Category: company history

The Grimm – Horse Shoe Forestry Company Connection

A somewhat unique partnership between two giants in the maple industry occurred at the turn of the last century when the G.H. Grimm Company produced a specially designed sap pail cover for the Horse Shoe Forestry Company. The Horse Shoe Forestry Company was a new endeavour of Brooklyn millionaire Abbot Augustus Low. Low had purchases tens of thousands of acres of forest around Horse Shoe Lake in the Adirondacks with the intent of developing a large-scale modern and efficient maple syrup operation. Low also happened to be an experienced inventor with dozens of patents to his name, who, when faced with a problem or an opportunity, tried to make an improvement or come up with an entirely new design.  In the case of maple sugaring, the lowly sap pail cover did not escape Low’s attention.

Baldwin image of sap pails with both red and yellow covers in use. Photo courtesy of the Adirondack Experience.

As one of the leading equipment manufacturers of the time, G. H. Grimm was the company chosen by A.A. Low and the Horse Shoe Forestry Company for purchase of many new evaporators, sap pails, spouts, and sap storage tanks. Numerous newspaper accounts from the late 1890s and early 1900s describe with awe the sheer size of the equipment orders placed with G.H. Grimm by the Horse Shoe Forestry Company. By the height of their operations, the Horse Shoe Company had built three large sugarhouses, factories really, to enclose as many as 15 of the very largest evaporators the Grimm Company made at the time.

Excerpt from an undated G.H. Grimm & Co. pamphlet promoting the “Horseshoe Cover” alongside the Grimm Spout No. 1. Collections of author.

Low and the Horse Shoe Company were such good customers for G.H. Grimm, the Grimm Company used their name as a selling point in their advertising. Noting in a 1907 ad to sell their sap spouts, that the Horse Shoe Company, touted as the world’s largest sugar maker, had purchased 50,000 of the Grimm spouts. No other sugarbush was even close to that large in scale and that number of spout begs the question were there also that many Horse Shoe-Grimm sap pail covers in use at Horse Shoe as well?

Although produced primarily for the the Horse Shoe Company, the Horse Shoe-Grimm sap pail cover was not for the Horse Shoe Company’s exclusive use. Grimm made the cover available for anyone to purchase and use. An undated G.H. Grimm promotional pamphlet informs readers that for twenty-five cents they will send you a a sample of a hookless No. 1 Grimm sap spout and Horse Shoe sap pail cover.

Baldwin image highlighting red sap pail cover. Photo courtesy of the Adirondack Experience.

A series of photographs taken by George A. Baldwin for the Horse Shoe Forestry Company in 1900 or 1901 includes examples of Low’s Horse Shoe – Grimm sap pail cover in action. One particular set of these images was hand colorized by Baldwin and depicts both the red and yellow sap pail covers in use in the Horse Shoe sugarbush.

 

 

 

Image of A.A. Low’s 1901 patent design for the Horse Shoe Forestry Company – G.H. Grimm sap pail cover.

A.A. Low applied for a patent on his sap cover invention on June 6, 1900, before being awarded patent number 668,313 on February 19, 1901. The cover itself was made

from two sheets of metal molded such that they formed a raised shape surrounded by a flat rim. The core in the center of the two raised sides was supposed to serve as an insulating air-pocket to help keep sap in the pail cool. The raised center also served to position the cover in the pail with the wide rim extending over the sides of the pail to keep debris and moisture from entering. It was necessary to use a hookless spout like the Grimm Spout No. 1 that would fit into the hole on the collection pail.

Detail of the logo embossed into the metal of the cover with the upturned horseshoe for the Horse Shoe Forestry Company along with the name G.H. Grimm & Co., Rutland, VT.

As a strong self-promoter and regular use of advertising and trademarks, the Horse Shoe – Grimm cover did not escape the hand of A.A. Low. Every Horse Shoe cover was embossed on both sides with the Horse Shoe Forestry Company name and logo as well as the G.H. Grimm and Co. name and location of Rutland, VT. Interestingly, the embossing also notes patent applied for, suggesting that the Grimm Company began producing the covers sometime in the second half of the year 1900.

Side view of the two colors and profile shape of the Horse Shoe -Grimm sap pail cover. This particular example is in the collections of the Adirondack Experience.

Ever thinking of improving efficiency in his sugarbush, Low had his sap pail covers painted red on one side and yellow on the other. The idea was that on each sap gathering run, the covers would be turned over after the pail was emptied. The two colors allowed the men gathering sap to see from a distance which pails had been collected and which had not. The G.H. Grimm promotional pamphlet noted that each cover is painted on both sides to prevent rusting, although it does not note the two color scheme.

The photos on the left from the collections of the Adirondack Experience are examples of the bright red and yellow colors used on each side of the Horse Shoe – Grimm sap pail covers. Note the hanging hole near the rim. This was not originally part of the A.A. Low design and was likely added at a later date by another maple syrup maker.

 

For those interested in the history of A.A. Low’s Horse Shoe Forestry Company maple syrup operation, check back in for additional posts on other aspects of the story including new, never before seen site maps and photos from the field. Eventually this research will be compiled and shared in the publication of my second book. For the time being, I am deep in the throes of field and archival research documenting and detailing the exact locations of Low’s maple syrup operations at Horse Shoe and recounting the broader history of use and development of Low’s estate. 

