Image of the book “Sugar-Bush Antiques” with original artwork on the dust jacket by East Aurora, NY artist Rix Jennings.
For collectors of maple sugaring antiques, artifacts, and material culture, there is one book that stands out as a kind of beginners’ guide and check list to the many different items one might come across and chose to collect. That guide is the book Sugar-Bush Antiques by Virginia Vidler. The book was published in 1979 by A.S. Barnes and Co. a New York based textbook and encyclopedia publisher at the time.
Sugar-Bush Antiques was Vidler’s second guide book on antiques, following on the 1976 release of American Indian Antiques: Arts and Artifacts of the Northeast, also published by A.S. Barnes. She also later published a book in 1985 on collectibles and souvenirs related to Niagara Falls.
Virginia Vidler in her element searching for sugar-bush antiques at a New York sugarbush.
Although Virginia Vidler’s name is on her books as a sole author, in reality, all of her books were a joint project of Virginia and her husband Edward Vidler. As an amateur photographer, Ed Vidler’s main contribution was in providing the many black and white and color images of artifacts, antiques, sugarhouses, and sugaring accoutrement in this well-illustrated book. Vidler asked local East Aurora and Buffalo artist and illustrator Rixford “Rix” Upham Jennings to do the color painting to provide a unique and original cover design.
Image from the frontispiece of “Sugar-Bush Antiques.”
Virginia Vidler was interested in local New York and new England history and served as the historian for the Town of Aurora. Her interest in maple sugaring and sugar-bush antiques primarily came from her fascination and interest in researching and documenting history. Virginia and Ed Vidler’s son Don Vidler shared that they were not a family of maple sugar makers, although there was a great deal of sugaring in the countryside around them. According to son Don, it was common for the Vidlers to head out on the weekends for sugarhouse and antique hunting expeditions in western New York.
Image showing the well illustrated pages of “Sugar-Bush Antiques.”
More than simply a collection of photographs of old maple sugaring items, this book traces the history of the maple industry from Native Americans to early pioneers, and into the modern era. With a focus on the material remains of maple sugar and syrup making, there is a special emphasis on the changing technology of production and packaging as well as the change of materials from wood to metal as well as ceramic and glass. From the smallest and humblest wood or tin maple sugar mold to the large kettles, evaporators, or gathering tanks and onto the finest cut glass syrup pitchers, there is little that has been overlooked. Photographs, paintings and prints, and other printed ephemera like postcards and industry guidebooks and reports are also examined.
Additional example of pages from “Sugar-Bush Antiques” showing the many maple sugaring artifacts illustrated and described in the book.
According to Don Vidler, Virginia and Ed Vidler’s son, the Vidlers amassed a reasonably big collection of maple related antiques, some of which appeared in the photos in the book. Mrs. Vidler recognized that what is considered common place today, will someday be an antique and of interest to the collector. She was quoted in a 1985 newspaper article where she gave a bit of advice on her collecting strategy, noting “when you go to an auction at a farm in the sugar bush country, be sure to check out the items in the barns and behind the old sheds. That is where you will find the authentic sugar bush antiques that no one else seems to recognize.”
When the Vidlers were not running around the countryside visiting sugarbushes and sugarhouses, collecting antiques, or taking photographs, they spent most of their time running Vidler’s 5 and 10 in East Aurora, New York, a short distance from Buffalo. Vidler’s 5 and 10 was started by Ed Vidler’s father Robert Vidler in 1930 before brothers Ed and Bob Vidler took it over in the 1940s. Today, Vidler’s is known as the world’s largest 5 and 10 store. Virginia passed away in 1986 and Ed Vidler in 2019.
Sugar-Bush Antiques presents a good general overview of the wide range of tangible items that someone might consider collectible or of interest that represent or is related in some way to the business and activities of making, packaging, and selling maple sugar and maple syrup. Most sugar-bush antique collectors end up specializing in a few select areas or types of items like spouts, packaging tins, or sugar molds and develop a detailed knowledge of those items far beyond what one will find in this book; however, it is still enjoyable to sit down with a book like this and have a virtual museum tour at your fingertips. Fortunately, it is still possible to find used copies of the book through various online book sales websites.
