by Joyce H. Munro
I’m pretty sure I know how the
fire started, though I can’t be certain. Newspaper reporters weren’t certain
either. You can read evasion all over their conclusion: “The origin is supposed
to have been a defective flue in the basement of the Riverside Hotel.” Defective
flue, my eye. Something more combustible happened down in the basement that
night in 1875.
Eight o’clock—closing time at
Nat’s Oyster Saloon. Knowing Nat, he probably told his kitchen help to go home
early, business was slow anyway. Then he stayed on alone to close up the place.
His pride and joy. Recently opened in downtown Milton, Pennsylvania, on the lower
level of his father’s new hotel. The place of resort for gents and ladies. Good square meals at
reasonable prices. Best desserts in town. Fresh bivalves served in any style
desired. Raw. Baked. Stewed. Scalloped. Fried.
If you’re like me, you eat
your oysters on the half shell or fried. Forget chopped-up or soupy. My husband
likes them fried, he, being from the south where frying is de rigueur. Ever since we moved to the Philly area, he’s been on
the lookout for restaurants serving decent fried oysters, but there’s only one that
meets the desires of his taste buds—the Oyster House in Center City. So on
occasion, we have resorted to frying them up ourselves.
The recipe from Nat’s day calls
for dipping oysters three times. First in cracker dust, then in beaten egg, then
cracker dust again. Dipping is done with the fingers—piercing oysters with a
fork destroys the flavor (so said cooks in those days). Then they’re laid in a
wire basket and fried in a pot of lard so hot blue smoke rises from the center.
It’s not a good idea for lard to boil unattended. But, knowing Nat, he was probably
multitasking. And voila, the perfect ingredients for a block-buster fire.
I need to point out that Nat’s
was not the only place where the fire of ’75 could have started. There were
several oyster saloons in town where blue smoke rose over kettles of boiling
lard. Oysters, once considered fancy food for fancy people, were all the rage,
east to west, north to south. Good eating was the reward for hauling gobs of crude
oil out of the depths of Pennsylvania. And newspapers, like the Sunbury American, carried recipes for
good eats. They also reported tales of overeating. Like the one about an old
lady who downed “two dozen fried oysters, a pound of crackers, three slices of
fruit cake, half a mince pie and some apples, after which she was threatened
with a spasm, and in the effort to prevent it, she sacrificed all the wine
there was in the house.”
Oysters sped their way from the
Chesapeake Bay to towns like Milton by railway. Bedded down in straw and
moistened with salt water, oysters made the trip in only sixteen hours. An hour
or so later, as fast as shuckers could shuck, they’d be sliding down the
throats of gents sitting at counters all over town. Followed by a pint of cold
lager beer. Knowing Nat, he probably kept his place open later than other
establishments and wore himself out. Feet so sore, fingers so achy. So weary,
he didn’t realize the fryer was still boiling away, crumbs from the last
oysters popping into the air. Flash point—and poof!
The blaze that night was
hungry enough to eat up a whole block of businesses. Nat wasn’t hurt, at least
not bad enough to make the newspapers. But four years later, Nat did make the papers. Another fire. This one
blew him out a window head first when flames licked at gas pipes. The papers dispassionately
reported that he suffered a broken arm and contusions.
Here’s
what happened. Nat was working at his restaurant and heard people yelling, Fire!
He ran down the street and dashed into Brown’s building to help Gus Lochman
save his confectionery shop. But while he was grabbing goodies off the shelves,
he got tossed out unceremoniously. Brown’s, a frame structure on Front Street, was
reduced to glowing embers. And the cause of the fire? The usual suspect—a
defective flue.
Then in 1880, on a warm and windy
day in May, fire erupted yet again, this time at Milton’s largest industry at
the edge of town—the Car Works. And yet again, Nat’s restaurant burned to the
ground, as did his father’s newly rebuilt hotel, his brother’s bakery, and his
sister-in-law’s confectionery.
This was the fire of all
fires, landing Milton on the list of largest conflagrations in North America. Residents
saw their town burn from one end to the other. Their houses, businesses,
schools, churches reduced to a blanket of ash six inches deep. Their just-planted
vegetable gardens, shade trees where they carved their initials, canaries perched
in gilded cages in their parlors. Tintypes of Granny and Pa-Pa. Letters from
the battlefield back in the ‘60s. Marriage certificates. Lockets holding
strands of their stillborn baby’s hair. Ashes of all that was sacred, blown about
the streets, into the west branch of the Susquehanna River, floating down to
the Chesapeake Bay, metamorphosing into food for oysters.