And should anyone know the whereabouts of one of these Grimm-Horse Shoe Forestry Company sap pail covers that might be for sale, I would very much like to hear from you!

More on the Maple Syrup History of Bellechasse, Quebec

Following up on his massive publication from 2016, Quebec historian, author, and sugarmaker Réjean Bilodeau has put out a equally sizable second companion volume titled L’histoire de l’acériculture et des sucriers de Bellechasse: Notre Affirmation Régionale, which translates in English to The history of the maple industry and maple producers of Bellechasse: Our Regional Affirmation. As with the earlier volume, this book is entirely in French, but with the wonders of google translate website or phone app, one can navigate their way through a text that is chock full of maple syrup history centered on the producers and equipment manufacturers of the Bellechasse region.

Like in volume one, Bilodeau presents additional up close and personal histories of many more sugarbushes, sugarhouses, and maple syrup producing families in the Bellechasse and includes over 600 black and white images and 56 pages of color photographs. With so many families and companies featured between volume 1 and volume 2, it is hard to imagine that there is a maple producer in Bellechasse that Réjean has yet to acknowledge and present!

Volume two continues to pay homage to Bilodeau’s central theme that the Bellechasse region of Quebec has been the birthplace of most of the important technological innovations in the modern maple syrup industry. The Bellechasse region has so thoroughly embraced this notion that they have officially taken to referring to to the region as “Berceau Mondial de la technologie acéricole” or the World Cradle of the technology of Maple Syrup.

Of course, this is entirely debatable and trends towards the exceptionalism approach to writing history, where the focus is on defending claims to being the first, or the largest or the greatest or the oldest something or other. Bellechasse certainly was an important place for technological development, but it wasn’t the only place, it wasn’t the first place for most things, and what it did produce was not done so in a vacuum. What came out of Bellechasse did so in connection to and as a result of earlier innovation from elsewhere in the maple syrup world.

Of special note to me is a section of the book that recounts research into the early application of vacuum technology to plastic tubing for gathering maple sap and the IPL company’s invention of the Sysvac vacuum system that adapted vacuum technology for milking cows to the movement of maple sap for use with plastic tubing in the early 1970s. Bilodeau describes the arrival of the Sysvac system a game-changing moment in the history of maple syrup.

Bilodeau pays special attention and detail to telling the story of the origins and development of the IPL and CDL, Inc., the maple equipment companies headquartered in Saint-Lazare-de-Bellechasse including its growth and expansion into markets in the United States. Other chapters recount Réjean’s battle with cancer, sharing of the recognition and praise he has received for the first book, as well as a chapter telling the story of the early settlement of Bellechasse and how it relates to the early development of maple sugaring in Quebec.

For the maple historians among us, the book also outlines Réjean’s role in the leadership, development, and presentation of an exhibit of historic artifacts related to evolution of maple syrup making in Bellechasse. For those unable to view the exhibit in person, Réjean kindly included color photographs of every one of the exhibition cabinets. The exhibit only ran through November of 2017 but it is reported that Réjean Bilodeau is leading a plan to develop a permanent exhibit or even museum dedicated to an expanded telling the Bellechasse maple history story.

Yours truly even got a special mention in this volume when Réjean recounted his delight to discover that I had featured his first book on this blog.  Réjean was kind enough to refer to me as, in his opinion, “the most important maple historian on the south side of our border” (translated from French).  That is certainly hyperbole and the sort of exceptionalism I referred to earlier that I tend to reject, nevertheless I will try to live up to such high praise every day.

In spite of an ongoing battle with cancer, Réjean is wasting no time on researching and writing volume three of this series. With so much material in volume one and two of this series, it remains to be seen what volume three will include. Rest assured, Réjean Bilodeau has more things to say and will continue to spread the word of the importance of Bellechasse in the history of maple syrup.

Only 1,000 copies of the book have been printed, and it is not clear of a second printing would be planned. So, when they are sold out they are gone. As with volume 1 of this series, I purchased my copy of volume 2 through the Canadian maple equipment dealer CDL for $60 US plus $33.80 for shipping.  Try contacting CDL in Quebec to place an order by email or phone at 418-883-5158 ext. 337.

Sherman Holbert’s New Approach to Maple Syrup Making in Minnesota in the 1940s and 1950s

In the broader world of maple syrup making, Minnesota has always been viewed as something of a backwater, with obvious reasons. There are far fewer maple syrup makers in that state than most of the rest of the maple producing region and the size of operation and volume of syrup made is considerably less.

However, being on the periphery and outside of the core of the maple world can have the advantage of not being as conditioned by or concerned with conventional approaches, thus freeing one up to think and act a little differently.  One example of that from occurred in Minnesota in the 1940s and 1950s, where one man, Sherman Holbert, took a few risks and decided to try a different model for making maple syrup.

I was able to interview Holbert in 2002  at his Mille Lacs Lake home when he was in his late 80s to learn more about his maple operation and how it came to be, and just as quickly disappeared.

