As part of the Dominion & Grimm maple syrup equipment manufacturing company’s Virtual Spring Event, they have put together and shared a great video tracing their origins and history. You can see the video in English at the Youtube link below. There is also a French version available at this link.
Eastman Johnson painting showing men pulling sap gathering barrel set on its side on a sled in sugarbush, ca. 1860-1870.
In the years before plastic tubing was adopted for collecting and moving maple sap from the tree to the storage tank and the sugarhouse, maple producers had to travel from tree to tree on foot gathering sap from pails and later bags. That sap in turn was gathered and hauled through the sugarbush in a variety of tanks pulled on sleds, wheeled carts, wagons, trailers over the snow and mud. In later years truck flatbeds were employed to carry sap gathering tanks.
Image of a well-preserved example of a simple wood barrel used with top pouring funnel set on sled for sap gathering.
In the earlier years of sap gathering, in the 1700s and 1800s, maple producers gathered sap in large wooden barrels or drums, roughly 50 gallons in size, either set upright or on their side, secured atop sleds and stone boats, and pulled through the woods by horses, oxen, or even people power. Most historic images show one barrel in use at a time for gathering, but it was not uncommon for two or three barrels to be secured to one sled. While the volume of sap gathered to make maple syrup is always a staggering number in comparison to the volume of the product, in earlier days maple production was much smaller in scale than it is today, requiring a bit less carrying capacity.
Late 19th century postcard image of a large tapered wooden sap gathering tank pulled by oxen on a sled.
In addition to the simple barrel gathering tanks, at some point in the latter half of the 1800s some producers began to construct larger specialized tapered wooden tanks made from vertical staves for gathering sap . These tanks used flat staves secured with metal hoops and were wider at the base, narrower at the top and had a large opening on the top to pour fresh sap. The volume of such tanks was often in 200-300 gallon range.
Library of Congress image
By the early 1880s specialized wooden gathering tanks based on a modified barrel design began to appear. Most notable is the patented designs of Henry Adams and Clinton C. Haynes out of Wilmington, Vermont. Adams and Haynes first developed and manufactured their tank in the 1870s with a patent (US229,576) awarded in 1880. Under the title of “liquid holder” it was an elongated round wooden tank for the storage of maple sap or water on the farm. Unlike typical barrels at the time made with inflexible wood or metals straps or hoops, the Adams and Haynes tank was bound with adjustable iron rods that could be tightened or loosened as the wood staves of the tank expanded or shrank with wetting and drying.
1884 Patent design from Adams and C.C. Haynes wood slat sap gathering tank (US201467).
In 1884 Adams and Haynes patented a sap gathering tank, specifically designed to be pulled through the sugarbush for sap collection. Patented (US301,467) and advertised under the title of a “gathering tub,” this tank was sometimes referred to as a Tomahawk or Tommyhawk tank. This tank was based on a similar design as the storage tanks with the addition of a pair of openings on top equipped with wire mesh strainers and surrounded by a downwardly sloping square casing that facilitated the easy pouring of sap into the tank and minimized spillage. Instead of being completely circular in shape, the gathering tanks were somewhat flattened elliptical in cross section to provide more stability in hauling hundreds of gallons of sap. Sap was drained from a plug at the base of the tank. The large “liquid holder” storage tanks were made in sizes ranging from from 10 to 40 barrels in volume. The smaller gathering tub “Tomahawk” tanks were available in sizes that would hold from 3 to 7 barrels.
Advertisement for Adams & Haynes Improved Gathering Tub from 1884 Wilmington, Vermont directory.
Although Haynes died in 1919 and Adams in 1927, the Adams and Haynes tanks company continued to manufacture their tanks on the Adams’ Wilmington area farm into the 1940s. In addition to wood tanks and sap pails the partnership also manufactured sap evaporators and other farm tools such as yokes for oxen and wheelbarrows.
Image of a well preserved Adams and Haynes wooden Tomahawk Tank.Pouring sap into half barrel opening on Somerset County submarine shaped “double barrel” sap gathering tank on wheeled suspension wagon. Courtesy of Mare Ware and the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County .
