Category: Vermont

The Towle Maple Products Company St. Johnsbury Ball Jar

A Short Lived Glass Jar but Uniquely Popular Among Bottle Collectors in the Modern Era

Matthew M. Thomas

Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Log Cabin Syrup paper label. From the collection of Scott Benjamine.

Among Ball jar collectors, the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Sure Seal jars are a widely sought-after series. These round jars and glass lids with a snap-down, Lightning style wire closure were manufactured in a unique 22-ounce size in the Ball Sure Seal shape exclusively for the Towle Maple Products Company and were not available or sold to the home canner. Often referred to in the Ball jar collector community as packer jars, product jars, or customer jars, these jars were originally filled with various brands of the Towle Company’s blended syrups for retail sale in shops and grocery stores, most notably the signature brand of Log Cabin Syrup.

Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Great Mountain Brand Syrup paper label. From the collection of John Patterson.

There are at least nine variations of the jars that can be divided into groups based on glass color, closure style, and embossing text. For example, most of the jars are Ball Blue in color and show the tell-tale circular scar from being made on the Owens automatic bottle making machine.

There is also a version that is clear in color, in the same dimensions and 22-ounce volume, but has the basal markings of having been manufactured on the Ball Bingham automatic bottle making machine. Other important distinguishing features are variations in the presence and absence and specific wording of the text embossed on the body of the jars.

Front and back faces of clear glass version of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with Lightning style beaded neck closure (RB 320-9).
Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Crown or Canada Brand Syrup paper label. From the collection of Linda White.

Although the jars found in most collections today do not have paper labels, originally all the Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars had paper labels on their front face, either the well-known Log Cabin Syrup brand label or one of a few other brands used by the Towle Company. Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars with intact paper labels from known collections include Log Cabin Syrup, Great Mountain Brand Syrup, and the Crown of Canada Brand Syrup. The Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars can be tightly dated to between the middle of 1910 and the end of 1914, based on the known dates of operation of the Towle Company plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont which is discussed below.

Example of the Ball and SURE SEAL embossed text on back face of the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars.

All the jars in the Ball Blue glass color variation feature the Ball name embossed on the back face in script with un underline, a looping double LL, a dropped “a” which are known to date between 1910 and 1923 on Ball made jars. This detail corresponds to the historical record that the Towle Company operated in St. Johnsbury from 1910 to 1914. Under the scripted “Ball” name in capitalized sans serif typeface are the words “SURE SEAL.”

Image of the cover of Red Book No. 12, the definitive collector’s guide for Ball jars.

The Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar is so notable and popular among Ball jar collectors that it has been recognized and described in Red Book 12: The Collectors Guide to Old Fruit Jars. The most recent edition of the Red Book, published in 2018, lists nine variations of this jar (RB 320-4 through RB 320-12). I have created a table based on the Red Book variations to assist in differentiating and recognizing the sometimes subtle differences in these variations.

 

Table illustrating details and features of the nine variations of Towle Maple Products St. Johnsbury jars based on Red Book No. 12.

Company History

The Towle Maple Products Company got its beginning in 1888 in St. Paul, Minnesota as Towle & McCormick’s, selling Log Cabin Syrup in a rectangular metal can. After a year in operation, McCormick left the company and Patrick J. Towle became the sole owner.

In the company’s early years, it packed its Log Cabin brand blended maple and cane sugar syrup in tall rectangular cans as well as in quart and pint sized wide-bodied and narrow-necked bottles, all originally exhibiting paper labels. In 1897 the company introduced its signature cabin shaped metal can, designed by Log Cabin Syrup salesman, James W. Fuller (US design patent 26,936).

Towle Maple Products Company plant in St. Paul, Minnesota that suffered a devastating fire in 1909. Photo from the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society.

By the turn of the century, the Log Cabin Syrup brand had become the most popular and best-selling blended table syrup in the country. However, being at the top of the industry did not protect it from the risk or disaster of fire, sadly a common occurrence in large factories at the time. On December 15th, 1909, the three-story brick factory of the Towle Maple Products Company, located on the west side flats of St. Paul, Minnesota suffered a devastating fire. Built in 1901 and opened in 1902, this plant was the Towle Company’s only location for the blending, bottling, and canning of syrups. Although the company quickly went to work to repair the damaged building, they were left in a difficult position and needed to find a way to continue their production and distribution.

Circa 1910, hand colored postcard of businesses in the Bay Street area of St. Johnsbury, Vermont with close-up of Towle’s building (former Cary Company) painted “Towle Maple Products Co.” on front and “Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup” on side.

To their great fortune, in March of 1910, George C. Cary, one of their colleagues and a sometimes syrup supplier, offered to sell to P.J. Towle the Cary Maple Sugar Company processing plant on Bay Street in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Cary was in the midst of expanding and reorganizing his growing maple sugar processing empire and this sale allowed him to get rid of an aging facility and provide capital to help further his company’s growth.

The Towle Company took advantage of this significant interruption in production and sales to makes changes in their product labeling and marketing. It was during this period of rebuilding and reorganization that the St. Johnsbury Ball jar was born and put into use. The location was a boon for the Towle Company in locating their bottling activities closer to the source of the maple syrup they were purchasing for their blends. In addition, being in New England added greater creditability to their syrups by allowing them to legitimately include the state of Vermont on their labels and advertisements.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1912 showing the Towle Maple Products Company location on Bay Street in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Fulling embedding themselves in St. Johnsbury, in April 1910 the Towle Company filed papers of incorporation in the State of Vermont and got to work remodeling the former Cary building situated adjacent to the shared tracks of the Boston & Maine Railroad and the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain Railroad. Inside this wooden barn-like building, giant steam-heated copper kettles of 150- and 250-gallon capacity were used to boil and blend maple syrup and cane sugar before being filtered and stored in 550-gallon tanks for packaging in glass and metal.