The article I wrote telling this story was recently published in the July 2018 edition of Minnesota History magazine. I am happy to share a PDF version of the article at this link here or by clicking on the image of the article above.

Print copies of the article and magazine can be purchased from the Minnesota Historical Society website.

 

The Origins of the Maple Syrup “Nip” Bottle

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, Vermont
Maple 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.

Maple King – My New Book is Ready!

I’m very excited to announce that a book I have been researching and writing for many years is finally finished and available for purchase from Amazon.com. The book is titled Maple King: The Making of a Maple Syrup Empire and traces the history of George C. Cary and his Cary Maple Sugar Company from its humble beginnings, through an amazing period of growth and industry domination, and on to its eventual collapse. The story also retells how the Cary Company absorbed the smaller Maple Grove Candies Company in the 1920s only to evolve and later split back into two companies in the 1950s. The Cary Company experienced a difficult future, while the Maple Grove  Company continued to evolve into today’s Maple Grove Farms, proving to be a strong and lasting company and brand.

The book follows the the story of George Cary and the Cary Company across 186 pages in seven chapters with over 70 photo, postcard, and map illustrations. The extensive research that went into telling the Cary story is documented in hundreds of endnote references to help future historians and satisfy the curiosity of those looking for more information. One-part company history, one-part biography, one-part maple syrup history, and one -part Vermont and St. Johnsbury history, the story has a little bit of everything for a wide range of readers.

Here is the description of the book from the back cover:

Like many North American industries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the business of making maple sugar and syrup went through a period of maturation and modernization. Much of this change and new business model was influenced and controlled by one man and the company he created in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. George C. Cary and the Cary Maple Sugar Company grew in size and influence such that it controlled as much as 80 percent of the bulk maple sugar market, bestowing on Cary the title of Maple King and St. Johnsbury as the Maple Capital of the World. This book recounts the rise of the Cary Company and takes a closer look at who Cary was and the maple sugar and maple syrup empire that he created. As encompassing as the Cary Empire was, it overreached its limits and came tumbling to the ground with the stunning bankruptcy and death of its leader in 1931. However, Cary’s legacy did not die with him, and as told here, St. Johnsbury continued to have a significant place and role in the ever-evolving maple sugar and syrup industry.

This book is available for purchase from Amazon.com for $19.95. Get your copy today!

Marketing Maple in the 1930s: The Pierce County Maple Syrup Producers Association

This article originally appeared in a 2004 edition of the Wisconsin Maple News. 

For some the origins of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association can be traced back to the formation of the Northwoods Maple Cooperative in Antigo in the early part of the twentieth century.  But the Antigo Co-op was not the state’s only maple syrup association in the 1930s.  Other maple producers were organizing in the western side of the state.  With the help of county extension agent H.G. Seyforth, a group of Pierce County maple syrup makers formed a cooperative known as the Pierce County Maple Syrup Producers Association.

Due to the distance from large urban markets, Pierce County maple producers in the early part of the twentieth century tended to produce only as much maple syrup and sugar as they could sell or trade to local merchants and businesses for goods and services.  With the belt tightening following the Great Depression, maple producers in the area found it increasingly difficult to sell this specialty food and were admittedly poorly equipped and not very interested in knocking on doors to sell their syrup.  As they would freely admit, they were farmers not salesmen.  Extension agent Seyforth had a solution – develop a maple syrup cooperative.  During the 1920s and 1930s, the state Department of Agriculture and Markets routinely promoted the formation of agricultural cooperatives as a means to obtain greater selling power for their products and greater buying power for necessary supplies and equipment.

According to his annual reports, Seyforth promoted the cooperative idea in the winter of 1931 and 1932 when local maple producers gathered for a series of meetings held by state officials to present new state syrup grading guidelines.  On February 17, 1932, the county association formally came into being at a meeting in the village of Rock Elm.  One of their first marketing challenges was the production of syrup of uniform quality and appearance.  The members quickly realized that individually they were each producing a range of syrup grades.  In order to establish sufficient stock and more consistent grades, they began blending some of their syrups. They also realized that the boiling set-up of most association members was insufficient to consistently produce high quality uniform grades of syrup.  Through the buying power of the cooperative, some producers were able to better afford to buy new and improved equipment, with some replacing their old flat pans with new commercial evaporators.  The cooperative also starting making large orders of maple syrup equipment, buying glass and tin containers in bulk directly from the manufacturers at much reduced prices.

One of the Co-ops significant marketing strategies was the establishment of a display and sales booth at the state fair in Milwaukee, complete with examples of the various syrup grades and models of a modern evaporator and sugarhouse.  In addition to selling syrup in bottles and tins of sizes ranging from one ounce to one gallon, the association sold sugar wrapped in wax paper, candies and a soft sugar called maple spread.  In its first year at the fair, the Pierce County booth took the first place award in its class while selling forty gallons of maple syrup and thirty-five pounds of maple sugar.

Photo of the Pierce County Maple Producers Association 1932 state fair booth (photo courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Archives).

