When Towle’s Log Cabin Was a Maple Syrup Company

Note: Readers interested in the history of the Log Cabin Syrup company will want to read a more recent blog post and article available at this link.

By Matthew M. Thomas

As one of the most iconic syrup brands in U.S. history, Log Cabin, has the dubious honor today of containing zero maple syrup. But that wasn’t always the case.

1904 Towle’s advertisement featuring Log Cabin Penoche Syrup.

In fact, at the turn of the last century, the syrups in the lineup of the Towle Maple Products Company included both a real maple syrup known as Towle’s Log Cabin Selected Maple Syrup as well as their more popular blend of cane and maple syrup referred to then as simply Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup and Towle’s Log Cabin Camp Syrup. From 1904 to 1909 there was also a fourth syrup called Towle’s Log Cabin Penoche Syrup, which was made from cane sugar and marketed for candy making. It is not entirely clear what amount of maple syrup was going into Log Cabin’s cans and bottles in the early years of the company, which was started in 1888 by a St. Paul, Minnesota grocer named Patrick J. Towle. As discussed below the first Log Cabin tins likely contained a significant amount of pure maple syrup with a shift towards a blended syrup in the early 1900s, before transitioning to a fully blended cane and maple syrup.

Reportedly, the earliest blended Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup originally contained about 45 percent maple syrup but it was probably more like 25 percent, which is printed on the label of some cans and bottles from the 19-teens. By 1950, the percentage of maple syrup had been reduced to about 15 percent, and as recently as 2002 the Log Cabin Company confirmed to me that their syrup contained some maple syrup but refused to disclose in what percentage. Today the ingredients list on a bottle of Log Cabin Original Syrup contains absolutely no mention of maple sugar or syrup.

Excerpt from 1905 Towle’s advertisement featuring the paper red label of Log Cabin Maple Syrup and the black label of Log Cabin Penoche Syrup.

The official company history, often repeated in the years after the company was purchased in 1927 by General Foods is that Patrick Towle began marketing a blended syrup from the very beginning. However, the truth is harder to discern. A closer examination of packaging, advertisements, and newspaper accounts from that era question the accuracy of this story. Instead, one might argue that a convenient narrative was developed and promoted later in time around the image and personality of Patrick Towle and his iconic Log Cabin label that supported the uniqueness and originality of the Log Cabin product.

Very early (circa 1888-89) Log Cabin Pure Maple Syrup one quart metal tin with paper label. Notice the company name of Towle & McCormick, St. Paul, Minn, a precursor to the Towle Maple Syrup Company and later the Towle Maple Products Company.

Towle got his start as a grocer in Chicago under the name P.J. Towle & Co., selling coffee, tea, and spices. Unfortunately, lax attention to the books and leniency with delinquent customers left Towle owing creditors about $100,000 in early 1888. After going bankrupt and settling the claims against him with a federal judge in Chicago, he moved to St. Paul where he entered into a partnership with Thomas F. McCormick and in mid-1888 and began selling Log Cabin Pure Maple Syrup. The arrangement with McCormick was short lived and the dissolution of their partnership was announced in the St. Paul Globe in April 1889. The following week the Towle Syrup Company was incorporated for the sale of Towle’s Log Cabin Maple Syrup. Trademark protection for the iconic Log Cabin logo was applied for in November of 1894. By the early 1900s the company was known as the Towle Maple Syrup Company and with the expansion in 1910 beyond St. Paul and into Vermont, as discussed below, the company was renamed the Towle Maple Products Company.

James W. Fuller’s 1897 design patent for the log cabin shaped syrup tin.

The first log cabin shape metal tin used by Towle was patented in 1897 by James W. Fuller, a salesman for Towle, and was covered in paper labeling. Before that, Towle used a tall rectangular metal tin can in quart and half gallon sizes for packaging maple syrup. The early cabin shaped tins with their paper labels claim that the contents were maple syrup and included a claim of purity that offered a $500 reward if someone found evidence of adulteration in their maple syrup, even though they were most surely a blend.

Image of late 1890s Towle’s Log Cabin Maple Syrup metal tin with paper label and certificate of purity on back.

In the years between 1904 and 1909, and especially after greater enforcement of labeling laws with the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, magazine advertisements by Towle list three distinct syrup products, differentiating between cane syrup (Penoche), blended syrup (Camp), and real maple syrup (plain Log Cabin).

