The Vermont Farm Machine Company began life in Hartford, Connecticut as the Hartford Sorghum Machine Company where under license they manufactured the Cory’s Sugar Evaporator, sometimes spelled Corey.
Patented by Christopher Cory (US33238) in September 1861, this metal pan featured a bottom formed into crimped ridges, an early version of shallow flues, that increases the surface and heating area of the sap, leading to more rapid boiling. These evaporator pans came in lengths ranging from 6 feet to 15 feet and were placed on a permanent brick arch.
The Hartford Sorghum Machine Company was formally incorporated in May 1866 under the leadership of James B. Williams of Glastonbury, CT. As President, Williams came to the company not as a metal worker or sugar maker but as a successful businessman and maker of soaps. Williams was also an active investor in a variety of manufacturing businesses in the Glastonbury area.
Initially marketed as an evaporator for making sugar from sorghum, by the end of 1868 the Hartford Sorghum Machine Company was also advertising the Cory Patent Evaporator for boiling maple sap and making maple sugar. In 1868, they also were promoting the use and sale of the Guild Sap Regulator, patented by J.H. Guild in 1867.
In July 1868, it was announced that the Hartford Sorghum Machine Company was setting up a Branch Office and Manufactory in Bellows Falls, Vermont. With J.B. Williams as president and F.G. Butler of Bellows Falls as secretary, the company would begin building a manufacturing plant for production of evaporators for maple sugar makers. The company hoped to have produced and sold 1000 of the evaporators by November of that year. The Cory’s evaporator was proved to be popular and maple sugarmakers that adopted the Cory’s Evaporator reported doubling their production over traditional flat pans.
James B. Williams and the company were not afraid to adopt the ideas of other evaporators and continued to work to improve their design. In early 1869, the company reported that its evaporator combined the features of Corey’s, Cook’s, and Harris’ patent evaporators, all of which they had licenses to manufacture. By June 1869, James B. Williams had obtained a patent on his own evaporator design (US 91890) along with a patent on a machine (US91889) specifically designed for forming the crimped metal corrugations featured in his evaporator design.
In 1871, a group of men led by James B. Williams and Francis G. Butler of Bellows Falls, purchased the Bellows Falls interests of the Hartford Sorghum Machine Company and began doing business as the Vermont Farm Machine Company. Also in March 1871, F.G. Butler obtained a patent on his own evaporator design (US112539) that featured a series of dampers in the fire box of the arch that permitted greater control of heat on the finishing pan, in this case, located at the rear of the evaporator. Although Butler was the patentee, this patent was assigned to himself and to James B. Williams. Butler had another patent associated with evaporator design in 1871 (US116803) but it does not appear to have been assigned to the company or put into use in their evaporators.
Later that same year, 1871, they began referring to their evaporator for boiling map sap as simply the “Improved Evaporator.” On February 15, 1873 the Vermont Farm Machine Co. of Bellows Falls was formally incorporated in the state of Vermont for the manufacture of mowing machines, horse rakes, maple sugar evaporators and other agricultural implements with a capital stock of $25,000 with F.G. Butler as president and J.B. Williams as a member of the board of directors. J.B. Williams continued his successful soap business in Connecticut which lasted into the 1950s.
As the “farm machine company” name implies, the company was beginning to diversify its manufacturing line beyond evaporators to include cream separators and other farm implements and in 1877 brought on Nathan G. Williams to take over and re-organize the Bellows Falls operations. There is no known relation between Nathan G Williams and J.B. Williams. Prior to joining the firm in Bellows Falls, Nathan G. William, who was originally from Pomfret, Connecticut, had been in the mercantile business in Missouri, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois since 1873. Through the 1880s, the company continued to expand its sales to the maple industry and began to offer a portable iron arch to go under the regularly featured Improved Evaporator.
In November 1890, Lorin R. Tabor of Westford, Vermont applied for two patents for improvements to sap evaporators. Tabor was awarded patents in 1891 (US457097) and 1892 (US471229) which were both assigned to the Vermont Farm Machine Co. Most notable of his patents was a design where one could reverse the sap flow in the evaporator pan to combat the build-up of niter or what was at that time called malic acid or malate of lime.