In its second year, the Pierce County Maple Producers Association developed and printed its own labels, one each for the three different syrup grades recognized in Wisconsin at that time, namely Fancy, No. 1, or No.2.  Each multi color label displayed a scene of a log cabin in a snow covered woods with sap pails on each tree under the name North Woods Maple Syrup and banner reading “Pure as Nature Made it”.  The specific grade was printed in the middle of each label above the name and town of the syrup maker.  By the mid 1930s, the marketing program was a working and the association was becoming more widely known and respected including sending a group of representatives to Marshfield to participate in early, albeit unsuccessful, attempts to establish a statewide maple producer’s association.

Example of the North Woods Maple Syrup label from 1933. Original in three colors (photo courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Archives).

Encouraged by the success of the association as a way to sell their surplus syrup, cooperative members had the incentive to maintain and increase production.  Through the 1930s and 1940s, Pierce County continued to be one of the largest syrup producing counties in the state, consistently ranked fifth in maple syrup production in Wisconsin, after Marathon, Shawano, Langlade, and Clark Counties.  However, interest in the association began to slip, and for most of the 1940s Pierce County maple producers were largely on their own until state extension forester Fred Trenk brought the maple institutes to the area in the 1950s and assisted with the successful formation of a statewide maple producers council in 1954.

Matthew Thomas. “Marketing Maple in the 1930s: The Pierce County Maple Syrup Producers Association.” Wisconsin Maple News, 2004, volume 20, number 2, page 7.

The Central Evaporator Plant in Wisconsin Maple History

This article originally appeared in a 2005 edition of the Wisconsin Maple News.

The 1940s and 1950s were a time of invention and innovation in the maple industry.  One of the innovations brought to the industry by Wisconsin was the Central Evaporator Plant.  Initiated by Wisconsin’s own Maple King, Adin Reynolds, the Central Evaporator Plant operated like a cheese factory in which maple sap, like milk, was transported from a variety of sap producers to a large processing facility where sap was combined and converted into maple syrup.  As with the cheese factory where milk producers were paid based on the butterfat content of their milk, sap producers were paid based on the sugar content of their sap.

The Reynolds family had always been maple producers, making syrup and sugar from maple trees in their own sugarbush.  But in 1946, Adin Reynolds decided to greatly expand his production and he had a novel idea how to do it.  He began in 1947 by building a new sugarhouse next to his house, not far from State Highway 45.  He then solicited farmers near his Antigo home to tap their maple woods for sap and deliver it to his sugarhouse, where they were paid based on the percentage of sugar per gallon of sap.

According to his son, Juan Reynolds, Adin had no problem convincing area farmers to sell their sap.  Located near the intersection of Langlade, Shawano and Marathon Counties, the countryside around the Aniwa plant is marked with dairy farms interspersed between stands of second growth sugar maples.  Moreover, the months of March and April were the slow and muddy seasons for most farm families.  Farmers had the two most important components for sap production – trees and available labor to tap and gather.

Reynolds’ Aniwa operation quickly grew, expanding from two to three evaporators in 1949 to four evaporators in 1962 making syrup from 75,000 taps.  Other maple producers followed Reynolds’ lead, and with his advice and equipment sales set up their own Central Evaporator Plants in the area.  Notable among these were plants run by George Klement in Polar and Sidney Maas in Tilleda.  Reynolds later purchased the Polar and Tilleda plants, along with another Central Evaporator Plant in Kingsley, Michigan.  At their peak in the mid-1960s, the Reynolds Sugarbush was making 30 to 40,000 gallons of syrup a year from at least 160,000 taps on 14 evaporators in these four Central Evaporator Plants.

Another Central Evaporator Plant went into operation in 1962 in Price County near the village of Ogema.  Ray Norlin and his brother-in-law Louis Motley expanded their small operation to 2800 taps and began to buy sap from 7,000 more taps making as much as 3000 gallons of syrup a year.  A portion of this syrup was sold in bottles and cans under the label Sunny Hills Maple Syrup; however, the bulk of it was sold wholesale in barrels to Reynolds Sugarbush.

 

Image of Ray Norlin’s Central Evaporator Plant near Ogema, Wisconsin in the mid – 1960s.

Although he was the most successful Central Evaporation Plant operator, Adin Reynolds was not necessarily the first maple producer to buy large volumes of sap in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  To the west in Central Minnesota, the Holbert Brothers also instigated a sap buying program in 2947 for their Mille Lacs Maple Products Company.  Although the sap buying and syrup making portion of his business was short lived, ending in 1950, Sherman Holbert’s operation was very large for the time, processing sap on two large evaporators from as many as 20,000 taps in the Mille Lacs Lake region.  Holbert also developed a Midwestern market by buying large volumes of bulk syrup to be sold to General Foods for the Log Cabin brand of blended syrup.  Holbert left the maple business entirely by 1953, opening the door for the Reynolds Sugarbush to assume the large General Foods bulk syrup contracts.

Over the course of the 1950s word of the Central Evaporator Plant and its successes in Wisconsin spread among maple producers in the northeast and New England states.  In the traditionally larger maple producing states like Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, sap buying was generally unheard of at the time, especially on the scale being carried out in Wisconsin.  But by the 1960s, , the Central Evaporator Plant, along with plastic tubing and the invention of the antibacterial paraformaldehyde tap hole pellet, was one of the hot topics of discussion among industry leaders.  In fact, C.O. Willits, the maple syrup industry’s leading researcher wrote that “the current trend toward central evaporator plants has marked a new era in the maple industry”.