Another unique horizontal elongated wooden gathering tank developed in the late 1800s came out of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Sometimes called a double barrel tank, this submarine shaped tank, tapered at both ends, was essentially a fully coopered elongated wooden barrel with metal hoops set on its side with the top portion of a coopered barrel fitted to the top to facilitate pouring and straining of sap. Seldom seen in use outside of Somerset County, these long tanks were set on sleds and suspended on wagons and wheeled carts using straps or chains.
Example of elongated coopered wooden barrel tank with suspended on a wheeled frame. This submarine shaped was unique to Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Mare Ware and the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County .
These barrels featured special pouring funnels and openings to permit easy emptying of sap collecting pails and minimize the sloshing and spillage of sap in the tank as they moved over snow and rough terrain in the sugarbush trails and roads. Somerset County’s unique submarine shaped wooden tanks were coopered like an elongated barrel resting on its side with a specially fitted coopered half barrel on top for the pouring hole. They were emptied by pulling a plug near the base that permitted the contents to spill out onto a trough and into the sugarhouse storage tanks.
Image of Grimm’s cylindrical iron and tin metal gathering tank from a G.H. Grimm Manufacturing Company catalog dating to approximately 1894.
Sheet metal gathering tanks made their formal appearance in the early 1890s with the introduction of both galvanized iron and tin tanks by the G.H. Grimm Company. These tanks came in 3 or 4 barrel capacities and featured an inward sloping pouring cone and strainer as well as a exterior pouring arm connected by flexible hose at the base of the tank. Grimm also offered at this time, large rectangular open topped, galvanized iron, sap storage tanks up to 8 feet long 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep. With the arrival of Grimm’s metal tank, nearly all the major maple equipment manufacturers got on board with their own unique shapes and designs.
G.H. Grimm improved round sap gathering tank from early 1900s with side ribbing, domed top, and smaller conical opening.
By the early 1900s the G.H. Grimm Company’s improved gathering tank had gone through a redesign with a domed cover with a smaller conical funnel at the center replacing the wider cone style. A central two part strainer and removable cover continued to sit at the center of the funnel. The sides of the tank now featured horizontal ribbing and the flexible pouring arm was enlarged in size.
Dominion and Grimm “nouveau reservoir a ramasser”, a new style sap gathering tank as appeared in their 1961 catalog.
Interestingly, with the 1900 split of the G.H. Grimm Company in Rutland, Vermont and its sister company Grimm Manufacturing Company in Montreal (later to become the Dominion & Grimm Company), the Montreal company initially stuck with the inward sloping, wide-mouthed conical draining design and continued to describe it as “Grimm’s Quick-Straining, Self-Emptying Gathering Tank”. Later in time, after joining with Dominion, the company offered a full range of tanks with a round tank, an oval tank, and in the early 1960s, a trapezoidal tank with a raised round pouring tube and an interior strainer and splash arrester.
Drawing from William Burt’s 1896 patent for a all metal sap gathering tank with pouring arm on the side. This was the precursor to the Leader Evaporator Company’s Monitor Gathering Tank.
The Leader Evaporator Company followed Grimm’s early lead with their own version of an of an oval shaped metal gathering tank using William Burt’s 1896 patent design (US559,358). Marketed as the Monitor Gathering Tank, this tank included a number of features that were improvements upon the initial Grimm cylindrical and wooden tanks, most notably an interior splash arrester. The design features introduced with Leader Evaporator Company’s Monitor Gathering Tank and the earlier Grimm tank, namely the inward sloping top panel to funnel sap downward, the interior splash arrester, and the flexible pouring arm, became standard design features on essentially all the metal gathering tanks that came after them.
Leader Evaporator Company’s oval shaped Monitor Gathering Tank with pour arm on one end of the tank.
Actual production versions of Leader’s Monitor Gathering Tank feature the pouring arm at one of the rounded ends of the tank rather than midway along the straight side of the tank as shown in the patent design.
Vermont Farm Machine Company’s rectangular Monarch Hauling Tank, a design and name started by True and Blanchard who were later sold the Vermont Farm Machine Company.
