Enjoy the rare opportunity to have an expert historian personally transport and guide you through a unique chapter in the history of Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom and learn about the people and places responsible for St. Johnsbury, Vermont being named the Maple Center of the World.
The tour will be led by maple industry historian and author Dr. Matthew Thomas, the leading expert on the history of the Cary Maple Sugar and Maple Grove companies.
Travelling by bus, participants will enjoy a narrated tour that will visit over a dozen locations in and around St. Johnsbury that are important in the history of the Cary and Maple Grove Companies. As a special souvenir, participants will receive a one-of-a-kind companion guide authored by Dr. Thomas, that features historic images and information on the sites visited on the tour.
This tour is offered as special event during the Kingdom Maple Festival in downtown St. Johnsbury.
Details: Advanced registration is required. Limited to the first 50 registrations! Please note that your registration is not complete until you checkout and pay the Tour fee. Thank you!
Cost: $75.00
Date: Saturday, April 20, 2024
Time: 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Location: Starting and Ending at the St. Johnsbury Depot
Download this flyer to share information about this event.
Modern example of the oval syrup flask with the little round handle.
When thinking of iconic symbols or popular images related to the maple syrup industry, one that quickly comes to mind is the glass flask shaped syrup bottle with the little round handle on the neck. Use of this bottle is unique to the maple industry and is instantly associated with pure maple syrup. About ten years ago a blog post claimed that the appearance or continued presence of the small handle on the neck of this bottle was a hold-over or an artifact of past designs for syrup jugs. Such elements are something known as a skeuomorph, “a retained but no longer functional stylistic feature.” The same Brooklyn Brainery blog writer went on to say “that the handles are a remnant from when most jars were large earthenware containers. The handle’s useful when you’re carrying five pounds of liquid, but not so much when you can easily grab the whole bottle in the palm of your hand.”
Perhaps, a better explanation comes from Jean-François Lozier, a Curator at the Canadian Museum of History, who was quoted online in a Canadian Reader’s Digest article to say, “maple syrup companies weren’t so much retaining an old pattern of a jug as reinventing it and wanting to market their product as something nostalgic.” Lozier, went on to add, “they were tying in the image of maple syrup with their product and the image that people still had of those crocks in the 19th-century.”
Drawing for Brooks D. Fuerst’s 1951 design patent for the oval syrup flask (USD162147).
While it is true that the little handles on the bottles have the appearance of being something of a holdover or throwback design element that was intended to show a connection to bottles and jugs of the past, the fact is that we really do not know why the bottle was designed with a little handle. What we do know is who first designed and manufactured that bottle, and by what company and when the bottle was first used for selling maple syrup. Brooks D. Fuerst of Sylvania, Ohio, was awarded with the design patent (USD162147) for the bottle in February 1951, after applying for the patent in June of 1949.
Image of a young Brooks D. Fuerst.
Brooks Fuerst (1905-1998) was an experienced designer of glass bottles and jars for food and liquid packaging and worked extensively with the Owens-Illinois Glass Company and the Libbey Glass Company, both in Toledo, Ohio, a place that is sometimes called the Glass Capital of the World.
The design for the syrup flask with the little handle on the neck was given the uninspiring title of “jug or the like” and it should be noted that the shape of the small handle on the original design was not actually rounded, but was more angular with two sharp corners. Brooks Fuerst assigned the patent to the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, either through sale, contract, or as an employee of the company.
Early examples of Cary’s Maple Syrup in the 1951 Fuerst bottle. On the left a 8.5 ounce bottle and on the right a small 2.0 ounce sample size bottle.
The Fuerst flask was first used in 1950 by the Cary Maple Sugar Company of St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 2-ounce, 8-ounce, and 24-ounce sizes. At that time, the Cary company used the flask to bottle two kinds of syrup. One was their Cary’s 100% Pure Maple Syrup, the other was their Highland Brand blended syrup, a mixture of cane and maple syrup.
Advertisement from a 1950 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine for Highland Syrup, featuring the Brooks D. Fuerst bottle.
Prior to the introduction of the Cary’s brand pure maple syrup in 1948, the Cary Maple Sugar Company had used the Highland brand for bottling pure maple syrup since 1919. Highland brand blended syrup continued in use to the mid-1960s and appears to have been discontinued after the Childs-Fred Fear Company sold the Cary’s brand to HCA-Doxsee Foods in 1966. The Cary’s brand of maple syrup continues to be sold to this day by B & G Foods.
Advertisement for Cary’s Maple Maker concentrated syrup – May 1953 Los Angeles Times.
The Cary Maple Sugar Company also used the 8-ounce Fuerst flask from 1953 to 1957 to sell their unique “Maple Maker” a highly concentrated maple syrup in which one ounce of concentrate mixed with water and refined white sugar would produce 16 ounces of maple flavored table syrup. This product was aimed at a cost-conscious buyer that wanted to enjoy “home-made” maple flavored syrup at a fraction of the cost of 100% pure maple syrup.
This was not the first design for a maple syrup bottle by a Fuerst. In fact, Brooks Fuerst’s older brother Edwin W. Fuerst (1903-1988) designed a similar bottle over 15 years earlier. It should be noted that, then and to this day, design patents were protected for 14 years.
Image of Edwin W. Fuerst.
With Edwin W. Fuerst’s earlier design, the patent was applied for in December 1932 before obtaining former approval in February 1933. Like with the 1951 syrup flask, the 1933 design patent (USD89301) was assigned to the manufacturer, Owens-Illinois Glass Company. Also, like the 1951 design, the first maple syrup company to use the design was the Cary Maple Sugar Company, this time in 2, 8, 12, and 24-ounce sizes. Edwin Fuerst, like his younger brother, was an experienced commercial artist that lived in Toledo and worked closely with the Owens-Illinois and Libbey Glass companies. Like Brooks Fuerst, Edwin was awarded dozens of design patents for artistic glass containers as well as attractive cut glass tableware from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Drawing for Edwin W. Fuerst’s 1933 design patent for the round syrup flask (USD89301).
The design of Edwin Fuerst’s 1933 syrup bottle, was titled “design for a jug.” It had a rounder shape to the body than the 1951 bottle and also featured a virtually identical, small, seemingly useless angled handle at the neck. The 1933 bottle featured a thick rectangular base that made it much heavier and more stable than the later more oval flask design. In contrast, the later 1951 flask features a series of short decorative vertical flutes or concave scallops near the base which were absent from the earlier bottle.
Advertisement for Cary Maple Sugar Company’s Highland Maple Sap Syrup featuring Edwin Fuerst’s round bottle – January 1937 Chicago Tribune.
It is not known for sure, but it appears that the Cary Company may have had exclusive rights to use both the 1933 and the 1951 designs during the beginning years of the manufacturing of these bottles. However, we do know that Quebec Maple Products, LTD out of Lennoxville, Quebec, also used this design as early as 1935 with their Old Colony brand syrup. Quebec Maple Products, LTD was owned by Robert Boright who had a close history with the Cary Company, first as the manager of their Quebec plant, then as the temporary company president following the death of George Cary in 1931.
Examples of Highland Maple Sap Syrup bottles. 12 ounce bottle on left and smaller 2..0 ounce sample size bottle on right.
In fact, considering that the 1933 design was in the works and initially submitted for a patent in 1932 during the period that Boright oversaw the Cary Company operations, it is possible that it was Boright’s idea and initiative to introduce the new bottle.
Ontario newspaper advertisements for Quebec Maple Products, LTD use of the Edwin Fuerst bottle. Old Colony advertisement on left from February 1935 The Windsor Star and Old Tyme Syrup on the right from October 1958 The Windsor Star.
When Boright left the Cary company and started his own Quebec Maple Products, LTD in 1933, he certainly had the inside scoop on the availability of the new design. And as far as can be seen, Quebec Maple Products, LTD only used the 1933 bottle for sale of their syrup within Canada, so they likely would not have been competing with the Cary company in the US or violating exclusivity agreements or US patent laws. Quebec Maple Products LTD continued to use the 1933 round bottle design well into the 1960s with their Old Colony and Old Tyme Brand syrups.
Examples of two different containers of Little Brown Jug Syrup. The ceramic container from 1920s is on left and the 1930s glass design with the loop handle on the neck is on the right.
