Category: Leader Evaporator Co.

A History of Sap Gathering and Hauling Tanks

By Matthew M. Thomas

Eastman Johnson painting showing men pulling sap gathering barrel set on its side on a sled in sugarbush, ca. 1860-1870.

In the years before  plastic tubing was adopted for collecting and moving maple sap from the tree to the storage tank and the sugarhouse, maple producers had to travel from tree to tree on foot gathering sap from pails and later bags. That sap in turn was gathered and hauled through the sugarbush in a variety of tanks pulled on sleds, wheeled carts, wagons, trailers over the snow and mud. In later years truck flatbeds were employed to carry sap gathering tanks.

Image of a well-preserved example of a simple wood barrel used with top pouring funnel set on sled for sap gathering.

In the earlier years of sap gathering, in the 1700s and 1800s, maple producers gathered sap in large wooden barrels or drums, roughly 50 gallons in size, either set upright or on their side, secured atop sleds and stone boats, and pulled through the woods by horses, oxen, or even people power. Most historic images show one barrel in use at a time for gathering, but it was not uncommon for two or three barrels to be secured to one sled. While the volume of sap gathered to make maple syrup is always a staggering number in comparison to the volume of the product, in earlier days maple production was much smaller in scale than it is today, requiring a bit less carrying capacity.

Late 19th century postcard image of a large tapered wooden sap gathering tank pulled by oxen on a sled.

In addition to the simple barrel gathering tanks, at some point in the latter half of the 1800s some producers began to construct larger specialized tapered wooden tanks made from vertical staves for gathering sap . These tanks used flat staves secured with metal hoops and were wider at the base, narrower at the top and had a large opening on the top to pour fresh sap. The volume of such tanks was often in 200-300 gallon range.

Library of Congress image

By the early 1880s specialized wooden gathering tanks based on a modified barrel design began to appear. Most notable is the patented designs of Henry Adams and Clinton C. Haynes out of Wilmington, Vermont. Adams and Haynes first developed and manufactured their tank in the 1870s with a patent (US229,576) awarded in 1880. Under the title of “liquid holder” it was an elongated round wooden tank for the storage of maple sap or water on the farm. Unlike typical barrels at the time made with inflexible wood or metals straps or hoops, the Adams and Haynes tank was bound with adjustable iron rods that could be tightened or loosened as the wood staves of the tank expanded or shrank with wetting and drying.

1884 Patent design from Adams and C.C. Haynes wood slat sap gathering tank (US201467).

In 1884 Adams and Haynes patented a sap gathering tank, specifically designed to be pulled through the sugarbush for sap collection. Patented (US301,467) and advertised under the title of a “gathering tub,” this tank was sometimes referred to as a Tomahawk or Tommyhawk tank. This tank was based on a similar design as the storage tanks with the addition of a pair of openings on top equipped with wire mesh strainers and surrounded by a downwardly sloping square casing that facilitated the easy pouring of sap into the tank and minimized spillage. Instead of being completely circular in shape, the gathering tanks were somewhat flattened elliptical in cross section to provide more stability in hauling hundreds of gallons of sap. Sap was drained from a plug at the base of the tank. The large “liquid holder” storage tanks were made in sizes ranging from from 10 to 40 barrels in volume. The smaller gathering tub “Tomahawk” tanks were available in sizes that would hold from 3 to 7 barrels.

Advertisement for Adams & Haynes Improved Gathering Tub from 1884 Wilmington, Vermont directory.

Although Haynes died in 1919 and Adams in 1927, the Adams and Haynes tanks company continued to manufacture their tanks on the Adams’ Wilmington area farm into the 1940s.  In addition to wood tanks and sap pails the partnership also manufactured sap evaporators and other farm tools such as yokes for oxen and wheelbarrows.

Image of a well preserved Adams and Haynes wooden Tomahawk Tank.
Pouring sap into half barrel opening on Somerset County submarine shaped “double barrel” sap gathering tank on wheeled suspension wagon. Courtesy of Mare Ware and the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County .