The Towle Company was able to rebuild and reopen their damaged St. Paul plant later in 1910, permitting the company to bottle syrup in both Minnesota and Vermont. Advertisements from this era list San Francisco as a third location for the company, but the west coast branch was only a warehouse and distribution site with no actual syrup manufacturing or bottling activity taking place.

During their operations in St. Johnsbury, in September 1912 the Towle Company suffered the unexpected death of company founder and family patriarch P.J. Towle. Since the company was privately owned and managed by P.J. Towle, his sons, and son-in-law; presidency of the company then shifted to his oldest son, William J. Towle.

Image of the Pillsbury-Baldwin Building in St. Johnsbury, Vermont which was occupied by the Towle Maple Products Company from 1913 to 1914.

With production running from seven in the morning to midnight, six days a week, the Towle Company rapidly outgrew the Bay Street plant in St. Johnsbury, and in March 1913 moved a half mile to the south into a much newer two-story fire-proof plant built of concrete block. Erected two years before, this plant was vacated by the failed Pillsbury-Baldwin bathroom fixture company. The Towle company continued operations in the former Pillsbury-Baldwin plant for another year and a half before announcing their decision to end operations in St. Johnsbury on December 31, 1914 and move all production activities back to St. Paul. After years of abandonment and neglect, the Pillsbury-Baldwin building formerly occupied by the Towle Company was demolished by the city of St. Johnsbury in September 2019. Likewise, Towle’s first St. Johnsbury location, former Cary Company plant on Bay Street was demolished in 1927 to make room for expansion by the neighboring Ide’s grist mill and grain elevator.

Example of a Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup advertisement noting St. Johnsbury along with St. Paul, and San Francisco as the location of refineries and offices of the Towle Maple Products Company. Saturday Evening Post, October 15, 1910.

With the closing of the St. Johnsbury plant, the Towle Company was forced to reword their labels and advertising and only list their St. Paul, Minnesota plant. It was at this time that the company also decided to discontinue bottling syrup in glass. From 1915 to 1931, Log Cabin Syrup was exclusively packaged in metal cabin shaped tins of pint, quart, or half gallon in size. In the 1910-1914 time period that the Ball jars were made and in use, Towle Company continued to package syrup in metal cabin-shaped tins as well as in eight-sided narrow neck bottles, and round narrow neck bottles, some with screw on caps and others with crown seal caps. Surprisingly, in my years of researching the history and packaging of the Towle Company, I have yet to find a newspaper or magazine advertisement mentioning or illustrating the sale of Towle brand syrups in a Ball Sure Seal jar.

Jar Details and Features

Looking closer at the details of these jars, we see that they were made with one of two different Lightning style closures. They exhibit either a Lightning style closure with lugs, sometimes called experimental dimples or bosses, and a heavy wire lever bail that inserted into the round glass dimples or bosses on the neck (RB 32-5, 320-7, 320-8, 320-9, 320-10, 320-11).  The other Lightning style closure has a beaded neck seal with a thinner twisted wire used to anchor the heavy wire bail below the encircling glass bead or ridge (RB 320-4, 320-6, 320-12).

The two styles of Lightning closures found on Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars. On the left, the beaded neck version with the heavy wire bail anchored by a thinner wire below an encircling glass ridge. On the right, the heavy wire bail anchored in circular glass bosses or dimples.
Example of jar with back face embossed text of PACKED IN and BY THE TOWLE and front face text of ST JOHNSBURY VT and MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.

The embossed text on the upper face of the jars is most recognizable to today’s collectors, since the original paper labels are almost always absent (RB 320-5, 320-6, 320-9, 320-10). There are two variations in the embossed text on the upper body of the jar faces. It is worth noting that this variation in the order and placement of embossed text on the upper face is not recognized in the Red Book at this time. In variation A, the upper line of text on the back side reads, “PACKED IN” and bottom line of text, “BY THE TOWLE” (above Ball SURE SEAL). The upper line of text on the front side of this variation reads, “ST JOHNSBURY VT” and the bottom line of text, “MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.” The side with the Ball SURE SEAL text is called the back here because the opposite side without the Ball text is where the paper label originally would have been pasted.

Example of jar with back face embossed text of PACKED IN and ST JOHNSBURY VT and front face text of BY THE TOWLE and MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.

In variation B, the upper line of text on the back side reads, “PACKED IN” and lower line of text, “ST JOHNSBURY VT” (above Ball SURE SEAL). The upper line of text on the front side reads, “BY THE TOWLE” and the lower line of text, “MAPLE PRODUCTS CO”. There is also a rare mistake jar variation (RB 320-10) where the letter “S” was left out of the word Johnsbury, instead written as JOHNBURY.

 

Example of variation with blank upper portion of the front and back faces with the complete Ball name and dimple style closure attachment (RB 320-7 or 320-11).

There are also variations with no embossed text on the upper face where a blank slug plate was used in manufacturing the jars (RB 320-4, 320-7, 320-8, 320-11, 320-12). Although such jars lack embossed text to associate them with the Towle Company and St. Johnsbury, we know from the paper label example for Great Mountain Brand Syrup that such jars with the blank upper face were in fact used by the Towle Maple Products Company. It is doubtful that any other company was given an opportunity to use these unique 22-ounce Sure Seal Ball jars, even those lacking embossed text referring to Towle or St. Johnsbury. Certainly, no examples of such use of this jar by any company other than Towle Maple Products have been found.

All the blue glass versions of these jars contain the words “Ball” and “SURE SEAL” in two lines embossed on the lower portion of one face.

Example where the top of the LL on Ball has been cut off by the blank slug plate (RB 320-8 and 320-12).

This version of the Ball logo is in script form with an underscore and no loop connecting the last “L” of “Ball” with the underscore. In some cases, the top portion of the “LL” in the word “Ball” has been cut off in the manufacturing process (RB 320-8, 320-12). The single clear version of these jars is completely lacking in any of the “Ball” or “SURE SEAL” brand embossing (RB 320-9)

 

Image of the patent date embossed on the base of the Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars.

