Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, June 24, 1997

Big freeze brought Steen's first batch of syrup

by Jim Bradshaw

Or maybe it was 1910. There's a bit of a mystery about that.

Here is that story:

Elias Steen , a native of Pennsylvania, was the first of the family to settle in Louisiana, getting here after a stopover in Kentucky. He married Catherine Stelly of Opelousas in 1809 and they settled in the Arnaudville area. They did pretty well for themselves, but lost practically everything they had to marauders during the Civil War.

Their son, Sidney, married Mary Marie Reynolds, and they farmed sugar cane in Iberia Parish.

Their son, Charles Sidney, became a blacksmith, machinist, and wheelwright. He opened a shop in Perry's Bridge just before the turn of the century, then moved to Main Street in Abbeville in 1898. He built a large blacksmith shop there, and also a saw mill, a corn mill, and, later a cotton gin. He also raised cane on property in the country.

According to family accounts, it was in 1911, that there was an early, hard freeze that left Charles Sidney's crop of 600 tons of cane frozen in the field. The nearest refinery was 6 miles away and the only transportation to it was by wagon to the railroad switch, where each farmer was allowed to transport only one load (about three tons) a day.

Charles Sidney knew that the cane would sour if he let it sit, and that sour cane would mean a huge financial loss. So he bought a small syrup mill from a local hardware store and tried to boil his cane juice before it went bad.

According to the old reports, that first batch wasn't the best syrup ever made. It's described in the family history a "three barrels of putrid, thick, sour syrup."

But Steen kept trying. The next year he planted more sugar cane, and with the cooperation of the elements, he ground his cane crop at the right stage, producing a much more appetizing product. Other farmers began to haul sugar cane to the new mill, and to take home a barrel or so of sweet syrup in return. Before too long the mill could barely keep up with the demand for Steen's Pure Blue Ribbon Cane Syrup.

The mystery about the date of the freeze? The sign on the door at the Steen's syrup mill in Abbeville says that it was established in 1910. That would have been the year before the freeze, even though the old accounts put the freeze in 1911.

Charles Steen who is Charles Sidney's great-grandson and the present proprietor of the business, says he hasn't a clue about the dates. The best he can figure is that the freeze was in 1911, but that it was the 1910 crop that was still in the field.

This article is copyrighted © by the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser and is used with permission.  This web site was originated through a grant awarded to Carencro High School (Joel Hilbun/Bobbi Marino, Grant Administrators) by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund - 8(g).