The Bake Oven at Old Fort Johnson

The outdoor Bread Oven at Old Fort Johnson, got its start sometime during the summer of 2002. I was dayhopping to Crown Point to hang out with my newly joined unit, Schuyler’s Company. It was there, that I saw bread goods being sold in front of a round outdoor oven. Later that day I posed to our group that we might create a traditional outdoor oven at the Fort. About a full year passes before all the stars align one bleak weekend at a F&I Muster at the Fort. The materials have been gathered. Plans have been made, and just as I like it, nothing is drawn out or put on paper to follow! Yet it all “comes together”, as they say.Log base, Fire Brick floor, Clay with Straw stamped into it, and a crude willow basket is formed to build the beehive shaped oven chamber onto. The next pages show the process we went through to create a workable bread oven that has served us well for six seasons.

By the end of the 2009 season it had become obvious, that multiple yearly repairs could not stop the deterioration of the oven structure. We limped through this season. But a replacement had to be considered. See the next page for what will be our new working Bread Oven for 2011.

Carrying bags of mortar. Mixing, shoveling, spreading, troweling. Using blocks and bricks. At first I thought is would be much easier than hauling buckets of fresh clay from a creek bed. Maybe it was. But the experience gained far outweighs the weeks of labor. The 2011 tentative opening day event will be Dutch Foodways. More info this soon, at www.oldfortjohnson.org.

The new Bread Oven takes shape.