The 1933 Fuerst bottle curiously resembles another bottle introduced in the 1930s, that of Little Brown Jug syrup out of St. Louis, Missouri. When Little Brown Jug blended syrup was introduced in 1921 or 1922, it originally came in a ceramic container shaped like a thick round disc on its side with a large loop handle on the shoulder. That design (USD61415) was patented by Joseph Klein in 1922. Around 1934 the Little Brown Jug Products Company shifted to a brown glass bottle in a design that was similar to their earlier ceramic design, with the addition of some notable differences, which happened to make their glass jug very similar to the 1933 round jug of Fuerst, such as a round loop handle on the neck and a thick glass ring or ridge at the juncture of the neck and shoulder. Surprisingly, the glass version of the Little Brown Jug, which only appears in advertisements from 1934 onward, is embossed with the design patent number of their earlier, and different, ceramic jug. One would think the Little Brown Jug company would have also obtained a patent on their new, slightly modified, glass design, unless they were concerned with accusations of copying Fuerst and instead wanted to reply on the precedent of their earlier design patent. It is also possible that Fuerst did the design for the glass version of the Little Brown Jug, and a design patent was never applied for. So far, research has yet to uncover a patent specific to the 1930s design of the Little Brown Jug.
Interestingly, a check of the 1926 and the 1933 catalogs for the Owens- Illinois Glass Company shows the same reinforced ridge or ring at the neck was standard design element for loop handled bottles and jugs at that time.
Use of the 1951 Fuerst bottle by the maple industry in 1960s and 1970s was primarily limited to the large packing companies with national sales and shelf space in grocery chains. It was rarely offered for sale in the catalogs of maple equipment dealers. It wasn’t until the 1980s, with the growing availability and appreciation of specialty glass containers that the flask bottle became a popular option with individual maple producers. By the mid-1990s, the handle design evolved from an angular shape to its current rounded form, finalizing the shape we easily identify today as a symbol of real maple syrup.
A Short Lived Glass Jar but Uniquely Popular Among Bottle Collectors in the Modern Era
Matthew M. Thomas
Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Log Cabin Syrup paper label. From the collection of Scott Benjamine.
Among Ball jar collectors, the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Sure Seal jars are a widely sought-after series. These round jars and glass lids with a snap-down, Lightning style wire closure were manufactured in a unique 22-ounce size in the Ball Sure Seal shape exclusively for the Towle Maple Products Company and were not available or sold to the home canner. Often referred to in the Ball jar collector community as packer jars, product jars, or customer jars, these jars were originally filled with various brands of the Towle Company’s blended syrups for retail sale in shops and grocery stores, most notably the signature brand of Log Cabin Syrup.
Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Great Mountain Brand Syrup paper label. From the collection of John Patterson.
There are at least nine variations of the jars that can be divided into groups based on glass color, closure style, and embossing text. For example, most of the jars are Ball Blue in color and show the tell-tale circular scar from being made on the Owens automatic bottle making machine.
There is also a version that is clear in color, in the same dimensions and 22-ounce volume, but has the basal markings of having been manufactured on the Ball Bingham automatic bottle making machine. Other important distinguishing features are variations in the presence and absence and specific wording of the text embossed on the body of the jars.
Front and back faces of clear glass version of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with Lightning style beaded neck closure (RB 320-9).Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Crown or Canada Brand Syrup paper label. From the collection of Linda White.
Although the jars found in most collections today do not have paper labels, originally all the Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars had paper labels on their front face, either the well-known Log Cabin Syrup brand label or one of a few other brands used by the Towle Company. Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars with intact paper labels from known collections include Log Cabin Syrup, Great Mountain Brand Syrup, and the Crown of Canada Brand Syrup. The Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars can be tightly dated to between the middle of 1910 and the end of 1914, based on the known dates of operation of the Towle Company plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont which is discussed below.
Example of the Ball and SURE SEAL embossed text on back face of the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars.
All the jars in the Ball Blue glass color variation feature the Ball name embossed on the back face in script with un underline, a looping double LL, a dropped “a” which are known to date between 1910 and 1923 on Ball made jars. This detail corresponds to the historical record that the Towle Company operated in St. Johnsbury from 1910 to 1914. Under the scripted “Ball” name in capitalized sans serif typeface are the words “SURE SEAL.”
Image of the cover of Red Book No. 12, the definitive collector’s guide for Ball jars.
The Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar is so notable and popular among Ball jar collectors that it has been recognized and described in Red Book 12: The Collectors Guide to Old Fruit Jars. The most recent edition of the Red Book, published in 2018, lists nine variations of this jar (RB 320-4 through RB 320-12). I have created a table based on the Red Book variations to assist in differentiating and recognizing the sometimes subtle differences in these variations.
Table illustrating details and features of the nine variations of Towle Maple Products St. Johnsbury jars based on Red Book No. 12.
Company History
The Towle Maple Products Company got its beginning in 1888 in St. Paul, Minnesota as Towle & McCormick’s, selling Log Cabin Syrup in a rectangular metal can. After a year in operation, McCormick left the company and Patrick J. Towle became the sole owner.
In the company’s early years, it packed its Log Cabin brand blended maple and cane sugar syrup in tall rectangular cans as well as in quart and pint sized wide-bodied and narrow-necked bottles, all originally exhibiting paper labels. In 1897 the company introduced its signature cabin shaped metal can, designed by Log Cabin Syrup salesman, James W. Fuller (US design patent 26,936).
Towle Maple Products Company plant in St. Paul, Minnesota that suffered a devastating fire in 1909. Photo from the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society.
By the turn of the century, the Log Cabin Syrup brand had become the most popular and best-selling blended table syrup in the country. However, being at the top of the industry did not protect it from the risk or disaster of fire, sadly a common occurrence in large factories at the time. On December 15th, 1909, the three-story brick factory of the Towle Maple Products Company, located on the west side flats of St. Paul, Minnesota suffered a devastating fire. Built in 1901 and opened in 1902, this plant was the Towle Company’s only location for the blending, bottling, and canning of syrups. Although the company quickly went to work to repair the damaged building, they were left in a difficult position and needed to find a way to continue their production and distribution.
Circa 1910, hand colored postcard of businesses in the Bay Street area of St. Johnsbury, Vermont with close-up of Towle’s building (former Cary Company) painted “Towle Maple Products Co.” on front and “Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup” on side.
To their great fortune, in March of 1910, George C. Cary, one of their colleagues and a sometimes syrup supplier, offered to sell to P.J. Towle the Cary Maple Sugar Company processing plant on Bay Street in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Cary was in the midst of expanding and reorganizing his growing maple sugar processing empire and this sale allowed him to get rid of an aging facility and provide capital to help further his company’s growth.
The Towle Company took advantage of this significant interruption in production and sales to makes changes in their product labeling and marketing. It was during this period of rebuilding and reorganization that the St. Johnsbury Ball jar was born and put into use. The location was a boon for the Towle Company in locating their bottling activities closer to the source of the maple syrup they were purchasing for their blends. In addition, being in New England added greater creditability to their syrups by allowing them to legitimately include the state of Vermont on their labels and advertisements.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1912 showing the Towle Maple Products Company location on Bay Street in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Fulling embedding themselves in St. Johnsbury, in April 1910 the Towle Company filed papers of incorporation in the State of Vermont and got to work remodeling the former Cary building situated adjacent to the shared tracks of the Boston & Maine Railroad and the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain Railroad. Inside this wooden barn-like building, giant steam-heated copper kettles of 150- and 250-gallon capacity were used to boil and blend maple syrup and cane sugar before being filtered and stored in 550-gallon tanks for packaging in glass and metal.
The Towle Company was able to rebuild and reopen their damaged St. Paul plant later in 1910, permitting the company to bottle syrup in both Minnesota and Vermont. Advertisements from this era list San Francisco as a third location for the company, but the west coast branch was only a warehouse and distribution site with no actual syrup manufacturing or bottling activity taking place.
During their operations in St. Johnsbury, in September 1912 the Towle Company suffered the unexpected death of company founder and family patriarch P.J. Towle. Since the company was privately owned and managed by P.J. Towle, his sons, and son-in-law; presidency of the company then shifted to his oldest son, William J. Towle.
Image of the Pillsbury-Baldwin Building in St. Johnsbury, Vermont which was occupied by the Towle Maple Products Company from 1913 to 1914.