About half of the varieties (320-4, 320-5, 320-6, 320-7, 320-8) of these jars are embossed on base with the text “Pat’d July 14, 1908” which refers to the U.S. patent number 893,008, awarded to Anthony F. McDonnell for the glass cap combined with a Lightning style wire closure design. All these Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars are 7.25 inches tall, not including the lid and have a diameter at the base of 3.25 inches.

Side-by-side comparison of true or correct Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar glass lid on left and similar, but incorrect Ball jar Lightning glass lid on right.

Also unique to these jars is a very specific, and hard to find glass lid. According to experts in the Ball jar collecting community, the “correct” glass lid for these jars is in the same Ball Blue color as the jar but unlike other similarly shaped and sized lids, the proper lid has a shallower depression in the center and a less steep central ramp.

Profile drawing illustrating the differences in form and depth of trough in correct (on left) and incorrect Ball Lightning lid (on right).

The correct lid also never has any embossed text showing a patent date, which is sometimes present on the similar, but incorrect Sure Seal Lightning style lids. The clear glass lid for RB 320-9 is identical to the correct Ball Blue colored lid, only differing in color.

Examples of other contemporary clear glass product jars with beaded neck Lightning style closures and glass lids, presumably manufactured by the Ball Company. Rigney & Co. Packers of Maple Products on left and Golden Tree Brand Syrup on the right.

There are a number of clear glass jars of a similar shape and size and specialty packer jars with the Lightning style glass lid and wire closures that were almost certainly made by Ball. These jars have similar embossed wording and were even used for packing blended maple flavored syrups, such as Golden Tree Syrup from the New England Syrup Company and Park Brand syrup from Rigney & Co. Packers of Maple Products out of Brooklyn, NY. However, these jars are of slightly different dimension and volume than the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars and technically classified as a separate group by Ball jar experts.

As one can see, for the serious collector of Ball jars or Log Cabin Syrup antiques and memorabilia, there are many nuances and details to consider and recognize when seeking to build a complete collection of these jars. Of course the holy grail of Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars are those with an intact paper label. With luck, more such jars will be found and shared.

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Special thanks to John Patterson, Linda White, Marty Troxell, Scott Benjamine, and Joe Coulson for there assistance with advice and permission to share images of jars from their private collections.

A Look at Early 19th Century Beginnings for Flat Pans and Sugarhouses

 

It is a common question in the history of the maple industry of when maple sugar makers began to replace kettles with flat pans and arches and began to build sugarhouses.  My latest maple history contribution to the March 2022 edition of the Maple Syrup Digest (Vol. 61, no. 1), attempts to address these questions in sharing a handful of well-dated and detailed written descriptions of flat pans and sugarhouses from the first half of the 19th century. In addition, one of the earliest examples of an illustration of a sugarhouse from 1847 is also presented.

You can read the article at this link or by clinking on the accompanying image.  The Maple Syrup Digest is the official publication of the North American Maple Syrup Council.

 

New Publication on the History of Plastic Tubing – From Pails to Pipelines

I am pleased to share a copy of From Pails to Pipelines: The Origins and Early Adoption of Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry, an article I wrote that was published in the Winter/Spring 2021 issue (Vol. 89, No. 1) of the journal Vermont History.

Click on the image above to download a PDF copy of the article.

This article begins by tracing the experiments and technology that went into the development of various methods of pipelines and tubing systems for moving maple sap from trees to boiling areas in the sugarbush. The majority of the article focuses on the efforts of three men who were working simultaneously during the 1950s to make a plastic tubing system for sap gathering a reality. These men were George Breen of Jamaica, Vermont; Nelson Griggs of Montpelier, Vermont; and Robert Lamb of Liverpool, New York.

Because space for images and photographs in the published article was limited, I was only able to include a few photographs of Breen, Griggs, and Lamb. With this website, I am happy to share a few more images that accompany the article and better illustrate their efforts, experimental designs, and the resulting commercial products of these creative men.

George Breen

George Breen was a sugarmaker from Jamaica, Vermont who decided that there must be a better way to gather sap than laboriously hauling pails of sap through the snow. This led him in 1953 to begin to experiment with flexible plastic tubing to use gravity and the natural pressure in trees to move sap from the tree to a collection point. In time, Breen’s experiments caught the attention of the 3M Corporation and together they created, patented, and marketed  the Mapleflo sap gathering system. Here are a few photos of Breen at work in his sugarbush working with his early tubing design.

George Breen holding an example of his experimental spout and tubing in his Jamaica, VT sugarbush. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
George Breen installing spout and tubing in his Jamaica, VT sugarbush, circa 1956. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
George Breen inserting experimental tubing spout at taphole. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
Breen’s Jamaica, VT sugarhouse with tubing line running in from the sugarbush, circa 1956. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
Late 1950s Cover of 3M’s Mapleflo plastic tubing system, the patented commercial result of George Breen’s tubing experiments and invention. Image credit: collections of the author.
Late 1950s diagram and illustration of 3M’s Mapleflo plastic tubing system, the patented commercial tubing system based on the experiments of George Breen. Image credit: collections of the author.

 

Nelson Griggs

Nelson Griggs was an engineer with an interest in maple sugaring and an idea that plastic tubing might be a viable alternative and improved method of gathering maple sap in the sugarbush. In 1955, while working as a engineering consultant with the Bureau of Industrial Research at Norwich University, in Northfield, Vermont, Griggs partnered with the University of Vermont’s maple research team to put his flexible plastic tubing ideas to the test in the sugarbush of the Proctor Maple Research Farm. The following are some photos related to that research.