Based on the language in their advertisements and packages, it appears that the packaging of pure maple syrup by the Towle’s Syrup Company ended around 1909, after which the company focused its attention on only selling their cane and maple syrup blend as Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup. This change happened to coincide with a fire in December 1909 that  destroyed the top two floors of their St. Paul plant, and in response the company opened a processing and packaging plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

In April 1910, Towle’s Log Cabin Maple Products Company opened a canning and bottling facility in St. Johnsbury in what had been the main facilities of the Cary Maple Sugar Company, adjacent to Ide’s Mill on Bay Street. George Cary, who was purported to be a member of the Board of Directors at Log Cabin sold to Towle the maple syrup bottling portion of his business at the time and focused his energies on buying bulk maple sugar.

Postcard image of the St. Johnsbury Bay Street waterfront circa 1911.
Close up of the Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup building adjacent to Ide’s Mill on Bay Street.

Log Cabin soon after updated the Cary facility, adding a new boiler and eight large boiling kettles, and by 1911 was operating year-round from seven in the morning until midnight most evenings. A November 1911 article in the St. Johnsbury Caledonian provided the following description of their modern operation –

The maple syrup which has been purchased from the farmer is placed in two 250 gallon and four 150 gallon copper kettles. This sugar is remelted by steam until it has reached the correct specific gravity and then it is pumped through a filter press which removes any dirt or nitre which may be in the sugar, into four large storage tanks which have a capacity of 550 gallons each. Then, as needed, it is piped downstairs to copper kettles where it is reheated by steam and then passes into the filling machine which fills six receptacles of any kind at the same time. From there the syrup passes to the capping machine which automatically caps the can or bottle with the crown stopper or to another machine which corks the receptacles as the case may be.

By 1912, Log Cabin was doing one million dollars worth of business out of their St. Johnsbury facility. This level of growth and activity necessitated abandoning the old Cary plant in 1913 and moving down the street to a vacant 50 by 150 foot, two-story brick fireproof building, known as the Pillsbury Baldwin Plant. From this new plant Log Cabin could load as many as twelve railroad cars a day.

In spite of the company’s rapid growth, with the death of P.J. Towle in 1912 and a subsequent reorganization of the company by his sons, Log Cabin’s St. Johnsbury operation was shuttered in 1915 and moved back to St. Paul. During the period of Log Cabin’s short but significant residence in St. Johnsbury, nearly all of their national advertisements, syrup cans, and syrup bottles noted that St. Johnsbury, along with St. Paul were the location of its refineries and packing.

Although today the maple industry looks upon Log Cabin Syrup with a reasonable amount of disdain and distate for its promotion of pancake and table syrups with absolutely no maple ingredients, the beginning years of Towle’s Log Cabin were situated within the maple industry as a buyer, packer, blender, and marketer of pure maple syrup. While still a family owned business in early 1900s the company also had a short-lived presence in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the often cited Maple Capital of the World. Over time, with changes in ownership and emphases on maximum profits over maximum flavor, Log Cabin gradually reduced and ultimately abandoned both its inclusion of maple syrup and its connection to the maple industry.

Originally posted August 31, 2017

Revised February 17, 2020 ad November 4, 2021.

 

References

“Announcement,” The St. Paul Globe (St. Paul, MN) April 12, 1889.

Hovey Burgess, “The Blended Maple Sirup Industry”, Report of Proceedings of the Conference on Maple Products (Philadelphia, PA, 1950).

Business Activity – Towle Maple Products Company Working Overtime,” St. Johnsbury Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, VT) November 8, 1911.

Edward T. Fairbanks, “Business Notes – Maple Sugar,” The Town of St. Johnsbury, VT; A Review of One Hundred Twenty-Five Years to the Anniversary Pageant 1912 (St. Johnsbury, VT.: The Cowles Press 1929).

“Greater Vermont Notes,” The Burlington Free Press and Times (Burlington, VT) April 17, 1913.

“Heavy Failure: Patrick Towle of Chicago, Goes Under – Anthony Kelly of Minneapolis, the Largest Creditor,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) January 25, 1888.

Clair Dunne Johnson, “I See By the Paper…” An Informal History of St. Johnsbury, VT, (Cowles Press, St. Johnsbury, VT 1987) 224.

Norman Reed, the Log Cabin Syrup Tin—A History, Tin Type Magazine, 1981 (Denver, CO) 1-12.