Another unique horizontal elongated wooden gathering tank developed in the late 1800s came out of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Sometimes called a double barrel tank, this submarine shaped tank, tapered at both ends, was essentially a fully coopered elongated wooden barrel with metal hoops set on its side with the top portion of a coopered barrel fitted to the top to facilitate pouring and straining of sap. Seldom seen in use outside of Somerset County, these long tanks were set on sleds and suspended on wagons and wheeled carts using straps or chains.

Example of elongated coopered wooden barrel tank with suspended on a wheeled frame. This submarine shaped was unique to Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Mare Ware and the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County .

These barrels featured special pouring funnels and openings to permit easy emptying of sap collecting pails and minimize the sloshing and spillage of sap in the tank as they moved over snow and rough terrain in the sugarbush trails and roads. Somerset County’s unique submarine shaped wooden tanks were coopered like an elongated barrel resting on its side with a specially fitted coopered half barrel on top for the pouring hole. They were emptied by pulling a plug near the base that permitted the contents to spill out onto a trough and into the sugarhouse storage tanks.

Image of Grimm’s cylindrical iron and tin metal gathering tank from a G.H. Grimm Manufacturing Company catalog dating to approximately 1894.

Sheet metal gathering tanks made their formal appearance in the early 1890s with the introduction of both galvanized iron and tin tanks by the G.H. Grimm Company. These tanks came in 3 or 4 barrel capacities and  featured an inward sloping pouring cone and strainer as well as a exterior pouring arm connected by flexible hose at the base of the tank. Grimm also offered at this time, large rectangular open topped, galvanized iron, sap storage tanks up to 8 feet long 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep. With the arrival of Grimm’s metal tank, nearly all the major maple equipment manufacturers got on board with their own unique shapes and designs.

G.H. Grimm improved round sap gathering tank from early 1900s with side ribbing, domed top, and smaller conical opening.

By the early 1900s the G.H. Grimm Company’s  improved gathering tank had gone through a redesign with a domed cover with a smaller conical funnel at the center replacing the wider cone style. A central two part strainer and removable cover continued to sit at the center of the funnel. The sides of the tank now featured horizontal ribbing and the flexible pouring arm was enlarged in size.

Dominion and Grimm “nouveau reservoir a ramasser”, a new style sap gathering tank as appeared in their 1961 catalog.

Interestingly, with the 1900 split of the G.H. Grimm Company in Rutland, Vermont and its sister company Grimm Manufacturing Company in Montreal (later to become the Dominion & Grimm Company), the Montreal company initially stuck with the inward sloping, wide-mouthed conical draining design and continued to describe it as “Grimm’s Quick-Straining, Self-Emptying Gathering Tank”. Later in time, after joining with Dominion, the company offered a full range of tanks with a round tank, an oval tank, and in the early 1960s, a trapezoidal tank with a raised round pouring tube and an interior strainer and splash arrester.

Drawing from William Burt’s 1896 patent for a all metal sap gathering tank with pouring arm on the side. This was the precursor to the Leader Evaporator Company’s Monitor Gathering Tank.

The Leader Evaporator Company followed Grimm’s early lead with their own version of an of an oval shaped metal gathering tank using William Burt’s 1896 patent design (US559,358). Marketed as the Monitor Gathering Tank, this tank included a number of features that were improvements upon the initial Grimm cylindrical and wooden tanks, most notably an interior splash arrester. The design features introduced with Leader Evaporator Company’s Monitor Gathering Tank and the earlier Grimm tank, namely the inward sloping top panel to funnel sap downward, the interior splash arrester, and the flexible pouring arm, became standard design features on essentially all the metal gathering tanks that came after them.

Leader Evaporator Company’s oval shaped Monitor Gathering Tank with pour arm on one end of the tank.

Actual production versions of Leader’s Monitor Gathering Tank feature the pouring arm at one of the rounded ends of the tank rather than midway along the straight side of the tank as shown in the patent design.

 

 

Vermont Farm Machine Company’s rectangular Monarch Hauling Tank, a design and name started by True and Blanchard who were later sold the Vermont Farm Machine Company.

The True & Blanchard Company out of Newport, Vermont developed a rectangular sap gathering tank called the Monarch Hauling Tank in the late 1890s or early 1900s. This tank featured a large rectangular opening that funneled down to a circular strainer and a flexible pouring arm at one end. When the True & Blanchard Company was sold to the Vermont Farm Machine Company in 1919, the Monarch Hauling Tank design and name was carried over unchanged.