The True & Blanchard Company out of Newport, Vermont developed a rectangular sap gathering tank called the Monarch Hauling Tank in the late 1890s or early 1900s. This tank featured a large rectangular opening that funneled down to a circular strainer and a flexible pouring arm at one end. When the True & Blanchard Company was sold to the Vermont Farm Machine Company in 1919, the Monarch Hauling Tank design and name was carried over unchanged.
Image of oval gathering tank from 1918 Vermont Farm Machine Company catalog.
Prior to acquiring the True & Blanchard Company and their Monarch tank, the Vermont Farm Machine Company offered an oval tank of their own with a square opening at the top with an interior round recessed strainer at the center. Like others of its time a flexible pouring arm was located at one end of the tank. It does not appear from the Vermont Farm Machine Company catalogs that the company continued to offer this design after the rectangular Monarch Tanks was brought into their equipment lineup.
GH Grimm oval galvanized metal sap gathering tank with two parallel raised ridges framing the pouring hole.
Although the G.H. Grimm Company started with a round tank in the 1890s, later in the 20th century they also offered an oval tank, similar in outward design to the earlier Vermont Farm Machine Company tank. The Grimm tank differed in having heavy raised metal ridges flanking the central pouring hole.
Rectangular gathering tank offered by Small Brothers Lightning Evaporator Company of Richford, Vermont in the 19-teens and 1920s.
In the late 19-teens or 1920 the Small Brothers Lightning Evaporator Company out of Richford, Vermont offered a rectangular tank with reinforced wood panels, a largely flat top, and the flexible pouring arm. In later years, the Lightning Evaporator Company changed to an oval shaped tank with a raised square pouring area.
Lightning Evaporator Company oval tank on the left with raised square opening and G.H. Grimm tank on right. Both images from respective company product catalogs.
G.H. Grimm acquired the Lightning Evaporator Company in 1964 after which time Grimm continued to offer the same oval design with the upward sloping pouring compartment. With the addition of the Lightning design oval tank, the Grimm Company appears to have discontinued its production of the earlier oval tank with parallel ridges flanking the pouring opening.
Vermont Evaporator Company round sap gathering tank with side ribbing, a domed top, and wide mouth opening for pouring sap.
The Vermont Evaporator Company came out with a round tank based on a design remarkably similar to G.H. Grimm’s round tank. That the Vermont Evaporator Company may have copied a Grimm design was not entirely surprising considering the history of their founders as former Grimm employees that were known to have copied Grimm designs in the past.
Sproul round sap gathering tank with recessed central pouring area.
Another notable round tank was manufactured by the Sproul Hardware and Manufacturing Company out of Delevan, New York in the early 1900s. The Sproul hauling tank design was similar in appearance to the early version of the Grimm round tank with a wide inwardly sloping top panel and smooth galvanized iron sides and a narrowing diameter pouring arm.
G.H. Soul’s King rectangular shaped sap gathering tank with sloping top panels and a square opening for pouring.
Lastly, one of the last of the companies to get on board with a gathering tank was the G.H. Soule Company out of St. Albans, Vermont who offered their popular King brand rectangular tanks in sizes ranging from 4 to 7 barrels. All the King tanks featured a reinforced wood base and a top panel that sloped upwardly to a central square opening and interior recessed pouring hole and strainer.
As this summary shows, following the replacement of wood gathering tanks maple equipment companies introduced many different round, oval, and rectangular metal sap gathering tanks, all with similar, but subtly different designs and features.
The Dominion & Grimm Company is one of the longest continually operating maple syrup evaporator and equipment companies in Canada. The company began when in October of 1892 it was announced that G.H. Grimm Manufacturing Company, incorporated out of Ohio, had opened a branch in Montreal Canada located at 63 to 67 King Street with W.A. Morrison as the initial factory manager. A year before the company also expanded into Vermont, opening a factory in Rutland.
Advertisement from 1892 for G.H. Grimm Mfg. Co. selling the Champion Evaporator from Montreal, Quebec.
As a branch of the American based Grimm company, the Montreal based Grimm facility manufactured the same Champion Evaporators as were being made in the original Grimm factory in Hudson, Ohio and in the new factory in Rutland. With the expansion to Vermont and Quebec, company founder Gustav H. Grimm focused their operations in Rutland and Montreal and sold the Ohio portion of the company in 1895.