“P.J. Towle Dead,” The Retail Grocers Advocate, September 20, (1912), 31.

“P.J. Towle Passes Suddenly,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) September 7, 1912.

“P.J. Towle Confesses Judgement,” Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) January 25, 1888.

“St. Johnsbury Vermont” Western New England Magazine, June No. 6 (1913): 272.

“To Leave St. Johnsbury – Towle Maple Products Company to Open Factory in Chicago,” St. Johnsbury Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, VT), December 30, 1914; “News of the State,” Essex County Herald (Guildhall, VT), February 12, 1915.

“Towle Maple Products Company Has Leased Pillsbury Baldwin Plant,” St. Johnsbury Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, VT), March 13, 1913.

James Trager, The Food Chronology: A Food Lover’s Compendium of Events and Anecdotes, from Prehistory to Present (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1995) 326.

Past Issues of The Maple Syrup Digest

 

The North American Maple Syrup Council has been so good as to make available online a complete collection of past issues of the Maple Syrup Digest.

As the longest standing publication for the maple industry, this archive of past issues is a treasure trove of information on what was happening and important to the maple industry in the second half of the twentieth century.

Beginning with Volume 1, Number 1 published in January 1962, one can review industry and production reports, examine advertisements, and read commentaries that trace the trends and issues of previous years.  One can also follow through time new directions in research, changes in technology and equipment, and the ups and downs of marketing and policy.

For many a review of past issues of the digest may seem like a fairly recent walk down memory lane since many current maple producers were active during much of the era covered by these earlier issues. For others, these are a tightly dated, rich and detailed source of information on the maple industry’s more recent past.

 

 

 

Archives and the Preservation of Maple History

Preserving and telling the maple history story as complete and accurately as possible relies on a wide range of sources of information, artifacts, and contributors. Sugarmakers have always had a strong affinity for collecting and preserving the material objects and antiques that help tell the history of maple syrup and sugar. There are a number of great museums specifically dedicated to housing and presenting myriad tools, devices, and equipment, as well as honoring those that have made significant contributions to the industry. What we have seen less of is the sharing and organized preservation of the documentary history; the photos, written and paper records, and past publications. I would argue there is a growing need for greater consideration and attention to creating, maintaining, and contributing to an archive or archives focused on the maple syrup industry.

It is easy to say or think that one’s old records or files or photos or even objects are not really important or of no interest to anyone in the near or distant future. But you’d be surprised what folks miss after its gone. Such items, be they from a small mulitple-generation maple producer or a large corporate packer or equipment manufacturer, become the bedrock of the industry’s history. While it may seem like people understand and know their history and someone will always remember the past, memories fade and change, and people come and go, figuratively and literally. You can’t and don’t necessarily want to preserve everything, the challenge of course is knowing and deciding what is valuable and might be worth preserving.

Archival materials related to maple history most certainly do exist and can be found in varying amounts in the archives of most state historical society libraries in the maple producing regions. Although I am less familiar with the archives in adjacent Canadian provinces, having never heard of an archive dedicated to the maple industry, I assume that the situation is somewhat similar to in the U.S. In some cases local county or community historical societies have provided space and resources for the storage and access to maple related archives and select collections.  As an example, the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium and later the St. Johnsbury History and Heritage Center have provided preservation services and access to the  George C. Cary Papers in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, keeping this important collection in the same town where George C. Cary’s maple sugaring empire flourished.

In the mid 1980s, the Vermont Maple Industry Council worked with a collection of people mostly affiliated with maple research at the University of Vermont (UVM) to form a Maple History Committee and tasked them with compiling “historical information on the folklore, production methods, and economics of the Vermont maple industry and make it available . . . for use in  teaching children and others”. A great deal of material was collected and put on file in the Special Collections and Archives at the UVM Bailey/Howe library with a particular focus on the research contributions of individuals associated with the University of Vermont. This committee was a great idea and a great start but it was too short lived. Unfortunately, the individuals that formed the backbone of the committee at UVM moved on to retirement and in many cases passed away and in time the committee was no longer active.