Nelson Griggs installing experimental plastic tubing at Proctor Maple Research Farm in 1955. Image credit: 1956 issue of Vermont Life magazine.
Nelson Griggs, center in striped sweater, with members of the Proctor Maple Research Farm research crew in the spring of 1955. Probable names of men in the photo include, University of Vermont (UVM) Professor, Dr. Fred Taylor on the far left, second from left UVM Extension Forester Ray Foulds, third from left UVM Professor, Dr. James Marvin. Image credit: UVM Special Collections – UVM Maple Research Collection.
Examples of recently discovered original Griggs spouts and and tubing assemblage used in 1955 experiments and preserved in the University of Vermont Special Collections. Photo by author.
Griggs experimental spout in use with plastic insert in taphole central metal connector, and flexible plastic tubing at other end. Image credit:  Marvin and Green February 1959 article in UVM Agriculture Experiment Station Bulletin 611.

 

Robert Lamb

Bob Lamb was in the chainsaw and boat motor sales and repair business in the Syracuse, New York region, mostly working with the logging and marine industry when in 1955 he was asked by a sales contact in forestry business if he could help come up with an idea for moving maple sap using tubing. Lamb put his creative mind to work and developed and marketed his Lamb Sap Gathering System, later named the Naturalflow Tubing System. The following are images related to the early years of Bob Lamb’s tubing design.

International Maple Museum Centre display of early experimental spouts, fittings, and tubing, designed and tested by Bob Lamb. Photo by author.
Bob Lamb demonstrating the use of a battery powered, backpack mounted drill. Image credit: 1963 Lamb Naturalflow Tubing System catalog, collections of author.
Sales brochure for Lamb Sap Gathering System from 1958, the first year Lamb tubing was commercially available. Collections of author.
Image of the Lamb Tubing System’s early installation method as a ground line with long drop lines. Image credit: 1963 Lamb Naturalflow Tubing System catalog, collections of author.
Display in the International Maple Museum Centre created by Mike Girard showing the spouts, fittings, and tubing components and arrangement of the early commercial version of Lamb’s Naturalflow Tubing System. Photo by author.

 

A Wicked Good Run – Telling the History of Sugaring in Lunenburg, Vermont

For those looking for a local, home grown history of maple sugaring from one small corner of Essex County, Vermont, there is a great, little known book that is sure to please.

Titled A Wicked Good Run: Generations of Maple Sugaring in A Vermont Town, the book was put together and published in 2010 by Lunenburg village’s Top of the Common Committee. The Top of the Common Committee was formed in 2005 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit group to lead efforts to restore the Lunenburg Congregational Church and Old Town Hall located on the Top of The Common in Lunenburg village.

With A Wicked Good Run, the committee expanded their focus to collect and preserve photos and stories of the history and legacy of maple sugaring from across the town of Lunenburg. Like most Vermont towns, maple sugaring has brought together many families and friends in the town of Lunenburg. While the number of sugarbushes and sugar houses has declined over the years, the town of 1300 souls is still home to a number of commercial and family level operations. The 115-page A Wicked Good Run can be ordered from the Top of Town Committee and is an enjoyable read and a great addition to the library of anyone interesting in maple syrup history.

The Loss of a Vermont Maple Historian – Wilson “Bill” Clark

The maple syrup industry lost one of its longstanding historians in May with the passing of Wilson “Bill” S. Clark, age 89 of Wells and Pawlet, Vermont.  Bill was well known within the maple world for his many leadership and spokesperson roles, including past roles as president of the Rutland County Maple Producers (RCMP), President of the International Maple Syrup Institute, President of the North American Maple Syrup Council, and a 32 year run as president of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association (VMSMA). Amongst a variety of awards and recognition, Bill was also inducted into the Maple Syrup Hall of Fame in 1995. With his connections to and experience with the world of maple syrup, Bill was more than simply interested in maple history, he was a part of making history and understood the importance of recording and preserving that history for future generations.

In 2018 Bill published a history of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association in the Vermont Country Sampler, telling some of the highlights of the first 100 years of the organization.  Bill also worked with Betty Ann and Don Lockhart to put together a detailed timeline of the history of maple sugaring in Vermont and the larger maple sugaring world. Various examples of this timeline have appeared in print in past editions of the program for the Vermont Maplerama, the popular tour and showcase of local sugarmakers. The version of the history timeline shared here is from the 2014 Maplerama program.

In addition to his telling the story of the activities of the VMSMA and the RCMP in the latter half of the 20th century, Bill also wrote a short memoir in 2001 on the most busy years of his life with maple that he titled Forty Years and Five Days: A Vermont Story.

My first memory of Bill was meeting him at his home in the spring of 2001 when I was on a research trip to Vermont to begin my “education” on maple syrup history. And boy did I ever dive in head first. Bill spoke to me non-stop of three hours as I scribbled notes as fast as my pencil could write. For those that knew Bill, it was clear that Bill was a thoughtful man and one heck of a talker. He was a treasure trove of recollections and knowledge and also one of very strong opinions that he was never afraid to share. His passion for maple history and his sharing of that by putting much of what he had learned in writing has served us all. Thank you Bill. Rest in Peace.

Below are links to a few of the maple history writings put together and shared by Bill Clark over the years.

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Bill Clark’s history of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association which appeared in the March 2018 edition of The Vermont Country Sampler.

 

 

 

 

 

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A Vermont Maple History Timeline compiled by Betty Ann Lockhart and Don Lockhart with substantial contributions by Bill Clark.

 

 

 

 

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Bill Clark’s history of the beginnings of the Vermont Maplerama, which appeared in the 2014 Maplerama program.

 

 

 

 

Documenting Historic Vermont Sugarhouses

A new project was recently launched in Vermont to document the many historic sugarhouses that dot the the state’s rural landscape. Be they abandoned, inactive, or currently in use, the project, led by Dori Ross, a maple syrup maker and founder of Tonewood maple products company, is aimed at creating a well-illustrated record of old sugarhouses, and where possible and appropriate, helping share information on preservation tools and funding opportunities for these iconic symbols of the maple syrup industry.