With production running from seven in the morning to midnight, six days a week, the Towle Company rapidly outgrew the Bay Street plant in St. Johnsbury, and in March 1913 moved a half mile to the south into a much newer two-story fire-proof plant built of concrete block. Erected two years before, this plant was vacated by the failed Pillsbury-Baldwin bathroom fixture company. The Towle company continued operations in the former Pillsbury-Baldwin plant for another year and a half before announcing their decision to end operations in St. Johnsbury on December 31, 1914 and move all production activities back to St. Paul. After years of abandonment and neglect, the Pillsbury-Baldwin building formerly occupied by the Towle Company was demolished by the city of St. Johnsbury in September 2019. Likewise, Towle’s first St. Johnsbury location, former Cary Company plant on Bay Street was demolished in 1927 to make room for expansion by the neighboring Ide’s grist mill and grain elevator.
Example of a Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup advertisement noting St. Johnsbury along with St. Paul, and San Francisco as the location of refineries and offices of the Towle Maple Products Company. Saturday Evening Post, October 15, 1910.
With the closing of the St. Johnsbury plant, the Towle Company was forced to reword their labels and advertising and only list their St. Paul, Minnesota plant. It was at this time that the company also decided to discontinue bottling syrup in glass. From 1915 to 1931, Log Cabin Syrup was exclusively packaged in metal cabin shaped tins of pint, quart, or half gallon in size. In the 1910-1914 time period that the Ball jars were made and in use, Towle Company continued to package syrup in metal cabin-shaped tins as well as in eight-sided narrow neck bottles, and round narrow neck bottles, some with screw on caps and others with crown seal caps. Surprisingly, in my years of researching the history and packaging of the Towle Company, I have yet to find a newspaper or magazine advertisement mentioning or illustrating the sale of Towle brand syrups in a Ball Sure Seal jar.
Jar Details and Features
Looking closer at the details of these jars, we see that they were made with one of two different Lightning style closures. They exhibit either a Lightning style closure with lugs, sometimes called experimental dimples or bosses, and a heavy wire lever bail that inserted into the round glass dimples or bosses on the neck (RB 32-5, 320-7, 320-8, 320-9, 320-10, 320-11). The other Lightning style closure has a beaded neck seal with a thinner twisted wire used to anchor the heavy wire bail below the encircling glass bead or ridge (RB 320-4, 320-6, 320-12).
The two styles of Lightning closures found on Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars. On the left, the beaded neck version with the heavy wire bail anchored by a thinner wire below an encircling glass ridge. On the right, the heavy wire bail anchored in circular glass bosses or dimples.Example of jar with back face embossed text of PACKED IN and BY THE TOWLE and front face text of ST JOHNSBURY VT and MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.
The embossed text on the upper face of the jars is most recognizable to today’s collectors, since the original paper labels are almost always absent (RB 320-5, 320-6, 320-9, 320-10). There are two variations in the embossed text on the upper body of the jar faces. It is worth noting that this variation in the order and placement of embossed text on the upper face is not recognized in the Red Book at this time. In variation A, the upper line of text on the back side reads, “PACKED IN” and bottom line of text, “BY THE TOWLE” (above Ball SURE SEAL). The upper line of text on the front side of this variation reads, “ST JOHNSBURY VT” and the bottom line of text, “MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.” The side with the Ball SURE SEAL text is called the back here because the opposite side without the Ball text is where the paper label originally would have been pasted.
Example of jar with back face embossed text of PACKED IN and ST JOHNSBURY VT and front face text of BY THE TOWLE and MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.
In variation B, the upper line of text on the back side reads, “PACKED IN” and lower line of text, “ST JOHNSBURY VT” (above Ball SURE SEAL). The upper line of text on the front side reads, “BY THE TOWLE” and the lower line of text, “MAPLE PRODUCTS CO”. There is also a rare mistake jar variation (RB 320-10) where the letter “S” was left out of the word Johnsbury, instead written as JOHNBURY.
Example of variation with blank upper portion of the front and back faces with the complete Ball name and dimple style closure attachment (RB 320-7 or 320-11).
There are also variations with no embossed text on the upper face where a blank slug plate was used in manufacturing the jars (RB 320-4, 320-7, 320-8, 320-11, 320-12). Although such jars lack embossed text to associate them with the Towle Company and St. Johnsbury, we know from the paper label example for Great Mountain Brand Syrup that such jars with the blank upper face were in fact used by the Towle Maple Products Company. It is doubtful that any other company was given an opportunity to use these unique 22-ounce Sure Seal Ball jars, even those lacking embossed text referring to Towle or St. Johnsbury. Certainly, no examples of such use of this jar by any company other than Towle Maple Products have been found.
All the blue glass versions of these jars contain the words “Ball” and “SURE SEAL” in two lines embossed on the lower portion of one face.
Example where the top of the LL on Ball has been cut off by the blank slug plate (RB 320-8 and 320-12).
This version of the Ball logo is in script form with an underscore and no loop connecting the last “L” of “Ball” with the underscore. In some cases, the top portion of the “LL” in the word “Ball” has been cut off in the manufacturing process (RB 320-8, 320-12). The single clear version of these jars is completely lacking in any of the “Ball” or “SURE SEAL” brand embossing (RB 320-9)
Image of the patent date embossed on the base of the Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars.
About half of the varieties (320-4, 320-5, 320-6, 320-7, 320-8) of these jars are embossed on base with the text “Pat’d July 14, 1908” which refers to the U.S. patent number 893,008, awarded to Anthony F. McDonnell for the glass cap combined with a Lightning style wire closure design. All these Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars are 7.25 inches tall, not including the lid and have a diameter at the base of 3.25 inches.
Side-by-side comparison of true or correct Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar glass lid on left and similar, but incorrect Ball jar Lightning glass lid on right.
Also unique to these jars is a very specific, and hard to find glass lid. According to experts in the Ball jar collecting community, the “correct” glass lid for these jars is in the same Ball Blue color as the jar but unlike other similarly shaped and sized lids, the proper lid has a shallower depression in the center and a less steep central ramp.
Profile drawing illustrating the differences in form and depth of trough in correct (on left) and incorrect Ball Lightning lid (on right).
The correct lid also never has any embossed text showing a patent date, which is sometimes present on the similar, but incorrect Sure Seal Lightning style lids. The clear glass lid for RB 320-9 is identical to the correct Ball Blue colored lid, only differing in color.
Examples of other contemporary clear glass product jars with beaded neck Lightning style closures and glass lids, presumably manufactured by the Ball Company. Rigney & Co. Packers of Maple Products on left and Golden Tree Brand Syrup on the right.
There are a number of clear glass jars of a similar shape and size and specialty packer jars with the Lightning style glass lid and wire closures that were almost certainly made by Ball. These jars have similar embossed wording and were even used for packing blended maple flavored syrups, such as Golden Tree Syrup from the New England Syrup Company and Park Brand syrup from Rigney & Co. Packers of Maple Products out of Brooklyn, NY. However, these jars are of slightly different dimension and volume than the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars and technically classified as a separate group by Ball jar experts.
As one can see, for the serious collector of Ball jars or Log Cabin Syrup antiques and memorabilia, there are many nuances and details to consider and recognize when seeking to build a complete collection of these jars. Of course the holy grail of Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars are those with an intact paper label. With luck, more such jars will be found and shared.
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Special thanks to John Patterson, Linda White, Marty Troxell, Scott Benjamine, and Joe Coulson for there assistance with advice and permission to share images of jars from their private collections.
Click on the image above for a link to a PDF of the article.
I am happy to be able to share my recent article on on the origins and early years of the Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup Company. Log Cabin Syrup was started in 1888 by Patrick J. Towle in St. Paul, Minnesota, so it was fitting that this article was published by the Ramsey County Historical Society, home to St. Paul. This article appears in the Spring 2022 edition of the Ramsey County History magazine.
Special attention in the story is given to the company founder, Patrick J. Towle, and his introduction and use of the unique cabin shaped metal can to package and market his syrup made from a blend of maple syrup and cane syrup. Additional topics of note addressed in the article are the realities behind the question of where the idea for the log cabin name and can shape came from, as well as the company’s early use of advertising and promotion in national publications, something that was uncommon for a syrup company in the early part of the 1900s.
The fate of the Log Cabin Syrup company brand was ultimately to be sold to the Postum Company, later to be named General Foods, but as the story shares, that was not the end of the blended syrup business for the Towle family in St. Paul.
Click this link to access a PDF copy of the article.