The growth of the Reynolds Sugarbush empire and the purchase of additional Central Evaporator Plants in 1960, 1963, and 1965 was in large part a result of the contract Reynolds secured with General Foods Corporation in 1959 to supply thousands of gallons of syrup for the making of Log Cabin brand table syrup.  In order to meet General Foods demand, Reynolds Sugarbush produced tens of thousands of gallons of syrup and purchased many times more gallons of bulk syrup from Wisconsin producers and across the maple producing regions of the United States and Canada.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, the popularity of the Central Evaporator Plants, along with Reynolds Sugarbush’s promotional efforts and syrup buying program led to a significant increase in the production of maple syrup in Wisconsin.  Production grew so much that, by 1970, Wisconsin moved into position as the third greatest syrup producing state behind Vermont and New York.  It comes as no surprise that the idea for the Central Evaporator Plant was born in Wisconsin.  As the most prominent dairy state in the country, most of Wisconsin’s rural residents in the 1950s and 1960s were familiar with the organization of the dairy industry and cheese factories and took to the concept readily.  Likewise, many sap producers were dairy farmers and had both the equipment and technical knowledge needed for moving large volumes of perishable sap.

Reynolds later closed the Polar plant and sold the Kingsley, Michigan and Tilleda plants back their owners in the early 1970s.  Sidney Maas continued to operate the Tilleda sugarhouse as a Central Evaporator Plant through the 1980s on sap from 8200 of his own taps and sap purchased from 5000 additional taps.  In 1993 Maas sold the sugarhouse to Charlie Wagner who had developed a successful syrup operation near his home in Peshtigo and wanted to expand.  Aware of the sap buying history of the operation and the available sap resources in the area, Wagner revised the sap buying program, convincing many of the earlier sap producing families under the Reynolds era to again tap their trees and sell their sap.  Today, the Tilleda plant uses reverse osmosis and two large oil fired evaporators to make syrup from as many as 40,000 taps, over 90 percent of which is purchased sap.  The Tilleda plant is particularly notable in the history of Wisconsin maple production.  With nearly continuous syrup production since Sidney Maas built the sugar house in the 1940s, the Tilleda sugarhouse has the honor of being one of the oldest continually used sugar houses in Wisconsin, it is one of the largest U.S. sugarhouses by volume west of Maine.  In addition, it is probably the oldest Central Evaporator Plant still in operation in North America.

Only a handful of sugarhouses that follow the plan of a Central Evaporator Plant operating primarily or entirely on purchased sap, still exist in the U.S.  However it is not uncommon for commercial producers to augment their own sap supplies with some sap purchased from neighbors and reliable sap producers, ultimately the result of an idea that began over fifty years ago in Wisconsin.

Matthew M. Thomas. “The Central Evaporator Plant in Wisconsin Maple History.” Wisconsin Maple News, December 2005, volume 21, no. 2, page 10.

Maple Sugaring in Film – Early 20th Century Examples

One of the most interesting ways to study the history of maple sugaring is to watch it in action in vintage films. There are a number of films available to watch online and others available in libraries and archives in the maple sugaring region.

Although the black and white films depicting sugaring activities, both in the sugarbush and in the sugarhouse were generally staged or “directed,” taking away a certain degree of spontaneity  and authenticity, they still provide a useful glimpse of the methods, technology, and landscapes in use at the time.  Most of these films include scenes of men and boys gathering sap from pails on trees, boiling in kettles in the open air and in evaporators in sugarhouses, as well as finishing and bottling. Many films also illustrate sugar on snow parties and enjoying maple syrup on pancakes.

What follows is a listing and links to a handful of early 20th century maple sugaring films, mostly from the 1920s and the silent film era.

Huntley Archives

The Huntley Film Archives includes a 9:37 minute black and white silent film titled Film 371 dating to 1920.

Huntley Archives maple sugaring film.

 

Prelinger Archives

The metadata from the Youtube post claims that this 14 minute silent film from around 1925 titled “Maple Sugar” was from the  Library of Congress’ Prelinger Archives; however, I have not been able to find this film in the Prelinger’s online listings, so I cannot confirm that is the source.  It appears from this same youtube info that this film was produced by the Mogull Brothers.

Pelinger Archives maple sugaring film.

 

British Pathé Archive

British Pathé, an online newsreel archive includes a short 2:29 minute clip depicting scenes from sugarbush titled Maple Syrup Harvest (ca 1920-1929).

British Pathé film on maple sugaring.

 

Library and Archives of Canada

The Library and Archives of Canada has made available an 8:14 minute color film from 1941 titled “Maple Sugar Time”.

Library and Archives of Canada maple sugaring film from 1941.