Sugarhouse Vermont website for documenting historic sugarhouses.

A major tool in gathering information on where these sugarhouses are found is on the Sugarhouse Vermont website where sugarhouse owners can fill out an online form to share details and information on the sugarhouse’s location as a prelude to a more intensive photo and written documentation by the project team.

Dori Ross, Sugarhouse Vermont project leader.

In addition to sugarhouse documentation and creating an inventory of old sugarhouses, another long term goal of the project is to publish a photo history book as a tool to preserve and share the story, beauty, and histories of Vermont sugarhouses. I am pleased to be a part of the project team as an advisor and the project historian and I plan to contribute a chapter on the history and evolution of the sugarhouse for the book. In addition to myself and Dori Ross, our project team has the assistance of Sawyer Loftus, an experienced journalist and University of Vermont student made available through the support of the UVM  Center for Research on Vermont.

If you own an old or just plain older sugarhouse, or know where a less well known  historic sugarhouse is located, please consider contacting us through the information provided at the Sugarhouse Vermont website. You can learn more about the project at the Sugarhouse Vermont website or read and hear more about it in a recent Vermont Public Radio story that aired on April 8, 2021.

Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry

The Vermont Historical Society’s journal Vermont History recently published an article I wrote on the origins of plastic tubing for making maple syrup. Specifically titled, “From Pails to Pipelines: The Origins and Early Adoption of Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry,” the article examines the evolution of pipeline and tubing technology for gathering and moving maple sap with special attention to the relationship and interplay of the three men who carried plastic tubing from idea and experiment to commercial reality. The article appears in Volume 89, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2021 and is sent to all members of the Vermont Historical Society.

Unfortunately, since this is the current issue of the Vermont History and is hot off the presses, I am not permitted to share an electronic copy of the article for 6 months. But anyone can join the Vermont Historical Society and get the paper journal mailed to their door as well as online access to all their current and past journals (including this issue), all the while supporting the preservation and sharing of Vermont history.

This fall I will post a PDF copy of this article on this blog, so check back in September to get a copy.

 

 

The Curious Story of John Shelby the Maple Sugar Man – Part Two

By Matthew M. Thomas

This post continues the story of the fictitious John Shelby, the Maple Sugar Man of Barre, Vermont. Part One of the story, focusing in the events surrounding the origins of the name and the company can be found here.

Preston C. Cummings as he appeared in an advertisement promoting his candidacy for Barre Alderman in 1951. Barre Daily Times, March 3, 1951.

In 1945, five years after becoming an owner of the mail order maple products business with his purchase of the Black Sign Maple Syrup Company and the John Shelby label, Preston C. Cummings and Black Sign purchased the Vermont Maple Products Company. Buying out the South Royalton from Amos and Wendell Eaton, Cummings acquired the company name, their direct order mailing list, packaging equipment and supplies and their maple syrup inventory. The following year Black Sign changes its name to the Vermont Maple Products Company.

The company added Alfred W. Lane to its leadership in March 1947 ahead of plans for expanding the scale and sales of their operation. The following month the Cummings, Lane and R. Barton Sargent incorporated the Green Mountain Syrup Company occupying the same space as the Vermont Maple Products Company on Ayers Street in Barre. A year later, in February 1948, the Green Mountain Syrup Company formally changed its name to John Shelby, Inc. with Preston C. Cummings as president.

The trademarked name and imaginary signature of John Shelby as it appeared on the company packaging, promotional brochures, and maple museum.

At some point in the late 1940s or around 1950 the Vermont Maple Products Company added exhibits to their plant, started offering tours, and began calling it the John Shelby Maple Museum. The name of John Shelby, The Maple Sugar Man was formally trademarked by the Vermont Maple Products Company in 1951.

The eight mural paintings created in 1951 by Chelsea, Vermont artist Paul V. Winters for the John Shelby Maple Museum. The paintings depicted the evolution and history of maple sugaring. Image taken from a John Shelby Maple Museum brochure ca. 1963.

Cummings further expanded the museum in the spring of 1952 with the addition of eight of painted murals created by Chelsea, Vermont artist Paul V. Winters. The murals depicted the evolution of the maple syrup industry from Native American sugaring to the colonial period and onto modern sugaring methods and equipment. The museum was popular and well promoted and was relatively unique at a time when few collections of maple sugaring antiques were on display elsewhere in Vermont.

Cover of a John Shelby Maple Museum promotional brochure. ca. 1963.

Although the museum was a popular attraction it would appear that not everyone was pleased with how Mr. Cummings ran his business. In December of 1956 charges were filed in federal court against the Vermont Maple Products Company and Preston C. Cumming for violating the fair labor standards act. Specifically, Cummings was accused of paying employees under the then $1.00 legal minimum wage.

Image of Hal C. Miller, Jr. from news article in the Bennington Banner, April 14, 1964.

A few months later in March 1957 Cummings sold the Vermont Maple Products Company mail order operations, including the John Shelby name and museum, to Ezra R. Armstrong and Hal C. Miller, Jr. , both from Barre. Miller was an owner of the local Coca-Cola bottling company.

However, in selling the company, Cummings was not free of his legal troubles. It turns out that Cummings was also under investigation for tax fraud covering the years 1954, 1955 and 1956. Cummings was accused of filing false personal income tax returns and falsifying the taxable wages to employees he reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Cummings pled guilty in June 1960 on 16 counts and was sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison. Later the following year, Cummings appeared in a newspaper advertisement as the manager of the Barre branch of the Eastern Investment Corporation.

Full color promotional postcard illustrating a color lithographed syrup can from John Shelby, The Maple Sugar Man.