The initial application of plastic tubing for gathering maple sap in the 1950s was indisputably one of the most significant technological developments of the maple industry in the twentieth century. However, the first viable tubing system was introduced over forty years earlier as a gravity drawn system made completely of metal. Invented in the shadows of the Adirondack Mountains near Mayfield, New York, by William C. Brower, Jr., the system carried sap directly from the tree to the sugarhouse through an interconnected series of specialized taps, tubes and connectors. Formally known as the Brower Sap Piping System, the pipeline was popularly referred to as the Gooseneck system because one of the key segments of the pipeline resembled the curved neck of a goose.
Brower Sap Piping System installed in an early 20th century sugarbush.
Born in Mayfield, New York in 1874, Brower was the consummate Yankee tinkerer and inventor. As a machinist, mechanic, and jack of all trades, his education did not come from the classroom, but rather, from trying to solve and improve on the problems and dilemmas he and his neighbors faced every day. Brower was also a sugarmaker, making him well aware of the difficulties of tapping and gathering sap with buckets and teams of horses or oxen in deep snow on and on steep slopes.
Drawing of components from William J. Brower’s 1916 Sap Piping System patent (US1,186,471).
After coming up with the idea of using the natural gravity of the mountains to eliminate the laborious task of hand gathering sap, it took Brower nearly three years of trial and error to perfect the system. The initial patent application occurred in December 1914. A year and a half later in June 1916, the United States Patent Office awarded Brower patent number 1,186,741 for his “Sap-Collecting System”. Likewise, an identical application by Brower was awarded a Canadian patent in August of 1917.
Drawing of layout from William J. Brower’s 1916 Sap Piping System patent (US1,186,471).
In order to support the weight of the folded sheet metal tubing and the sap flowing through it, the Gooseneck pipeline was suspended by small hooks on a network of wires strung through the sugarbush supported by posts and trees. The wire used was usually a heavy gauge fence wire or reused telegraph wire. The labor required for set up at the beginning of the season was greater than that of traditional gathering systems using metal spouts, pails and covers; but this cost was easily made up with a reduction in labor for gathering as well as the elimination of sap lost by overflowing buckets that were difficult to tend to in deep snow and on steep slopes.
The pipeline quickly caught the attention of many sugarmaker’s in the region; however Brower continued to manufacture the tubing and spiles out of his small workshop, limiting his ability to mass produce the system. According to his grandson, Brower was a man more interested and skilled in working with his hands than in promoting and selling his invention.
Following completion of the pipeline design in 1914, Brower traveled from his Mayfield home to St. Johnsbury, Vermont to try and interest George C. Cary of the Cary Maple Sugar Company in using the pipeline in the large sugarbush on Cary’s 4,000 acre farm. Initially, Cary was not interested, but Brower persisted, finally convincing Cary to try the system on 1500 trees during the 1915 maple season. As president of what was then, the world’s largest maple sugar business, and as owner of one of Vermont’s largest sugarbushes, Cary had the wealth, liberty, and interest in experimenting with more efficient and cost effective methods and equipment. After only one season of use, Cary was sold, placing an order for enough tubing to connect 9000 more trees. Ultimately Cary would have 15,000 trees on the pipeline at his North Danville sugarbush.
Image of the cover of sales booklet for Brower’s Sap Piping System offer by the Cary Maple Sugar Company out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Continued satisfaction with the system led the Cary Maple Sugar Company to form a partnership with Brower in 1918, with the company providing the facilities and financing to expand production and sale of the pipeline. Although his family stayed in New York, Brower temporarily relocated to St. Johnsbury to direct production in this new venture.
According to a promotional brochure, during the first year of production in St. Johnsbury, sales more than doubled and orders were coming in faster than they were able to manufacture the pipeline. The brochure goes on to say that many producers tried a small amount of the tubing at first but were so satisfied that they followed-up with much larger orders. Owners of larger sugarbushes were especially interested in the system. In one instance an estimated 30,000 feet of pipeline was used in one 1,700 tap sugarbush. With mass production in full swing, the 1920 prices for the system ranged from thirty-five to forty-two dollars for one thousand feet of half inch to one inch diameter pipeline, and seven dollars per one hundred for both spouts and Goosenecks. The half inch and one inch diameter pipeline sections came in three foot lengths with a manufacturer’ estimated costs of sixty to seventy cents per tree.
1921 Vermont newspaper advertisement for Brower Sap Piping manufactured out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
An impressive endorsement of the quality of maple sugar one could make using the pipeline came from M.J. Corliss, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Vermont Sugarmaker’s Association. At the annual meeting of the Association in 1926, Corliss noted that he had “been taking careful note and for the last two or three years it is a fact that the men who have carried off most of the blue ribbons or first prizes are the men who have used the piping system”. One of the greatest strengths of the pipeline was the elimination of debris and the near immediate delivery of clean, fresh sap, which was especially important in the 1920s and 1930s when and our understanding of bacterial growth in sap and the tap holes was in its infancy and sap gathering was traditionally done with out the aid of engines and machines.
With the Cary Company’s assistance and wide reaching influence, the pipeline began to make a dent in the equipment market. While, the pipeline system never became as popular as tubing has today, it was added to the sap gathering process in a number of maple operations. A 1925 study of 457 maple producing farms in Vermont found that 18, or roughly four percent, were using the pipeline on some of their trees. In those 18 sugarbushes, an average of 28 percent of the trees were tapped with the pipeline, ranging from as few as 8 percent to as many as 75 percent of the trees. In that same year, pipeline users averaged 400 taps on tubing and had been gathering sap with the system for an average of 4 years. This study also found the average estimated value of the pipeline to be $268 or 67 cents per tap, which was consistent with the price estimate promoted by the Cary Company.
It is not clear when the Cary Maple Sugar Company discontinued its production of the pipeline; however, it may have been as early as the mid-1920. By the late 1930s, it appears that the Gooseneck system had fallen out of favor and was no longer used by many maple producers. George Cary himself went bankrupt and died in 1931, leading to the reorganization of the company and the sale of his farm and sugarbush. With the end of production of the pipeline in St. Johnsbury, William Brower returned to his family in New York, where he lived until his death in 1940.
The pipeline was used primarily in the northeastern states of Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire; however, the system also made it as far west as Wisconsin. Evidence of its use was recently found in the northern part of the state on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Archaeologists discovered spiles, Gooseneck connectors, rolls of wire, and thousands of sections of pipe from the Brower system at the former location of a late 1920s to early 1930s sugarhouse.
Like plastic tubing, it was important to not have any sag in the system where sap could collect in low spots and get sour. Some pipeline users reported that freezing was sometimes a problem, but that the metal warmed easily when the sun came out, quickly thawing the frozen sap in the pipeline. It was sometimes noted that at the end of the season sap gathered with the system was slightly sour and often had to be thrown away. Fallen limbs, ice, and deer occasionally disconnected sections of the pipeline, and the contraction of the metal in very cold conditions could result in the separation of the inserted pipe ends. Some maple producers stopped using the system because it was made from a kind of sheet metal known as Tern Plate, which was a combination of tin and lead. As one maple bulletin described it in 1949, “the use of such metal was strongly discouraged by State and Federal authorities for the processing of any food”. In spite of these drawbacks, the benefits at the time were clear. For sugarmakers with large, steep, and hard to get to sugarbushes who kept their equipment clean and processed their sap quickly, the Gooseneck system was an excellent innovation. While the system added more work at the beginning and end of the maple season with longer set up times and additional cleaning, it eliminated the laborious task of gathering sap once or twice a day.
Improvements in sap gathering methods have long since replaced the Gooseneck system, but the pipeline has not completely faded into memory. On the Lent family farm near Mayfield, New York, the pipeline continues to be used on a few hundred taps to gather and transport sap from their mountainside sugarbush. It is no coincidence that the family still uses the system or that their sugarbush is near Mayfield, the community where Brower first invented the pipeline. In fact, the Lent family has used the pipeline for over 80 years with their farm and sugarbush located next door to Brower’s former property. Many years after his death, the Lent family purchased William Brower’s former home and the workshop where the pipeline was invented. Today, a New York State historic marker points out the location of the workshop alongside Mountain Road (Highway 123) northeast of Mayfield.
