the circumference around the middle was 64 inches. A standard barrel measured 7,056 cubic inches. For some reason, cranberry barrels had a different standard which measured 5,826 cubic inches. The Chicago market specified barrel sizes to ship lettuce and spinach. By 1900, there were only three coopers listed in Le Roy: Frank Darrow, Adelbert Hill and Edward Hill. In 1917 John Day and John Stevenson were listed as coopers.