 

Northeast Historic Film

Another film I am especially familiar with is a black and white silent film shot on silver nitrate stock in the sugarbush, sugarhouse, and factory of George Cary in 1927. The film is archived at Northeast Historic Film in Bucksport, Maine and was donated for stabilization and preservation as part of the Philippe Beaudry Collection.  The film is extremely deteriorated in some sections but overall is clear enough with windows of very clean images, to see what was being documented and displayed. This film is not available online in its entirety and there are severe restrictions on its use, but there is a 4:45 minute sample clip of the film on the Northeast Historic Film website and many still photos taken the same day as filming have been published over the years. Copies of the film for public viewing have been donated to the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, the archives at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, the Vermont Historical Society archives, and the Special Collections at the Bailey Howe Library at the University of Vermont.

Through my ongoing research on George Cary and the Cary Maple Sugar Company, I have found this film and its history especially interesting. As a result I have dug a little deeper into the story of how and where this film was made.

Here are a number of stills from the Cary film followed by an excerpt about the  film from my recently completed book on George Cary titled,  Maple King: The Rise and Fall of a Maple Syrup Empire, which will be available for purchase in spring 2018.

     

    

    

    

 

Excerpt from Chapter Four of Maple King: The Rise and Fall of a Maple Syrup Empire –

Movie Making 

Wishing to display both the evolution of sap gathering and maple sugar making as well as the modern process employed by the Cary Maple Sugar Company, George Cary arranged for a silent moving picture to be made in 1927. The film included outdoor scenes from the sugarbush and sugarhouses at Cary’s Highland Farm, along with action shots of processing and packing syrup and sugar in the Cary Company plant in St. Johnsbury. Today, a copy of the film, which was originally shot on 35 mm nitrate stock, has been archived in the Philippe Beaudry Collection at Northeast Historic Film, a repository in Bucksport, Maine.[i]

The silent moving picture, along with an extensive collection of still photographs of the same sugarbush and sugarhouse scenes as featured in the film, were shot over several days by well-known photographers Harry and Alice Richardson of Newport, Vermont. The Richardson’s were widely regarded for their many outdoor and studio photographs of the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont, including a number of colorful novelty postcards. It was announced as early as 1926 that the Richardson’s would be making a moving picture for the Cary Maple Sugar Company.[ii]

Scenes in the sugarbush focused on three romanticized periods in the history of maple sugaring; Native American sugaring, nineteenth century Euro-American/Euro-Canadian sugaring, and early twentieth century Euro-American/Euro-Canadian sugaring. For the telling of the Native American story, Cary hired a full-blooded Penobscot Indian named John Lewey from Old Town, Maine. Mr. Lewey was accompanied by his son Roy Lewey. Posing in the snow in a full-feathered Plains Indian-style headdress, buckskins, and polished leather dress shoes, Lewey is shown tapping a few maple trees, gathering sap with wood pails from wood troughs, and boiling sap in a large iron kettle suspended from a tripod in front of a newly constructed log cabin. Sap was gathered from about one hundred split log wood troughs fed by hand carved flat wood taps.[iii]

The nineteenth century methods of sugaring featured a Yankee farmer played by Albert Leland, himself a sugarmaker from Barton, Vermont. Leland was dressed for the part, complete with wide brimmed straw hat, a thick full-length beard, and high boots. Equipped with a shoulder yoke and two wooden gathering pails, Leland was shown hustling from tree to tree collecting sap from wood collecting pails set on the ground and transporting it to a gathering tank pulled by oxen through the snow.[iv] A young Richard Franklin, son of Earl Franklin, a Cary employee, was shown leading a pair of steers with a goad stick, while in another scene, Mr. Cary himself appears driving a different pair of oxen along a road in the sugarbush.

Twentieth century sugaring was depicted both with the collection of sap in covered galvanized metal pails hung from the trees along with the cutting-edge Brower Sap Piping System. In one scene a man is shown installing the Gooseneck section of the Brower pipeline in a taphole in the tree. Later he is shown connecting sections of the pipeline along their wire supports, while in another he is walking along and checking the metal pipeline for leaks.

There are also numerous scenes of Cary’s Highland Farm sugarhouses in action with steam billowing from the cupola, men feeding the boiling arches and drawing off syrup. Other men are seen moving barrels of syrup, along with gathering and unloading tanks of fresh sap pulled on sleds by teams of Cary’s prized oxen.

Besides the footage of the sap gathering and syrup making process in the sugarbush and sugarhouses, the filmmakers also shot footage inside Cary’s St. Johnsbury plant. Such shots included a worker filling wooden boxes lined with waxed paper on a conveyor line with thick hot maple sugar from an overhead vat as well as a room full of hundreds of such boxes of sugar in a warehouse cooling. In contrast to the dirt and soot of the scenes from the sugarbush and sugarhouses, the shots from the plant interior feature employees clad in all white smocks and hats working with processing and automated packing equipment in a sterile-like white painted and polished interior. Shipping boxes labelled “Highland Pure Maple” are shown being nailed together and one scene a worker displays a can of “Highland Pure Maple Syrup”.

One-part marketing tool and one part educational materials, the film was likely shown in theaters as a short before feature films began. A few years after the shooting of the film, a reporter from the Caledonian Record who had been on hand to document the movie making told of his delight at seeing the film while in a movie house in Seattle, Washington. The reporter was even more shocked to see a few seconds of himself on the film where they had captured close-up images of him drinking fresh sap from a metal collection pail behind a large tree.