The Gooseneck metal sap pipeline in use during the 2005 sugaring season in the Lent Family sugarbush, Mayfield, New York. Photo by Matthew M. Thomas
According to Lent family history, their ancestor, Edward L. Lent, worked with his neighbor Brower in the early 1900s to develop and improve the pipeline system, using the Lent sugarbush as a test site. Over the years the Lent family tried other methods of sap collection like metal pails, plastic bags, and plastic tubing, but has always kept a portion of their sugarbush on the Gooseneck system. At their peak in the 1980s, the Lent’s gathered sap with the pipeline from approximately 2500 taps. More recently, they have discontinued commercial production and scaled back their operation to a few hundred taps. The spring of 2004 was one of the first years that they did not tap, out of respect for the terminal illness and recent passing of the family patriarch, Edward W. Lent, grandson of Edward L. Lent. The 2005 season saw a return to the Lent family installation of the Gooseneck system.
As the preferred method of sap gathering in the modern sugarbush, plastic tubing has become commonplace over the last forty years. However, the basic idea, structure, and terminology of a sap gathering pipeline were established with the Gooseneck pipeline, setting the stage for the experiments with plastic tubing pipelines in the mid-1950s. In fact, one could argue that Brower would have probably chosen plastic rather than English Tin had flexible plastic PVC tubing been invented and available in the early 20th Century. In a flexible form, PVC tubing wasn’t available for non-military use until after World War II. It wasn’t until it became commercially available in the 1950s when pioneers like Nelson Griggs, George Breen, and Bob Lamb began to explore its application for gathering maple sap.
In January 2020 I had the honor of being invited to the Vermont Maple Conference to make a couple of presentations on historical research I had conducted in the last few years. One presentation was a condensed version of the story of George C. Cary and the Cary Maple Sugar Company, which is the topic of my book Maple King: The Making of a Maple Syrup Empire. The second presentation was on new research I have completed for an article currently in review for publication in the journal Vermont History. This research traces the early origins and development of the use of plastic tubing for gathering maple sap in the maple syrup industry.
University of Vermont Extension Maple Specialist Mark Isselhardt arranged to have the audio from both presentations recorded in association with the presentation slides and posted these on the UVM Extension Maple Website. You can click on the following presentation titles or the title slides here to link to the full audio/slide show for each one. Enjoy!
In the mid-twentieth century there was increasing concern about the levels of lead present in maple syrup. Numerous sources of lead were present in maple syrup making equipment at that time which had the potential to introduce unacceptable levels of lead into maple sap and ultimately be concentrated in maple syrup. Lead-based paint was used on pails and equipment. Brass components and sheet metals like terne-plate and galvanized steel contained lead in their alloys or as exterior coatings, and lead solder was used in fabricating metal evaporators, gathering tanks, and collection pails.
With the enactment of the Food and Drug Act of 1906 the Federal Government took a more active role in addressing food safety concerns, although the primary focus at that time was on protecting consumers from being sold fake, impure, dangerous products through false labeling and adulteration. Substances like lead were known to be poisonous, but how much and in what forms was a topic of great debate. State departments of agriculture in the maple syrup producing regions were aware of the problem and conducted limited testing of maple syrup for lead levels and begun research on alternative lead-free paints appropriate for the maple syrup industry.
The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began expressing its concerns with lead levels in maple syrup in the early 1930s. With the enactment of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (FDCA) of 1938, new language empowered the FDA to develop standards and safe levels of otherwise dangerous substances like lead in maple syrup and engage in more direct enforcement actions.
Cary Maple Syrup Company plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 1938. Photo by Hansel Mieth.
The nexus for the application and enforcement of the FDCA of 1938 was through the constitutional provision allowing congress to regulate interstate commerce. The FDA needed to make a point with its initial enforcement and get the attention of the maple industry, but at the same time to not punish a small maple syrup producer who couldn’t afford the court challenge. Wisely the FDA selected the biggest in the business for its test case. In June of 1938, United States Marshalls seized over 900 barrels of maple syrup being shipped by United Maple Products, LTD. of Croghan, New York, to St. Johnsbury, Vermont for the Cary Maple Sugar Company. The Cary Company was the largest buyer of maple syrup in the world, conducting its bottling operations at their four-story plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
FDA chemists tested the maple syrup in the confiscated barrels and determined that some of the syrup contained an “added poisonous or deleterious ingredient, lead, which may render the article injurious to health” and brought civil charges under the curious title of United States vs. 52 Drums Maple Syrup in which the civil action was brought against the property itself and not specifically the Cary Maple Sugar Company who was the owner of the maple syrup.
Vermont Federal District Court Judge and one-time candidate for Vermont Governor, Harland B. Howe.
The following year, on July 24, 1939 in Montpelier in the United States District Court of Vermont presentation of the case began in front of a jury and Federal Judge Harland B. Howe. As it turns out, Judge Howe was to retire on medical disability the following year and this case was one of the very last cases he oversaw from the bench in Montpelier. Moreover, as a life-long Vermonter and native of St. Johnsbury, Judge Howe was more than familiar with the world of maple syrup production and the Cary Maple Syrup Company. Howe was also undoubtedly familiar with St. Johnsbury attorney Arthur L. Graves, who represented the Cary Company on numerous occasions.
The trial lasted seven days spread across two weeks and as recounted in detailed daily blow-by-blow reports in the Burlington Free Press, “the courtroom was packed with spectators including representatives of the State Department of Agriculture which is interested in the proceeding as a test case having serious bearing on the future of maple syrup in interstate commerce.”
As suggested, this case garnered a great deal of attention in Vermont and among the maple syrup industry. Interestingly, the initial editorial response by the Burlington Free Press was to point out that the lead levels in the syrup were minuscule and there were no known cases of anyone ever getting poisoned by lead in maple syrup, and moreover, that the in spite of the case being heard in a Vermont court, the syrup in question came from New York.
Barrels of maple syrup being unloaded at the Cary Maple Sugar Company plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 1938. Photo by Hansel Mieth.
FDA chemists testified that lead levels in the tested syrup ranged from .001 to .136 grains of lead per pound. However, Cary Company chemist testified that the average lead levels in the tested syrup amounted to .0101 grains per pound. Against the objection of prosecuting Federal District Attorney Joseph A. McNamara, Cary’s attorney Graves offered as further evidence a federal government bulletin that stated that “maple syrup containing not more than .025 grains of lead is proper, not poisonous and not injurious”. Attorney McNamara counted that “there was no authority for the statements contained in the bulletin since the department had never established a regulation on lead tolerance”.
Cary attorney Graves further argued that the Cary Company considered the syrup coming into its plant as a raw product and not consumer ready food product. Once in the plant the syrup would be processed and “de-leaded” prior to being bottled or repackaged, thus it was premature to test the syrup in the barrels coming into the plant for lead levels.
Burlington Free Press headline from August 2nd, 1939.
On August 1st, 1939, the jury of Vermonters ruled against the Federal Government and in favor of the 52 barrels of syrup and the Cary Company. In reviewing their decision, Judge Howe “expressed open and enthusiastic approval of the verdict” and was quoted as saying to the jury “I think your verdict speaks the truth” and “I am very proud of you, it shows good sense”. He further added that “he regretted there were no more cases for a jury of such high caliber to consider”.
Cary Maple Sugar Company statement in the Rutland Daily Herald, August 8, 1939.
By the end of the trial the Burlington Free Press did come around to promoting the need for maple producers to “take reasonable measures to completely eliminate such small amounts of lead as may be discovered in maple syrup produced in this state”. The Cary Company, feeling vindicated by the jury decision, took out ads on August 8th thanking the FDA for their efforts to protect the public’s health and echoing the words of the Editors of the Burlington Free Press.
However, the Cary Company possibly spoke to soon, and the following day Federal District Attorney McNamara announced that the U.S. Government would appeal the decision on technical grounds to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It was agreed that all the syrup with the exception of one barrel would be returned to the Cary Company, and the one barrel would be retained for evidence in moving the case to appeal.
In April of 1940, after hearing appeals testimony from attorneys McNamara and Graves, the three member U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City reversed the decision of the District Court jury. The appeal was granted on the grounds that Judge Howe should never have allowed testimony claiming that the syrup was an unfinished product that would later be processed and the lead removed prior to being made available and sold to consumers. The federal government argued, and the appeals judges agreed, that the claim that the syrup in the barrels was an unprocessed raw product and what happened or how it was later handled (supposedly de-leaded) in the plant in St. Johnsbury was immaterial and should not have been admitted.
The maple industry had hoped that one outcome of the case would be that the federal government would establish a lead tolerance level to serve as a guide for the industry in the future. The appeals judges made no definitive statement on the relative levels of lead in the syrup or what standards constituted lead contamination outside of acknowledging that “the government has established what is called a working tolerance of .025 grains of lead per pound which for present purposes may be treated as the maximum amount of lead maple syrup may contain without being barred from interstate shipment”.