Portrait of John H. Grimm, president of the Grimm Manufacturing Company, LTD.
In 1900, another company split was made and G.H. Grimm’s cousin, John H. Grimm bought the controlling interest in the G.H. Grimm Manufacturing Co. branch in Montreal. John H. Grimm then personally relocated to Montreal from Rutland to lead his new venture. Earlier in the year, John H. Grimm was listed in the 1900 census as a foreman in Grimm’s Rutland factory. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, John H. Grimm brought his two younger brothers Charles E. Grimm and Henry E. Grimm on board to help run the company in Montreal.
1909 advertisement for the Grimm Manufacturing Co. listing their Wellington Street address in Montreal.
There were now two Grimm companies on either side of the border, more or less selling the same maple sugaring equipment and supplies designed by Gustav H. Grimm. However, the Rutland Company now referred to itself as simply G. H. Grimm Co. with no use of the word manufacturing; whereas the Montreal company was known as Grimm Manufacturing Co., LTD., having dropped the G.H. initials.
Directories for Montreal show G.H. Grimm at 63 to 67 King Street in the 1890s. By 1901 the company had moved to 84 Wellington St and by 1908 was at 58 Wellington. It remained at that address on the corner of Wellington St and Queen Street until it was purchased and consolidated with the Dominion Evaporator Company.
In October of 1910, the Grimm brothers formally incorporated the Grimm Manufacturing Company, Limited under the laws of Canada with an initial capital stock of $150,000. The stockholders included J. H. Grimm, Charles E. Grimm, Henry E. Grimm, Wendell E. Grimm, and Charles E. Moore, all from Montreal at that time.
Color advertising postcard for Grimm Mfg. Co. illustrating their Wellington Street building. The appearance of the corner has changed little and looks much the same today.
John H. Grimm became a tireless advocate for better labelling laws and fighting against unscrupulous adulteration of maple syrup. His efforts were instrumental in the Province of Quebec passing a strict purity in labelling law that went into effect in 1915. As a prominent leader in the industry in Quebec as one of the largest manufacturing firms, he also strongly promoted cleanliness as a key to producing a better quality maple sugar and syrup. Grimm also was instrumental in forming an early co-op and producer’s association out of Waterloo, known as the Maple Tree Producers Association, LTD. This association and co-op formed to collectively market their maple syrup and work together to improve their quality and promote a label with assured purity. In time, Grimm bought out all of the members of this association and installed his own canning and bottling works at their Wellington Street facility.
To encourage maple producers and promote his ideals of improvement in the methods of manufacturing syrup and sugar, Grimm put up $500 in prize money for a syrup and sugar contest in 1913. Over 500 samples of Canadian syrup and over 200 samples of sugar competed for the prizes. A recent article that covers some of the history of Canada’s early maple co-ops provides additional detail on this aspect of John H. Grimm’s role in moving the Canadian maple industry forward.
John H. Grimm died in August 1941 at Grimmaple Lodge, his summer home near Mount Loyal, Quebec at the age of 77, a few months after the death of his wife. With his death, his brother Charles E. Grimm assumed the role of company president. Charles E. Grimm died only a few years later June 1943 in Montreal.
Ten years later, the Grimm family heirs and remaining shareholders of the Grimm Manufacturing Company sold the company to Sylva LeBrun of Montreal in 1952. LeBrun had started the Dominion Evaporator Company in Montreal in 1940 after selling off his interests in his earlier company, LeBrun – Lussier out of Waterloo, Quebec. The story of the LeBrun – Lussier company is covered in an earlier post in this series. In December 1953 it was announced that LeBrun had formed a new company called Dominion & Grimm, Inc. headquartered on Delorimier Street in Montreal.
Dominion Evaporator Company advertisement from 1944.
In combining the Grimm Manufacturing Company with the Dominion Evaporator Company, LeBrun brought together many years of experience and customer satisfaction. Together as one, Dominion & Grimm was able to offer a wide selection of maple sugaring supplies ranging from his own evaporator and arch designs, to those of the Champion evaporators and well-known Grimm cans, covers, spiles, and tanks.
Advertisement from December 1952 for Dominion Evaporators alerting sugarmakers to request their 1953 catalog.
