Category: New Hampshire

New Online History: Perley E. Fox and the Granite State Evaporator Company

The Keene, New Hampshire online newspaper the Sentinel Source recently featured a great little history of Perley E. Fox and the Granite State Evaporator Company. Written by Alan F. Rumrill, the Executive Director of the Historical Society of Cheshire County, the article traces the path of Perley Fox from his birth in Marlow, New Hampshire to the midwest, and back to Marlow where he settled and entered the tinworks business and developed his own design of maple syrup evaporators. Working under the company name of Granite State Evaporator Company, Fox sold a full range of maple sugaring supplies and evaporators. You can read Mr. Rumrill’s article at this link.

For another telling of the Granite State Evaporator Company story, see my February 2019 post on the company here on this website, www.maplesyruphistory.com.

Recommended Reads: Maple History from a Local or Regional Perspective

Every few years a new book comes out on the culture or history of maple sugaring and maple syrup many which are highlighted on this website. In addition to these new and easily found books are a number of classics that those interested in maple history may want to look for and add to their collections. Here are four such books written with a local or regional focus that were all published over ten years ago, some of which are now out of print.

From oldest to newest, first we have the book When the Sugar Bird Sings: The History of Maple Syrup in Lanark County by Claudia Smith. Published in 1996, this great little book features the history and stories of maple sugar and syrup making in and around Lanark County, Ontario. It is illustrated with numerous historic photos of Lanark County maple operations and boasts of Lanark County as the Maple Capital or Ontario. While out of print, this book can be found used online at such sources as www.abebooks.com and www.amazon.com.

Next up in the lineup is a massive 578-page tome from 1998 titled Reynolds, Maple and History: Fit For Kings by the late Lynn H. Reynolds from Aniwa, Wisconsin. This book, a labor of love for Lynn Reynolds that highlights the events and importance of the Reynolds family and their Reynolds Sugarbush, was privately published in a limited run of 450 copies by the Reynolds family, sadly only a few weeks following Lynn’s passing. In the 1960s and 1970s the Reynolds Sugarbush was the single largest maple syrup producing company in United States or Canada, making maple syrup from well over 125,000 taps. The three men of the company, father Adin Reynolds (1905-1987), and brothers Lynn H. Reynolds (1936-1998) and Juan L. Reynolds (1930-2008) were all prominent leaders in the maple industry during their heyday and both Adin and Lynn were inducted into the Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame.

Written from the memory and point of view of Lynn Reynolds, the book tells many histories in a side-by-side chronological fashion with the story of the Reynolds family presented in one font,  maple syrup industry history in another font, and general local, Wisconsin, US, and World history presented in a third font.  For the maple historian the book is chock full of names, dates and descriptions of events in the history of both the Wisconsin and North American maple industries. The Reynolds sections of the books recount the interesting growth of the Reynolds company as maple industry juggernaut despite of being located in north central Wisconsin, far from new England or Quebec.

Lynn Reynolds was not a shy man nor one to temper his opinions when they mattered to him, so unsurprisingly the book does suffer from a bit of Reynolds exceptionalism, but in all honesty, that is not without some degree of merit, since the Reynolds family was very influential and the Reynolds Sugarbush was pushing the scale of maple operations at that period in maple industry history. If you can find a copy of this book snatch it up immediately. I have used my copy so extensively for reference I even built my own index for easier use, available here. My copy has seen so much use (in spite of being purchased new) that it is coming apart at the binding, so maybe at some point in the future I will scan the whole book and seek permission from the Reynolds family to make it available here.

Third in this list is the book Maple Sugaring In New Hampshire by Barbara Mills Lassonde. Published in 2004 by Arcadia Publishing as part of their Images of America series, this book is still in print and available at the Arcadia Publishing website. Like all books in the Images of America series, Maple Sugaring in New Hampshire is a photo history book with hundreds of great images and accompanying captions tracing the history of maple production in New Hampshire from the colonial days up into the 21st century.