More recently, the University of Vermont libraries Center for Digital Initiatives in conjunction with the UVM Proctor Maple Research Center has taken a more modern approach to preserving a part of their history and some of the materials of the Maple History Committee by scanning and putting online a Maple Research Collections. This includes digital copies of the many articles, reports, and photographs that stemmed from the years of research at the Proctor field station as well as digital copies of maple related reports that appeared in early editions of the University of Vermont Agricultural Extension Bulletins. This is a great example of using digital means to preserve and share a portion of the archives from UVM’s important maple research legacy.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with folks at the Leader Evaporator Company in Swanton to discuss maple history and learned of their own long term project to review their many historic business records, catalogs and reports and document their corporate history. It was fantastic to see that they were tackling such an important project since the Leader Company’s history is in many ways an overview of the history of maple equipment manufacturing and dealers in the United States. In discussing their work, I asked what they thought they might do with all the historic, largely paper material they had assembled about the company, to which they said, “that’s a good question and we haven’t really thought about that yet”. This really hit home that not only is there a need to provide resources and space for the safe and organized preservation and study of the documentary record of the maple industry, there is also a need to recognize its equal value and importance alongside the preservation of the maple industry’s historic places, artifacts and objects, and stories.

Museums dedicated to maple history do a relatively good job preserving, displaying, and interpreting the material remains and objects of sugaring. For the most part their focus has not been in the area of preserving the paper, photos, and other ephemera found in most archives. Preserving such materials takes the right kind of space, as well as financial resources and human resources, not to mention a way of making these materials available to researchers and interested people. After all, that is the point, preserve these materials so we can study and know and tell the maple history story. However, maintaining an archives may not fit within the means or the varied missions of these museums.

Is this a call for a dedicated maple history archives? Not necessarily, although the idea has merit. Perhaps there is simply a need to improve the understanding and integration and access to what already exists in established archives and to push for more concerted effort to curate, preserve, and share those records that remain and continue to be discovered out there amongts the maple syrup community. This is the history and legacy of individuals, families, companies, institutions, and an entire industry. As with a lot of things, one has to ask oneself what is it worth to preserve the history of an industry and who should be the ones doing it?

Vintage Dominion & Grimm Catalogs Online

For the maple history fan interested in old equipment catalogs and the evolution of maple syrup technology, the Canadian equipment manufacturer Dominion & Grimm has made available a nifty collection of their catalogs from years past.

The catalogs in these full color scans cover most decades of the twentieth century and are presented as downloadable PDF files.  Also available on the Dominion & Grimm website is a short history of their company which began as a Canadian wing of the G.H. Grimm Company of Ohio under the direction of a cousin of Gustav Henry Grimm.

Initially manufacturing and selling Champion Evaporators patented by G.H. Grimm, the Canadian Grimm Company was an independent affiliate of the Ohio Grimm company until it was purchased by the Dominion Evaporator Company in the 1950s, becoming the Dominion & Grimm company of today. It’s wonderful that Dominion & Grimm saw the value in preserving and sharing a record of their products and sales publications.

An excellent historical companion to the Dominion & Grimm story is the 1987 history of the G.H. Grimm Company by past owner and president Robert Moore and published in Volume 17, number 4 of  the Rutland Historical Society Quartery. This company history traces the successful evolution and ownership of the G.H. Grimm Company from its Ohio beginnings in 1880, through its move to Rutland, Vermont in 1890, on to its sale in 1983. Moore’s article is a much appreciated corporate history of one of the most influential and important companies in the invention and manufacturing of maple syrup evaporators, spouts, and other equipment.

New Books on Antique Spouts and Other Maple Related Objects

In the last few years a handful of interesting books have come out showcasing maple sugaring collectables and antiques, most notably spouts, taps and spiles from the 1800s through about the 1960s. These books include abundant photos and descriptions of the many spouts commercially produced over the years as well as images of their original designs patents. The first of these books to appear was Hale Mattoon’s Maple Spouts Spiles & Taps published in 2013 and available directly through Hale Mattoon by mail at 274 East Randolph Road, Chelsea, Vermont 05038.

This book is focused specifically on spouts and is organized by the state or province of the inventor, patentee, or manufacturer. For collectors of maple spouts, this volume is an indispensible reference.  True to the eye of a seasoned collector, the book goes into the finer details and differences between and among what otherwise appear to be virtually identical spouts. Early plastic spouts both for pails and tubing that appeared in the late 1950s and into the 1960s are also included with limited information, with the bulk of the book focused on formed sheet metal and cast metal spouts.