At some point around 1960 it appears that Miller and Armstrong sold the Vermont Maple Products Company and John Shelby Museum to Louis Hall, an associate of Miller with the Coca-Cola bottling company of Barre.  As owner and full-time manager of the maple museum, Hall was engaged in the day-to-day operation of the mail order business and the tourist attraction, even serving as the president of the Vermont Attraction Association for a few years. In 1966 Hall sold the John Shelby Maple Museum to Rudolph “Shorty” Danforth and Clifford Eaton. A year later the museum building was purchased and razed to accommodate the expansion of what was then the neighboring Carle and Seaver tire shop.

Ad for the House of Maple in Royalton, Vermont. Note the statement “New Home of the John Shelby Maple Museum.” This ad appeared in the Bennington Banner, June 28, 1968.

In 1966 Danforth and Eaton expanded their existing sugarhouse on State Route 14 in south Royalton to become a roadside maple themed restaurant called the House o’ Maple Vermont Sugar House. The artifacts and memorabilia from the purchase of the Shelby Maple Museum became a center piece and important attraction at the restaurant, bringing an end to the life of the fictitious John Shelby.

Color postcard of Danforth and Eaton’s House of Maple Vermont Sugar House, c. late 1960s to early 1970s.

In 1975 Clifford Eaton bought out his partner Shorty Danforth’s portion of the restaurant business and in turn Danforth purchased Eaton’s share of the maple museum collection. Not long after, Shorty Danforth (who was a large man) sold the maple museum collection to Tom Olson of Rutland. Olson gave the collection a new home as the centerpiece of the New England Maple Museum which he built and opened in 1977 in Pittsford, Vermont. The museum is still open to this day preserving and sharing the collections, painted murals, and legacy of the mysterious Maple Sugar Man, John Shelby.

 

The Curious Story of John Shelby the Maple Sugar Man – Part One

By Matthew M. Thomas

Barre, Vermont was at one time home to the John Shelby Maple Museum and pure Vermont maple syrup packed by John Shelby, the Maple Sugar Man.  Over time the artifacts in the John Shelby Maple Museum traded hands and later became the core of what is today the New England Maple Museum. But who was this John Shelby and where did he come from? As it turns out, there never was a John Shelby.  Like some famous foods, it was a made-up trade name of the Black Sign Maple Syrup Company. But that’s not where the story gets interesting. Let me start from the beginning.

Max Schwarzschild. Burlington Free Press, February 13, 1940.

The Black Sign Maple Syrup Company was a maple syrup packing and maple candy company started around 1935 in Barre, Vermont by Max Schwarzschild. Max was an industrious man who emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1908. After working in sales and the imported food business in New York City and Chicago, he served in the United States Army during World War I. Later while in the Army’s Quartermaster Corps, he discovered Vermont when sent to the Green Mountain state to assist the Civilian Conservation Corps. After discharging from the Army, he moved to Barre, where he started a mail order maple syrup and candy company called Black Sign with the name a translation of his own German name, with schwarz meaning black and schild meaning sign or shield.

Advertisement for Black Sign Maple Syrup Co. on Prospect Street in Barre. Note the absence of name John Shelby in the ad. From 1937 Barre Directory.

Not long after starting his new company, Schwarzschild married a widow named Ethel Sheplee Sartelle and began using the name John Shelby to sell his maple products. It is not known exactly when or how Max Schwarzschild came up with the name of John Shelby.  The earliest dated reference I could find of Schwarzschild using the name John Shelby was 1939. Perhaps he was self-conscious of his German heritage in the period between the wars and wanted a more Yankee sounding name on his label.  For example, one 1940 newspaper article about Schwarzschild noted that his wife was “a member of the Shelby family of Barre who can trace their lineage back to Ethan Allen.”  We know that she wasn’t a Shelby and examination of the city directories for Barre in the first half of the 20th century show no families with the name Shelby.  It is hard to ignore the similarities between his wife Ethel’s maiden name of Sheplee and the name Shelby.

Early image of the building that housed the Black Sign Maple Syrup Company and later the John Shelby Maple Museum. Real Photo Post Card.

The Black Sign Company began operations on Prospect Street in Barre, but in 1938 built a new house for the business in Barre at the end of Ayers Street near the corner with West Patterson Street. The new Black Sign plant was equipped with modern equipment for the handling and bottling of maple syrup and manufacture of maple candy. After five years, successful advertising and attractive packaging helped the Black Sign company grow to 12 employees preparing and packing maple products to send to mail order customers around the country and around the world.

Former location of Black Sign Maple Syrup Company and the John Shelby Museum at the corner of Ayers and Patterson Streets in Barre, Vermont. See building in lower left in black and white photo from 1964 and the empty lot today in the color photo on the right.

However, in late June of 1940, it began to appear that there was another side to the story of Black Sign’s success when it was reported that Max Schwarzschild had been missing from work and home for a couple of weeks. Inquiries into his disappearance and possible whereabouts uncovered that earlier in the month he had secured a loan for $11,000 from a local Barre bank using 140 barrels of maple syrup he had in storage as collateral. Investigations of his business discovered that the barrels did not in fact contain maple syrup as expected but instead had been filled with water. Upon that realization, a warrant was put out for Schwarzschild’s arrest. By then he had been tracked to Chicago where local authorities detained him. Washington County Sheriff Henry Lawson then flew from Vermont to Chicago to return Schwarzschild to Vermont to face charges of grand larceny as well as additional charges for writing a worthless check for over $4000 to the Lamoille County Savings Bank. With Schwarzschild’s arrest and inability to meet bail, a Federal Judge put the Black Sign Maple Syrup Company into receivership and appointed Arthur Simpson, Director of the State’s Old Age Assistance Department and a stockholder and chairman of the board of directors of the Cary Maple Sugar Company, to manage the company during Schwarzschild’s incarceration and trial.

Cover of a promotional recipe booklet from the Black Sign Maple Syrup Company “Gathered by John Shelby.”

