The article tells the story of the maple syrup operation started by Sherman and Pat Holbert in the maple woods around Mille Lacs Lake in east central Minnesota following the end of World War II. Starting in 1946, in a few short years the Holbert brothers maple operation went from nothing to what was probably the largest operation in the country at that time, making syrup from 28,000 taps. In addition, the Holberts became one of the first maple equipment dealers west of Michigan. Less than ten years after it got started, the Holberts shifted their business focus to other things. The operation closed its doors, the evaporators and gathering equipment were sold, and the syrup plant was converted to a roadside tourist attraction and gift shop.
Click on the image of the article above for a PDF of the full story.
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 George H. Soule company was one of the most important evaporator companies in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. The Soule company has its beginnings in Fairfield and then Burlington, Vermont before moving to its long-time home of St. Albans, Vermont.
George Henry Soule, the founder of the company, was born into a maple sugaring and farming family in the Fairfield area of Franklin County, Vermont in 1865. After graduating from Goddard Seminary in 1887 in Barre, Vermont, George returned to assist his widower father with their extensive farm holdings. The Soule farm, located on South Road about three miles south of Fairfield town center, was established by George’s grandfather, Joseph A. Soule in the 1840s or 1850s. The farm included a two and a half story Greek Revival style farm house and a collection of mid-19th century barns, tin shop, and wood shed. Away from the farm center in the adjoining sugarbush were a handful of sugarhouses.
Modern view of Soule family farm on South Rd. Fairfield County, Vermont.
George especially took to the maple sugaring operations and in no time grew their sugarbush to become one of the largest in the state. As early as 1893 he had 4,500 taps feeding two sugar houses. By 1905 he had grown to around 7,000-8,000 taps with room for many more. In fact, as one of the single largest producers in New England at the time, he was widely referred to as the “Maple Sugar King,” a title he would share with the famous sugar buyer George C. Cary of St. Johnsbury.
Soule’s prominence as a maple sugar maker in the 1890s and early 1900s was illustrated by the use of his name in advertisements by two of the most important evaporator and sugaring equipment companies. The Vermont Farm Machine Company in 1897 featured a testimonial for their evaporator by Soule, including a note that his syrup had won the first-place prize that January at the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Convention. In a 1906 advertisement, The G. H. Grimm Company noted that George H. Soule, who has the largest sugarbush in Vermont with 8,000 taps, uses the Grimm sap spout.
As a notable sugarmaker in Vermont, George Soule was active from the beginning years of the Vermont Maple Sugarmakers Association, but it was in 1910 when he was elected President of the Association that his leadership began to emerge. He was re-elected to the post for a second year in 1911.
George H. Soule’s 1913 evaporator patent design drawing (US1049935).
Soule did not only spend his time tapping trees and raising dairy cattle on his 1,100-acre farm. He also put his own ideas to work on designing and improving sugaring evaporators and other equipment. In fact, as early as 1897 he applied for an evaporator patent design (US635876) that was later assigned (sold) to the Vermont Farm Machine Company. In 1911, working from the tin shop on his farm, George improved upon his earlier design with the additions of a series of deep drop flues, a rear sap preheater, and external sap regulators. Patented in 1913 (US1049935), these design elements became the basic features of the evaporators that later formed the backbone of Soule’s evaporator company.
1916 patent design drawing for George H. Soule’s famous sap spout (US1207444).
In the next few years Soule patented a few more items, including a “sap-gathering apparatus” which was a sap collection pail and cover with a hook fixed to the cover that allowed the cover and pail to pivot or rotate on the tap while still attached to the tree, permitting the emptying of the pail by pouring from the side without having to detach it from the spout. It does not appear that this invention was put into production. However, Soule’s sap spout design (US1207444) was mass produced and the Soule spout became one of the most widely-used cast metal spouts in the history of the maple industry.
Examples of the hooked and hookless Soule Sap Spout.
By June 1915, George H. Soule was ready to enter the maple evaporator business and formed the Burlington Evaporator Company on Battery Street in Burlington, Vermont, occupying a three-story building with 7,000 square feet of space with a side alongside the railroad tracks.
1920 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing Aldis Street location of Soule Company factory in St. Albans, Vermont.
In forming the company Soule partnered with J.M. Ruiter and A.A. Hunter, two men that for years had worked for the Leader Evaporator Company, also in Burlington. The story of Ruiter and Hunter will be covered in greater detail in the post on history of the Leader Evaporator Company in this series, but suffice it to say, the Leader Company was not happy with their shift in allegiance. In July 1915 Leader posted ads in several Vermont newspapers stating in no uncertain terms that Ruiter and Hunter no longer represented the Leader Company in any way. Of course, George Soule loved the free advertising and even said so in an ad of his own!
Leader Evaporator Company newspaper notice from 1915 announcing that Mister Hunter and Mister Ruiter were no longer representing the Leader Company.George H. Soule’s Burlington Evaporator Company advertisement from 1915 in response to the Leader Company notice.