Image of oval gathering tank from 1918 Vermont Farm Machine Company catalog.

Prior to acquiring the True & Blanchard Company and their Monarch tank, the Vermont Farm Machine Company offered an oval tank of their own with a square opening at the top with an interior round recessed strainer at the center. Like others of its time a flexible pouring arm was located at one end of the tank. It does not appear from the Vermont Farm Machine Company catalogs that the company continued to offer this design after the rectangular Monarch Tanks was brought into their equipment lineup.

GH Grimm oval galvanized metal sap gathering tank with two parallel raised ridges framing the pouring hole.

Although the G.H. Grimm Company started with a round tank in the 1890s, later in the 20th century they also offered an oval tank, similar in outward design to the earlier  Vermont Farm Machine Company tank. The Grimm tank differed in having heavy raised metal ridges flanking the central pouring hole.

Rectangular gathering tank offered by Small Brothers Lightning Evaporator Company of Richford, Vermont in the 19-teens and 1920s.

In the late 19-teens or 1920 the Small Brothers Lightning Evaporator Company out of Richford, Vermont offered a rectangular tank with reinforced wood panels, a largely flat top, and the flexible pouring arm. In later years, the Lightning Evaporator Company changed to an oval shaped tank with a raised square pouring area.

Lightning Evaporator Company oval tank on the left with raised square opening and G.H. Grimm tank on right. Both images from respective company product catalogs.

G.H. Grimm acquired the Lightning Evaporator Company in 1964 after which time Grimm continued to offer the same oval design with the upward sloping pouring compartment. With the addition of the Lightning design oval tank, the Grimm Company appears to have discontinued its production of the earlier oval tank with parallel ridges flanking the pouring opening.

Vermont Evaporator Company round sap gathering tank with side ribbing, a domed top, and wide mouth opening for pouring sap.

The Vermont Evaporator Company came out with a round tank based on a design remarkably similar to G.H. Grimm’s round tank. That the Vermont Evaporator Company may have copied a Grimm design was not entirely surprising considering the history of their founders as former Grimm employees that were known to have copied Grimm designs in the past.

 

Sproul round sap gathering tank with recessed central pouring area.

Another notable round tank was manufactured by the Sproul Hardware and Manufacturing Company out of Delevan, New York in the early 1900s. The Sproul hauling tank design was similar in appearance to the early version of the Grimm round tank with a wide inwardly sloping top panel and smooth galvanized iron sides and a narrowing diameter pouring arm.

 

G.H. Soul’s King rectangular shaped sap gathering tank with sloping top panels and a square opening for pouring.

Lastly, one of the last of the companies to get on board with a gathering tank was the G.H. Soule Company out of St. Albans, Vermont who offered their popular King brand rectangular tanks in sizes ranging from 4 to 7 barrels. All the King tanks featured a reinforced wood base and a top panel that sloped upwardly to a central square opening and interior recessed pouring hole and strainer.

As this summary shows, following the replacement of wood gathering tanks maple equipment companies introduced many different round, oval, and rectangular metal sap gathering tanks, all with similar, but subtly different designs and features.

History of Maple Syrup Cans – Color Lithographed Cans

For much of the twentieth century maple syrup was packaged for sale and shipment in metal containers. The first half of the century was witness to maple producers pasting paper labels onto bare metal gallon, half-gallon, and quart-sized tins. But by the mid-point of the century a new, more attractive and colorful option came onto the market.

Color lithographed square tins with maple sugaring scenes were first introduced for individual maple producers in Vermont for the 1948 season’s crop. Sugarmaker S. Allen Soule of Fairfield, Vermont developed the cans in 1947 after seeing olive oil sold in gallon size square tins with colorful graphics on the exterior, known as double O tins in the can industry.

1947 advertisement for S. Allen Soule’s maple syrup showing his new color lithographed can, which made available for sale to maple producers in the 1948 season.