Further investigations revealed that Schwarzschild had previously arranged for the delivery of the barrels to St. Johnsbury where the syrup they contained was sold to the Cary Maple Sugar Company. Schwarzschild then had an equal number of barrels filled with water in the Barre warehouse.  Unfortunately for him the bank had recorded the serial numbers on the original syrup barrels at the time of making the loan and the numbers on the water filled barrels did not match what was in the bank’s records.

While Schwarzschild sat in jail during the summer of 1940, further investigations revealed the extent of his unpaid business transactions and working on credit with liabilities totaling $80,000, including debts to the Cary Maple Sugar Company amounting to $40,000. Despite company assets adding up to $103,000 a United States District Court judge declared Max Schwarzschild and the Black Sign Maple Syrup Company to be involuntarily bankrupt. Arthur Simpson was then chosen as the Trustee to manage the bankruptcy of the company. In late October of 1940, a few days before Schwarzschild went on trial, the Black Sign Company was sold by Simpson to the People’s National Bank who in turn promptly sold the company to Preston C. Cummings of Burlington and Norbert C. Goettler of Montpelier. Cummings and Goettler quickly took possession of the plant and continued operations under the existing names of Black Sign Maple Syrup Company and the John Shelby brand. The following January Preston C. Cummings, his wife Nina B. Cummings, and new business partner Willis B. Venable of Barre formally filed articles of incorporation for the Black Sign Maple Products Company with $10,000 worth of stock.

Schwarzschild was found guilty and sentenced to two to four years in state prison at Windsor, Vermont. He served about one year of the sentence before being released but never returned to the business of selling maple products.

With that the first half of the Black Sign and John Shelby story come to a close….but wait, there’s more to be told in part two of this saga.

revised 1.5.2025

A History of the Gooseneck: The Brower Sap Piping System and the Cary Maple Sugar Company

The text from the following article was originally published in October 2005 edition of the Maple Syrup Digest – Written by Matthew M. Thomas

The initial application of plastic tubing for gathering maple sap in the 1950s was indisputably one of the most significant technological developments of the maple industry in the twentieth century.  However, the first viable tubing system was introduced over forty years earlier as a gravity drawn system made completely of metal.  Invented in the shadows of the Adirondack Mountains near Mayfield, New York, by William C. Brower, Jr., the system carried sap directly from the tree to the sugarhouse through an interconnected series of specialized taps, tubes and connectors.  Formally known as the Brower Sap Piping System, the pipeline was popularly referred to as the Gooseneck system because one of the key segments of the pipeline resembled the curved neck of a goose.

Brower Sap Piping System installed in an early 20th century sugarbush.

Born in Mayfield, New York in 1874, Brower was the consummate Yankee tinkerer and inventor.  As a machinist, mechanic, and jack of all trades, his education did not come from the classroom, but rather, from trying to solve and improve on the problems and dilemmas he and his neighbors faced every day.  Brower was also a sugarmaker, making him well aware of the difficulties of tapping and gathering sap with buckets and teams of horses or oxen in deep snow on and on steep slopes.

Drawing of components from William J. Brower’s 1916 Sap Piping System patent (US1,186,471).

After coming up with the idea of using the natural gravity of the mountains to eliminate the laborious task of hand gathering sap, it took Brower nearly three years of trial and error to perfect the system.  The initial patent application occurred in December 1914.  A year and a half later in June 1916, the United States Patent Office awarded Brower patent number 1,186,741 for his “Sap-Collecting System”.  Likewise, an identical application by Brower was awarded a Canadian patent in August of 1917.

Drawing of layout from William J. Brower’s 1916 Sap Piping System patent (US1,186,471).

In order to support the weight of the folded sheet metal tubing and the sap flowing through it, the Gooseneck pipeline was suspended by small hooks on a network of wires strung through the sugarbush supported by posts and trees.  The wire used was usually a heavy gauge fence wire or reused telegraph wire.  The labor required for set up at the beginning of the season was greater than that of traditional gathering systems using metal spouts, pails and covers; but this cost was easily made up with a reduction in labor for gathering as well as the elimination of sap lost by overflowing buckets that were difficult to tend to in deep snow and on steep slopes.

The pipeline quickly caught the attention of many sugarmaker’s in the region; however Brower continued to manufacture the tubing and spiles out of his small workshop, limiting his ability to mass produce the system.  According to his grandson, Brower was a man more interested and skilled in working with his hands than in promoting and selling his invention.

Following completion of the pipeline design in 1914, Brower traveled from his Mayfield home to St. Johnsbury, Vermont to try and interest George C. Cary of the Cary Maple Sugar Company in using the pipeline in the large sugarbush on Cary’s 4,000 acre farm.  Initially, Cary was not interested, but Brower persisted, finally convincing Cary to try the system on 1500 trees during the 1915 maple season.  As president of what was then, the world’s largest maple sugar business, and as owner of one of Vermont’s largest sugarbushes, Cary had the wealth, liberty, and interest in experimenting with more efficient and cost effective methods and equipment.  After only one season of use, Cary was sold, placing an order for enough tubing to connect 9000 more trees.  Ultimately Cary would have 15,000 trees on the pipeline at his North Danville sugarbush.

Image of the cover of sales booklet for Brower’s Sap Piping System offer by the Cary Maple Sugar Company out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Continued satisfaction with the system led the Cary Maple Sugar Company to form a partnership with Brower in 1918, with the company providing the facilities and financing to expand production and sale of the pipeline.  Although his family stayed in New York, Brower temporarily relocated to St. Johnsbury to direct production in this new venture.

According to a promotional brochure, during the first year of production in St. Johnsbury, sales more than doubled and orders were coming in faster than they were able to manufacture the pipeline.  The brochure goes on to say that many producers tried a small amount of the tubing at first but were so satisfied that they followed-up with much larger orders.  Owners of larger sugarbushes were especially interested in the system.  In one instance an estimated 30,000 feet of pipeline was used in one 1,700 tap sugarbush. With mass production in full swing, the 1920 prices for the system ranged from thirty-five to forty-two dollars for one thousand feet of half inch to one inch diameter pipeline, and seven dollars per one hundred for both spouts and Goosenecks.  The half inch and one inch diameter pipeline sections came in three foot lengths with a manufacturer’ estimated costs of sixty to seventy cents per tree.