Sylva LeBrun patented his own sap spout design in 1955 (CA510618), which became a mainstay in Canadian sugarbushes. Dominion & Grimm was known for carrying a wide array of spout styles. Hale Mattoon’s excellent book from 2017 titled Maple Spouts Spiles Taps & Tools contains a nice series of illustrations of the assortment of LeBrun designs and D & G inventory.
At some point, possibly after the formation of Dominion & Grimm, the company added home and commercial canning and sterilizing equipment as well as animal feed troughs and other assorted farm supplies to the products they sold.
Patent drawing for Sylva LeBrun’s 1955 sap spout design (CA510618).
Deteriorating health forced Sylva LeBrun into a kind of semi-retirement in the mid-1950s before he passed away in July 1958. In 1962, Dominion & Grimm, Inc. was sold to the Boileau family. A few years later, in 1966, the company relocated from Delorimier Street to a more modern and larger factory location in an industrial park in the Montreal neighborhood of Ville d’Anjou, where it remains to this day.
Dominion & Grimm , Inc. advertisement from 1955 promoting their sale of one gallon lithographed cans in four colors.
With the passing of Mr. Boileau in 1984, his daughter sold the company to long time manager Marcel Pepin and the company has remained in his hands to this day. Additional manufacturing sites have been established in Victoriaville and Thetford Mines, Quebec as well as warehouse and sales facilities in St. Albans, Vermont. In recent years the company has diversified beyond only equipment for the maple syrup industry to begin manufacturing biogas production equipment and the company now employs as many as 130 people.
Dominion & Grimm, Inc. catalog cover from 1961 with an image of their Delorimier Street facility.
The G.H. Grimm Company was one of the largest and most influential maple sugar evaporator companies of the late 19th and all of the 20th centuries. The company began with Gustav Henry Grimm who was born in Baden, Germany in 1850. He came to new world in 1864 with his parents, settling in Cleveland, Ohio. A few years later as a young man, around 1870 Grimm moved to Hudson, Ohio with his new wife. Grimm came from a family of tin workers, with the 1870 and 1880 census for the Cleveland area showing a number of other Grimms who immigrated from Germany to Ohio also listed as tin workers.
Image of Gustav Henry Grimm from 1987 Rutland Historical Society Quarterly article by Robert F. Moore.
The business of G.H. Grimm & Co. was established for manufacturing the Champion Evaporator in Hudson, Ohio in 1881 with the Champion marketed from the beginning as an evaporator for the making of maple sugar, sorghum, cider, and fruit jellies. In the first year the company produced less than a dozen evaporators. Gustav H. Grimm applied for his first patent in November of 1881 (US254476) for a raised flue evaporator with Horace M. Clark, with the patent formally registered in March of 1882.
Patent drawing from Grimm and Clark’s 1882 evaporator design (US254476).
Over the next few years Grimm continued to make design changes and improvements to his evaporator and as Grimm Company history tells it, the first “real Champion evaporator” was tested in 1883. As the company expanded, in 1883 G.H. Grimm took on W. C. Parsons of Akron, Ohio as a partner. Over the next few years Grimm continued to tweak his 1882 patent with patented (US296743) improvements to various features and accessories to the evaporator as well as a patent (US316893) for the process of folding the sheet metal to form the distinctive raised flues.
1885 Patent drawing from Grimm’s method of folding metal to form raised flues (US316893).
Through the 1880s the company continued to expand its sales and distribution reaching into New England, Pennsylvania, and New York. In October 1888 the company was formally incorporated in Ohio as the G. H. Grimm Manufacturing Co. with an authorized capital stock of $50,000. The first president was W.C. Parsons with G.H. Grimm listed as superintendent.
Advertisement from 1885 for the Champion Evaporator from G.H. Grimm and Co. out of Hudson, Ohio.
Interestingly, there was another, completely unrelated, Champion Evaporator Company that operated in Berkshire, Vermont and later Richford, Vermont about this same time in the 1880s. This company was relatively short lived with evaporators in production from 1882 to about 1887. The history of the Richford, Vermont Champion Evaporator Company will be covered in greater detail in a separate post in this series on evaporator company histories.