It was in the fall of 1890 that the Vermont Farm Machine Co. began marketing their new Williams Bellows Falls Evaporator, combining features of the Tabor patents along with the earlier Williams, Cory, Cook, and Butler patents. This evaporator was a single contiguous pan, so there was no need for siphons to connect separately. It is interesting to note that drawings of the Williams Bellows Falls Evaporator, from as early as 1890, display a covered evaporator pan and the use of a steam hood, an innovation that would not become popular or widely adopted in the industry for another 50 years.
The Vermont Farm Machine Co. became fully engaged with the maple industry in the 1890s offering a full lineup of maple sugaring equipment ranging from evaporators and pans to sap spouts, pails, gathering and storage tanks, to sugar molds and syrup cans catalogs with an eye-catching pink cover. The Vermont Farm Machine Co. advertisements were also memorable for having high quality detailed drawings with cut-away profiles showing the interior and exterior of their evaporators and sugar houses.
Famous sugarmaker, George H. Soule even lent his name and endorsement to the Williams Evaporator in print in July 1897, when as a prominent farmer and sugarmaker in Franklin County, his use of the evaporator earned him the award of first premium for syrup at the Vermont Sugarmakers meeting earlier that year. Soule further aided the Vermont Farm Machine Co. in improving their evaporator design when his first evaporator patent (US635876) was assigned to the company in 1899. A few years later, Soule would be patenting another evaporator and himself becoming a successful businessman and manufacturer of evaporators and sugaring equipment. A history of the Soule company will appear in a later blog post.
While evaporators were an important component of their business, the overwhelming focus of production for the company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was making dairy equipment, most notably the Cooley Creamers. With his arrival in 1877, Nathan G. Williams initially served as the company treasurer, but moved into greater leadership roles as manager and then president. Williams was popular and well-respected in Windham County and throughout Vermont, so much so that he was elected to serve two terms as the Judge Advocate General for the state of Vermont, first in 1904 and again in 1906.
Continued success through the 1890s and early 20th century resulted in expansion of their production facilities in Bellows Falls. By 1907 it was reported that the company had over 720 employees compared to the twelve workers in 1877, and by 1910 operations covered over three and a half acres with multiple four and five-story brick buildings alongside the railroad on “the island” in the Connecticut River.
With the onset of the first World War, the federal government redirected supplies of steel and manufacturing parts to support the war effort. With that, manufacturing and sales of maple sugaring equipment and other farm machinery slowed in 1916 and 1917. Also during World War I, the Vermont Farm Machine Company was contracted to manufacture shrapnel and high explosive shells for the Russian and United States governments. Complications from cancellations and delays in getting paid by the government for these contracts severely hurt the company and it never really recovered financially.
In 1919 the Vermont Farm Machine Co. purchased the Monarch line of evaporators and maple sugaring tools from True and Blanchard in Newport, Vermont. The Monarch production facilities were moved from their home in Newport to Bellows Falls and the additional designs and brands expanded the Vermont Farm Machine Co. catalog of offerings to maple producers. For more information on the True & Blanchard story, see an earlier blog post.
Following the end of the war, the company found it much more difficult to obtain materials and skilled labor than before. Creditors became concerned with the company’s request for additional loans and the ability of the company to pay its existing debts. As a result, in May of 1920 a group of creditors took the company into receivership and took control of its affairs. In July 1920, Nathan G. Williams resigned his position as president, treasurer and manager of the Vermont Farm Machine Co. after leading the company for 40 years, although for a short time he was still engaged as one of two court appointed receivers. Disagreements and questionable management decisions by the appointed receivers left what remained of the company in shambles. Production slowed, sales agents left in droves, and by the beginning of 1921 production at the factory had ceased. In 1925, Williams moved from Bellows Falls to Hartford, CT where he resided until his death at age 87 in 1931.
The closing of the factory was the end to the Vermont Farm Machine Company’s manufacturing of maple sugaring evaporators and equipment and there is no indication that their designs, patents, and brands for maple sugaring equipment were sold or passed on to any other maple equipment companies. The company was never reorganized, and the company’s property and factory were sold to a series of different owners over the following years. A massive fire on November 14, 1952 destroyed the former Vermont Farm Machine Company buildings which at the time were being used by a plastics company, a milk company and a poultry company.
Note: special thanks to Hale Mattoon for sharing his knowledge and research collections related to patent history and the Vermont Farm Machine Co.