The Portland daily press., 1863-11-02
The Portland Sugar House.

means, for all people are not permitted to look
over Sugar House, and I'll tell you why. A
great many good folks who don't know any
better, think the reason they are not allowed
to enter such an establishment is, that the pro-
prietors fear they 1.-THE yisitors) win learn the
secret Of making sugar, and turn it in time to
their own advantage. This is not the trouble,
reader; for there is nothing mysterious about
the art of making sugar; any one is at liber-
ty to learn that, if he can, and to make use Of
it besides. An excellent woman once told Inc
that she had found out the reason they
wouldn't let people go into the Sugar House,
and | asked her to tell me why. "Well,' said
she, sit is because they don't want them to eat
the sugar" A serious objection that With
fifty tons of sugar lying every day upon the
floor in heap, and looking to a stranger like a
great pile of sand, it is not probable that the
fear of what one person or dozen persons
might eat would cause the owners of place
like this to prohibit the entrance of respecta-
BILE visitors who were inclined to go in glance
quietly about them as they passed through
the different rooms, and walk out again as
peaceably as they went in. 1t can't be this,
and before we go any further I'll make known
toyou why the proprietors of Sugar House
object to the entrance Of any and all people
who may wish 10 visit and, look around the
place. First and foremost, people who have
not anything in the world to be busy about,
have no right to be lounging about in places
where Others are hard at work. Make a note
of that, reader, for it is true and very impor-
tant, and therefore it may be of use to you in
time. In Sugar House every man has his
work to do, and is expected to attend to that
work every minute of his time. If stranger
goes into such place, he can't help getting
himself into the way of one or more of the
workmen, and bothering them about their la
Dor. That is one objection the owners have
tolthe entrance of visitors, and another is, they
not only get into the way of the men, and in
this manner hinder them about their work, but
they hang round and talk with them, which is
hundred times worse, and ought not TO be,
aad Is not tolerated anyhow. You understand
the thing now, perfectly well, reader, have
no kind Of doubt. / am sure have made it
plain:-you are not allowed to enter the Su-
gar House THAT is the rule) because you will
be in the way Of the laborers, and will stand
about talking to them; THAT is the reason up
on which the rule is founded.) l shall presume
that you are, and go on with my article.
Mr. j. B. BROWN is the founder of the
Portland Sugar House, which is the largest es-
Enlistment in the United States where sugar
Is made from the raw material This manu-
factory went into operation something like
eighteen years ago. Like many other extern
siye business concerns, it was for the first
three or four years Improbable. have heard
that in the first year of its operating the loss
was about ten thousand dollars; but Mr.
Brown, the owner, kept on with undaunted
perseverance until he made his business what
for a long fine 1t has been and is yet = one of
the most profitable branches of trade carried
on in America. The steady demand for Port
land sugar increased until it became necessary
to enlarge the mandatory by additional
wings to the old building, and the trade Of
the Portland Sugar Company grew greater
and greater until within year they
have erected another house and established
another branch of the business somewhere on
Long Island, not far from the Imperial City
Of the Union. But with Messrs. Brown
& Sons Sugar House in New York we will
have nothing to do at present. Our talk
is 10 be altogether about the Sugar
House in Portland, and what / shall say
TO you here, together with what you and
everybody else In the country knows to be true,
will give you an idea of Mr.. b. Browns en-
terprise, and perhaps will help to keep you
awake in regard to the fact that we have such
man as he is among us.
For long time, the Portland Sugar House
was under the superintendent of Mr. ID. H.
Furnish who now has charge the mandatory
inNew York, while his son, Mr.. Henry II. Fur
bish, of this city, is superintendent Of the es-
Enlistment here.
The first cost of fitting out this mandatory
must have been immense. They have in use
from forty thousand to fifty thousand iron
moulds which cost in the neighborhood Of sew
enty-fve thousand dollars. These are contin-
ually wearing out and being mended, until
they are thrown by, and then, of course, their
places have to be taken up with those that are
new. Many Of these moulds rest upon earthen
jars, and many of them stand upon drainers in
the floor. In the pan-room, where the molas-
ses is boiled, after running through pipe I'M
der the street from the blow-up to a reservoir
in the fill-house, and being forced up from
this into the pan-room, are two large boilers
made entirely of copper, the cost of which
am unable to state. 1t must have been great.
These are things that mention as go along,
without stopping to say word in relation TO
many other articles that are closely connected
with these.
After the moasses has been boiled to
proper thickness, II is sent down from the cop
per boilers in the pan-room, to the fill-house.
where it is received into Kind of wagon and
emptied out of this wagon through copper
pipe into the iron moulds. In these moulds it
is carried on two-wheeled iron trucks, to a
hatch-way that extends from the top to the
bottom Of the building, and hoisted in sings
through this hatch-way, to all the floors above
the warehouse, WI here 1t remains three or four
weeks, being worked upon in different ways
until it Is knocked out of the moulds in the
form Of sugar and grain. The sugar is then
separated from the grain, and each is broken
I'D in kind of mill and sent down to the ware
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