Recognizing the need to be more centrally located in the heart of the maple sugar producing territory, in June of 1890, G.H. Grimm secured a lease for land alongside the railroad in Rutland, Vermont and over that summer erected a 120 by 40-foot one-story building. Manufacturing of new evaporators began in the fall and by December 1890 advertising for the company prominently displayed their locations as Rutland, VT and Hudson, OH. By April 1891 the company reported that it had put out 500 evaporators in the state of Vermont.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1895 for Rutland, VT showing first location of G.H. Grimm building on northwest side of Pine Street.
With the construction of the Rutland factory, G.H Grimm also moved his family from Ohio to Vermont and built a large, elegant new house at 201 Grove Street in Rutland. This historic home is now listed on the Vermont State Register of Historic Places.
1891 advertisement for Grimm’s Champion Evaporator showing Rutland, VT and Hudson, OH as the locations of their plants.
In the fall of 1892 the Grimm Company further expanded into Canada. On October 28, 1892 Le Prix Courant, a business newspaper in Montreal, Quebec, under the heading of “new companies”, announced the arrival of the “G.H. Grimme Manufacturing Company (Limited)” incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio with Gustave H. Grimm of Montreal as general manager. Gustave H. Grimm’s younger cousin John H. Grimm, relocated to Montreal from Rutland, Vermont to run the Quebec branch of the company.
1893 advertisement listing Hudson, OH and Montreal, Quebec with an excellent engraving of the Champion Evaporator.
With facilities in Hudson, Ohio; Rutland, Vermont; and Montreal, Quebec the company had solidified their presence in the heart of the maple syrup producing world. The company was producing over 1,000 evaporators a year. In a 1894 tariff inquiry report to congress under the category of metal manufacturing companies, Grimm reported that in 1893 they produced 900 evaporators in the United States and 200 in Canada with an average price for a unit being $100 to $125.
Grimm’s move to Rutland signified a shift in his company focus towards New England and away from Ohio. A few years later the G.H. Grimm Manufacturing Co. formally separated itself from its Hudson, Ohio facilities. In addition, advertisements and publications for G.H. Grimm Manufacturing Co. no longer list Hudson, Ohio as one of its locations after 1893.
1904 advert for the Champion Evaporator Company of Hudson, Ohio.
Charles Bouton purchased the Hudson portion of the company in 1895, after which the Ohio manufacturing company under his ownership was called the Champion Evaporator Company or sometimes the Champion Evaporator Works. Presumably the Hudson “Works” were manufacturing the Grimm-style Champion Evaporator under license or contract for the G.H. Grimm Co., although that is not exactly clear.
The new Champion Evaporator Company in Hudson took a little time to get on its feet when in late 1895 and again in spring 1896 there were reports of the factory in Hudson closing. In August of 1896 it was formally announced that the Champion Evaporator Works in Hudson had been purchased by Bouton & Son. Bouton (sometimes misspelled as Bonton) was a hotel and livery owner in Hudson and had earlier acquired financial interest in the G.H. Grimm Company in 1886. Prior to his ownership of the Hudson Works, Charles Bouton’s association with G.H. Grimm was more than investor. In early 1895 he invented and patented (US546648) a sap pail and cover with the patent assigned to the G.H. Grimm Co. As owner of the independent Champion Evaporator Company, in 1900 Bouton patented his own evaporator design (US647798) in partnership with Clayton S. Bediant.
Bouton continued operation of the Champion Evaporator Company in Hudson until his death in October 1910. It is presumed the company continued under the leadership of his son Clarence Bouton, until his death in 1920. Following a stint in the Navy, Albert H. Schow acquired the company in the early 1920s and managed it until it closed in the early 1940s. As late as 1941, Schow was advertising to hire metal workers for the Hudson evaporator works. In 1942, Schow and the company were listed for unpaid taxes and later accounts in Hudson, OH newspapers suggest the company was forced to close operations in 1943 when supplies of sheet metal became difficult to obtain due to the war effort. In 1979, the city of Hudson rehabilitated the old Champion Evaporator Company factory space and opened it as a series of retail and studio shops, appropriately named “The Evaporator Works.”
Sanborn Map from 1900 showing later location of G.H. Grimm building across Pine Street from the earlier building.
