The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1955-07-07
The PennyrOyal Patch

Long, long ago we farm children
gatheredit shifted it and sometimes
boiled it into tea for no reason at
all because pdnnyroyal tea wasn't
even good Ru1h 1hor had it that there
was another use for it, little under
stood and lesf legitimate. Pennyroyal
was weed that grew in little patches
here and thSre in the woods and was a
worthless pest farmers believed.
Apparently God permits few things
to grow WITHOUT being useful in some
way in His ereat scheme of it all
Here is the stoiy of pennyroyal.
Back in 1904 Benjamin Borton came
from New Jfrsey to Oxford Town
ship, Guernsey County, and built his
cabin on thk later old Wheeling road.
He was thk first settler there and his
nephew Hethuel Ables, was the first
child bort there two years later. 1t
was BortAn who made the pennyroyal
pay.
With no money, no pay to get any
and taxes due, the Borton family went
into the woods and gathered pen
nyroyal, boiled/it down in the big
black family 8ttle and sold the con-
centrated oil back East. Benjamin had
learned abg6t pennyroyal when he
lived in NV Jersey and knew some
thing abqht the value of its oil.
From Ehat the industry began and
grew uf It'll most of Oxford Township
and thu neighborhood around it were
in the lpennyroyal business and the
whole district became known as "Pen-
nyroyaldom.y In stead of the family
kettle the Npennyroyal then was boil
ed down fn "gums" and it took a
four-horse wagon load of it to fill
one.
The pei fnyroyal usually grew near
grasshopIer springs springs filled
with gra6shoppers in wood filled
with weSds. Whole families went out
and gathered the pennyroyal, which
then wax allowed to wait until it
would paek well. Then it was care
fully trampled down into a steam
chest until the latter was filled. The
oil is in the lehves and sometimes can
be seen on the under side with a
magnifying Iglass in little globules
Set free by yfhe steam it passes into a
condenser hto which stream of cold
water hasfbeen turned.
The condensed oil then is poured
into an Oh vat filled with water near
ly to the top. The oil is lighter than
water and runs into the vessel and
on into receiver.
The oil found ready sale in east
ern markets, being superior to that
produced il foreign lands from the
pennyroyaT growing there. The busi-
ness was heither large nor profitable
enough II justify large expenditure
on plant or equipment and the still
houses Here crude and the installa-
tions weh of cheap construction. Four
forks werS set up in the ground with
connecting poles on which roof of
flat boards was placed The stills had
no side wall.
Pioneer pepnyroyal gathering had
its hazards. fThe Oxford Township
country was Merry wild and was filled
with wolveS bears, Indians and
snakes. BeJhuel Ables, then a boy
barely in his teens, when going to the
spring for water stepped on two cop
perheads barefoot and jumped so high
he had nd water left in the pail to
take home Me was not bitten. Many
were bitten by spakes when gathering
pennyroyal but sseldem by rattlers.
They had learned to jump out of the
way between the time of the snakes
warning rattle and that of its
strike. QuicksAnd too, was along the
creek banks il the woods and many of
the pennyrSyal gatherers who un-
suspectingl{ stepped into it were
nearly engtlfed before they could be
rescued.
Oxford Township was the central
n