1921 Vermont newspaper advertisement for Brower Sap Piping manufactured out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

An impressive endorsement of the quality of maple sugar one could make using the pipeline came from M.J. Corliss, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Vermont Sugarmaker’s Association.  At the annual meeting of the Association in 1926, Corliss noted that he had “been taking careful note and for the last two or three years it is a fact that the men who have carried off most of the blue ribbons or first prizes are the men who have used the piping system”.  One of the greatest strengths of the pipeline was the elimination of debris and the near immediate delivery of clean, fresh sap, which was especially important in the 1920s and 1930s when and our understanding of bacterial growth in sap and the tap holes was in its infancy and sap gathering was traditionally done with out the aid of engines and machines.

With the Cary Company’s assistance and wide reaching influence, the pipeline began to make a dent in the equipment market. While, the pipeline system never became as popular as tubing has today, it was added to the sap gathering process in a number of maple operations.  A 1925 study of 457 maple producing farms in Vermont found that 18, or roughly four percent, were using the pipeline on some of their trees.  In those 18 sugarbushes, an average of 28 percent of the trees were tapped with the pipeline, ranging from as few as 8 percent to as many as 75 percent of the trees.  In that same year, pipeline users averaged 400 taps on tubing and had been gathering sap with the system for an average of 4 years.  This study also found the average estimated value of the pipeline to be $268 or 67 cents per tap, which was consistent with the price estimate promoted by the Cary Company.

It is not clear when the Cary Maple Sugar Company discontinued its production of the pipeline; however, it may have been as early as the mid-1920.  By the late 1930s, it appears that the Gooseneck system had fallen out of favor and was no longer used by many maple producers.  George Cary himself went bankrupt and died in 1931, leading to the reorganization of the company and the sale of his farm and sugarbush.  With the end of production of the pipeline in St. Johnsbury, William Brower returned to his family in New York, where he lived until his death in 1940.

The pipeline was used primarily in the northeastern states of Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire; however, the system also made it as far west as Wisconsin.  Evidence of its use was recently found in the northern part of the state on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.  Archaeologists discovered spiles, Gooseneck connectors, rolls of wire, and thousands of sections of pipe from the Brower system at the former location of a late 1920s to early 1930s sugarhouse.

Like plastic tubing, it was important to not have any sag in the system where sap could collect in low spots and get sour.  Some pipeline users reported that freezing was sometimes a problem, but that the metal warmed easily when the sun came out, quickly thawing the frozen sap in the pipeline.  It was sometimes noted that at the end of the season sap gathered with the system was slightly sour and often had to be thrown away.  Fallen limbs, ice, and deer occasionally disconnected sections of the pipeline, and the contraction of the metal in very cold conditions could result in the separation of the inserted pipe ends.  Some maple producers stopped using the system because it was made from a kind of sheet metal known as Tern Plate, which was a combination of tin and lead.  As one maple bulletin described it in 1949, “the use of such metal was strongly discouraged by State and Federal authorities for the processing of any food”.  In spite of these drawbacks, the benefits at the time were clear. For sugarmakers with large, steep, and hard to get to sugarbushes who kept their equipment clean and processed their sap quickly, the Gooseneck system was an excellent innovation.  While the system added more work at the beginning and end of the maple season with longer set up times and additional cleaning, it eliminated the laborious task of gathering sap once or twice a day.

Improvements in sap gathering methods have long since replaced the Gooseneck system, but the pipeline has not completely faded into memory.  On the Lent family farm near Mayfield, New York, the pipeline continues to be used on a few hundred taps to gather and transport sap from their mountainside sugarbush.  It is no coincidence that the family still uses the system or that their sugarbush is near Mayfield, the community where Brower first invented the pipeline.  In fact, the Lent family has used the pipeline for over 80 years with their farm and sugarbush located next door to Brower’s former property. Many years after his death, the Lent family purchased William Brower’s former home and the workshop where the pipeline was invented.  Today, a New York State historic marker points out the location of the workshop alongside Mountain Road (Highway 123) northeast of Mayfield.

The Gooseneck metal sap pipeline in use during the 2005 sugaring season in the Lent Family sugarbush, Mayfield, New York. Photo by Matthew M. Thomas

According to Lent family history, their ancestor, Edward L. Lent, worked with his neighbor Brower in the early 1900s to develop and improve the pipeline system, using the Lent sugarbush as a test site.  Over the years the Lent family tried other methods of sap collection like metal pails, plastic bags, and plastic tubing, but has always kept a portion of their sugarbush on the Gooseneck system.  At their peak in the 1980s, the Lent’s gathered sap with the pipeline from approximately 2500 taps.  More recently, they have discontinued commercial production and scaled back their operation to a few hundred taps.  The spring of 2004 was one of the first years that they did not tap, out of respect for the terminal illness and recent passing of the family patriarch, Edward W. Lent, grandson of Edward L. Lent.  The 2005 season saw a return to the Lent family installation of the Gooseneck system.

As the preferred method of sap gathering in the modern sugarbush, plastic tubing has become commonplace over the last forty years.  However, the basic idea, structure, and terminology of a sap gathering pipeline were established with the Gooseneck pipeline, setting the stage for the experiments with plastic tubing pipelines in the mid-1950s.  In fact, one could argue that Brower would have probably chosen plastic rather than English Tin had flexible plastic PVC tubing been invented and available in the early 20th Century.  In a flexible form, PVC tubing wasn’t available for non-military use until after World War II.  It wasn’t until it became commercially available in the 1950s when pioneers like Nelson Griggs, George Breen, and Bob Lamb began to explore its application for gathering maple sap.