Nothing left to hold onto. Other
things people held dear—like their emotions, their brains, muscles, immune
systems—charred as well. As psychologists have told us, the trauma of massive
destruction can lead to depression or long-term anxiety disorders or
debilitating physical ailments. Some individuals never regain hold.
What happened to Miltonians
that May day is similar to what happens to soldiers. It happened to Nat during
the Civil War. Back in the spring of ’62, Nat’s regiment of the Pennsylvania
Reserves, the Thirty-Fourth, was charged with protecting the nation’s capital
at Fort Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. It was there that
Nat saw—as up close and personal as a fort full of soldiers can get—President
Lincoln and General McClellan, who came out to review the troops. McClellan was
the bigger draw. He was a Pennsylvanian and how those soldiers loved him.
Nat’s regiment was ordered to Manassas,
Virginia, then deeper south to Fredericksburg and on to Richmond, where they engaged
in the Seven Days’ Battles and lost to the Confederates. Then up to Bull Run, then
up farther to South Mountain, then over to Antietam. Then back down ... then up
... then over ... then down ... Along the way, the Reserves were picking up a
reputation for their “magnificent and stubborn valor,” as McClellan put it.
They were also picking up diarrhea, rheumatism, frostbite, typhoid fever.
At some point on the war path,
after the battle of Antietam, when the regiment turned south again, Nathaniel
Huth bolted. Emotionally or physically or both, he abandoned the cause and for
that offense, he was dishonorably discharged by the General Courts-Martial in
November of 1862. His motive for bolting will never be known, but it certainly
didn’t help that McClellan, his beloved General-in-Chief, had just been ousted
by Lincoln for not pursuing the enemy aggressively enough. The Reserves were
fuming mad when they got word—they had sworn they would stand by him. Some of
those reservists, no doubt, acted out that fall.
Nat was nineteen, stood five
and a half feet, and, judging by his photo taken later in life, weighed a
hundred pounds. Judging by that same photo, his slack-jawed, shell-shocked
expression probably infuriated the court; they wanted to see loyalty and energy
in that face. The charge against Nat was an action considered egregious, like
falling asleep on post, vulgarity in the presence of a lady, gross
intoxication, or insubordination.
Nat did not come home
unscathed. He did not come home, period. After his discharge, he went west,
just shy of the Ohio border, where he met and married Martha Jones of
Portersville. But his heart and his livelihood were in Milton, so he hauled
Martha, pregnant with the first of eleven children, back home where he could
make the tasty morsels of his dreams.
One after another, when they
were old enough to hoist themselves up and grip the cold marble slab with their
fat fingers, and their eyes followed the rolling pin back and forth on the pastry
table, that’s when Nat would have commenced his children’s education in
cookery. Those round, rosy faces intent on kitchen work. Sieving, mixing,
kneading. Their non-stop baby chatter. Rolling, greasing, grating. Could children
have more fun than this? Mashing, spooning, tasting.
And one after another, Nat and
Martha’s children took to cookery. All but four. Willie who died of scarlet
fever. Ralph who died of spinal meningitis. Mattie, of diphtheria. Marian,
cholera. And with each child’s death, the kitchen mourned. Lamentation falling
in the stew pot, scooped into dishes served to customers who, unless they saw tears
in Nat’s eyes when he served them, ate unknowing.
Father Huth and Mother Huth
they were called after they moved to Brookville, Pennsylvania at the turn of
the century. But what about Henry the earlier father and Catherine the earlier
mother? All it took was migration up the Schuylkill River in the 1850s, then a
couple of block-buster fires to lose track of begetters. Maybe Nat’s children
asked him where great-granddad came from and all he knew was some place in
Germany. Maybe they asked what their original name was and he said Hutt, Hoot,
or Hott. Maybe they asked him to say something in German and all he knew was Sie lustigen kleinen dummen Kopf. Thus, the current elders
became the only elders.
The skimpiest family tree I’ve
ever heard of, penned on a scrap of paper and tucked in a Bible, reads in part:
“Mother Huth’s father’s mother was ... Father Huth’s father’s name was ... Your
great grandmother Huth’s name was ...”