In the end the maple industry, with the urging and assistance of state and provincial departments of agriculture, has worked to reduce and eliminate lead in maple syrup through the elimination of lead-based paints, and the modernization and replacement of equipment containing lead-based metals, solder, or coatings, like tin, terne-plate, bronze and galvanized steel. The widespread use of stainless steel, welding rather than solder, and a variety of plastics has nearly eliminated lead in maple syrup.
There are many well known names in the early 20th century history of maple syrup, most often heading manufacturing and packing companies emblazoned with their names such as George C. Cary, George H. Soule, G. H. Grimm, Leader, and True and Blanchard to name a few. A less well-known, but influential man with a long history in the industry, was John D. Rickaby.
Rickaby spent 46 years, most of his whole adult life, working with maple syrup as a buyer, packer, plant manager, and company owner in Vermont and Massachusetts. Having worked with some of the largest maple syrup packing firms in the country, Rickaby became well-known throughout the maple industry as an experienced and knowledgeable businessman. So much so, that by the end of his career, the Burlington Free Press referred to him in 1946 as the Dean of the Vermont maple syrup and maple sugar industry.
Born in 1873 in Lyster, Quebec , Rickaby’s family emigrated to St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 1877. Growing up in St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County was home to Rickaby and throughout his career, he was drawn back to the area. Rickaby began his long career as a businessman at a young age when he went to work helping his father with insurance and real estate sales as a teenager. At age 16, Rickaby lost a leg in a sailing accident and left high school after his second year, possibly in connection to the leg injury. Not surprisingly, this injury kept Rickaby out of World War I. At some point as a young man, Rickaby learned how to take notes in shorthand and became a skilled stenographer. He even offered classes as a private shorthand instructor.
Photo of John Rickaby from 1939 Burlington Free Press story.
In the late 1890s and very early 1900s, Rickaby travelled back and forth between St. Johnsbury; Hartford, Connecticut; and Chelsea, Massachusetts working with a variety of different insurance companies. It was in 1902 that his connection to the maple industry began when he settled into a position as stenographer and bookkeeper to George C. Cary in St. Johnsbury. The Cary Company was quickly growing in size and importance as a buyer and packer of maple sugar and maple syrup. In 1904, the Cary Company formally incorporated to become the George C. Cary Maple Sugar Company with John Rickaby listed as clerk. From the very early years of the Cary Company incorporation, Rickaby was a minor stockholder, later becoming a member of the board of directors and eventually elected company vice-president in 1909.
Rickaby was a close confidant of George Cary and while working as the company bookkeeper also served as the real estate broker for many of Cary’s purchases and sales of farms and maple woods in the North Danville area. Rickaby and his wife even stayed on Cary’s Lookout Farm (which Rickaby helped Cary purchase) a few miles from St. Johnsbury one summer before buying two acres of the farm from Cary and building his own summer cottage.
Rickaby’s eight years with the Cary Company paid off, when in 1910 he was selected to be the manager of a new bottling and packing plant to be opened by Towle’s Maple Products Company in St. Johnsbury. The Towle’s Company out of St. Paul, Minnesota was the manufacturer of Log Cabin Syrup, one of the largest buyers and bottlers of pure and blended maple syrup in the world. Leading the expansion and entry of the midwestern company into Vermont and the heart of the maple syrup producing world was a significant recognition of Rickaby’s connections to the Vermont industry and his business acumen.
The arrival of Towle’s Maple Products Company in St. Johnsbury was facilitated by the Cary Company selling their plant on Bay Street and moving to a new location in the old St. Johnsbury Grocery building a block away. When operated by the Cary Company, the primary focus of operations was to receive mostly maple sugar and some maple syrup and reconstitute it into large blocks of maple sugar for sale and shipment to tobacco companies for curing and flavoring tobacco. As a blending and bottling facility for Log Cabin syrups, a few improvements were needed. Under Rickaby’s direction, Towle’s quickly upgraded the facilities, adding steam jacketed kettles, storage tanks, and many feet of piping for filling bottles and the signature log cabin shaped metal cans.
In spite of the apparent success of the St. Johnsbury operations, following the death of company founder, Patrick J.Towle in 1912, the new leadership of the Towle’s company announced in December 1914 they had decided to close the St. Johnsbury plant the following year. Recognizing he was soon to be out of work, Rickaby purchased a share of the New England Maple Syrup Company and took on a new role as the company’s plant manager in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The New England Maple Syrup Company was described by one newspaper in 1915 as the largest maple syrup concern in the country. It was certainly one of the biggest, selling blended and pure maple syrup under the labels of Uncle John’s Cane and Maple Syrup, Golden Tree Syrup, Rock Maple 100% Vermont Maple Sap Syrup, and Gold Leaf Brand Maple Flavored Corn Syrup. The company also sold individually wrapped maple candies called maple kisses.
Under Rickaby’s leadership, the New England Maple Syrup Company grew, spreading the Uncle John’s label and their syrups all across the United States. However, as befalls many blended syrups, the implication from their packaging and advertising that their products were all pure maple syrup occasionally caught up with them and they were found guilty of adulteration or false labeling on a number of occasions.
Processing and blending sugar and maple syrup on a large scale meant the company usually purchased its ingredients in very large quantities. However, in 1921 this strategy cost them when the price of granulated cane sugar dropped enormously and the New England Maple Syrup Company found themselves sitting on many tons of sugar they already paid for. In the end the price drop was more than they could absorb and the company was forced into bankruptcy by its creditors.
Following bankruptcy proceedings, an auction of their equipment and facilities, and a reorganization, John Rickaby and C.M. Tice purchased the company as the sole owners, relocating to nearby Chelsea, Massachusetts. Rickaby left the reformed company not long after and in 1923 went to work for the Washburn- Crosby Milling Company of Minneapolis as a superintendent for the construction of a cereal production plant in Chicago. Rickaby stayed with Washburn-Crosby a few more years working out of Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1929 George C. Cary persuaded Rickaby to return to St. Johnsbury and the maple business when the Cary Company purchased Maple Grove Candies. Rickaby was selected as the initial Maple Grove Candies company treasurer and manager and oversaw the construction of a new two-story brick building for Maple Grove Candies located in front of the large Cary Company plant on Portland Street in St. Johnsbury.
1931 grand opening of new Maple Grove Candies building on Portland Street in St. Johnsbury.
With the completion of the new Maple Grove Candies building, Rickaby opted to take on his own maple syrup venture and, in partnership with W.W. Parsons and his brother-in-law Arthur R. Menut, formed Vermont Maple Orchards, Inc. to manufacture and sell a blended maple and cane syrup. Initially located in a former maple syrup processing building in Essex Junction, Vermont, in the summer of 1930 the company moved to the former Vermont Milk Chocolate Company building on Park Street in Burlington in 1932. Although he was no longer employed by the Cary Company, Rickaby was still a stockholder for the Cary Company and retained a strong tie to the Cary family. In fact, following the bankruptcy and death of George Cary in 1931, John Rickaby asked George’s son, Clinton Cary, then vice-president of the Cary Company to come and work with him in his new company in Essex Junction. Clinton Cary took him up on that offer and worked for Rickaby for a few years before returning to the Cary Company in St. Johnsbury.
Photo from 1932 with John Rickaby on the right unloading barrels of syrup from Vermont for a maple festival in Massachusetts.
Rickaby stayed at the helm of the Vermont Maple Orchards, Inc. as president-treasurer until 1941 when he sold his interests due to deteriorating health. He then returned to St. Johnsbury and started a new maple sugar candy company called “Maple Bush” which was in operation for three years before Rickaby took a position in St. Albans with the George H. Soule Company’s Fairfield Farms Maple Company. The following year Fairfield Farms shut down its candy making operation and Rickaby returned to St. Johnsbury at which time he retired from active work with the maple syrup industry.
It is perhaps fitting that Rickaby was a product of St. Johnsbury, since it was the Maple Capital of the World at that time. It was common to see men like Rickaby, who had close associations with the Cary Company and Cary family, carry their knowledge and connections beyond the walls of the Cary Company, influencing the maple industry in the years to come.
Following five years of battling Parkinson’s disease, Rickaby died in St. Johnsbury in 1951 at the age of 78. John Rickaby and his wife Charlotte J. Menut Rickaby had no children.