From the very beginning Soule named his evaporator the Maple King, but he also had the Maple Queen evaporator in 1915. The origins of use of the brand name of King for his evaporator most likely comes from Soule himself being referred to as the “Maple Sugar King”; however, there is another version of the story. According to the descendants of Albert James King, the King Evaporator was named after Albert J. King. Albert was Soule’s friend and neighbor from early Buck Hollow and had worked for Soule at one time. Soule reportedly chose King as the brand name for the evaporator as a thank you for Albert J. King’s assistance with the regulator design of what became Soule’s patented evaporator. Use of the Maple Queen name for an evaporator by Soule lasted roughly from 1915 to 1916. Letterhead for the Burlington Evaporator Company lists them as the “Manufacturers of the King and Queen Evaporators.” By 1918, the Maple Queen name had disappeared and the Maple King Evaporator became just the King Evaporator.
Example of the King Evaporator with its famous dollar signs on the cast iron arch front.
Incidentally, there was another evaporator with the King name around this time that was entirely unrelated to the design and manufacture of George H. Soule. Harlow Henry Mower, a hardware store and tin shop owner from nearby Sheldon, Vermont manufactured and sold his own King Evaporator in the late 19-teens and early 1920s. Little is known of his design, how many he made or how he chose the name King. One wonders how the Soule Company felt about H.H. Mower’s use of the King name for his evaporator. In the end, the Mower version of the King Evaporator was fairly short-lived.
The Burlington Evaporator Company partnership that started in 1915 ended when Ruiter and Hunter relinquished their interests to George H. Soule a year later, giving George complete control of the Burlington Evaporator Company in July 1916. George H. Soule continued to operate into 1918 as the Burlington Evaporator Company out of the building near the corner of Battery and Maple Streets.
A few years later in September 1918, Soule formed a new partnership with Frederick T. Bradish, now operating under the name George H. Soule & Co. Bradish had been in the butter tub and creamery supplies business in Medford, Massachusetts for many years before going to work as the advertising manager for the Vermont Farm Machine Company of Bellows Falls, so he had a knowledge and familiarity with maple sugaring equipment and sales. Bradish was with the firm 10 years before he died in 1928 at the age of 63, again leaving Soule with sole control of his evaporator and maple sugaring supplies company.
Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1946 of George H Soule Company and Fairfield Farms Maple Company building on Stowell Street in St. Albans, Vermont.
To house the new Geo. H. Soule & Co. firm, Soule and Bradish erected a large factory building on Aldis Street, adjacent to the Central Vermont Railroad in St. Albans, Vermont. Instead of building from the ground up, they moved an existing three-story building onto the site and added a two-story factory and office space with the entire building covering 9,000 square feet.
Modern image the renovated George H. Soule Company and Fairfield Farms Maple Products Company building, also known as the Willard Building in St. Albans, Vermont.
In the 1920s the Soule Company served as a buying agent for the George C. Cary Maple Sugar Company, bringing in barrels and cans of maple sugar and maple syrup to their Aldis Street factory and shipping them to Cary in St. Johnsbury. Soule got into the buying agent business as a result of accepting maple sugar and syrup in exchange for cash when selling his evaporators and equipment to producers. The Soule company in turn would sell it to the Cary company. The Soule Company than added the responsibility of operating as a buying agent for Cary. However, when Cary filed for bankruptcy and the Cary Company was taken into receivership in 1931, the Soule Company was left with many pounds of sugar and syrup on their hands. In response, George H. Soule decided to go into the maple products business and formed Fairfield Farms Maple Company in September 1931 with the doors opening for business in April 1932.
Example of the cover of a George H. Soule Company King Sugar Tools catalog from the 1930s.
To house his new concern, George H. Soule purchased the two-story, wood framed Willard Manufacturing Company building on Stowell Street in St. Albans, a short distance away from his Aldis Street factory. By 1935 Fairfield Farms was purchasing over 2 million pounds of maple syrup that they bottled, canned, and turned into maple sugar and other maple-based products.
In the spring of 1937, there was more activity in the Soule sugarbush in Fairfield than the usual men gathering sap. That April a Universal Newsreel film crew from Boston was in Vermont for four days to catch scenes of maple sugaring and boiling on film. At the time George Soule was operating 15,000 taps in his sugarbush spread across four farms including some acres that were equipped with the Gooseneck metal pipeline to move sap from the trees to collection tanks near the sugarhouse. George himself spent some time outdoor in the sugarbush with the film crew in mid-April which must make one wonder if soon after it led to his demise. Following a week of illness, George H. Soule died of pneumonia on May 8, 1937 of age 71.
Image of George H. Soule from the mid-1930s.
