Machinery from a Distant Past Nearby
As we walk about the grounds of our village, the presence of the past is easily felt and seen, especially in the equipment that can be found standing quietly here and there.
They are the discarded artifacts of another time, and haunt our pathways today like mechanical ghosts, souvenirs of archaic technologies: waterwheel, steam engine and early electricity.
Charles Beardsley was the first to retrieve them from the creek where they had been jettisoned as unnecessary over the past century. It was his fine eye for historical significance that had first recognized the potential of the Village as a commercial destination, and so he well understood the value of these relics. They are, after all, the actual equipment that had been put to use by workers at the winery as far back as the 19th Century.
Visitors often stop to ask what they are, and what they were for. This is a first attempt at discussing what I've learned about them so far. If any of you reading this can add information, or correct any of my assumptions, your comments are more than welcome.
At the corner of the deck of my cabin, nearest the parking lot, is a stemmer-crusher made of cast iron and sheet metal, with its galvanized sheet metal bin nearby. Machines like this are still in use in wineries today to tear the grape berries from their stems and break them open.
Bunches of grapes were thrown into the hopper at the top, and as the stems and leaves were combed toward the waiting bin, the grapes would fall through the holes of the colander to be pumped out as pulp by a two-piston pump, which can be seen on the side of the machine. The entire sequence was driven by sets of gears that were powered by a belt-driven flywheel, probably using an electric motor like the one near my door.
An older stemmer-crusher stands farther along, between the two small decks. Although it is made in much the same design, it has a wooden frame lined with sheet metal, and an older cast iron grinding mechanism under the wooden hopper at the top. From it’s structure, condition and design, I’m guessing it was used by Chauvet in the late 19th Century, and perhaps by Felice Pagani, when he purchased the winery in 1913.
The presence of an assortment of steam pistons and pumps nearby help me to believe that this older stemmer-crusher was belt-driven by steam engines. The patent embossed into one of the pistons is dated September 27, 1887, so it seems Chauvet had shifted to steam power from the waterwheel sometime after it had caused the untimely death of his wife in 1876. A great furnace can be seen in the basement of the mill, with a boiler that would have generated the steam required to drive the pistons.
An odd-looking harrow-like mechanism lies next to the pistons, and I can’t quite tell what it was intended for. It looks too rudimentary to be the sort of farming implement that I had followed in the fields when I was young, as it broke up the clods of earth after the ground had been plowed. The peculiar hinging and catch-hooks make it seem instead like some kind of mechanical sifter or stirrer.
Beyond the stair that leads down to the lower decks, another curious machine stands sentinel. A platform with mounts for an electric motor is built into the front, and pistons on either side seem ready to be turned by a belt-driven flywheel fixed to one side. My guess is that this could be some sort of corking device, or perhaps a pump. A few feet further on an old drive shaft rests on the ground all by itself; how it fit into the industrial scene can no longer be easily figured.
What is certainly a pump can be found across the path, hidden under the shrubbery below Jack's outdoor dining area. The name “Jacuzzi Bros Inc” is clearly visible, which makes it an early 20th Century souvenir since the seven inventive Jacuzzi Brothers had not emigrated to America from Italy until the turn of that century. The pump sits on a cement platform covering what Alejo believes must be the original well Chauvet had dug for his family.
At the entrance to the mill, under the stair leading to the second floor balcony, two millstones are on display. These are the stones that Chauvet’s father, a millwright, had bought with him from France in 1853 (give or take a year).
Pause a moment as you look at these stones and consider: they had been brought by sea around the Horn on a voyage that would have taken almost a year, purely on speculation that they would help establish a thriving business in the New World. The stones were carried from place to place about the small towns and goldfields of California until finally they were brought here, at the confluence of Asbury and Sonoma Creeks in 1856— 150 years ago.
Down near the footbridge, a winepump on its cart is nosed up against a patient tree. I can easily identify it because I used one just like this for several years while working my way through college at a wineshop where customers brought jugs to be filled.
The electric motor drove a belt that ran a flywheel on the pump, which moved wine from one barrel to another. The motor seems about the same vintage as the one at the door of my cabin, so I’m guessing this too was Pagani’s.
There are many other pieces of equipment scattered about that date back to other times. Several basket presses (without their turnscrew mechanisms) can be found, and of course there is the waterwheel and the still. I hope to learn more, and write more about them later.
The next time you consider any one of them, place your own hands where hands would have grasped wood or iron, and think of the men (and women) who labored as hard as these macines, each urging the other on.
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This article originally appeared in The Jack London Villager February 2007.