Mountain Meadow Farms was a gigantic maple syrup operation and game farm that operated in Somerset County, Pennsylvania in the 1960s and 1970s. Somerset County is known for its prominence and history as a maple syrup producing area in Pennsylvania. What made Mountain Meadow Farms unique, both in general and in Somerset County in particular, was that rather than being a small family sugaring operation that grew over time, Mountain Meadow Farms was created from scratch as a new operation on a scale not previously seen with the most modern technology and design available at the time.
1974 advertisement for Mountain Meadow Farms from The Republic out of Meyersdale, PA.
The Farms began in 1964 when Blaine “Bud” Walters and his wife Geneva purchased an existing game farm in the hills of Somerset County about two miles north of the village of New Baltimore, Pennsylvania. The Walters were the owners of the successful Walters Tire Service in the town of Somerset. Started in 1941, Walters Tire Service focused on manufacturing, retreading, and selling large size tires for road building equipment and servicing large trucks used in the Pennsylvania coal industry.
Mountain Meadow Farms had its own custom-designed lithographed metal syrup cans. A popular can among syrup can collectors.
According to one account, it was the Walters farm manger Gerald Grasser, who came up with the idea of making maple syrup. As the Walters’ son Jimmy Walters tells it, “Bud never did anything small. When they bought the farm it already had pheasants. There were two pens of pheasants when they bought it and they added turkeys and cattle. There were lots of maple trees so it made sense to tap those.” In addition to pheasants and turkeys, there were chuckers too. Cattle was usually around 300 head, but at one point with calves and heifers, it got up to close to 1000 head which required a lot of feed and work with Walters installing big Harvestore silos and automated feeding machines.
Mountain Meadow Farms sugarhouse in 1967. Photo from March 30, 1967 Bedford County Press article.
When Walters settled on the idea of starting a maple operation around 1963, over the next two years he promptly did everything he could to learn about the maple syrup business. For example, in 1965 he attended Maple Industry Conference in Philadelphia and when it became known just how large of an operation he was planning, he was put in touch with Adin Reynolds of Reynolds Sugar Bush, in Aniwa, Wisconsin, at that time the largest maple sugaring operation in the world. In addition to being able to offer Walters practical advice on setting up and running an operation of this size, the Reynolds Sugar Bush was an equipment dealer for the Vermont Evaporator Company and in the fall of 1965 made the sale to Walters of three 6 x 20’ oil fired evaporators along with all the requisite piping, tanks, and finishing equipment, as well as tapping supplies, plastic tubing and bags for collecting sap from around 20,000 trees. A brand new, 50 x 110 foot, state of the art sugar house was built at a cost of $75,000, complete with finishing area, candy making room, and sales area.
View of Mountain Meadow Farms sugarhouse sales room. Courtesy of Mark Ware and the Somerset County Historical Center.
In all likelihood, the Reynolds encouraged Walters to focus not only on tapping his many thousands of trees, but also to initiate a plan to get local farmers and families to gather and sell sap to him, similar to how the Reynolds operated their many Central Evaporator Plants in Wisconsin. The Walters made purchasing sap a big part of their operation right from the start. In the spring of 1966 in their first year of operation, they tapped 17,000 of their own trees and bought sap from 8,000 trees tapped by others in the vicinity. In the following years Walters increased his sap buying efforts bringing in sap from 25,000 trees paying 5 cents a gallon for delivered sap and 4 cents per gallon for sap that was picked up. As Jimmy Walters recalled, the farm had a mini fleet of tank trucks to pick up and haul sap along with four 10,000 gallon open tanks for sap storage. The farm was also able to enlist the efforts of a number of local 4-H clubs and scout groups to taps trees and gather maple sap, a valuable fundraiser for their organizations.
Mountain Meadow Farms new sugarhouse, circa 1966. Courtesy of Mark Ware and the Somerset County Historical Center.
The Walters were new to the maple business, but they quickly made it known that they manufactured a good product, taking home a number of awards for their maple candy and confections in the judging at the county maple festivals. Despite their newness to the maple industry, Bud Walters’ growing role as an industry leader was recognized and in 1969 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Somerset County Maple Syrup Producers. In 1970 Bud Walters was crowned county Maple King based on the performance of Mountain Meadow Farms maple products at the festival. Rightly so, Bud acknowledged that that award was only possible because of his wife’s efforts and it really should go to her. However, there were certainly some maple producers from the area who were suspicious and resentful of his approach and rapid success.