No dates, no places, no stories.
This is the whole of Father and Mother Huth’s family tree, a paper version of
Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree with six bedraggled branches. I learn about this
scrap of paper during Christmastide, the season of gift-giving and feasting.
Some gift, this sparse tree with its flimsy information.
Henry Huth’s descendents may
not have talked much about their past, but they molded it out of spun sugar and
fondant and marzipan. Huths were, and still are, bakers and confectioners. A
family-wide, generations-long love affair with sweets. You can follow the scent
of rum-laced fruitcake as Huths moved across Pennsylvania into Ohio, over to
New Jersey, down to Washington, D.C., opening bakeries with trendy names like
Vienna, Globe, Bon-Ton. And who knows how many Huths have baked in the privacy
of their own kitchens, gluey-doughed fingers leaving prints all over cabinets
in the search for nutmeg.
The recipe for Nat’s fruitcake,
handwritten on a card, is tucked away in my recipe box. Every year around
Christmas time, I get it out and I remember when my Dad baked hundreds of
pounds of fruitcake each year. Yes, hundreds. Then came a deal to bake the
cakes for Woodward & Lothrop Department Stores in Washington, D.C., until
they learned Dad didn’t have a commercial kitchen license. Over the Christmas
holidays, Dad and I emailed about fruitcake, not that I planned to bake any.
But he reminded me of a few things anyway: “This is important—put a pan of water on the bottom of the
oven, otherwise cake will be too dry. Use brown kraft paper for pan liner, but
grease the pan too.”
And where did Dad learn these
insider tips? From his Father Fred who learned from Father George who learned
from Father Nathaniel who learned from Father Henry who learned from Father name
unknown. It is rude to tell fruitcake jokes in my hearing—I have blood kinship
with the stuff.
Nat’s fruitcake is the type that
improves with time, though not as much time as fine wine. The recipe brought by
memory from somewhere in Germany to Reading, Pennsylvania around 1819 and
adapted through the generations, thanks to ever-more-convenient ingredients. Three
types of raisins, plus currants and dates and figs and prunes. Pounds and pounds
of candied fruit, walnuts, eggs, a minimal amount of flour. Nat must have used
a wash basin, not a bowl. And it was a hands-on situation. Elbow-deep in
batter. Then he’d plop it in pans and let it slow-bake for half a day. Along
about fruitcake-mixing time each autumn, Nat’s growing children likely soured
on kitchen work. But he wouldn’t let them bolt. Nat had rules for cooking and
rules for children, which none dared break. Customers craved fruitcake—the
baking must be done.
The ritziest Christmas gift I
ever received was a “Little Lady” stove. A real electric stove for cooking real
food. There it gleamed on Christmas morning, under the tree, surrounded by a
pile of mini-sized accoutrements. Mixes for pie crust, gingerbread, pancakes,
cookies. Pots and pans, cookie cutters, rolling pin. I cooked all the mixes in
short order, one after the other, then scoured the kitchen for something else
to make. Mom gave me dollops of left-overs to cook in my mini sauce pot,
biscuits to reheat in the oven. My culinary education was well on the way when
my brother decided to sauté something made of plastic directly on the stovetop.
Then he satisfied his urge to bake using a model airplane. The oven didn’t
actually catch fire, it just smoldered for the longest time after the
babysitter yanked out the plug.
Nat got a new oven after he moved
to Brookville, Pennsylvania and opened a bakery on Main Street. A modern oven
that could hold a constant heat, perfect for crusty breads and delicate sweets.
But when Nat hung out his shingle, he was dealing with stuff other than the sweet
stuff. Three children and a daughter-in-law lived with him in the apartment
above the bakery. Within a year, the daughter-in-law died in childbirth. That
same year, a granddaughter was born blind. Two more granddaughters and a
grandson died the following year. Knowing Nat, he bristled at small things, grumbled
at kitchen help, punished the dough with his fists, ramming his wordless homage
into yeast rolls, sold to customers who spread them with jam and ate unknowing.