There is an interesting and sometimes complex and convoluted history of a group of maple syrup packing companies in Vermont in the first part of the twentieth century. At that time in the history of the maple industry, many producers sold the bulk of their maple syrup and maple sugar to packing companies that handled the shipping, marketing and repackaging of the maple products into smaller containers for retail sales to consumers. A large part of the packing industry was also engaged in blending maple syrup with cane or corn syrup to create less expensive maple flavored table syrups like the well known Log Cabin syrup and Vermont Maid syrup.
1890 newspaper advertisement for the Welch Brothers Maple Company.
This tangled story starts in 1890 when brothers Llewellyn Welch and Charles Welch along with Harry Miller started the Welch Brothers Maple Company in South Burlington, Vermont. The three met in St. Joseph, Missouri when the two Ohio born brothers were in the general syrup and preserves business. In 1890, all three men came to Burlington, Vermont to specifically start a maple products company. The first plant that they built was on Battery and Cherry Street in Burlington where they made bottled maple syrup, but also made maple sugar candies, maple creams, maple cough drops, and other confections like chocolate bon-bons and caramels. The company was formally incorporated in 1891 with C.B. Welch as president and L.W. Welch as secretary. By the time of the meeting of the 1895 board of directors, C.B. Welch was no longer an officer or member of the board and L.W. Welch had moved into the position of president. The following year, The C.B. Welch Maple Co. was in court against Welch Brothers Maple Co. Under Llewelyn Welch’s leadership, the Welch Brothers Maple Company continued successfully doing business in Burlington. In 1917 Welch Brothers contracted to build a new three-story brick, fireproof plant at the corner of Pine and Marble Streets in Burlington.
Modern street view of Welch Brothers Maple Company building on Pine and Marble Streets, Burlington, Vermont.
C.B. Welch made his way from Burlington to St. Johnsbury and in 1904 incorporated a new maple company to purchase, blend, can and bottle maple syrup. However, it appears that this company never got off the ground and a few years later C.B. Welch turns up in Rutland, Vermont trying to interest the town leaders in supporting the establishment of a maple products canning and bottling facility. C.B. Welch was successful in his pitch and in 1908 efforts began to raise capital for the Maple Tree Sugar Company with C.B. Welch as manager and secretary. Formal articles of incorporation were filed in September of 1908 and in 1909 the company occupied a space at the corner of Edson and Willow Streets in Rutland.
The Maple Tree Sugar Company in Rutland got off the ground, but C.B. Welch did not stick around for long and possibly left under difficult terms, as suggested by his again being in court in Rutland in 1911 against Maple Tree Sugar Company. In 1910 C.B. Welch appeared in the communities of Canton, Gouvenuer, and Lowville in northern New York drumming up support for a new corporation and plant for canning and bottling maple syrup. C.B. Welch’s efforts met with success and in the fall of 1910 the Adirondacks Maple Syrup Company was incorporated with $50,000 of capital stock and plans were put into place for construction of a two-story, 40 by 100 foot factory near the railroad in Lowville, NY. As was typical of his pattern of work, C.B. Welch appears to have moved on from the Adirondack Maple Syrup Company the following year.
Portrait of Fletcher N. Johnson.
Another chapter in the story features Fletcher N. Johnson, who got his start as a grocery wholesaler in Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1900, incorporating in 1901 as the F.N. Johnson Company. He expanded that business to become a major maple sugar and syrup wholesale dealer, selling syrup under the Sugar Bird brand as early as 1913. In late 1916 he formed a new company as the F.N. Johnson Maple Syrup Company in Bellefontaine. In the intervening years, he tried his hand at politics unsuccessfully running for Congress in Ohio in 1910. As a maple wholesaler, F.N. Johnson often travelled to Vermont to purchase large amounts of syrup and some sugar. Having a familiarity with Vermont, in late September 1916 F.N. Johnson formed a new venture called the Vermont Maple Syrup Company in Essex Junction. F. N. Johnson was joined by his brother in law, Laurrell M. DeVore of Bellefontaine, Ohio, along with Adelbert B. Beeman of Fairfax, and Arthur A. Beeman of Essex Junction, and A.B. Rugg of Essex Junction.
1922 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for Essex Junction showing the Vermont Maple Syrup Company building at lower left.
The Vermont Maple Syrup Company built a new two-story wood building in Essex Junction and began operations in 1917, buying bulk maple syrup for blending and bottling with most of their sales occurring in the western United States.
Portrait of the Maple King George C. Cary of the Cary Maple Syrup Company.
At some point in the later 19-teens, the maple sugar magnate, George C. Cary, became a minor stockholder in the Vermont Maple Syrup Company. In 1919 F.N. Johnson sold his 50% controlling share of the Vermont Maple Syrup Company to George Cary, then the very next day, sued his former company for trademark infringement over the use of the “Sugar Bird” brand, something Johnson had brought with him from his Ohio-based F.N. Johnson Company, and had been using for its blended syrup since at least 1913. Cary was caught off guard and assumed that he was free to continue to use the un-trademarked brand name just as the Vermont Maple Syrup Company had in the past. It would appear that Johnson had anticipated the potential for the suit and he and his lawyers were ready with their response the very next day.
Vermont Maple Syrup Company building in Essex Junction.
Despite the legal issues with the Sugar Bird brand, under Cary’s new ownership the Essex Junction plant was expanded with a new addition on the back of the building to house a new larger boiler. Also, in 1919, F.N. Johnson and L.M. DeVore set up a new F.N. Johnson Maple Company in Burlington for bottling maple syrup, leasing the old Welch Brothers plant on Battery and Cherry Streets.
Example of one of the brands of blended cane and maple syrup packaged and sold by the Vermont Maple Syrup Company. Date unknown.
In 1921, the court ruled in Johnson’s favor on his trademark lawsuit. Following that label fiasco, in 1922 George Cary, along with his son Clinton Cary, and Cary Maple Sugar Company employees and personal friends Earl Franklin and Gertrude Franklin along with Harry Wilson of Boston, reorganized the Vermont Maple Syrup Company as a new corporate enterprise and in 1923 left Essex Junction, moving the re-organized company to Cary’s plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. That same year the Vermont Maple Products Co-operative Exchange began to lease the now vacated Vermont Maple Syrup Company building in Essex Junction.
In January 1925, F.N. Johnson came back around in the picture when he purchased a controlling interest in the stock of the Adirondack Maple Syrup Company in Lowville, New York. Johnson then combined his still operating F.N. Johnson Maple Company in Ohio with the Adirondack Maple Syrup Company under a new corporation called the American Maple Corporation. In 1927, the American Maple Corporation is formally incorporated in Burlington, Vermont under the leadership of F.N. Johnson. Interestingly, Harry Miller, who was working for Welch Brothers Maple Company would later managed Penick & Ford’s Vermont Maid plant, was also on the new board of directors of the American Maple Corporation. The Adirondack Maple Company corporate name was formally dissolved in 1927 and in 1929 the maple processing machinery in the Lowville plant was sold to the Cary Company in St. Johnsbury.
Example, circa 1926 to 1927, of the earliest Vermont Maid Syrup logo featuring the maid with a bonnet and a field in the background. Also note the manufacturer as the Vermont Maple Syrup Company of St. Johnsbury Vermont.
The Vermont Maple Syrup Company under the ownership of Cary and company trademarked the Vermont Maid name in 1919 and began selling blended syrup under the popular Vermont Maid brand name around 1920 or 1921 and it was in 1922, that the famous Vermont Maid logo featuring the portrait of a young women with pigtails and a bonnet, began to be used in advertisements and on labels. Interestingly, Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup Company also sold a Vermont Maid brand pure maple sap syrup during their short period of production out of St. Johnsbury from 1910 to 1915, but there is not indication of a direct connection between the two labels, other than George Cary would have been well aware of the idea and availability of the brand name by by 1920.
Towle’s Vermont Maid Pure Sap Maple Syrup packaged in St. Johnsbury, Vermont between 1910 and 1915.Early Vermont Maid Boston Globe newspaper advertisement from February 1926 showing the iconic Vermont Maid logo and bottle from the Vermont Maple Syrup Company of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Between 1925 and 1926, a series of transactions and corporate shuffling occurred between St. Johnsbury and Burlington. First, F.N. Johnson charters the American Maple Corporation, first in Ohio in 1925 and then in 1926 in Vermont. In doing so, he merged the F.N. Johnson Maple Syrup Company with the Adirondack Maple Company, both of which he had controlling interests.
