The Beginnings of The Vermont Maid Brand of Blended Syrup

Readers of this website may recall a similar post in the past outlining the relationship of the Vermont Maid Syrup company to other Vermont maple syrup and blended syrup companies. However, after seeing an August 2019 local-interest news clip from a Burlington, Vermont television station incorrectly describe the beginnings of the Vermont Maid company I thought I would write a more detailed, and accurate accounting of the company’s early years. Unfortunately, the presenters in the news piece didn’t do their research and repeated a popular, but inaccurate, narrative that Vermont Maid was started by the Welch Brothers Maple Products Company in Burlington in 1906 and was the first blended syrup on the market. Moreover, this news bit featured a representative from the Vermont Historical Society, in this case the Executive Director, affording the story a bit of unwarranted authority.

The true story goes a bit more like this. Vermont Maid Syrup began as a brand of the Vermont Maple Syrup Company in Essex Junction, Vermont in 1919. Going back even further, the Vermont Maple Syrup Company was a syrup bottling and blending company started by Fletcher N. Johnson and his partners in 1916 in Essex Junction.[1]

Then on April 7, 1919 Fletcher sold his controlling interest in Vermont Maple Syrup Company, including the Essex Junction facilities, to George C. Cary, at that time one of the company’s minor shareholders.[2]

Soon after in late April 1919 the Vermont Maid name was registered as a trademark by the Vermont Maple Syrup Company of Essex Junction and advertisements selling Vermont Maid blended cane and maple syrup began to appear at least as early as the fall of 1921.[3]

The first advertisement I have been able to find featuring the iconic logo of a young maiden at the center of an art nouveau styled shield and sporting a white bonnet in front of an outdoor scene of buildings, field, trees, and sky date to February 1922.[4]

Following the conclusion of a court case settling a disagreement between F.N. Johnson and George C. Cary over another syrup brand (Sugar Bird Syrup) that Cary incorrectly believed to be included in the sale of the Vermont Maple Syrup Company, Cary and his co-investors reorganized the Vermont Maple Syrup Company in June of 1922 and in February 1923 moved the company from Essex Junction to St. Johnsbury.[5]

In 1926 F. N. Johnson returns to the story with a newly formed American Maple Corporation with the purchase of the Welch Brothers Maple Products Company of Burlington, Vermont, including their Pine and Marble Street bottling plant. That same year the American Maple Corporation also acquired Cary’s Vermont Maple Syrup Company and the Vermont Maid brand. By late 1926 or early 1927 the Vermont Maid brand had undoubtedly moved from St. Johnsbury to the old Welch Brothers plant on Pine and Marble Streets in Burlington. Following their various mergers and acquisitions the American Maple Products officially settled on the name of Vermont Maple Syrup Company in the spring of 1927.[6]

The Vermont Maple Syrup Company (formerly American Maple Corporation) did not hang onto the Vermont Maid brand for long and in October 1928 the Vermont Maple Syrup Company, including the Vermont Maid brand and the Burlington plant, was sold to Penick & Ford, Inc., a large national syrup company with products and interests in molasses, cane syrup, and corn syrup. The Vermont Maid brand continued to be bottled under Penick & Ford ownership in Burlington until it was sold to R. J. Reynolds in 1965. The plant continued to be used by RJ Reynolds Foods for bottling Vermont Maid syrup for another ten years, before the plant was closed and the bottle facilities moved to New Jersey in 1975.[7]

As stated at the beginning of this post, Vermont Maid Syrup or the the Vermont Maid brand was never a brand or part of the Welch Brothers Maple Products Company in Burlington. It is true that Vermont Maid was bottled in the same plant that was built for and once used by the Welch Brothers company, but Vermont Maid was neither started by Welch Brothers nor ever owned and operated by Welch Brothers. For some it may seem like splitting hairs, but good history is based on good research and it is important to get the story right. The confusion about that comes from the various companies and facilities that were consolidated and purchased by the American Maple Corporation/Vermont Maple Syrup Company. As for the idea that starting in 1906 the Welch Brothers first came up with the idea to bottle blended syrup combining maple and cane syrup couldn’t be further from the truth. There were literally dozens of syrup blenders at work at the same time if not long before the Welch Brothers formed in 1890.[8]