 

Notes        

[i] The Cary silent film was donated as 2,600 feet on four reels to Northeast Historic Film in 1997 by Philippe Beaudry of Longueuil, Quebec for safe and secure archiving. The reels included footage of the Vermont flood of 1927 and is archived under the title “Cary Maple Sugar Company –outtakes” in the Philippe Beaudry Collection at Northeast Historic Film. The film has been converted to VHS and DVD masters for safe handling and reproduction. Unfortunately, restrictions on reproducing still images from the film coupled with the often poor quality of the images on the deteriorating film prevent the display many of the various scenes from the film, in particular scenes from the interior of the Cary plant and activity at the Stanton (now Jones) and Waterman (now Newell) sugarhouses (see Chapter Five). However, many of the still photographs made by the Richardson’s at the time of filming the moving picture display the same scenes in better quality. Copies of the film in DVD format are maintained at the Vermont Historical Society, UVM Bailey Howe Library, the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium Archives and the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum for educational purposes.

[ii] Florence A. Kendall, “Moving Pictures of Maple Sugar Making,” The Vermonter, Vol. 31, No. 9 (1926).

[iii] Lois Goodwin Greer, “America’s Maple Sugar King: George C. Cary,” The Vermonter Vol. 34, No. 1: 3-8 (1929); “Real Romance in VT. Maple Sugar Making : Three Epochs in Its Development Shown in Cary Camps” Unknown Newspaper, April 7, 1927. News clipping found in photocopy version of Cary Family Album in the George C. Cary Papers, Fairbanks Museum Archives (St. Johnsbury, VT).

[iv] “Real Romance in VT. Maple Sugar Making: Three Epochs in Its Development Shown in Cary Camps” Unknown Newspaper, April 7, 1927. News clipping found in photocopy version of Cary Family Album in the George C. Cary Papers, Fairbanks Museum Archives (St. Johnsbury, VT).

The Era of Plastic Sap Collection Bags

Prior to the modern method of collecting maple sap with flexible tubing there was an earlier attempt to put plastic to use as sap collection bags. The first reusable plastic sap collection bag was invented by Everett I. Soule of the George H. Soule Company the well-known maple equipment manufacturers out of St. Albans, Vermont. Following the Soule Company’s primary brand name for their King evaporator, when the bag came on the market it was sold as the King Sap Bag.

Clip from a 1956 advertisement for the Soule Company King Sap Bags.

Everett Soule began developing and experimenting with his bag idea in the mid-1940s and by October 1950 had perfected a design for a 13 to 15-quart bag that was then distributed to Soule Company equipment dealers around the country for sale and first-time use in the 1951 sugaring season.

The King bag was made of a transparent, heavy plastic called vinylite that was said to be the same material used by the Air Force for the packaging of food and water drops to soldiers. The bags were simple to use and did have the advantage of being cheaper than new pails and covers and when flattened for storage took up considerably less room than an equal number of pails. The top had an open flap that allowed one to pivot the bag on the spile to empty the collected sap without taking the bag off the tree, at least in theory.

Examples of the uniquely shaped clear plastic King Sap Bags hanging from maple trees very full of sap.

The transparent plastic allowed one to easily see the sap volume in the bag and did allow sun through to provide some ultraviolet light that arguably led to reduced microbial development and clearer, cleaner sap. Use of the bags required one to employ a hookless spile, such as the Soule hookless spout. When first introduced in 1950-51, prices for the bags were for anywhere from 69 to 89 cents each for lots of 100 or more with 100 Soule spouts also available for $8.00. Although these were said to be made of a durable plastic that could withstand the extreme weather conditions of the tapping season and the significant temperature fluctuations, it was still early in the use of plastics. The late Bob Coombs informed me that the cost of the King Sap bag was actually more like $1.25 a bag and they tended to get brittle and crack and split after a season.

Everett I. Soule’s 1960 design drawing for Canadian patent 598853.

Everett I. Soule obtained a patent in Canada for his sap bag (CA 598853) in May of 1960, but it does not appear that a US patent was ever secured, despite marketing language of patent pending. At the time of his invention, Everett I. Soule was the president of the George H. Soule Company, having taken over as president in 1938 following the death of his uncle and company founder, George H. Soule in 1937. Along with his brother Raymond L. Soule, Everett continued run the family owned company and himself became a prominent individual in the maple industry for many years. Following his death in 1964 the Soule Company was sold to Leader Evaporator Company, including the manufacturing and sale of the King Sap Bag. Under Leader’s ownership the printing on the exterior of the bag was changed from George H. Soule Co. to Leader Evaporator Co., Inc.

Initially, the maple industry showed great enthusiasm for this radical invention and introduction of plastics, then a post-war technological wonder that was sweeping the world. In an industry that previously was limited to wood and metal, plastics showed great promise, but it was the arrival of flexible tubing at the end of the 1950s that a meaningful shift in technology was to come.  The King Sap Bag continued in production into the late 1960s, but by the 1970s it was essentially abandoned.