In July 1926, Llewellyn Welch sold the Welch Brothers Maple Products Company to the newly forming American Maple Company. With this sale, Llewellyn Welch retired from nearly forty years in the maple business. As noted earlier, Charles Welch left the Welch Brothers company some years earlier and would pass away in New York City in 1928. Llewelyn Welch himself died in 1935. Harry Miller stayed on with the new owners, the American maple Corporation (later Vermont Maple Syrup Company), as manager and on through the next owner, Penick & Ford. Miller would go on to have a 60-year long career in the Vermont maple industry, retiring in 1950 as the Vermont Division manager for Penick & Ford.
Then, in early November 1926, the newly formed American Maple Corporation of Burlington merged with George C. Cary ‘s Vermont Maple Syrup Company of St. Johnsbury. In January 1927, the new board of American Maple Corporation met, with F.N. Johnson voted president. Interestingly, there was no mention of George Cary or his usual collaborators on the new board, suggesting American Maple Corporation purchased, rather than merged with, the Vermont Maple Syrup Company. In February, the American Maple Corporation changes its name to the Vermont Maple Syrup Company, and by midway through 1927 begins listing its place of business as Burlington.
1928 Boston Globe newspaper advertisement for Vermont Maid Syrup with the manufacturer Vermont Maple Syrup Company now located in Burlington, Vermont.
In October 1928 in a cash transaction, the Vermont Maple Syrup Company sold their Burlington operation to Penick & Ford, a Louisiana Company that at the time were the largest packers of corn and cane syrups and molasses in the United States. This sale included the former Welch Brothers building on Pine and Marble in Burlington, and all associated brands and labels, including Vermont Maid.
Following this sale, there is no indication that F.N. Johnson had any further involvement with Penick & Ford or the maple products industry in Vermont. F.N. Johnson’s grocery business in Bellefontaine, Ohio was still in operation and he returned to Ohio to direct that until his death in 1945. Incidentally, F.N. Johnson’s daughter in law, Helen Clark Johnson, unexpectedly passed away in Burlington in March of 1928. Her husband Russell Morton Johnson was the manager of the F.N. Johnson Maple Syrup Company, which leads one to wonder if this loss in anyway affected the decision to sell his maple company and leave Vermont.
In 1965, Penick & Ford and the Vermont Maid brand was sold to R. J. Reynolds, and despite operating under a new parent company, little changed in the Burlington plant. However, in 1975, R.J. Reynolds closed the Vermont Maid Syrup bottling plant on Pine Street and Marble Avenue in Burlington. Consolidating of a number of their brands and products, the Vermont Maid were moved operations to New Brunswick, New Jersey. Subsequently, in 1985, R.J. Reynolds acquired the Nabisco brand and formed RJNabisco as a single company. Later on, in 1997, Nabisco sold the Vermont Maid brand to B & G Foods, owner of Maple Grove Farms of Vermont and other syrup brands like Spring Tree Maple Syrup and Cary’s Maple Syrup.
Originally published May 5, 2019 – Revised February 7, 2020
Maple producers have been packing maple syrup into miniature glass bottles since at least the 1930s with many early bottles being used and marketed as trial-sizes or individual servings sample bottles to get people to try a particular brand. Folks not familiar with the flavor and taste of real maple syrup could buy or be given a sample size bottle to see if they liked it rather than jump in for a larger bottle. More recently small bottles of the 1.5 to 2.0 ounce sizes have been used and sold as more novelty bottles and complimentary favors for weddings, parties, businesses and as conveniently sized stocking stuffers.
Small 2.0 ounce sample size bottle in front of larger 12.0 ounce Highland Maple Syrup bottle.
The Cary Maple Sugar Company’s brand of Highland Syrup was bottling their syrup in 2.0 ounce minis since the late 1930s. At one point the company even devised a plan and set up for refillable bottles. Small sample size bottles would be distributed and sold at restaurants and hotels and then the satisfied customer could return to refill their small bottle at unique syrup dispenser. Similar in appearance to a water cooler, a large glass jug of Highland Syrup was suspended upside down and the small empty Highland bottle was refilled through a spigot below.
Highland Maple Syrup dispenser for refilling 2.0 ounce sample size bottles.
Miniatures maple syrup bottles are sometimes referred to as nips which is a name that comes from the more common miniature hard alcohol bottles from which one might take a “nip” or small sip. The term “nip” supposedly has its origins in the word “nipperkin” which meant a small measure of spirits or a measure of alcohol less than a half pint. The word may also have come from the Low German and Dutch word of nippen which means to sip or taste. Hard alcohol nips in the form of miniaturized versions of popular and recognizable bottles and labels of spirits like whiskey, gin, vodka, and various liqueurs have been around since the early part of the 20th century.
Holbert’s Mille Lacs Maple Corp. “Northern Comfort” maple syrup 1/10th pint nip bottle from early 1950s.
In the late 1940s or early 1950s one particular maple syrup producer in Minnesota got the idea to create a novelty label for small bottles of syrup that was a play on the nip size and the name of a few popular and better-known whiskeys and bourbons. In a 2002 interview I conducted with the late Sherman Holbert, he shared that he had been bottling syrup for a few years in the late 1940s in whatever glass bottles he could find, since following the war, specialty glass was hard to come by. Holbert’s maple business, Mille Lacs Maple Products, often reused old pint and half pint liquor bottles for packing syrup, thoroughly cleaning and scraping off the labels before putting on his own maple syrup company labels.
Variation on the Mille Lacs Maple Corp. “Northern Comfort” maple syrup nip bottle.
His company was doing a great business selling small gift-size bottles for corporate clients when one day while removing the label from a used whiskey bottle the idea came to him to put the familiar shape and size of those small booze bottles to use and add a novelty name and label. Holbert’s first novelty label was “Old Grand Mom” playing off Old Grand Dad whiskey. He followed that with another label, which became the more popular “Northern Comfort” which was a play on the name of Southern Comfort whiskey.
Holbert’s maple syrup company was relatively short lived, ending in 1952 but the idea of novelty miniatures or nips using take-offs of popular whiskey and bourbon labels has continued to this day and the label of “Northern Comfort” stuck.
“A Nip of Northern Comfort” 1.6 ounce miniature bottle from American Maple Products Corp. out of Newport, VermontMaple Grove, Inc. 1.5 ounce “A Nip of Northern Comfort” miniature maple syrup bottle.
“A Nip of Northern Comfort” in the 1.7 ounce bottle size from the Smokey Kettle Maple Company of Grimsby, Ontario.
Other companies like Maple Grove, Inc. and American Maple Products in Vermont have used the “A Nip of Northern Comfort” label on novelty, nip-sized bottles in the past, and it is still used today by the Smokey Kettle Maple Company out of Ontario.
The Reynolds Sugar Bush used “Sudden Discomfort” as their own unique take on it. In addition to “Sudden Discomfort”, Reynolds Sugar Bush had a whole line up of novelty labels including Old Croak, Old Polecat, Old Grand Gag, Old Old Hound Dog, and Hawg & Hawg.
Today, most “nip” sized and shaped miniature syrup bottles are used as gifts and favors for guests to special events but their origins are actually in found in the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle.
Reynolds Sugar Bush of Aniwa, Wisconsin’s take on the maple syrup nip bottle with the Sudden Discomfort label.
The Reynolds Sugar Bush used “Southern Discomfort” as their own unique take on it. In addition to “Southern Discomfort”, Reynolds had a whole line up of novelty labels including Old Croak, Old Polecat, Old Grand Gag, Old Hound Dog, and Hawg & Hawg. Interestingly, in his 1998 history of the family and its business Reynolds, Maple, and History: Fit for Kings,” Lynn Reynolds suggests that most of the ideas for novelty packaging, including the bottles “imitating beer, wines, liquors, and other beverages” came from his father Adin Reynolds. Unfortunately, this claim, which may in part be true, is not accompanied by any supporting dates or documentary evidence. Consulting the 1963, 1964 and 1967 equipment and sugar maker supplies catalogs in my collection from Reynolds Sugar Bush one does not find examples of novelty glass containers among the items offered, suggesting Reynolds’ sale and promotion of novelty nip bottles came at a later date.
Today, most “nip” sized and shaped miniature syrup bottles are used as gifts and favors for guests to special events but their origins are actually in found in the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle.
April 20, 2024 – St. Johnsbury, Vermont
