By Matthew M. Thomas
The history of the Willis Sap Spout is a curious story of business partners, misleading patent claims, and changing manufacturers. The Willis Sap Spout began with Eben Willis obtaining a patent in April 1877 (US189,330) for a rather curious sap spout design. Willis was a farmer and sugarmaker from Colton, New York who designed an odd-stubby-shaped cast iron spout with a sharp sloping channel at the front, a pin to suspend a bucket from its handle and a lower hook to suspend a bucket as an alternative hanging method. It has been long suspected by expert sap spout collectors that this 1877 patent design by Willis was never put into production, and according to testimony by Willis in a later court case it is true that no spouts under the April 1877 patent design were ever produced.
The first Willis Sap Spout actually produced looks nothing like the true 1877 patent design and was curiously embossed with a “PAT’D” on one side and “1877” on the other side and featured a square apex (point inserted into tap hole) and both an open and closed top channel for sap. Contrary to the claimed patent date, this Willis spout was designed and first manufactured beginning sometime after 1877; however, it wasn’t actually patented until 1891 (US455,784). In addition to the incorrect 1877 patent date, many of this version of the Willis Spout were embossed with the correct patent date of 1891 as well.
Willis entered into a 50-50 partnership in 1879 with local Canton mill owner and banker James Spear for patent ownership and the production and sale of the Willis Spout. In these early years Willis & Spear handled the sale and distribution of the spout themselves and listed their business location as Troy, New York, although both men were longtime Canton residents. The Willis Spout was clearly being produced and sold in sufficient quantities by 1880 to have gotten the attention of C.C. Post, the manufacturer of the Eureka Sap Spout. C.C. Post claimed that Willis and his spout manufacturer, Floyd Chamberlin & Company, had infringed on his patent claims with their design.
According to Post, upon examination by “two chosen patent law experts”, Floyd, Chamberlin & Company agreed that it was an infringement and ceased production immediately. While it may be true that the manufacturing company may have elected to cease production, Eben Willis himself took a much different view and declared in his local newspaper that he would not be intimidated by C.C. Post. This seems to be the case and in 1887 Eben Willis, operating as Willis and Spear, contracted with Charles Millar and Sons out of Utica, New York for the exclusive sale of the Willis Sap Spout in the United States, with plans to produce at least 100,000 spouts a year. The sap spouts were actually manufactured at a foundry in Connecticut who shipped the spouts to Millar and Sons. Around this time, Willis also contracted with the James Smart Manufacturing Company, LTD in Brockville, Ontario for the sale of the spout in Canada.
In 1886 it was announced that Eben Willis had designed and would soon be manufacturing an arch to support sap pans, although further information on the success or design of this arch has not yet been found. Similarly, in 1891 Willis claimed in the local paper to have designed and patented his own evaporator and would soon begin production; however, no evidence of an evaporator design attributed to Willis, let alone a patent, has been found.
After Spear unsuccessfully requested that they dissolve their partnership, with Willis “buying out” Spear, James Spear sued Willis in 1890 to recover the value and profits from his half of ownership of the patent, manufacturing and sale of the Willis Sap Spout. Willis attempted to claim that their partnership was based on the April 1877 patent (US189330) which was a design that in fact was never used to produce the Willis spout. Instead, Willis claimed that Spear had no claim to the actual Willis Sap Spout that was produced and sold. Unfortunately, for Willis, he lost the case against him as well as two appeals and in the end the partnership was fully dissolved, and Willis was forced to compensate Spear for $5000.
In 1898 Willis was awarded another design patent (US606613) for a spout similar to the 1891 design with the key difference being the square apex being replaced with a cross-shaped apex sometimes called a skeleton apex. Interestingly, Willis repeated his earlier fudging of patent dates when he falsely stamped an earlier patent date of 1891 on the 1898 patent design. The Willis Sap Spout made on the skeleton apex design that was awarded a patent in 1898 were sometimes embossed with “PAT’D” and “1891”, as well as the more accurate “1898” and even “1899”. Testimony from the partnership and patent ownership court case between Spear and Willis noted that “from time to time different alterations and improvements have been made to the spout” further explaining the many subtle variations now found to vex the antique sap spout collectors. See Hale Mattoon’s book Maple Spouts Taps & Tools for illustrations of all the variations of the Willis Sap Spout.
Following the end of the contract with Millar and Sons, around 1900 Willis contracted with the Hunting-Weekes Company of Watertown, New York to be the exclusive sale representatives of the Willis Sap Spouts. Eben Willis died at age 83 on July 31, 1906 in Canton, New York, bringing production and sale of the Willis Sap Spout to an end.