Category: events

2025 St. Johnsbury Maple History Tour

I am happy to share that on the afternoon of Saturday, April 19, 2025, I will be leading a special bus tour of historic sites in and around the communities of St. Johnsbury and Danville, Vermont sharing this region’s unique history of maple syrup making. The tour is presented by the Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce and the Cary & Main Company.

Participants can register at the Cary & Main website through this link: https://www.caryandmain.com/ or by clicking on the announcement above.

Additional Details

Enjoy the rare opportunity to have an expert historian personally transport and guide you through a unique chapter in the history of Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom while learning about the people and places responsible for St. Johnsbury, Vermont being named the Maple Center of the World.

This tour is offered as special event during the Kingdom Maple Festival in downtown St. Johnsbury.

The tour will be led by maple industry historian and author Dr. Matthew Thomas, a leading expert on the history of the Cary Maple Sugar and Maple Grove companies. Travelling by bus, participants will enjoy a narrated tour that will visit over a dozen locations in and around St. Johnsbury that are important in the history of the Cary and Maple Grove Companies.

   

Participants will receive a one-of-a-kind 120+ page illustrated guidebook authored by Dr. Thomas exclusively for this tour, which features historic images and information on all of the sites visited on the tour.

Because space will be limited, advanced registration is required.
Participants are advised that that there are requirements for physical mobility and that this tour includes walking on uneven ground and navigation of steps on the tour bus.

Registration Link: https://www.caryandmain.com/

Date: Saturday, April 19, 2025
Time: 1:00 – 5:00 pm (approximate return time)
Location: Starting and ending in front of the St. Johnsbury Depot/St. Johnsbury Welcome Center
Cost: $100.00 per person

For Questions, Contact: nekinfo@nekchamber.com or team@caryandmain.com

 

ST. JOHNSBURY MAPLE HISTORY TOUR

April 20, 2024 – St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Register at this LINK 

Enjoy the rare opportunity to have an expert historian personally transport and guide you through a unique chapter in the history of Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom and learn about the people and places responsible for St. Johnsbury, Vermont being named the Maple Center of the World.

The tour will be led by maple industry historian and author Dr. Matthew Thomas, the leading expert on the history of the Cary Maple Sugar and Maple Grove companies.

Travelling by bus, participants will enjoy a narrated tour that will visit over a dozen locations in and around St. Johnsbury that are important in the history of the Cary and Maple Grove Companies. As a special souvenir, participants will receive a one-of-a-kind companion guide authored by Dr. Thomas, that features historic images and information on the sites visited on the tour.

This tour is offered as special event during the Kingdom Maple Festival in downtown St. Johnsbury.

Register at this LINK 

Details: Advanced registration is required. Limited to the first 50 registrations! Please note that your registration is not complete until you checkout and pay the Tour fee. Thank you!

Cost: $75.00

Date: Saturday, April 20, 2024

Time: 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Location: Starting and Ending at the St. Johnsbury Depot

 

Download this flyer to share information about this event.

 

 

 

Upcoming Presentation: A Sugarbush Like None Other

On Wednesday, September 9th I will be making an online virtual presentation to discuss the research and story from my new book A Sugarbush Like None Other: Adirondack Maple Syrup and the Horse Shoe Forestry Company. The presentation will be hosted by the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library in Tupper Lake, New York.

Here is additional information on the event and how to attend:

Wednesday, September 9, 2020 at 7 PM – 8 PM EDT

Online Event Hosted by Goff-Nelson Memorial Library

Email goffnelson@gmail.com to request the Zoom invite.

A sugarbush of 50,000 taps, a network of pipelines to carry sap from the woods to collection points, with sap boiled on colossal evaporators in a series of syrup plants sounds like a description of a modern industrial maple syrup operation. For Abbot Augustus Low’s Horse Shoe Forestry Company 120 years ago, it was a novel attempt at making maple syrup in the Adirondack wilderness on a scale never before experienced. From 1896 to 1908, A.A. Low and his army of workers carved an industrial landscape out of the forest around Horseshoe Lake, complete with railroads, electrification, mills, dams, a private camp, and the centerpiece maple syrup operation. In time the landscape of A.A. Low’s private estate changed hands and uses, but as told in Matthew Thomas’ new the book, A Sugarbush Like None Other, the remnants of the story of the Horse Shoe Forestry Company can still be found on the land.

Please join author Matthew Thomas on September 9th at 7 pm for a virtual presentation of his research and field investigations that went into documenting the history and remains of the Horse Shoe Forestry Company.