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Forestville’s link to Civil War and baked apples

Baked apples are a perfect fall treat.

Our village took shape from the labors of a resourceful man from New England named Jehiel Moore, one of the land rushers from the Holland Land Grant. In the early days of the War of 1812, he helped muster 3,000 volunteers from the surrounding countryside to join with a force of 900 regular soldiers to invade Canada. When the forces were gathered near Buffalo, the volunteers had second thoughts. Perhaps they were cowards or that maybe they realized this wasn’t their fight or some mix of both. Claiming that they had crops to harvest, the volunteers abandoned the regulars, who thereupon, despite the lack of backup, proceeded to invade Canada with disastrous results.

Moore was reportedly so disgusted with his neighbors’ cowardice that he sold his sawmill at Walnut Creek falls, a thriving operation he had just built four years prior, and lit out for Ohio’s Western Reserve. He sold the land to a Scotsman, William Colville, for such a weight of coins that he could barely hoist it onto his shoulder.

That shame sat with the settlers and their descendants until 1850 with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. It essentially formalized Slave Power and deputized every free man of the north into a southern plantation owner’s lackey — requiring the reporting of every hint or whisper of an escaped slave. Because our hometown was strategically situated — an easy walk to the shores of Lake Erie, yet hidden in the woods, fugitive slaves would hole up and wait for a boat ride across the lake, about four hours or so of rowing to the free communities of Port Colborn and St. Catherine. When the fugitives would climb Sheridan Hill, they could easily see their freedom beckoning on the Canadian shores. One day to freedom, their final day in bondage. Estimates range that between 5,000 and 10,000 runaway slaves traveled freedom’s road through Chautauqua County.

During the Civil War, it was widely agreed that Chautauqua County acquitted itself heroically. The first call for volunteers in 1861 brought in several hundred men for a cavalry regiment forming in Buffalo; the general draft in 1862 mustered up more than 1,100 men to form the 112th Infantry Regiment. After courageous service in the Wilderness, the Battle of the Crater, Cold Harbor, the Siege of Petersburg, Appomatox, more than a third of the men did not return.

A staggeringly high percentage of the able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 35 were sent into those hells. Of Chautauqua’s population of 58,422 in 1860, those 1,422 men and boys represented pretty much everyone they could pour into a uniform.

Gen. U.S. Grant learned that sturdy farm boys make good soldiers; after the labors required to eke out a living from this land that lay locked in snow and ice for months and months, a military campaign seemed a lark. Eking out a hard living versus battlefield glory? No contest. Our area is famed still for its soldiers. I was one, so were both my brothers and my sister — as was my father and most of my many uncles before me. It is said “Bradigan women have a knack for giving birth 18 to 25 years before a war.” That saying didn’t start with us, but it hits home.

Chautauqua County sits between the Alleghanies and Lake Erie, rippling wooded hills studded with Dutch gable barns and symmetrical fields bursting with crops — on the lake’s littoral plain it is grapes (Westfield was where Dr. Joseph Welch popularized his juice made from Fredonia grapes) and corn, wheat and orchard crops further back into the low hills. Dairy is king though, hayfields and field corn for the cows predominate.

The climax forest of the 1820s and 1830s gave way to flourishing farms, oxen-tugged stump by stump, but these days, as the population hollows out because of the post-industrial Rust Belt poverty, the forest has returned. Thick, verdant but less diverse; the chestnut blight of the 1920s was followed by the Dutch elm disease of the 1960s was then followed by the ash borer beetle of the 2000s.

Still, the dense mixed hardwood forests of maple, birch, beech, hickory, white oak and red oak cover the hills in their emerald glory from May to September, and the barren poles of grey from November to April, spotted by dark green groves of hemlock, white pine and spruce. During the few weeks of autumn, those forests are afire with reds, oranges, golds and umbers. This is the harvest season and the land’s bounty is on full display. The farmstands overflow with peppers, onions, cucumbers, carrots and much more: Apples in every variety, pears, peaches. I can easily summon those smells, crisp and fresh — almost as lovely to inhale the aroma as bite into.

A frequent dessert, especially during the late fall and early winter, one that left the entire house redolent of the earth’s bounty, was baked apples. The ratio of deliciousness to ease of preparation is incredible.

APPLE RECIPE — FOR FOUR PEOPLE

4 large good baking apples. We often used Jonathans, as this was my father’s favorite, but Braeburn, Honeycrisp (wasn’t around when I was a kid, but better late than never.

1/4 cup brown sugar – don’t be afraid to drizzle some maple syrup for a Chautauqua variation.

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup chopped walnuts. (My Kentucky mom often used pecans).

1/4 cup black currants or chopped raisins

Four teaspoons of tablespoon butter

3/4 cup boiling water

Set your oven to 375∂F (190∂C).

Cut out holes in apples for stuffing:

Rinse and dry the apples. Using a sharp paring knife or an apple corer, cut out the cores carefully, leaving the bottom 1/2 inch of the apples intact. Don’t take any more of the flesh than you must to remove the seeds and membranes.

Place the brown sugar, cinnamon, currants or chopped raisins, and chopped walnuts in a small bowl and stir to combine.

Put the apples in a baking dish and stuff each apple with the sugar stuffing mixture. Mush the filling into the apples, then, dot with butter — just under a teaspoon each.

Pour the boiling water into the bottom of the baking dish.

Bake until tender — usually 30 to 45 minutes each. Don’t overcook as the mushy texture can be unappealing (though still delicious). When done, remove the apples from the oven and baste them with the juices from the pan.

They are absolutely mouthwatering with a with a side of vanilla (or butter pecan) ice cream. You can even use yogurt for a (slightly) healthier version.

NOTE: The mill obviously isn’t Forestville’s, but a very similar structure and style.

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