In a March 2019 interview with S. Allen Soule’s son, John Soule shared that his father contacted the Empire Can Company in Brooklyn, New York and asked if they could make a can similar to the double O can, but for maple syrup. Empire Can said they could, and S. Allen Soule and his wife Betty worked with a New England artist to design the exterior featuring a sugaring scene on the two larger faces of the can and a short history of maple syrup and a few maple recipes on the side panels. The front panel read “Pure Vermont Maple Syrup” and initially included a blank white rectangle where the individual maple syrup producer could stamp their name and address.

Image of the four sizes of cans offered for sale by S. Allen Soule. Note the blue oval for syrup makers to add their name and address.

Of course, you could order a stamp with your sugarbush name from S. Allen Soule to go with your order of empty cans. A few years later the blank white rectangle was replaced with a more attractive blank blue oval. The initial cans were made in one gallon, a half-gallon and one-quart sizes with the focus on pushing the smaller quart size can as a more attractive size for tourists and more distant markets in the urban areas.

It should be noted that S. Allen Soule and his can and syrup packing and selling operation (later named Fairfield Farm) was not the same company as the George H. Soule evaporator and maple sugaring equipment company. George H. Soule and S. Allen Soule were cousins and both from the Fairfield area, but they were distinctly different families and businesses, despite the similar names and even the later reuse of the Fairfield Farms name by S. Allen Soule in the 1960s following the closing of G.H. Soule’s Fairfield Farms in the 1950s.

1967 Maple Digest advertisements for the Empire Can Company showing the three styles of cans it was offering, including the style developed by S. Allen Soule in 1947.

Following the success of S. Allen Soule’s introduction of the lithographed square tin, the Empire Can Company got into the business of directly marketing and selling color lithographed tins to maple producers in the mid-1950s, albeit with a different and even more generic design and label, to appeal to maple producers in states outside of Vermont. According to S. Allen Soule’s son, Empire Can’s entry in the can market as a seller and not just as a can maker was to the surprise of S. Allen Soule who was working under the belief that he had an exclusive arrangement with Empire Can Company.

Empire Can Company’s color lithographed generic maple syrup can.

 

1957 ad for the Stern Can Company’s color lithographed maple syrup can.

Empire Can’s entry in to the maple syrup can market was soon followed by the appearance of additional stock color lithographed square cans from the Stern Can Company of Boston, Massachusetts in the later 1950s and the Eastern Can Company of Passaic, New Jersey in the early 1960s. Maple producers had the options of buying totally generic tins or buying tins with labels of Pure Maple Syrup with their respective state names. States with specific cans printed with their names generally included Vermont, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Eastern Can Company square color lithographed cans introduced in 1967.

By the early 1970s production of stock square cans for the maple syrup industry had fallen off and it was becoming increasingly difficult to purchase square color lithographed cans in the United States. The Empire Can Company was the last large volume can producer and was not producing enough cans to meet industry needs. In addition, new production methods were resulting in more and more defective cans. Concerns about can availability worsened when the Empire Can Company announced it was getting out of the maple syrup can business in 1978.

In response, the Leader Evaporator Company formed Maple Country Can Company and in a controversial move, secured a public loan in combination with private financing to purchase and move the Empire Can Company equipment to a new facility under construction in St. Albans, Vermont. Maple Country Can Co. was a short-lived venture and closed its doors a few years later in 1980, selling its canning equipment to the New England Container Company in Swanton, Vermont.

Packaging maple syrup metal cans, including a reintroduction of the log cabin shaped can, continues to this day but the introduction of plastic containers in 1970 and the greater use of smaller and fancy glass containers in a wide range of shapes and sizes has pushed packaging in metal cans to the background.

1953 advertisement for the new Quebec round can for pure maple syrup.

In Quebec, a generic color lithographed can was introduced for maple syrup makers in the early 1950s. Moving away from the industry standard of a plain square metal can with glued on paper labels, the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture held a design competition in 1951 asking for submissions with a maple sugaring scene to illustrate their new 26 ounce round cans. According to one telling of this history, it is not exactly clear what was the initial winning design or if there was more than one design chosen, and unfortunately the name of the wining artist has yet to be discovered.

Examples of a range of different generic pure Quebec maple syrup round cans.

