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Wormseed Industry in Maryland

As told by Sydney Lehr
Carroll County, Maryland

Story Narrative:

Don Lewis of Maryland wears a blue shirt and has a white mustache.

Don Lewis sits down with Sydney Lehr to discuss the Wormseed Industry in Carroll County Maryland, in conjunction with the Carroll County Farm Museum, Union Mills Homestead, Historical Society, Maryland. He explains what wormseed is, how it was used, and how it impacted Carroll County agriculture in the 1930's and 1940's.

Don Lewis (00:01): Hi, I'm Don Lewis. I was part of the committee that was formed about three years ago when a couple of old distillation pots or kettles were found on a piece of county property and then the farm museum got the idea of what they ought to do because of the uniqueness of this product to the area, to put an exhibit together here at the farm museum and I was called along with a few other guys to design how that would be set up, trying to make it like a deuced feed basically. And given what we were starting with, which is a couple of cast iron kettles with the bottom's rusted out, it wasn't much. So I was challenged by somebody to find them a real distillation system, find a real warm seat still. Which turned out to be quite an undertaking and that even though there were a huge number of these that existed in kind of a tri-county area, Carol Howard and Frederick, that they had pretty much all disappeared because of the lack of business, a lack of product to produce.

Don Lewis (01:13): So I did an eyes on, hands on look for from a document that was done by the, I guess it was Montgomery County Historical Society of one that was on Camptown road. I went to the spot where that was the last one that was known and it was gone, but I happened to be able to talk to a lady that was there that said, "You ought to go talk to Robert and Rosie Day that live in Ijamsville area, near Frederick. There'll be able to tell you more."

Don Lewis (01:47): And when I went there, I found out they had one that had been sitting there idle for like 40 years. They had bought the pieces, put it together. And so talked with them about donating it to the farm museum, which they agreed to do and here we are. Worm seed it's a weed basically that grows in this region fairly often, still can find it growing as a weed, but it was discovered in the late 1800's, I guess it was, that it actually could be used, or the oil from the seeds of the worm seed plant, could be used as an agent against worms, whether it be human or animal intestinal worms, roundworm, hookworm, that kind of a thing.

Don Lewis (02:35): The needs primarily were that of intestinal worms and animals. It was also used in humans, but there was a problem and that the toxicity, it's a very, very toxic material. So getting the dose right was important. But unlike today, and when we have very, very strong analytical equipment to be able to test for what the quality of the strength, if you will, of the material would be. All they used at that point in time was a hydrometer measuring specific gravity. So that's as good as it got. There was still a need for material and given that need, it was being laboratory produced. And the business basically phased out in the '60's. The still that the days ran did run up until early '70's for a very, very niche market. Now beyond the animal use intestinal worms, it was also used in paints for the halls of ships, because it would kill any of the sea worms that would start to eat the wood.

Don Lewis (03:39): So the Germans used a lot of this material and the paint for their ships. And secondly, the clipper ships, they used to sail so much in the day, used it as well. I mean, it is an oil that comes out of the seed and that is what is recovered, packaged, and shipped to the people that will put the compound together to be given to an animal or back in the day, a human within that. Given the time, I mean, back in the 1920's through 1950's, it was a very significant product for the farmers. The kettles or pots, what I would call from a professional aspect a distillation pot, but at the time it was called a kettle, would be filled with the dried worm seed plant. The whole plant would go into the kettle. And they would stomp as much in there, literally stomp it in, humans would get in on top of it and pound it down to get as much packed into these kettles as possible.

Don Lewis (04:40): Typically they were five to six foot in diameter and maybe four to six foot tall. And then it would be sealed up on the top. All of them had a steam boiler that would generate steam that would be charged into the bottom of these kettles, build up some pressure, and then the vapor would then be released through a condenser. They called them trawls. So basically a series of pipes that would run through a wooden trough filled with water. And out of the other end of the pipe would come the liquid. Now the liquid in that case was the condensed oil and water from the steam, but the oil would co-distill with the steam. And then when it came out of the end of the pipe as liquid and put into drums, then they would decant, take any oil, the lighter layer off the top. And that was your product.

Don Lewis (05:33): In spite of it not working. And I should add on I guess, it's the last one in the world. It's the last one that we know of.

Speaker 2 (05:55): Wow. This distillery?

Don Lewis (05:57): This is the only one there be.

Speaker 3 (05:58): Oh wow.


Asset ID: 8581
Themes: Crossroads, small towns, agriculture, history, architecture, preservation, living history, museums
Date recorded: 2017
Length of recording: 6:09 m
Related traveling exhibition: Crossroads: Change in Rural America
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Carroll County Farm Museum, Union Mills Homestead, Maryland
More information: See additional stories from Carroll County, Maryland

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