BETHEL — A kernel of Bethel’s history was sown in today’s Modern Barn at 19 Summer St.

In the building that is now home to the upscale restaurant, there was once a thriving corn canning factory that kept Bethel’s farmers busy and prosperous from 1880 until 1926.

When Fritz Tyler moved his canning building from Cross Street to the location on Summer Street in 1926, the canning industry was beginning to wind down after 46 mostly prosperous years.

The building became Harrington’s Feed and Grain and later, in 1964, the Western Maine Supply Co.

More recently, and prior to Modern Barn, it was two different pubs: The Backstage, and later The Funky Red Barn.

Today the location belongs to Jessica and Michael Stasinos, owners of Modern Barn.

A CENTURY AGO

In the late 1800s and into the 20th century canned corn was all the rage.

In America, the food canning industry was about 75 years old by 1880, having started in France in 1795. Corn canning was taking off, not only in Bethel, but in many parts of western and central Maine. Other foods canned throughout the state included blueberries, sardines and lobster.

According to Paul B. Frederic in his book “Canning Gold: Northern New England’s Sweet Corn Industry,” during the 1870s there had been a gradual shift from general farming to dairy farming. “Sweet corn production offered these early dairymen a chance to spread their economic risk.”

In Maine from the late 1880s to 1929, the number of farms producing sweet corn grew from about 5% to 18%. “In the most conducive areas such as Oxford County nearly a third of farmers were growing the crop,” Frederic said.

Since the canning process required fresh corn, the factories were usually built directly in farming communities. Cornfields were usually within 10 miles of the canneries, allowing for a brief time between the picking and the canning.

Lovell’s cannery opened around the same time as Bethel’s and in “Yesterday’s News,” a publication of the Lovell Historical Society, it says there were canneries in Fryeburg, Denmark and Conway, New Hampshire.

THE WORK

A personal account of the nature of the work in the canneries was reported on Sept. 13, 1900, in the Lewiston Evening Journal. It is an account of work at the Lovell village cannery from one of the “corn shop girls,” as women employees were called. They often worked alongside the men.

“On busiest days there are easily four hundred people engaged in the various processes of canning,” the articles stated. “Everybody in the neighborhood turns out to take his share in a labor which is profitable, if short. The actual work of canning the corn is all done within a fortnight. What impresses one most is the Anglo-Saxon freedom and absence of red tape about the whole process.

“In the great factories of the cities the ‘help’ are hedged in with all sorts of rules and regulations. Here they move about with absolutely no restrictions. There is abundant jollity and good fellowship. The affair is distinctly social as well as commercial.

“One especially feels this air of sociability among the groups of corn-huskers. They seem to have a holiday task. Working under open sheds in groups of about twenty, they gossip and exchange ‘jollies’ all the while they are deftly stripping the husks from the ears.

“They have to keep busy to make anything at this part of the process. The huskers are all paid at the rate of four cents a bushel. This means a very small day’s wage to the average worker. One who can do 40 bushels a day is considered very speedy. A great many children and elderly people are engaged at this; the able-bodied men and young women are generally drafted into the factory proper.

“There one finds less of the picnic aspect, though the utmost freedom still prevails. The corn goes through an interesting process of cutting, straining and mixing with milk. Finally it pours out of a narrow pipe at the bottom of a big cylinder and falls into the cans which are one by one pushed up to it.

“The cans go to the solderers and then are passed on to the inspector, who weeds out for further soldering those that are defective and sends the perfect cans into the boiler room to be cooked. There they are held for minutes in steam boilers until, with a great explosion of steam, they are drawn out into the open air to be played upon with streams of cold water. The rest of the process is one of labeling, packing and storing.

“All the heavier part of this work is, of course, in the hands of men. Although this job comes to them only once a year, they appear to handle it with great deftness. Like most New England farmers they are very handy. They are also well informed about every detail of the business. There is no minute subdivision of labor here; every man is competent to work in any part of the shop.”

JOHN WEBB

The June 8, 1880, Oxford County Democrat reported in the Bethel news section that farmers had contracted, “to plant one hundred acres of sweet corn for the canning factory of John Webb. He is putting the Clough mill in order and is already turning out a large quantity of cans.”

By Nov. 16, the same newspaper reported that the factory had put up 100,000 cans of sweet corn being shipped by the Grand Trunk (train). “The corn and grain crops were shortened by severe drought, yet some farmers who planted early and used Bradley‘s phosphate have made it a paying crop. Mr. W. Town raised $60.00 worth on one acre.”

To be continued…

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