The 2016 maple syrup season in Geauga County was a unique year, although not what producers were hoping for when it began.
It was not a short season; it was an early season that many local producers almost missed.
“But we take what we get in the maple industry,” said Les Ober, agriculture and natural resources program coordinator for The Ohio State University Extension in Burton.
In Northeast Ohio, success depended on whether a producer followed the traditional season calendar or got into the sugarbush when the opportunity presented itself.
“If you saw the opportunity the last week of January and you hit it, and you got on top of it, you had a halfway decent season,” Ober told those gathered April 16 at the annual Maple Syrup Hall of Fame Brunch at Mary Yoder’s Amish Restaurant in Middlefield Village.
The season ended about 30 days later, he added.
“What was consistent across the state was low sugar content,” Ober said, noting there was a lot of sap across the state down around 1 percent.
“The quality of the syrup was very, very good,” he added. “A lot of golden delicate and amber being made.”
One of the people who has contributed greatly to the maple syrup industry in Geauga County was John Henry Miller, better known as “Tinner John” or just “Tinner” to most Geauga County maple producers.
Tinner was inducted last Saturday in the Maple Festival Hall of Fame. His son, John H. Miller Jr., and two daughters accepted the award on behalf of their father.
Tinner John was born on a farm in Troy Township and raised in Parkman Township.
In his teens, he helped a neighbor gather sap. He also helped at Noah Kauffman’s Tin Shop.
He later worked for Levi Yoder in the sugarbush and started doing carpentry work.
In 1949 and 1950, Tinner John was part of the committee that got the first Amish school started and built on Newcomb Road in Middlefield Township.
At that same time, John Henry opened his own shop. He did “everything and anything,” mostly for farmers. The word was, “If you can’t find it or fix it, then take it to John’s Tin Shop.”
Jim Freeman knew Tinner John well, having worked with him off and on through the years.
“You’d go into the shop and it was the rest home for retired farmers. I think the average age was about 81 in there,” Freeman said. “You’d walk in and, ‘Glad to see you, we’ve got a pan to turn.’ This was back in the days when there were a lot of the big 4-by-10s, 5-by-10s, 6-by-10s pans that would come in for repair. You always wanted plenty of help to turn those over.”
During the sugaring season, Freeman said Tinner often had a number of the neighborhood old timers help him clean dirty and burnt pans.
Asked by his helpers whether a pan was clean enough for soldering, Tinner would answer, “If you can see a monkey where you cleaned, then I can solder it.”
John Henry also loved to attend auctions, Freeman recalled.
“He would buy everything that everybody else didn’t want,” he said. “If there was a shovel with a broken handle, he’d buy it. If there was another shovel that was worn out and had a good handle, he’d buy it. He’d put them aside and he always wanted to get them together, but I don’t think he ever did.”
Freeman also said Tinner always liked to try different syrups and knew all the different types and where to direct buyers.
“From the different sugarbushes, he could tell you exactly where to go if you could describe the type of syrup that you wanted,” said Freeman.
Freeman further recalled a time he and Tinner John traveled to Holmes County in the middle of January to retrieve a pan from a Swartzentruber family.
Swartzentruber Amish are one of the largest and the most conservative subgroups of Old Order Amish.
“If you know anything about the Swartzentruber Amish, they don’t paint their houses, they don’t do much upkeep, they don’t mow their lawn, they don’t have curtains,” Freeman said.
“It was about 10 degrees with about six to eight inches of snow on the ground,” he said. “We get there and we go to get it, and nobody is around, and then all of a sudden here come the kids out. We told them we were there to get the pan. Here they are, out in six to eight inches of snow . . . in their bare feet.”
He added, “Through the years, we went to a lot of places together and did a lot of things, and I really enjoyed my time that I did have with John.”
Tinner John’s children were presented with an etched plaque of the building where their father did his work. It will hang with all the other hall of fame plaques
The 87th Geauga County Maple Festival in Chardon begins April 21 and continues through April 24.
Prize-winning syrups will be auctioned during the festival on April 24 at the Main Street stage during the Blue Ribbon Maple Syrup Auction.
For more information about the Geauga Maple Festival, visit www.maplefestival.com.