We also invited our neighbors
and fellow townsmen to come and drink at our spring.
Very soon orders began to come in. The name itself, the Rose-Quartz
Spring, was fortunate, for it conveyed a suggestion of crystal purity;
that with the analysis induced numbers of people in the great cities,
especially in Chicago, to try it.
Less was known in 1868 than now of the precautions that it is necessary
to take in sending spring water to distant places, in order to insure
its keeping pure. Little was known of microbes or antisepsis.
The old Squire and Addison decided that they would have to send the
water to their customers in kegs of various sizes and in barrels; but as
kegs made of oak staves, or of spruce, would impart a woody taste to the
water, they hit upon the expedient of making the staves of sugar-maple
wood. The old Squire had a great quantity of staves sawed at his
hardwood flooring mill, and at the cooper shop had them made into kegs
and barrels of all sizes from five gallons' capacity up to fifty
gallons'. After the kegs were set up we filled them with water and
allowed them to soak for a week to take out all taste of the wood before
we filled them from the spring and sent them away.
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