For collectors of maple syrup and Vermont Maid Syrup items, it is possible to find earliest tins and bottles with labels showing the Vermont Maid maiden wearing the white bonnet. These date from the short-lived Essex Junction period (ca. 1920 to 1923) and the St. Johnsbury period (1923 to 1926/27). The earliest labels also feature the words “VERMONT MAID” in an arched script above the word “SYRUP” at the top of the label. By the early Burlington period (1926/27 to 1929) the maiden has lost her white bonnet and the word “SYRUP” is no long present at the top of the label under “Vermont Maid”. All three of these earliest labels include a white panel or box with red print at the bottom of the label stating the town in which it was packed.

Early bottle shapes include a clear glass round bodied, long neck form (see image near top if post) without a loop handle. Later a round bodied bottle with a single loop handle and reinforced lip at the junction of the neck and shoulder. It is not clear if the single loop handle bottle was used at the Essex Junction or St. Johnsbury bottling plant, but the single loop bottle was definitely in use in the early years of the Burlington bottling plant, ca. 1928-1932.

By 1930 the white box stating the location of manufacturing has disappeared. Advertisements from these early periods indicate that Vermont Maid syrup was packed in both tins and bottles with three sizes of tins and two sizes of bottle, as well as a sample size bottle.

By 1932 the background behind the maiden has changed from an outdoor scene to a solid color and a lighter colored panel below the image of the maiden is replaced by a solid green background label.

The early bottles in both large and small sizes have a single loop handle.  The slightly flattened, double loop handle bottle was patented and introduced in 1933, replacing the round single loop handle bottles.

After 1933 the Vermont Maid label witnessed subtle changes, most notably and useful for collectors, the addition and regular updating of the copyright date at the bottom of the label, with 1935, 1939, and 1942. Depending on the state labeling requirements for the state where the syrup was to be, labels varied based on their different ingredients and the amounts that were used. Some simply said “Made from Cane and Maple Sugar.” While others listed the percentages (85% cane and 15% maple) or in the case of a 1942 copyright label 50% Cane, 25% (Dextrose, Maltose, and Dextrines) and 25% Maple Sugar.

During the years of World War II, the War Production Board – Containers Division required all blended syrup companies to use a standardized bottle shape and size. Production of glass containers was limited by the government to a small range of specific bottle shapes and sizes to allow glass manufacturers to focus their efforts on more important wartime production and not creating specialty glass containers. As a result, like all other blended syrup, from around 1943 to 1947 Vermont Maid was sold in what was sometimes called the “stubby round” bottle, more commonly recognized today as a molasses or vinegar bottle. Following the end of the war, Vermont Maid returned to being bottled in the double loop handle bottle. Use of this bottle shape continued well into the late 1960s and possibly the early 1970s.

One might wonder from where did the idea for the maiden label and logo come? Having lost the right to use the Sugar Bird Syrup brand in 1921, George Cary and the Vermont Maple Syrup Company needed a new logo for their blended syrup and somehow settled on the Vermont Maid name. It is striking how similar the initial bonneted maiden on the Vermont Maid Syrup logo was to the bonneted maiden of the Sun-Maid Raisins logo, also introduced around this time.

Sun-Maid Raisins began to display a maiden on their logo in 1915, predating the Vermont Maid Syrup logo, and the similarities between the two labels are. Interestingly, the image of the girl in the Sun-Maid Raisins logo is based on a real person named Lorraine Collett, although her likeness evolved over time. In contrast, it is not known if the Vermont Maid Syrup maiden was similarly based on a real person or was more of an imaginary caricature of a persona, more like the fictitious Betty Crocker.

There have been other uses of the name Vermont Maid as a brand, such as for cottage cheese, and there are other table syrups featuring maidens and the word “Maid” in their name like Dixie Maid, Kitchen Maid, and Yankee Maid. These all date to a period after this Vermont Maid Syrup began.

