Sweet Violets

SWEET VIOLETS

by Barbara Thompson

In the late 1890's and the early years of this century, raising fragrant violets on a commercial basis became a fad of epidemic proportions in the Northern Dutchess towns, extending even into Milan. Like a purple thunderstorm it came, looming on the Southern horizon, sweeping in with a burst of fragrant glory fading away with a few reminiscent rumblings to leave little sign of its path or intensity.

These violets were not the native wood violet but a separate family, Violata Odorata or Sweet Violet. There were doubles, semi-doubles and singles of purple, blue, lavender and white. Marie Louise was the one most people grew. It was a large double "blue" with blooms an inch or more across and stems that were eight or nine inches long. The most fragrant of them all and queen of the market place; a bunch of 100 would sell for $3.00, $4.00 if Easter was late.

Contrary to local opinion, violet culture did not originate in Rhinebeck during the "elegant eighties", but were raised forty years earlier in England in sunken pits. They came to New York City in the 60's and 70's where they were grown in cold frames on the West Side and in the Bronx. With improvements in railroading after the Civil War, the lucrative venture spread rapidly up the Hudson Valley, reaching final refinements of being grown in greenhouses in Poughkeepsie (Violet Avenue) and in Rhinebeck and Red Hook.

Many theories have been expounded as to why it was here and nowhere else that violets were grown on such a tremendous scale. Some are reasonable, some are just plain nonsense. Considering the nature of the flower itself it would seem that the success of a commercial violet business depended primarily on three things: rapid access to a large and stable market (New York City via the railroad) , an abundance of cheap hand labor and a continuing supply of rich soil which had to be replaced every year.

Rhinebeck was hailed as "the violet capital of the world" and so it was with 115 growers. Red Hook had a share with 350,000 square feet under the glass of forty growers. Milan's men watched the new industry for only a few years before they joined the growing ranks in 1904. By 1912 Milan had 15 growers and 111,430 square feet under glass.

Franklyn Shafer in Rock City had two greenhouses in 1904 as did Bartlett Demarest over on Enterprize Road near the Rhinebeck town line. Curtis Williams and William Lamoree came in the following year. 1906 saw Fred and Frank Battenfeld, Clarence Sherwood, Martin Fingar and William Yates putting up houses. In 1908 violet culture had spread to its easternmost limits: Alfred Link, William Warner (Link's Corners), Frank Jacoby and George and Alvah Shelley were in. The last two growers to join were Elmer Doyle in 1909 and Joseph Moore in 1910.

The "Halycon era" lasted two more years and then the purple haze began to dissipate with the small backyard growers dropping out one by

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one. By 1929 there were only three left in Milan and only Richard Battenfeld still growing violets until 1956 when he finally turned to full production of Hybrid Anemones.

Construction of the greenhouses was a fairly simple operation and a single crop of violets in the boom days would pay for the cost (generally around $3000) three or four times over. The low houses averaged 20 or 24 feet wide and 100 to 200 feet long. The violet beds were ground beds about 21 /2 feet high. Two aisles, 16 inches wide, between the beds made use of every possible inch for the flowers. The glass panes were commonly 12 x 14 and on zero degree and windy nights would have to be sprayed with water to seal the cracks in order to hold the heat. The houses were built into a slope with an 18 inch drop for 200 feet and the heat was supplied by a hot water gravity system.

Most of the growers in Milan used coal, although Clarence Sherwood always used wood and Bill Warner had a kerosene heater for his 14 x 70 house. Hard coal in the early days ran about $4 a ton and was delivered in a gondola to the freight switch behind Iry Fraleigh's farm in Red Hook. One car load or 60 tons would take care of two houses during a normal winter. In 1917 everyone was using wood because of the war and people remember it as being one of the most bitter.

The violet industry was well timed to make use of the available labor during the off season for farming. Men and teams were needed in the spring to haul dirt from the beds and replace it with fresh topsoil. Carpenters, boiler stokers, glaziers were all needed, but the bulk of the work went to the pickers and bunchers during the season from Feb. 1 through the end of April. Seventeen or eighteen people would be employed if a grower had three houses and four or five would be working full time. School vacations were arranged for the height of the season and it was usually for 12 year olds as well as the women to help "on the boards".

The picking boards were 10 inch wide planks that rested just above the violets, suspended by the edge of the beds and the pipes. The picker would lie on the board to reach the center of the beds and also the side beds. Imagine doing that for a dollar a day from seven till five o'clock. Some can remember being paid 75 cents a day and 50 cents during the winter when they would stay at the house for a hot lunch instead of making the long trek back home.

The end of the boom came gradually but with certainty. The first to go were the ones who did it as -a source of supplemental income and usually had one house. William Lamoree whose 200 x 20 house was valued at $1200 from 1905 until 1911, posted a value of $250 from 1912 to 1914 as being not in use and was torn down in 1915. This was the general pattern and the Shelleys, Moore and Warner were out in the same year. One by one they disappeared with the houses either being torn down or reduced in size until in the early thirties only William Yates, John Juranic and Fred Battenfeld were left.

The First World War was the underlying cause of the demise. It levelled the strata of society and brought the Victorian woman to the age

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of suffragettes and flappers, neither of whose styles would support a bouquet of violets, beginning a trend that continues to this day. Costs skyrocketed, the violet market began shifting to the midwest and the exodus off the farms had begun by the twenties. This was the final blow to an industry that needed large amounts of hand labor to make one bouquet, one corsage out of 100 flowers.

There is scant sign of the houses now to be reminded of yesteryear unless you know where to look. Down at Link's Corners beside the old salt box house in the hollow, part of Alf Link's violet house still stands; only the foundations of the Battenfeld Bros.'s houses on Milan Hill Road can be seen adjacent to Camp Eton; the boiler pits of John Cotting's houses lie hidden behind the Rock City Cemetery and are visible only in winter.

The only ones left in Milan are Frank Jacoby's original two houses now owned by Richard Battenfeld and particularly suited to the culture of Hybrid Anemones rather than the Sweet Violets.

DOCUMENTATION "Fragrant Violets", Nelson Coon, January 1932 Morse "History of Rhinebeck" Assessment Books — Town of Milan: 1904-1940 Poughkeepsie Journal Articles — 1951 Interviews with Richard Battenfeld and others.

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