Over time, the design of the standard stock round can for maple syrup in Quebec has evolved and the design has changed. Unlike in the U.S., in Quebec square tins became less common.  With the assistance of the Ministry of Agriculture and the support of the Quebec Maple Producers Federation, round tins became the norm and are now something of an iconic symbol of the Quebec maple industry.

Image of the current version of the stock pure Quebec maple syrup round can.
1920’s image of a Highland Pure Maple Sap Syrup round can from the Cary Maple Sugar Company out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Although Quebec has embraced the round can, they were not the first to use if for packaging maple syrup. Maple King, George C. Cary was canning pure maple syrup in round, soup can-sized tins with color lithographed exteriors as early as 1923. Before Cary’s use of a round lithographed can, the Towle’s Log Cabin syrup company was canning blended maple and cane syrup starting in the late 19-teens. The Towle’s Log Cabin company color lithographed cans initially were limited to the Log Cabin Brand in its colorful cabin shaped tins with interesting scenes printed on all sides. In the early 1920s, The Towle’s company also began marketing Wigwam brand blended maple and cane syrup in a unique wedge shaped color lithographed can.

Evaporator Company Histories: Leader Evaporator

Portrait of William E. Burt, founder and president of the Leader Evaporator Company.

The Leader Evaporator Company is arguably the largest maple syrup equipment manufacturing and supply company in the world. Like many of the evaporator companies in the past, its beginning was small and humble. William E. Burt started the company as a tin shop under the name of W.E. Burt & Co. in 1888 in partnership with Alfred Simkins in Enosburg Falls, Vermont.  Their original location was in the old Woodworth Feed Store on Railroad Street in Enosburg Falls, Vermont before moving their business to Main Street, and finally to a building on Bismark Street.  They moved the company from Enosburg Falls to Burlington, Vermont in 1904.

Patent drawing for Hall and Wright’s evaporator design that would be purchased by W.E. Burt and become his Leader Evaporator.

The evaporator that W.E. Burt & Co. sold as the Improved Leader Evaporator was based on a design developed and patented by William Henry Wright and Clark Hall out of the East Farnham/Cowansville area of Quebec. Hall and Wright’s evaporator design was patented in Canada in 1888 (CA28644/CA32481) and the US in 1889 (US415653) and featured drop flues, alternating draw offs to reverse sap flows, a sap preheater, and a maze of baffles and compartments to facilitate the flow of sap to finished syrup.

In 1889, a short while after opening their doors, John A. Potter joined W.E. Burt & Co. in the hardware business, which became colloquially known as Burt & Potter. In January of 1890, a fire in downtown Enosburg Falls destroyed the W.E. Burt & Co. hardware store, as well as the home and barn of W.E. Burt. The fire appeared to have started when a stove exploded in the nearby millinery store of W.E. Burt’s wife, also located on Main Street. Numerous downtown buildings were destroyed and for a time it was thought the entire village may be lost if not for the aid of a heavy rain.

Advertisement from 1891 for W.E. Burt & Co. on Main Street in Enosburg Falls, Vermont and selling “Hall & Wright’s” Patent Improved Leader Evaporator.

W.E. Burt and J.A. Potter may have had a difficult time recovering from the fire, since in September 1891, W.E. Burt & Co. was in court for insolvency. Sometime in 1891, the name W.E. Burt & Co. was dropped in favor of doing business as the Leader Evaporator Co., possibly related to or a result of settling the insolvency.

As the new name implies, in the 1890s, Burt focused his energies and tin works on manufacturing evaporators. In an 1894 government report of metal implement manufacturers related to the effects of tariffs on their businesses, the Leader Evaporator Company noted that its value of production was $8000 for the year of 1893. They employed two skilled men at a rate of two dollars a day, two common laborers at one dollar a day, all at sixty hours a week, and also had the assistance and time of W.E. Burt’s son. They had a number of sales agents that worked on commission. Their evaporators were manufactured from tin plate, and their sugaring off pans from Russian iron, galvanized iron, and tin plate. Leader Company arches were made of iron and their sugaring tools of tin plate.

Sanborn fire insurance map from 1895 for Enosburg Falls showing in blue the location of W.E. Burt’s tin shop on Bismarck Street.