Geneva Walters in 1970 displaying some of her marketing packages in the Mountain Meadow Farms sales room. From March 30, 1970 article in Somerset, PA’s Daily American.
The farm sold most of its products through direct sales and mail order sales and through accounts with a number of restaurants and a few retail locations in Pittsburgh. Mail order sales piggy backed on their sale of game birds with a special package of a smoked pheasant and a fresh pheasant and maple syrup. In addition to making syrup and candy, and encouraging the use of creative and attractive packaging, Geneva Walters was a strong proponent of expanding the range of products that could be made and marketed with maple syrup. Related to that, Jimmy Walters shared that his mother was so influential in introducing new maple products, such as a maple syrup based salad dressing, that the Somerset County maple festival was forced to add more categories for judging beyond the traditional syrup, sugar, and candy. Jimmy added that this was one of his parents most important contributions, expanding the range of maple products being made and opening folks’ eyes in the county to other ways to sell and make maple syrup.
View of the USDA Eastern Utilization Research Lab experimental reverse osmosis sap concentrator in use at Mountain Meadow Farms 1969 and 1970, Courtesy of Mark Ware and the Somerset County Historical Center.
As a large operation focused on efficiency and cutting-edge technology, it was chosen in 1969 as the test site of the USDA’s Eastern Utilization Research Lab experimental Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) system. C.O. Willits and his colleagues from USDA’s Philadelphia Lab had developed a portable R.O. unit for testing in real-world sugaring operations. The previous season it was tested at the Sipple sugarbush in Bainbridge, NY but it was decided that the amount of sap available from the Sipple sugarbush for running through the R.O. was insufficient to really measure the R.O.’s performance. Instead, the lab researchers needed a larger operation like Bud Walters’ to really test how well it processed sap. The USDA test R.O. was operated at Mountain Meadow Farms again the following season, contributing valuable information to the USDA labs development and improvement of reverse osmosis as a viable technology for the maple syrup industry.
View of the entrance to the Mountain Meadow Farms sugarhouse. Note the reverse osmosis unit inside. Courtesy of Mark Ware and the Somerset County Historical Center.
Making syrup from 40,000 to 45,000 taps in the 1960s and 1970s positioned Mountain Meadow Farms as arguably the second largest maple operation in the world, second only to the Reynolds Sugar Bush in Wisconsin. By 1974 the farm was advertising itself to be “The Largest and Most Modern Central Evaporating Plant in the World!” and was clearly helping push and pull the maple industry to a new level of technological sophistication. But it did come with costs. According to Jimmy Walters, the farms had fairly high overhead with payroll to meet and little actual profit coming in. Many of the business ventures the Walters were involved with, including Mountain Meadow Farms were operating on loans and credit and at that time interest rates were relatively high at around 20-21%. The last season of the Mountain Meadow Farms maple syrup making operation was the spring of 1977. When the costs of operation became too great Bud Walters decided to sell and attempted to keep the sugaring operation together and sell it as a package to an interested buyer. Unfortunately, at that time, the scale of the operation was simply too large for any potentially interested buyers. In May 1978 the farming and sugaring equipment of the farm were sold at auction and the Mountain Meadow Farms ceased to operate. Bud and Geneva Walters passed the tire business to their son Jimmy in 1978 and enjoyed retirement. Bud passed away in 1990 and Geneva in 1995.
Special thanks to Mark Ware, Executive Director of the Somerset County Historical Center and to Jimmy Walters, son of Bud and Geneva Walters, for their assistance and sharing of personal memories and materials.
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.
In November 2021 I posted a story about discoveries I made that shed light on the origins of Quebec’s iconic round can for packaging maple syrup. As is sometimes the case, publishing a research report can spark interest and open up new doors to information and lines of inquiry.
Following up on that post I was able to learn a bit more about the origins of the Dominion & Grimm (D & G) design for syrup can labels, arguably the most famous and the truly iconic image of these 26 oz. / 540 ml cans.
Le Bulletin des Agriculteurs advertisement from December 1955 for the new one gallon, four-color lithographed rectangular syrup can from Dominion & Grimm.