Then his youngest daughter,
Helen, and her husband moved in. Who knows what Nat thought when Helen married John
Frazier, a newcomer, come to Brookville to establish a new industry—horse
racing. I’m guessing Nat took John’s ambitions in stride, maybe went out to see
that plot of level ground John wanted to buy and build horse stables, a race
track, start a racing association. Nat didn’t invest in John’s schemes, but eventually
the tables turned. John became business partner with Nat. They registered the
corporate name, Huth & Frazier, and modernized baking operations, streamlined
delivery of bread around town, won prizes for their baked goods at country fairs.
Maybe John’s horses stopped
winning races or maybe Helen begged him to quit traveling so much, stay home now
that they were expecting a child. Maybe it was the lure of a well-stocked
bakery, begging to be expanded into a retail chain. Apricot tarts, pfeffernüsse,
raisin biscuits, shortbread, laid out in precise rows. Trays of butter küchen
and almond crusted French bread. Layer cakes, custard pies. Stacks of light and
dark breads and rolls. Oh, that tantalizing yeasty aroma. Oh, the lusciousness
of it all. Oh, the sales potential.
I own all sorts of baking
pans. Square, round, sheet, bundt, loaf, mini-muffin, muffin-top, brioche,
spring-form, tart. But I have never owned a lady-lock pan. I didn’t know such a
thing existed and it didn’t, until Nat Huth invented it in 1914. And with this
invention, I realized I didn’t know Nat as well as I thought. But this I know:
lady-locks were all the rage, like oysters, at the turn of the century. Fulhorns in German. Puff paste horns
filled with sweet buttercream or pie dough horns filled with savory cheeses. This
delicacy could be filled with almost anything, if it was finely minced and
sauced. I’ll bet Nat would cook up a dozen lady-locks filled with creamed
oysters if you asked him.
There was such a demand for
lady-locks, he had to invent a new devise to bake them faster. Instead of
rolling out rich pastry dough late at night, I figure he was over at the
machine works, cutting tin sheets into exact forms, bending them with a forcer,
applying solder, the bead of molten metal like thin royal icing flowing over his
arthritic fingers, stinging. Tiny bits of sparking metal showering the lard-soaked
apron he forgot to take off, so weary, dropping the arc welder, slapping at his
apron before it could combust and burnish his wrinkled skin. But someone was
there to keep fire watch because soldering is “hot work,” the risk of fire
ever-present. Burns, heat stress, heat stroke.
Decades
later, folks in Brookville would wander into Uzi’s Pastries on Main Street and
ask for buttercream lady-locks, but they were out of luck. Nat was the last
baker in town who made them, just across the street at Vienna Bakery. It’s a
pizza parlor now. Still standing after all these years. Amazing it never burned
down. Baking is hot work. Ovens, stoves, gridirons, broilers. Fired up ten
hours a day, spilling out temptation. In those days the walls glistened with
butter, the air was cinnamony and Nat’s skinny wrists, protruding from rumpled
shirt sleeves, quivered.
Father Huth they called him.
When he asked his children and grandchildren to come over, they left their homes
straightaway and gathered round the pastry table, eager to taste the latest concoction
in his search for culinary goodness. When he won blue ribbons for lofty loaves
of bread, I’m sure his wife displayed them in the sales room. When he created a
four-tier wedding cake festooned with doves and blossoms, they took his
photograph, in batter-smeared apron, next to the cake. And on the day of his
funeral, businesses in Brookville closed. In honor of the slumped and inelegant
bakerman who made them the staff of life and indulgent confections.
There are a couple of things, not-so-sweet
things, Nat didn’t know about. That his son-in-law never did turn Vienna Bakery
into a retail chain. That his daughter and a daughter-in-law were hospitalized at
the same state hospital for psychosis of an indeterminate nature. That his
grandson was a prisoner of war in World War II. That his great, great
granddaughter gazed at his photo and laughed at the sight of him. Then she cried
as she came to understand what his eyes, droopy and dispirited, had seen. What
his mouth, loll and parched, had tasted. His fingers, bent and swollen, had
touched.
Nathaniel Huth, Proprietor
of Vienna Bakery, c. 1910 Courtesy
of Jefferson County History Center, Brookville, PA
Joyce
H. Munro’s work can be found in Broad Street Review, NewsWorks,
Hippocampus, Minding Nature, The Copperfield Review, Topology, and
elsewhere. She writes about the people who kept a Philadelphia estate running
during the Gilded Age in “Untold Stories of Compton” on the Morris Arboretum
blogsite http://cms.business-services.upenn.edu/morrisarboretum-blog/.
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