Having never married with no children of his own, George Soule’s nephews Everett I. Soule and Raymond L. Soule soon took over ownership and running the George H. Soule Company and Fairfield Farms Maple Products. Although the Soule family in general has a long and wide history as maple syrup producers, it is unclear to what degree Everett and Raymond Soule had been involved with sugaring in their earlier years. Regardless, both were experienced with running a business having both been a part of running their father Chilo Lee Soule’s tobacco company in Burlington for many years.
Exploded perspective of Soule’s King Evaporator from 1950s era.Soule’s King Brand sap gathering tank.
Everett would take the helm as president of the companies with Raymond going in a different direction, becoming the city assessor and building inspector for the city of Burlington. Everett’s son Richard C. Soule came on board in 1939, rising to the post of vice-president before shifting to the insurance business in 1952. Richard C. Soule would go on to be a Vermont state senator for Franklin County from 1968 to 1985.
Patent design drawing from 1962 of R.L. Soule and E.I. Soule’s portable poser tree tapper (US2563195).
Under the leadership of Everett Soule, the company introduced a few new inventions that were right in line with new post-war technologies and innovations common in industry and agriculture. Most notable was the King Power Tapper, a portable, backpack mounted gasoline powered drill and the plastic sap bag. The “King Portable Power Tree Tapper”, patented by Raymond L. Soule and Everett I. Soule in 1951 (US2563195) was not the first portable tree tapper to be invented but it was the first to be produced for widespread commercial sale. The speed and ease with which it allowed sugarmakers to tap many times more trees than with the traditional drill or brace and bit was a game changer in the sugarbush at the time.
Advertising brochure for the King Portable Power Tree Tapper.
The other important Soule Company invention in the 1940s and 1950s was a flexible plastic sap collection bag that would replace the use of the wood or metal pail or bucket. The King Sap Bag was developed by the Soule brothers in the 1940s when plastics were the new inexpensive and magical material that would change the world. After years of tweaking, it became available for purchase and use in the 1951 sugaring season. Designed to be washed and reusable for few seasons, it was made from a heavy-duty clear plastic called vinylite. The bags hung on a traditional hookless sap spout and would hold up to 15 quarts of sap. Everett Soule obtained a Canadian patent (CA598853) on the bags in 1960, but for some reason the bags were never patented in the United States. You can read more about the history of plastic sap bags at this earlier post on this website.
Advertising brochure for the Soule Company’s King Maple Sap Bag.
As someone with a fair amount of experience applying plastics to sap collection, Everett I. Soule was an early proponent and designer to hop on the bandwagon for flexible plastic tubing and himself obtained one of the earliest patents for a system of tubing, spouts, and fittings. Everett Soule’s patent (US2944369/CA652474 and CA673374) for a flexible plastic tubing system was applied for in 1958 and awarded in 1960, but it seems to never have been put into use. Through my other research efforts, I discovered that the 3M company, who manufactured the Mapleflo tubing system, was known for purchasing patent rights and issuing patent interference claims. So, it is possible that the Soule tubing system was a contested patent. My research on this topic continues.
Advertisement for the King Sap Bag from a French language agricultural magazine from Quebec, showing the wide distribution of the Soule Company products.
Sometime in the 1940s, possibly in 1942, the George H. Soule Company left its Aldis Street factory and moved into the Willard Manufacturing Building to be under the same roof as the Fairfield Farms Maple Company. In 1948, Everett I. Soule announced the closing of the candy making operations at Fairfield Farms due to a shrinking interest in maple sugar candy. By 1950, Fairfield Farms no longer appears in the St. Albans city directory and in 1952, the same year Richard Soule left to pursue a career in insurance, Fairfield Farms Maple Products announced it would no longer be buying maple syrup.
Raymond Soule continued as city assessor through 1951 before becoming vice-president of the clothing manufacturer, O.L. Hinds. Raymond Soule passed away in 1956 at the age of 69. Everett I. Soule himself was listed as both retired and company president in 1958, but clearly his involvement with the company had lessened.
Photo from the 1970s of the former Soule Co. building (aka Willard Building) following the purchase of the company by the Leader Evaporator Company. Notice the Leader name on the building.
In June 1964 Leader Evaporator Company purchased George H. Soule Company and moved a portion of its manufacturing team from Rutland to its St. Albans facilities. A few months later, following a short illness, Everett I. Soule died in Florida on August 18, 1964 at age 72.
Sometime after the George H. Soule Company ended their operation of Fairfield Farms Maple Products, a different Soule family rekindled the Fairfield Farms name. S. Allen Soule of Fairfield, a cousin of Everett I. Soule, was a syrup packer and sold one of the earliest lithographed syrup cans, and he began to use the Fairfield Farms name to do business in the mid-1950s. Despite having the same name of Soule (and being related) and both using the Fairfield Farms brand, the S. Allen Soule and George H. Soule companies were entirely separate entities.
Special thanks to Nancy J. King and David A. King for information on the history and connection of their great grandfather, Albert J. King, to George H. Soule and the source for the name of the King Evaporator.
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.