As noted in the previously posted story, the earliest evidence I could find for the appearance or use of the D & G design was a December 1955 advertisement announcing the introduction of a new four color lithographed can in the one gallon size. The earliest dated image I could find of the use of this D & G design on a round 26 ounce can was in a D & G Catalog from 1961.
Graphic image of D & G trademark design from United States Patent and Trademark Office registration.
Trying to get a bit more information on the early dates and the creator of the D & G design, I examined the trademark history of the image for both Canada (application number 1942475) and the United States (serial number 87833883). In both cases the trademark record indicates that the design first appeared sometime before 1962, but there were no more specific details about the first date of use. Helpful as an official record, but we already knew it was in use well before 1962.
Excerpt from 1961 Dominion & Grimm equipment catalog showing the D & G design on gallon. half gallon, quart, and 26 ounce round cans.
Shifting gears to see if I could find out the name of the artist who designed the D & G label, I contacted Dominion & Grimm and was pleased to be put in touch with Monsieur François Corriveau, Dominion & Grimm’s Marketing and Communications contact, who was very gracious in tackling my questions. Mr. Corriveau was able to tell me, “we have an old but undated framed poster of the artwork at the office with mentions at the bottom that says “Registered drawing” and “Design by Sylva Lebrun”.
Sylva LeBrun is the founder of Dominion Evaporators in Montreal in 1940. LeBrun later purchased the Grimm in 1953 and combined them to form the Dominion & Grimm Company. So, it was Mr. LeBrun himself who is credited with the design for the D & G syrup cans.
Example of an early one gallon size D & G can, note the lack of volume or weight information. From the collections of Bev Campbell.
Mr. Corriveau further added, “that It seems that there is no traces of when the can with the famous design was introduced. Dominion evaporators was really big in canning equipment for food in the beginning of the 1950’s. (Sterilization and so forth). So we always assumed that the can came first (as soon as 1951) and the metal jugs arrived later in 1955. But we have no evidence that this is what really happened.”
Considering: 1) that Mr. LeBrun was credited with the design; 2) the earliest example we have of the design is a 1955 D & G advertisement; and 3) taking into account that Dominion & Grimm as a company did not exist until 1953, it seems likely that the D &G design was in existence, or at least in use, no earlier than 1953 and most likely was created by Sylva Lebrun around 1954.
Special thanks to Mr. François Corriveau and his colleagues at Dominion & Grimm for sharing their knowledge and company history and helping us all learn a little more about the history of this iconic syrup can.
The text for the following history was written by Mary Mortimer and Scott Abraham, the great-great grandson of J.M. Abraham. It first appeared as a post on the Facebook page of the Logan County History Center. It is reprinted here with their permission and the permission of the Logan County History Center in Bellefontaine, Ohio.
By Mary Mortimer and Scott Abraham
J.M. Abraham, circa 1920. Source: Logan County History Center.
James M. Abraham was born in Union County, Ohio in 1856. When James was eleven years old his family moved to Jefferson Township in Logan County. In 1883, he moved to Bellefontaine and ran a grocery business on Main St. for eighteen years. During this time Mr. Abraham became interested in the manufacturing of maple syrup. He purchased raw syrup from local farmers and processed it for sale in city markets.
J.M. Abraham’s grocery business was a great success. An article in the Bellefontaine Republican in April 1889 stated the following:
“One great secret of the success of Mr. Abraham is that he never misrepresents anything. His instructions to all customers is that “If the goods you have bought do not prove to be as represented, or if anything is wrong with them, return the same to me and your loss will be made good, or the money refunded to you”. This fact is well known to the people, and as they know that the word of this gentleman can be relied upon, they flock to his store by the hundreds.
The stock of goods carried embraces every article that comes under the head of groceries, with all the novelties in the line. A special feature is made of canned and bottled goods of which he carries an exceptionally large and fine assortment. He pays particular attention to foreign fruits, such as bananas, oranges and lemons. Vegetable and berries receive special attention during their season. He also handles stoneware and crockery in a wholesale way. He also stocks queensware and glassware which he will be closing out”.
Metal mold for maple sugar loaf from J.M. Abraham Co. Logan County History Center Collections.