In 1894, Burt sold the tin ware and stove portion of his business to N.A. Gilbert in Enosburg Falls and focused his energies on manufacturing maple sugaring evaporators and selling maple sugaring tools and supplies.  Later that year it was reported that the Leader Evaporator Co. had outgrown its old space and W.E. Burt was building a new building fronting on Bismarck Street in Enosburg Falls.

Current view looking northeast of the building that once served as W.E. Burt’s tin shop on Bismarck Street in Enosburg Falls, Vermont.
Patent design drawing for W.E. Burt’s Monitor sap gathering tank.

Although the design for the main evaporator made by the Leader Evaporator Company came from the patent of two Canadian inventors, W.E. Burt and the company designed and manufactured other notable maple sugaring implements. In particular, in 1894, Burt patented his design for a sap gathering tank (US559358/CA54042) which the Leader Company manufactured and sold as the popular Monitor Gathering Tank.

It is not clear when Alfred Simkins and W.E. Burt parted ways as partners and Simkins left the company, it may have been only a year or two after they started the company together in 1888. However; by late 1896, Burt was on his own and Simkins was in court for bankruptcy. Also in 1896, W.E. Burt announced that the Leader Company was starting to sell evaporators in Canada with Julius M. Ruiter of Brome, Quebec handling sales across the border.

Sanborn FIre Insurance map from 1906 for Burlington, Vermont showing the location of the new Leader Evaporator Company near the northeast corner of College Street and Battery Street.

In the spring of 1904, the Leader Company decided it was going to relocate its factory to either Essex Junction, Vermont or Burlington, Vermont, putting the two communities in competition with one another to see which might offer the Leader Company an exemption from city taxes for ten years. A gathering of Burlington citizens was called for by the mayor and the citizens agreed to grant the exemption.

Close up of 1906 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map showing Leader Evaporator Company building outlined in gray, indicating that the building was clad in metal.

Property was purchase and on May 25, ground was broken on Battery Street, near the corner of College Street, for the construction of a 36 x 72-foot, three-story, wood-framed building, with a tin roof and brick and iron siding. Initially the company employed around twelve men but expected to increase its workforce in the coming years.  Burt’s brother in law J. M. Ruiter was a key figure in the company by this time and was instrumental in ensuring a smooth process for the relocation of their facilities from Enosburg Falls to Burlington in 1904.

In April 1910, the Leader Evaporator Company was formally incorporated in the State of Vermont, with a capital stock of $100,000. Shareholders were nearly all family members, consisting of William E. Burt, his wife Tillie J. Burt, his brother in law J.M. Ruiter, his nephew A.A. Hunter, and prominent Burlington businessman and investor F.O. Sinclair.

Leader Company advertisement from 1907 promoting the prize winning New Double Leader Evaporator that has reached “near perfection” in design with guaranteed satisfaction.

Interestingly, five years later, Ruiter, along with shareholder, Leader employee, and fellow family member, A.A. Hunter, broke with Burt and partnered with George H. Soule in 1915 to form the Burlington Evaporator Company. The relationship with Ruiter, Hunter, and Soule was short-lived and the Burlington Evaporator Company partnership was dissolved a year later. Two years later Soule reorganized the Burlington Evaporator Company to form the George H. Soule Company.

It would appear that Hunter and Ruiter’s split from the Leader Company was probably less than amicable since the Leader Company took out ads in newspapers all over Vermont announcing to sugarmakers that Hunter and Ruiter no longer represented the Leader Company. However, in the 1920s local gossip in the newspapers indicated that the Burt, Ruiter, and Hunter families were vacationing together, so any internal family misgivings appeared to be relatively short-lived.

Leader Evaporator Company letterhead from the 1930s.

Leadership of the company during the period it was owned by W.E. Burt was very much a family organization. In the 1930s, letterhead for the company lists W.E. Burt as president, his son in law George E. Partridge as vice-president, his wife T.J. Burt (Matilda “Tillie” J. Burt) treasurer, and his daughter B.B. Partridge (Beth Burt Partridge) as assistant-treasurer.

