The original European settlers of the early 19th century were German and Swiss-German farmers who considered it only sensible to cultivate apple trees on their property. Many of them planted whole orchards.

From the annual fruit harvest they created apple-schnitz (dried slices of apple) for cooking. Another practice brought over from the motherland was the production of hard cider, which farmers did at home by leaving apples to partly ferment in water. Many 19th-century Sullivan County households would put a dozen barrels of the stuff in the cellar every fall.

During winters especially, they were often glad that they had. In 1953, an old-timer Sullivan County Record columnist recalled hearing about a farmer from the previous century who always sat and read at home while sipping from a small pitcher of homemade hard cider. The writer guessed that this had once been a typical practice, and that “in some instances I’m sure the reading was omitted.”  

Using special kettles, or stills, home distillers also produced more potent applejack and apple brandy. Technically, this was illegal, but until Prohibition, when some enterprising Sullivan County “moonshiners” made a killing by expanding operations, it was almost always done on a smaller scale.

Around the turn of the 20th century, apples were big business in western Sullivan County, and the area was famous for them. North Branch alone had several successful apple operations. The biggest of these was owned by the Schmidt family, who built a two-story warehouse and factory at Callicoon Station in 1903 and shipped their apples—as many as 168 railroad cars of them each fall—to nearly every state in the Union.