But perhaps the most likely candidate for the source of the name and image was from an earlier Vermont Maid Pure Sap Maple Syrup that was bottled and canned by the Towle’s Maple Products Company in St. Johnsbury and St. Paul between 1910 and 1914. The Towle’s Company was more famous for their Log Cabin brand of syrup that came in cabin shaped metal tins. Towle’s bottled their syrups in their St. Paul plant until a fire in the fall of 1909 nearly gutted the facility. Needing a place to quickly set up a new plant while they rebuilt. George Cary of the Cary Maple Sugar Company sold the Towle Company his St. Johnsbury plant. Cary at that time was buying millions of pounds of maple sugar for resale to the tobacco industry and had not yet entered the syrup bottling and blending side of the maple industry. The Towle Company operated in St. Johnsbury for five years (1910 to 1914), bottling both their iconic Log Cabin Syrup label, as well as a host of other labels, including Towle’s Vermont Maid Pure Sap Maple Syrup, which unlike Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup was supposed to a 100% pure maple syrup. Considering this was in the period after the enactment of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, when testing and prosecution of adulteration was common, it is likely true that the Towle’s Vermont Maid syrup was 100% pure maple syrup and not a blend.

There is no strong indication that the Towle’s Vermont Maid Syrup label was used beyond the Towle Company’s presence in St. Johnsbury, although there are some grocers’ advertisements that continued to list Towle’s Vermont Maid Syrup for sale as late as 1918, possibly selling older stock that was bottled and canned a few years earlier. George Cary and his co-investors were certainly familiar with the Towle’s Vermont Maid brand and that it was no long in use when they trademarked the name in 1919.

For the student of advertising history and collector of Vermont Maid Syrup bottles and tins, the label and bottle shapes evolved over the years, sometimes reflecting the different ownerships and bottling facilities and sometimes reflecting the changing tastes in packaging design and function. What has not changed is the presence of a female maiden centered on a green panel, emphasizing the well-recognized color of the state of Vermont.

 

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[1] “New Maple Syrup Industry,” Rutland News October 17, 1916; “New Vermont Corporations: Canton Bros. of Barre and Vermont Maple Syrup Co. of Essex Junction,” The Barre Daily Times September 28, 1916;

[2] “ ‘Sugar Bird Brand’ Causes Suit in Court: George Cary Interested in Maple Sugar Suit in U.S. Court,” The Caledonian Record March 18, 1921.

[3] The Pittsburg Press September 30, 1921; Springfield Reporter December 29, 1921;

[4] Muskogee Daily Phoenix February 28, 1922; Muskogee Daily Phoenix April 11, 1922; Muskogee Daily Phoenix April 22, 1922; Muskogee Daily Phoenix April 15, 1922.

[5] “VT. Maple Syrup CO. had been Incorporated in St. Johnsbury,” The Barre Daily Times June 19,1922; The Landmark (White River Junction) February 22, 1923; Groton Times February 23, 1923.

[6] “Welch Retires from Maple Co.,” Burlington Free Press July 23, 1926; “Maple Corp. Has $600,000 Capital,” Burlington Free Press September 27, 1926; “American Maple Corporation to Put Out 2942 Preferred Shares,” Burlington Free Press November 11, 1926; Burlington Free Press November 23, 1926; Burlington Free Press February 28, 1927.

[7] “Maple Syrup Co. Sold to New Yorkers,” Burlington Free Press October 12, 1928; Penick & Ford Acquires Company,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle October 18, 1928; “R J Reynolds Tobacco Buying Penick & Ford LTD,” Burlington Free Press March 2, 1965; “RJ Reynolds Foods To Close Vermont Maid Syrup Plant, Burlington,” Burlington Free Press August 23, 1975.

[8] “Wanted Maple Syrup!,” Orleans County Monitor July 28, 1890; “A New Maple Sugar Company,” Burlington Free Press January 22, 1891.