Lastly, is the very well researched book Spotza, Keelers, and Stirred Sugar: The Legacy of Maple Sugaring in Somerset County, Pennsylvania by Mark Ware. Released in 2006 by the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County, this well illustrated book presents years of research on the methods, material culture, and economic history of sugaring in a small but very active corner of Pennsylvania. With his position as the Executive Director of the Somerset County Historical Center, Mark Ware has taken the time to look deeply into the records, family histories, and artifacts and antiques. That knowledge is shared both in this book and in the exhibit of reconstructed 1860s sugar camp at the Somerset Historical Center. This book can be purchased online from the Somerset Historical Center website.

For those interested in maple history books with a broader, less regional scope, check out my earlier post Recommended Reads: Excellent Sources on the Culture and History of Maple Syrup.

Evaporator Company Histories: Granite State Evaporator Co.

The Granite State Evaporator Company was one of the only evaporator companies to come out of New Hampshire in the late 19th century. The company has its origins when Perley E. Fox purchased a tin and stove works in Marlow, NH in 1869. Fox was born in Marlow in 1833, but as a young man headed west to Illinois in 1857 where he worked as a school teacher and professor. He returned to Marlow in the early 1860s working again as a teacher and president of the Marlow Academy and as a daguerreotype artist according to the 1860 census.

Portrait of Perley E. Fox from 1890s.

He entered the tin, stove, and hardware business when he bought out the business of J.H. Fisher in Marlow.; however, it is not clear when he first began manufacturing evaporators for maple sugaring. Perley obtained a patent in 1875 (US165223) for an evaporating pan that was a series of individual pans that were linked sequentially through tubular connectors placed in an alternating formation, effectively forming a sort of baffle or zig-zag pattern of flow of sap and syrup through the pans.

Drawing of evaporating pan patent (US165223) awarded to Perley E. Fox in 1875.

Advertisements from as early as 1879 referred to Perley’s evaporator as the Granite State Evaporator. By the 1890s the illustrations for the Granite State Evaporator Company show it as large flat pan with divided compartments resting on a portable steel arch. Perley also patented his own sap spout (US283593) in 1883 that was a hookless style formed from rolled sheet metal in a tubular design.

 

 

Drawing for Perley E. Fox’s patent (US283593) from 1883 for a rolled sheet metal sap spout.

 

Perley reportedly retired from the hardware and tin business in 1892 to devote his time to farming, but it wasn’t the end of his evaporator company. In fact, the Granite State Evaporator Company continued to operate and manufacture evaporators well after that time. Perley was noted as an exhibitor of his evaporator at a number of fairs and agricultural expos in the region after 1892 and his name continued to be associated as the owner of the company in the next couple of decades.

Illustration of the Granite State Evaporator and portable steel arch, ca. 1898.

The company reached out beyond the range of New England maple sugar producers to the midwestern farm states to sell devices similar to small evaporators or finishing rigs that they called “feed cookers” and “water heaters”.  These large deep flat pans sat on metal arches and were marketed as a universal tool for all your boiling needs on the farm, be they heating water and food to feed animals, or preserving foods or making jellies. The Granite State Evaporator Company employed a special salesman based out of New York City to help promote their feed cookers. By the late 1890s, Frank E. Morrison was listed as the company president and advertising agent and maintained a sales office in Temple Court on Beekman Street in New York City.

Advertisement from 1895 for the Granite State Evaporator Company.
1897 advertisement for the Granite State Feed Cooker and Water Heater, a piece of equipment handy on the farm that was similar in design and manufacture as a maple sap evaporator.

Morrison moved on to another company by the early 1900s, but the Granite State Evaporator Company continued to manufacture evaporators and advertise to maple sugar makers in New England newspapers for a few more years. When the company stopped production is not exactly clear.

In his later years, Perley represented Marlow as a member of the New Hampshire legislature in 1903 and 1904. In August 1916, a fire in Marlow destroyed a number of buildings including the evaporator factory. Newspaper accounts of the fire described the building for the Granite State Evaporator Company as owned by Perley Fox; however, it was not clear if the company was in active production. Following the fire and the destruction of the company factory, Perley Fox was listed as a locksmith at the age of 86 in the 1920 census. He died of pneumonia in 1929 in a nursing home in Westmoreland, NH.