Carley Brook Road, Berlin Township As we travel through Wayne County's farmlands. we occasionally see a small springhouse similar to the one illustrated here. Springhouses go back to colonial times and served as the refrigeration of their day. It was a small structure made from stone or wood, and built either over a spring or the spring water was piped to where the springhouse was constructed. A trough built through the running water cooled jars and crocks of milk, butter, eggs, etc. A water dipper was always part of those springhouses, because on a hot summer day nothing tasted better than a dipper of cold water from a running spring. Later some dairy farmers built a deep trough in their springhouses and used them to cool milk. Cows were milked both in the evening and early morning. The evening's milk was put in 40-gallon cans and placed in a springhouse (or milk house) until the following morning. Then the milk was taken to the local creamery where it was processed for distribution. Probably some farmers used springhouses from the time they first settled in Wayne County until the second half of the twentieth century, when the bulk tanks became part of the dairy industry. Two generations of the Fritz family (the late Edward Fritz and son Robert) owned this farm for approximately fifty years.

This page was one month of the calendar and was made possible through the Wayne County Commissioners and a Tourism Promotion Committee’s Tourism Grant.