John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1038

Before too long, but it may be a few days, photos of a Hauberg should be shown on the German Photo Page on the web.  I thought that I might discuss what will be seen there.

(Note from Webmaster:  I have posted the Fellinghausen/ Hauberg photos.  You can view them by clicking here .  GWD)

Several centuries ago, around the present town of Siegen, for a distance of many miles, a shortage developed in oak bark, for the tanneries, and in wood, for heating, cooking, and making charcoal for the metallurgical industry.  A solution evolved which was maintained until about a century ago.

Land was set aside, in what we might call a cooperative.  Apparently, ownership of a share went with ownership of a house.  The two seem inseparable.  One could not sell one's house without the share in the Hauberg going with the house.  A Hauberg, in total, was a defined piece of property, often on a hill top.  This property was divided into a fixed number of equal parts, perhaps about twenty parts, but sometimes varying from this.  These parts were used on the fixed cycle of twenty years.  At this time, the oak trees were big enough that their bark could be stripped and the tree cut down.  The bark went to the tannery.  The larger pieces of wood were used to make charcoal.  The small pieces of wood were used for heating and cooking.

The stumps were not grubbed out.  They were allowed to sucker up and start trees for the next cycle.  While waiting for the trees to grow, the ground was scratched over and grain was planted.  Until the trees were bigger, this agricultural use was another by-product.

In any one year, as a shareholder in a Hauberg, you might be cultivating grain on a number of the parts of the twenty-year cycle.  Every year there would be "wood and bark" harvesting time, on one of the parts in the twenty-year cycle.  As a shareholder, you would have your fractional part of this annual part.

You had to harvest your own part.  Starting in late winter, a "cooperative shareholder" would mark the area that he was entitled to by "claim stakes", which were driven into the ground to mark the boundaries of his plot.  Each of these stakes had a series of notches, which were one's unique code, in much the way that we marked hogs and cattle in times past.  Looking at the stakes, one could tell who was claiming an area.

One cleaned up the fallen branches and twigs, and these were saved as fuel.  Smaller branches were cut from the trees for a distance upward of perhaps twelve feet.  These were added to the wood pile for saving.  In the spring, while the trees are still standing, the bark is stripped from the trunk but it is not removed or cut loose at the top end.  Again, this was for a distance of perhaps twelve feet from the ground.  The use of a ladder was necessary.

I have capitalized the word Hauberg because we do not have an equivalent word.  So I am using the German word, which, as a noun, is always capitalized.
(27 Nov 00)