Back to the G.H. Grimm story – business continued to stream in for the company in Rutland and in the summer of 1898 they began construction on a new three-story, 50 by 150-foot building with a spacious basement on Pine Street. Machinery was moved from the old location in the fall and the company was ready for business at its new location by the start of 1899.
Early 1900s Illustration of G.H. Grimm factory on Pine Street. Notice the building dimensions of 50 x 150 included on the drawing.
In 1900, the Grimm Company went through another reorganization when the Grimm cousins decided to split the Rutland and Montreal branches of the company into two independent companies. The Rutland operation became known as G.H. Grimm Company, sometimes just G.H. Grimm, with the word “manufacturing” dropped from the name. While the Montreal firm under John H. Grimm became Grimm Manufacturing Co., LTD., dropping the initials G.H. at the beginning of its name.
Catalog cover for The Grimm Mfg. Co. LTD out of Montreal.
John H. Grimm and his brothers Charles E. Grimm, Henry E. Grimm, and Wendell Grimm formally incorporated in Quebec in 1910. John H. Grimm and Charles E. Grimm continued to run the Montreal company for the next three decades until their deaths with John in 1941 and Charles in 1943. After their deaths, Grimm Manufacturing Co. LTD of Montreal was sold to Sylvan LeBrun and his Dominion Evaporator Company in 1953 to become Dominion and Grimm. A part of the LeBrun story was covered in the earlier posted history of the Waterloo Evaporator history and a later post will cover the history of the Dominion Evaporator Company and Dominion and Grimm, Inc. in this series on evaporator company histories.
Advertisement flyer from around 1901 for the improved Grimm Spout and Cover.
Although the first two decades of the G.H. Grimm Company witnessed many changes in organization and location, by the beginning of the new century things were largely settled from the standpoint of facilities and infrastructure. Gustave H. Grimm had found a permanent home for his family and company in Rutland with the plant on Pine Street and had narrowed his focus to just managing and leading the G.H. Grimm Company in Rutland. While still selling maple sugaring evaporators and equipment designed and patented by G.H. Grimm, the Montreal Grimm’s and the Hudson Champion Evaporator Company were no longer under Gustave H. Grimm’s control or his responsibility.
Reverse side of advertisement flyer from around 1901 showing Grimm Spout No. 1 and the special production Horseshoe Cover, patented by Abbot Augustus Low (US668313).
As G.H. Grimm worked to grow the Rutland company he was fortunate to be chosen by Abbot Augustus Low to be the evaporator and equipment supplier for Low’s massive Horse Shoe Forestry Company maple sugaring operation in the Adirondacks of New York. Low purchased at least 19 large sized evaporators and taps and pails to gather sap from as many as 50,000 trees. Grimm took advantage of the notoriety of Low’s sugarbush as the largest in the world and emphasized in their advertising that Low was using Grimm sap spouts. As noted in an earlier blog post, Grimm and Low also partnered even more directly when the Grimm company put A.A. Low’s patent (US668313) design for a sap pail cover into production. The Horseshoe Cover as it was known, was primarily produced for use by Low in his Adirondacks sugarbush, but Grimm also advertised its availability for purchase by any interested customers.
Examples of Pure Vermont Maple Syrup packed by the G.H. Grimm Company out of Rutland, VT.
It should be noted that in addition to manufacturing and selling maple sugaring equipment, for a period of time in the 1890s and early 20th century, the Grimm company in Rutland also bought maple sugar and maple syrup from producers in New England and New York and packaged it under the Grimm label. For example, in 1898 the Grimm company reported that by June it had shipped 10 tons of maple sugar and 6000 gallons of syrup which was about one third of the volume they had moved at the same time the year before.
One of the sheets of the patent drawing from July 19, 1904 showing Grimm’s sap spout no. 1 and his design for a sap pail cover (US765478). December 1904 patent drawing for Grimm sap spout designs for spouts no. 2, 3, 4, and 5 and sap pail cover (US778031).