In January of 1900, Abraham and F.N. Johnson organized the F.N. Johnson Grocery Co. with Mr. Abraham serving as Vice President and his son, Kenneth Abraham, secretary. They had an extensive grocery business and manufactured and marketed maple syrup.
1934 Pittsburgh Press advertisement for Abraham’s Ohio Chief Maple Syrup, only $1.79 for a full gallon can.
In December 1908, the J.M. Abraham Co was granted a charter at Columbus, Ohio. The incorporators were J.M. Abraham, Kenneth Abraham, Duncan Dow, Charles S. Hockett and Frank Dowell. The company was capitalized at $25,000. They were to engage in the wholesale grocery, maple syrup, and produce business. The new company was located in a brick building on Garfield Ave. owned by Mr. Abraham.
Excerpt from the 1914 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for Bellefontaine, Ohio, showing in pink the J.M. Abraham Apple Butter Plant on Garfield Avenue.
In January 1909, Mr. Abraham sold his stock in the F.N. Johnson grocery Co. and began business as the J.M. Abraham Co. Mr. Abraham served as President and his son, Kenneth, was secretary and treasurer. The J.M. Abraham business was very successful and in 1912 a new larger building was erected at 405-407 Garfield Ave. The new larger building provided more storage capacity and modern steam equipment was installed for the manufacturing and storing of apple butter.
1947 Pittsburgh Press advertisement for Abraham’s Old Home blended cane and maple syrup.
Their Ohio Chief brand apple butter was very popular. Most of the apples they used for apple butter came from New York state. Their annual output was over 75,000 gallons. For many years the plant was known as “the old apple butter factory” and the aroma of cooked apples could be smelled in the air. Their maple syrup business also grew. At the time they produced the most maple syrup in Logan County. Raw syrup was shipped in from New York, Vermont, and northern Ohio to meet their demand. Abraham’s two main maple syrup brands were Ohio Chief and Snow Bound. They also manufactured a blend called Old Home. During the season they had numerous salesmen on the road selling thousands of gallons of maple syrup.
Examples of bottles of Abraham’s Sunrise cane syrup and Ohio Chief pure maple syrup. Source: Scott Abraham and the Logan County History Center.Example of a half can can with paper label showing Abraham’s Old Chief Pure Sap Maple Syrup.
After James M. Abraham passed away in 1932 the Abraham family continued operations at the J.M. Abraham facility. In about 1939 they scaled down their business and just dealt with the processing and sale of maple syrup. In May 1964, the Abraham family sold the J.M. Abraham Co to the American Maple Products Corp. from Newport, Vermont. They purchased all the assets including the trademarks, labels, molds for maple sugar patties and equipment used to produce maple products. The Vermont firm was to continue carrying the Abraham name on their products. The sale did not include the two-story brick building on Garfield Ave.
Robert Abraham, grandson of J.M. Abraham, in the Abraham Company plant in 1962. Source: Scott Abraham and the Logan County History Center.
After the J.M. Abraham business was sold, Robert Abraham, grandson of J.M. Abraham, continued to get maple syrup from the buyer and deliver it to family, friends and former clients. In the mid-1970’s the former J.M. Abraham plant suffered a devastating fire, and the old brick portion of the building had to be removed. A newer metal-sided addition to the building didn’t receive too much damaged and was saved. Later another metal-sided addition was added where the original brick building once stood. The building was leased by Super Foods for many years and most recently used by Mobile Instrument Service & Repair.
Examples of some of the paper labels and brands used by the J.M. Abraham Company for packaging maple butter and maple products. Source: Scott Abraham and the Logan County History Center.
The neighboring towns of Hubbard and Warren in Ohio were home to two related evaporator companies in the late 19th and early 20th century, Henry Hescock’s Eureka Evaporator and Milton Mathews’ I.X.L. Evaporator.
Eureka Evaporator
Envelope for Hescock’s Eureka Evaporator out of Hubbard, Ohio with a cancelation date of 1886.
The Eureka Evaporator, the earlier of the two, was invented and manufactured by Henry W. Hescock, out of Hubbard, Ohio. Following service in the Civil War at the age of sixteen, Hescock entered the dry goods business with his father-in-law, Edward Moore, in Hubbard, Ohio from 1866 to the late 1870s. Following the dry goods business, he started an evaporator manufacturing business, although it is not clear exactly when Hescock began to design and manufacture evaporators. One source says he opened his evaporator shop “shortly after the war” and another mentions upon his death in 1896 that he had been making evaporators for over twenty years. The earliest reference to him patenting one of his evaporator designs dates to 1877.
