It’s cranberry season. Wild cranberries have long been harvested in Easton, beginning with Indigenous people well before the first colonists arrived. Among the areas in town where cranberries were harvested were the Little Cedar Swamp (near Pine Grove Cemetery off Foundry Street) and along Whitman’s Brook not far from the Town Hall on Elm Street. Cranberries like to grow in wet boggy areas. At the turn of the century cranberries were dry harvested, not wet harvested- (by flooding bogs with water). By the early 20th century cranberries were more commonly harvested by machines, whereas before the picking was done by hand.  In the late 19th century Easton school children were hired to pick cranberries during the autumn harvest season. To do so, they often missed school to work an 8-hour day, but they could make up to a dollar a day, so this was incentive enough. The children were watched by adults who oversaw that they picked thoroughly as many cranberries hid beneath the thick-growing vines. Apparently, children’s nimble fingers were superior to adults’, although mothers often picked with their children. According to an article in the Boston Globe, published Sept. 23, 1895, the area known as North Easton Meadows was where the mothers, children- and the occasional tramp in need of tobacco money-, picked. The pickers were noticed by passengers on the Old Colony Railroad traveling through Easton. The cranberry fields were on the western side of the track and near what would today be Stoughton conservation land. The berries would go from children’s buckets into bushel containers. A pail holding 6 quarts of berries would fetch 9 cents. Then the bushel containers were stored away to be winnowed, sorted, and put into barrels to go to market. Below is an easy cranberry sauce recipe from an 1845 cookbook.
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