The early 1900s saw G.H. Grimm expand his portfolio of sugaring equipment designs and patents (US729330, US765478, US778031) with a series of sap pail covers and sap spouts that were assigned numbers 1 through 5. The company continued to make improvements on their evaporators as well with three additional patents awarded for improvements to designs for sap preheaters and sap regulators (US884272, US962830, US1159213), with the final patent being awarded in 1915, posthumously following Grimm’s death in 1914.
Gustav H. Grimm died in Rutland on December 24, 1914 at the age of 64 from general paralysis. For a number of years following the death of G.H. Grimm, the company operated under the name of the G.H. Grimm Estate with his daughter Nella Grimm taking over management of company at age 36. After Grimm’s death the company continued to provide evaporators and equipment to the maple industry although at times it was forced to protect their interests in G.H. Grimm’s patent designs that made the company’s products popular. For example, see the 1918 case challenging the use of Grimm designs by three former Grimm employees that left the company to form the Vermont Evaporator Company.
Grimm’s evaporator patent drawing from 1908 with updated features (US884272).
Nella Grimm married John Crary Fox in 1923 in New York City. At time of her marriage Nella was described as executive head of the company but was living in Philadelphia and New York. Following his marriage to Nella Grimm, John C. Fox joined her in managing the company until his unexpected death from a heart attack in 1932.
The next 20 years are largely unremarkable for the company as it continued to maintain its market share as one of the five main evaporator manufacturers in the US and Canada. In 1951 Nella Grimm Fox decided to retire from management of the company and sold G.H. Grimm to Robert F. Moore of Rutland and Louis Veale of Montpelier. A few years later, Veale became ill and died in 1958, leaving the company in the hands of Robert F. Moore and his family with each of Moore’s sons working for the company before following separate career paths outside of the company.
Drawing for Grimm’s 1910 patent for a sap preheater (US962830).
Many of the details of the story of the Grimm Company after the sale of the company in 1951 have been told in a nice article by Robert F. Moore that appeared in 1987 in the Rutland Historical Society Quarterly. Here are some highlights of the next 40 or so years.
In 1964 The G.H. Grimm Company buys the Lightning Evaporator Company. (See the history of the Lightning Company in another post in this series.) In 1984, the Moore family sells G.H. Grimm to a group of Rutland businessmen known as the Grimm group. In 1985 the Lamb Naturalflow maple sap tubing company out of St. Bernhards Bay, New York became a subsidiary partner of the G.H. Grimm Company. And finally, in 1989 the Leader Evaporator Company of St. Albans, Vermont, purchased the G.H. Grimm Company and Lamb Naturalflow to become the largest maple equipment company in the world. Leader continued to manufacture the Grimm evaporators for a number of years before new designs and changing technology and health and safety requirements related to the use of lead solder led to their discontinuation. Leader operated the G.H. Grimm plant in Rutland for another 15 years before deciding to moving the majority of their operations to St. Albans in 2005; however, they still use the Pine Street facility in Rutland for a portion of their manufacturing.
For the maple history fan interested in old equipment catalogs and the evolution of maple syrup technology, the Canadian equipment manufacturer Dominion & Grimm has made available a nifty collection of their catalogs from years past.
The catalogs in these full color scans cover most decades of the twentieth century and are presented as downloadable PDF files. Also available on the Dominion & Grimm website is a short history of their company which began as a Canadian wing of the G.H. Grimm Company of Ohio under the direction of a cousin of Gustav Henry Grimm.
Initially manufacturing and selling Champion Evaporators patented by G.H. Grimm, the Canadian Grimm Company was an independent affiliate of the Ohio Grimm company until it was purchased by the Dominion Evaporator Company in the 1950s, becoming the Dominion & Grimm company of today. It’s wonderful that Dominion & Grimm saw the value in preserving and sharing a record of their products and sales publications.
An excellent historical companion to the Dominion & Grimm story is the 1987 history of the G.H. Grimm Company by past owner and president Robert Moore and published in Volume 17, number 4 of the Rutland Historical Society Quartery. This company history traces the successful evolution and ownership of the G.H. Grimm Company from its Ohio beginnings in 1880, through its move to Rutland, Vermont in 1890, on to its sale in 1983. Moore’s article is a much appreciated corporate history of one of the most influential and important companies in the invention and manufacturing of maple syrup evaporators, spouts, and other equipment.