Image of Reynolds Sap Sak in use. Photo credit: www.mapletapper.com

However, another variation of the plastic sap collection bag came along a few years later and has had a more lasting impact, especially among backyard sugarmakers and hobbyist. Unlike the reusable King Sap Bag that was washed, dried and stored at the end of the season, this bag was a single season disposable model that hung on a metal frame. Invented by Adin Reynolds of the Reynolds Sugarbush in Aniwa, Wisconsin in 1958 the Reynolds Sap Sak first became available for commercial sale in 1966.

Design drawing from Adin Reynolds’ 1967 United States patent 3,304,654.

The Reynold Sap Sak was distinctive with its bright blue bags, although it is possible to use a clear plastic bag as well.  Unlike the King Sap Bag, the Reynolds bags were simple, thin and very inexpensive plastic bags that were designed to be thrown away at the end of each season.  The thinner bags were a little more prone to splitting when the sap froze on cold nights and squirrels were known to gnaw through a few corners, but the extremely low cost of bags made the occasional installation of replacement bags acceptable. Like the King Sap Bag, the Reynolds Sap Sak also worked best with a hookless spile, since the metal cover was designed for fit over the spile and have its weight supported directly by the spile.

Front cover of 1967 equipment supply catalog from Reynolds Sugar Bush prominently presenting the Reynolds Sap Sak.

The Reynolds Sugar Bush initially promoted their bag through their Wisconsin equipment dealership and in 1967 Adin Reynolds was awarded a patent for this invention. In time, with its popularity and demand it began to be carried and supplied by nearly all maple equipment dealers. The Reynolds Sap Sak is still sold and in use across the U.S. and Canada but probably sees greatest use in the upper Midwest where it was first introduced. It is also possible that for the smaller scale producers not choosing to use tubing there is less of a concern for appearance or a romanticism about the aesthetics of sugaring in Wisconsin or Minnesota or Michigan that one might find in New England and a blue plastic bag is a perfectly acceptable way to gather sap.

References

“Everett I. Soule,” The Burlington Free Press (Burlington , VT) August 17, 1964, 9

“Everett I. Soule Takes New Post,” The Burlington Free Press (Burlington, VT) January 4, 1938, 6.

“George H. Soule, Leader in Maple Industry, Is Dead,” The Burlington Free Press (Burlington, VT) May 10, 1937, 2.

“J. Elmer Lepley Sells Plastic Maple Sap Bag,” The Republic (Meyersdale, PA) October 26, 1950, 2.

R.C. Soule, “What is New in Maple Sirup Equipment”, Report of Proceedings of the Conference on Maple Products (Philadelphia, PA, 1950) 28-29.

Lynn H. Reynolds, Reynolds, Maple and History: Fit for Kings, (Reynolds Family Trust: Hortonville, WI) 1998.

“Sap Bag is New Wrinkle in Maple Sugar Industry,” Battle Creek Enquirer (Battle Creek, MI) April 16, 1951, 14.

 

 

New Book on Role of Quebec’s Bellechasse Region in the History of the Modern Maple Industry

An outstanding new publication recognizes the Bellechasse region of Quebec as home to a strong community of maple producers and for its important contributions to the technological developments of the modern maple industry. This book was released in 2016 and is written entirely in french with the title L’histoire de l’acériculture et des sucriers de Bellechasse: Berceau Technologique Mondial Acéricole, 1716-2016. This title translates in english to The history of the maple industry and maple producers of Bellechasse: The Technological Cradle of the Maple World, 1716-2016.

Réjean Bilodeau, the author and sugarmaker from Saint-Damien, Quebec, undertook the book as a project to occupy his time in his retirement years. However, with one book down Réjean is only getting started. The cover of this book indicates it is Tome 1, or volume 1. Réjean has told me he is working on volume 2 at the moment which, at another whopping 600 pages, he expects to have finished and for sale in 2018.

The book is divided into six chapters and covers over 300 years of maple history in the Bellechasse region with a special focus on the people who made this history come alive, be they producers or inventors or equipment manufacturers. More recent history focuses on the contributions of IPL and CDL and the Métiver and Chabot families, the role of Cyrille Vaillancourt and the creation of La Coop Citadelle among many other topics and dozens of producers and sugarbushes.

At 740 pages with 400 illustrations and weighing in at over six pounds this book is no light read. In fact, it is incredibly dense with detailed research, interviews and first-hand accounts and memories from sugarmakers in the Bellechasse region. One thousand copies of this self-published book were produced and many have already sold.

Réjean Bilodeau proudly displays a copy of his fantastic new book.

As noted above, the book is completely written in French, although with the wonders of today’s modern technology such as Google Translate and other similar apps for smart phones it is now possible to use the camera on a mobile phone to take a snapshot/scan of a page and translate the text on the page in mere seconds. The quality and accuracy of such translations is sufficient to understand the text, but it is true that at times the translations lose the nuanced meanings of certain phrases, idioms, and clichés.

I purchased my copy of the book through the Canadian maple equipment dealer CDL for $50 US plus $29.91 for shipping. Try contacting CDL in Quebec to place an order by email or phone at 418-883-5158 ext. 337.

Those interested in contacting Mr. Bilodeau directly who speak or write in French can reach him by email or by telephone at 418-789-3664.