The next book in this grouping is an interesting book from Jean-RochMorin titled Spouts, Patents and Sugar-Making Objects from Yesteryear, published in 2015 by La Plume d’Oie in Quebec. I purchased my copy of the book through the catalog listing with Lapierre Equipment in Swanton, Vermont.

Jean-Roch’s book has many similarities to Hale’s 2013 book with a focus on antique collectable spouts, a heavy presentation of patent images, and an organization by state and province. Where Jean-Roch is the most different is in the fact that the text of the book is wonderfully presented in both French and English. The book also includes a strong representation of Canadian patent images as well as American patent images. Other nice additions are the inclusion of relevant vintage graphics and advertisements for sugaring equipment. The book also looks at more than just antique spouts and also displays images, patents, and advertisements for early pails and buckets, bucket covers, sugar molds, sugaring tools, paddles, and pans and evaporators. The beginning of the book starts with a short history of maple sugar and ends with detailed description of maple sugaring in 1876.

Lastly, Hale Mattoon has followed up his first book with an expanded and updated version titled Maple Spouts Spiles Taps & Tools, published in 2017 also available directly from Hale by email or snail mail.

Taking advantage of access to a number of friends and colleagues in the community of collectors of maple sugaring objects Hale’s “new and improved” maple spouts book goes beyond the scope of the first book by adding photographs and patent images for a wide range of additional maple sugaring objects, such as pails, tapping tools, gathering pails, and sap regulators. Like the Morin book, the 2017 book from Mattoon also includes an abundance of well dated vintage advertising and catalog images and select text providing relevant and useful historical background and context. There are also examples of spouts not found in Hale’s 2013 volume. One particularly unique artifact featured in the book are the many images of the cast iron front pieces to a wide variety of boiling arches most of which display their manufacturer’s name in bold lettering and design.

All three books are very well illustrated with excellent black and white photographs and should be of interest and value to any collectors of maple sugaring antiques or ephemera as well as to those interested in the history and technology of the maple industry.

On a side note, an additional, not so recent book that would interest similar audiences is the 1979 book Sugar-bush Antiques by Virginia Vidler, available through used book sellers like AbeBooks.com and Amazon. I will feature the Vidler book in an upcoming post about earlier books related to maple industry collectables and artifacts.

Maple History Today

Over the last twenty years there have been a number of new and interesting historical works being creating and shared related to maple syrup and maple sugar. Much of the most recent work has come in the form of self-published books written and compiled by knowledgeable and interested sugarmakers and individuals who work within the maple business in one form or another. These are fantastic works and are extremely valuable.

What we have seen much less of in recent years is what might be called academic, scholarly, or professional historical maple related research, that which is driven by a focus on addressing various questions within a larger historic context with an emphasis on sharing supporting documentation. As one who comes to the world of maple history as an outsider (I am not a maple syrup maker) with an aversion to assumptions and a healthy skepticism about what is the truth, my research and writing falls towards the academic side of the spectrum. In that vein I see an increased need for well-documented research and writing related to the history of the maple industry. At the same time I hope that we continue to see personal memoirs, recollections and work from dedicated amateur historians. Some folks might put off by an academic or scholarly label, but I don’t think one needs to be situated in an academic context or institution to emphasize detail oriented, well-documented, and carefully referenced publications or presentations.

As a researcher looking to tell as complete a story as I can, I tend to examine other people’s maple history with an inquisitive eye and a desire to go a little deeper. I almost always find myself asking how does someone know that? What are their sources? At times I admittedly put a higher degree of trust into dated primary written or published documents, which are especially valuable in establishing accurate timelines and contexts. Similarly, a careful read of photographs, especially dated images, can tell stories not found in written sources. Sometimes a careful read of publications from years past encourages a researcher to “retrace” an earlier writers steps and go back to their primary sources to see if you read things the same way and come away with the same conclusions.

This is not to say that if something is not written down or disseminated in a formal publication then it is not valuable. Personal memories and accounts are unbelievably valuable and important, but it is also important with any piece of information to try and find supporting or corroborating evidence. As the old saying goes, trust but verify. Along those lines it is also important that when one encounters conflicting information to ask one’s self why and not too easily assume one story to be true. Information that challenges the standard narrative has a place and in fact may be closer to the truth.

With this website, I hope to showcase, share, and explore a wide-range of avenues to learning about maple history, new and old, from archives, books and articles, to films, to museums, to artifacts and antiques, and beyond.