Tillie Burt passed away in 1941 and W.E. Burt remarried to Lucille Roy in 1945. In September of 1955, W.E. Burt himself passed away in the hospital in Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont at age 94. Following the death of W.E. Burt, Lucille Roy Burt continued to run the company with the assistance of longtime employee and manager Alton E. Lynde. Lynde died a few years later in 1961. Lester C. Brown followed behind Lynde as the manager of the company.

Leader Evaporator Company advertisement from their 1961 catalog promoting their sales and distribution of the Mapleflo sap gathering system manufactured by the 3M company.

Changes in the technology of the maple industry was relatively slow and almost stagnant between the 1920s to the 1960s. Notable new inventions were portable power tappers, plastic sap collection bags, metal lithographed cans, gas burners, and eventually flexible plastic tubing for sap collection. The Leader Company of course got on board with sales of most of these products. Most notably among these was the Leader Company securing an exclusive dealership in the United States with the 3M company for the sale of their new plastic tubing called Mapleflo for the 1958 season. In time, other vendors carried the 3M tubing, but the Leader Company was out of the gate at the same time in a side-by-side race with the Lamb Plastic Tubing Company and their Naturalfow tubing.

Image of a typical Leader Evaporator Company boiling arch from the first 100 or so years of production. Note the scripted letter “L” on each door of the arch front, a feature unique to the Leader Evaporators.

In May of 1963 the Burlington Free Press announced that the Leader Evaporator Company was being sold and Lucille Roy Burt was stepping down from her post as president and treasurer. The purchase was led by a local group of men including Leader Company manager Lester C. Brown, who assumed the role of president, as well as Robert C. Coombs of Jacksonville, Charles E. Branon of Fairfield, and Fortis H. Abbott of Essex Junction, three well-known men in the maple industry; and Leonard O. Bombard of Burlington. Other new stockholders included Harold W. Cook of DeRuyter, NY; and W.W. Manes of East Orwell, Ohio.

The Willard Building in St. Albans showing the Leader Evaporator Company sign following the acquisition of the building with the purchase of the George H. Soule Co.

The new Leader Evaporator Company stockholders wasted no time in breathing new life into the company and the following spring announced that they had purchased the George H. Soule Company and were moving the majority of their operations from their space on Battery Street in Burlington to the factory space of their newly acquired Soule Company in the Willard Building in St. Albans, Vermont.

In 1978 the Leader Company made the controversial decision to enter the can manufacturing business when it purchased the maple syrup can production arm from the Empire Can Company of Brooklyn, New York. Despite building a nearly 10,000 square foot production facility and moving equipment from New York to St. Albans, by June 1980, Leader’s can manufacturing venture was short-lived.  Two years later the can making equipment was sold to Rollie Devost and the New England Can Company in Swanton, Vermont.

Leader Evaporator Company advertisement from the 1990s showing their promotion of their subsidiary companies G.H. Grimm and Lamb Naturallow tubing. In time, the Grimm and Lamb names would be dropped and it would just become the Leader Evaporator Company.

Over the next few decades the Leader Company continued to grow, largely through the purchase and absorption of other maple syrup equipment manufacturers. In 1972 the Leader Company purchased the Vermont Evaporator Company of Ogdensburg, New York and in October 1989 it was announced that Leader had purchased the G.H. Grimm Company of Rutland, VT. The purchase of Grimm brought Grimm’s previous purchases of Lightning Evaporator Company and its partnership with the Lamb Naturalflow Tubing Company into the Leader Company. Now the Leader Company was the undisputedly the largest maple sugaring equipment company in the world.

As a privately held company with a 120-year history, the Leader Company has had surprisingly few presidents. Beginning with William E. Burt, followed by his second wife Lucille Roy Burt, Lester C. Brown served as president from 1961 to the mid 1960s, and later Robert Bordeau served from the 1960s to 1980. For 25 years, from 1980 to 2015, Gary Gaudette led the company and in 2015 Bradley Gillilan took over the reins as president.

In 2005 the Leader Company relocated operations to an industrial park in Swanton, Vermont. In doing so, the Leader Company vacated the Willard Building in St. Albans, and the G.H. Grimm building they continued to use in Rutland, Vermont, consolidating the companies under one roof in a more expansive and modern 85,000 square-foot manufacturing and sales facility.