Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article
November 6, 1988
By Jan Buffington
Vigo County Historical Society
It’s the pits--Device eased removal of cherry stones
While doing research for this week’s historical treasure, I was reminded of my summers at home growing up.
We had two cherry trees in our yard, and as soon as the cherries started to ripen, it was a constant fight to get them picked before the birds ate them. Then the tedious job of pitting began.
I always wanted to get the most done as quickly as possible so Mom had to keep “cautioning” me to slow down and take the seed only. (When you aren’t careful, you take all the fruit out with the seed, leaving only the skin.) I grumbled to myself about the juice running up my arm and dreamed about getting rich by inventing a machine to do the job automatically.
Well, the machine already had been invented. In fact, many styles of cherry stoners were invented before 1900.
The object is to remove the seed without squashing the fruit, but some inventions didn’t work as well as others. One has a split hopper into which the cherries are fed. As a crank is turned, the cherries rub against a slightly ridged plate. This extracts the seeds, along with the juice and some pulp.
Another device is hand-held and pushes the stem and seed out, one cherry at a time.
The historical treasure for the week is a two-cherry, “Family Cherry Stoner,” made around 1895 by the Goodell Co. in Antrim, N.H. It clamps onto a table and has several sections to it.
On one side is a slanted, double-grooved trough where cherries are placed. The fruit rolls down to holes at the center of the device. Two-pronged, curved rods attached to a hinge are pushed into the fruit. The rods push out the seeds and the prongs hook into the fruit. As the rods are raised, the fruit is knocked off the prongs as they pass by a metal place. The cherries then drop onto a slanted chute which feeds the fruit into a bowl. This seems to be an ingenious device; it also can be used on olives.
When the pits are removed, all that is left is to use the fruit in a favorite recipe. Most people like to use cherries in pie.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.