"topping out" traditions of the high-steel ironworkers, The

Western Folklore, Fall 2001 by Robinson, John V

Bradley elaborates further in a footnote where he writes that the occasion

called for some show of largess on the part of the builder [and] gave rise to the common expression "a tree, a treat." The treat is reported to have been a keg of beer, a picnic, or a gift of groceries to the workman (1954: 22).

The use of the evergreen tree as a symbol of good luck for American builders is also discussed briefly by Eric Sloane, in A Reverence for Wood, where he recounts finding the desiccated remains of a small tree nailed to the gable of an old barn he was dismantling. Sloane was told that the tree was called a "wetting bush," an old New England custom used in the christening ceremony to bring luck to the structure (1965: 37-38).

The observations about the custom made by Hand, Bradley, and Sloane are instructive in a couple of ways. First, when Hand reported it, it was thought to be a rare enough occurrence in America that it was news worthy. Rather than a traditional custom observed by the craftsmen, Hand tells us that the homeowner researched and revived the tradition. In short, treating folklore as an archaic vestige of a bygone era, and not a living custom still in practice. Likewise, Sloane, a master carpenter, tells us he was only vaguely aware of the tradition, and his description of the custom implies that he had never seen it in practice. From these various accounts published 17 years apart we can infer the custom was no longer in general practice among carpenters. The tradition of topping out structures with an evergreen tree and treating the workers to some form of libation may have fallen out of favor with carpenters, but it has been preserved among the modern ironworkers.

There are many accounts in print that affirm the importance of alcohol in raising a structure without any mention of a tree ceremony. For example, in Hands that Built New Hampshire there is the story of how a lack of rum provoked an early labor strike. In 1774, while raising the Sandown meeting house, the supply of rum ran out 'just as the workmen were about to put on the roof; so the men refused to work for half a day while a messenger was sent down to Newburyport for another half-barrel" (W.P.A. 1940: 26). This account does not tell us the final disposition of the building being raised, but the implication is that with the arrival of the rum, calm was restored and the job was completed.

Indeed, the practice of plying workmen with alcohol was once so pervasive that it provoked Richard Dillon (1952) to ask "Can a Building Be Raised Without Whiskey?" Dillon, quoting from N.B. Northrop's Pioneer History of Medina County (1861), writes:

In pioneer days it was a universal practice to furnish whiskey at house or barn raisings.... Capt. John Stearns had got everything in readiness and had fixed upon a day to raise his new barn, when it was discovered that no whiskey could be bought, or even borrowed in the township [Brunswick, Ohio], and more unfortunate still, that none could be had nearer than Talmadge. To go to that place and return would require two days. Mr. Stearns made known the matter to some of his neighbors who told him that under the present circumstances they thought perhaps the barn might be raised, though they could not fully approve of his course in not seeing about the whiskey sooner. On the day appointed, the people assembled, went to work, raised the barn and from that circumstance made the wise discovery that a building could be safely and speedily built without the use of whiskey (108).