Ashes to Ashes

Say a Prayer for the Soap Maker

All pioneer women made their own soap, but even well into the twentieth century, this task was performed by the average housewife or domestic servant. Either way, it was a necessary skill to learn, but before you put up the soap, you had to make the lye, which was produced from collected hard-wood ashes.

My Great-Uncle and Aunts

The Cook Not Mad Kingston, Ontario - 1831

'To Put up a Leach: Say a Large Tierce' ... I'm not making this up, but before I go any further, you have to remember that Kingston at the time had a very large Scottish population, and in case you're wondering; the term 'Leach' was then given to a perforated vessel where the ashes were placed and then water run through to produce the Lye. A 'tierce' was a unit of liquid measure, roughly the equivalent ot 42 gallons. "First you got out your Leach full of hard-wood ashes that were collected all winter and "Lay sticks across the bottom, then a covering of straw, one peck of lime should come next, after which the ashes, these to be well beaten down several times in the course of filling up, pouring in a pail of water each time after pounding. If you are in no hurry for your lie (sic) water your leach occasionally until it shows a disposition to run at the bottom, then stop up until you are ready to commence making soap. It will make two barrels."

Besides collecting the ashes for the soap, fats also had to be preserved, which came mainly from the fall killing and throughout the winter months. The Cook Not Mad gave the following directions: TO PRESERVE SOAP GREASE- "Make your cask clean, when you throw in fresh rinds or any thing of the kind, sprinkle salt enough to preserve it, the same when you put down hog's inwards, and be as careful to keep it tight as any other meat and you will have no disagreeable smell, nor waste of grease "

Straw was used to prevented the coarser ashes from plugging up the hole. Now before the lye was ready for use it had to be tested. The most popular method was the' egg float test', as described in 'A Treatise on Domestic Economy', published in New York in 1849: "First drop your egg into the lye and if the egg rise so as to show a circle as large as a ten cent piece, the strength is right; if it rise higher the ley (lye) must be weakened by water; if not so high, the ashes are not good, and the whole process must be repeated, puttin in fresh ashes, and running the weak ley through the new ashes, with some additional water." Soap-Making was a science, and as such not always successful, but to the superstitous Canadians, there were several things that would help you along, including stirring a certain way and even asking God to 'Bless the Soapmaker'. But if you'd made it this far with your ashes and greae, The Cook Not Mad provided this recipe 'To Make Boiled Soap.' "For a barrel take thirty-five pounds of scraps or other grease that is made daily in a family and put half the quantity into a five pail kettle, a pailful of strong lie (sic) boil it thoroughly with a moderate fire or it will run over, then keep adding strong lie until full, put it in a barrel and add weak lie. Then take the other half of the grease and proceed as before.". In the 1868 Canadian Edition of Dr. Chase's Recipes, there are instructions for making "One hundred pounds of Good Soap for $1.30 - Sal-soda and lard each 6 lbs; stone lime 2 lbs; soft water 4 gals; dissolve the lime and soda in the water, by boiling, stirring, settling and pouring off; then return to the kettle (brass or copper) and add the lard and boil until it becomes soap; then pour into a dish or moulds, and when cold cut it into bars and let dry". Favourite substitutes for soap included pine or fir sawdust, and fine sand was often added to softened soap to help scrub the grime off working men and little boys.

First Lessons in Agriculture Egerton Ryerson - 1870 The Manufacture and Use of Soap

"The Manufacture and use of soap form an important part of domestic economy. When oily or fatty substances come in contact with an alkali in solution at an elevated temperature, they undergo an entire change; and on this change the whole process of soap-making depends. "The soap usually made in the farm-house is that known as soft soap, and is formed by the union of potash with more or less fatty matter. Hard soaps are made by the use of soda, with which potash is sometimes mixed. Potash will not harden when water is present, as it always is in considerable quantities in soft soap. But soap made with soda will absorb more than its own weight of water without losing its hardness." CASTILE SOAP - "In making Castile soap, olive oil and soda are used, and it's peculiar marbled appearance is produced by the mixture of iron rust, which, of course, does not improve the qualityof the soap. Rosin is often added in the manufacture of common or yellow soaps. Though rosin soaps form a lather readily and are thus thought by many to be very effective, their cleansing properties are inferior to the soda soaps, and they are less economical. "The cleansing properties of soap depend mainly on its alkaline ingredients. When brought into contact with impurities of clothing, or of the skin which are made up of a greater or less quantity of oily matter derived from the exhalations of the body, together with dust and other foreign substances, the alkali of the soap readily seizes hold of the oily matters and dissolves or removes them. But if water is used without soap, it often fails to cleanse thoroughly, as it has no affinity for oily substances, and therefore leaves them, and whatever adheres to them, in the cloth or on the skin. An alkali might be used alone, but it would be so powerful as to injure or destroy whatever it came in contact with. Washing fluids are simple solutions of caustic alkali."

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