Example of a recovered Eureka Evaporator cast iron arch front (Photo courtesy of Jerry Russin, Jr.).
References describing the actual use of this evaporator as well as advertisements for the sale of the Eureka Evaporator appear as early as 1883. It is important to note that the Hescock Evaporator should not be confused with an entirely different fruit evaporator, also called the Eureka, that was manufactured in the late 1870s and early 1880s by Mr. D.R. Byrum and the Grand Isle Evaporator Company, out of Grand Isle, Vermont.
Drawing from Hescock’s 1877 evaporator patent design.
The first Hescock evaporator patent from 1877 (patent no. US195366) featured a series of individual flat pans joined by connecting siphons. Hescock’s second patented design, awarded in 1886 (patent no. US335583), featured the same siphons with the addition of corrugations to the bottom of the pans to increase the surface area exposed to the heat of the firebox. In 1893 he patented a third evaporator design (patent no. US50233) which featured a unique set of horizontal tubular flues through which the hot gases would flow as they exited the fire box and out through the stack or chimney. Hescock obtained this patent in 1893 but there is no indication that he put this design into production.
Image from Hescock’s 1893 evaporator patent design.
In addition to manufacturing evaporators, Hescock sold sheet metal sap pails, a barrel style sap tank, and a sap level regulator. Besides manufacturing maple sugaring equipment, Hescock co-owned the Loveless & Hescock foundry with his brother-in-law Warren Loveless. Hescock and his wife also owned numerous parcels of land in Hubbard with Hescock listed as the builder for at least fourteen houses in the town of Hubbard.
Based on a number of advertisements, envelopes and letterhead, and other references from that era, the Eureka Evaporator was actually fabricated at Milton Mathews’ Warren Evaporator Works in nearby Warren, Ohio as early as 1884.
Letterhead from 1884 showing Warren Evaporator Company as the Manufacturer of Hescock’s Eureka Evaporator (Image from Trumbull County Historical Society website).
It is possible that the Warren Evaporator Works simply had a license to manufacture and sell the Eureka Evaporator alongside their I.X.L. Evaporator and Hescock himself was simultaneously engaged in fabricating his Eureka Evaporator in Hubbard. However, because Hubbard, Ohio and Warren, Ohio are only fifteen miles apart, it seems unlikely that both Hescock and Mathews were both building the Eureka Evaporator and more probably that Hescock was simply handling sales and marketing of his invention.
Seemingly at the height of his company, Hescock died November 10, 1896, at the age of 52.
I.X.L. Evaporator
Milton Mathews was the owner and operator of the Warren Evaporator Works, Warren Ohio, which, as noted above, was in operation as early 1884 where it was manufacturing the Eureka Evaporator. It is notable that letterhead from that time only includes text for “Warren Evaporator Works, Manufacturers of Hescock’s Eureka Evaporator and Sugar Camp Fixtures” and does not mention the I.X.L. Evaporator.
Cover of a 1911 sales catalog for the I.X.L. Evaporator. Click on image for full PDF of the catalog.
In December 1887 Milton Mathews, along with Henry Hill of Chester Crossroads, Ohio (later from Chardon, Ohio) applied for a patent for their design of an evaporator with a unique hinge or pivot along one side of the boiling pans. The patent was awarded in 1888 (patent no US382314) and was marketed as the I.X.L. Evaporator. It featured flat pans that hinged on a piece of pipe or tubing that served as an external connector between each pair of pans, like the u-shaped siphons used to connect other evaporator designs. The hinge was built on either the left or the right side of the pans and appeared like a bulge to the wall of the pans. Each pan also featured a drain hole on the high side that was plugged with a metal stopper with a long metal handle.
Drawing from Mathews and Hill’s 1888 evaporator patent design.
Milton Mathews was born in 1842 in Trumbull Co. Ohio and like Hescock, served in the Civil War in Ohio’s 19th Infantry from September 1861 to October 1862, before being discharged with a disability. Mathews’ partner on the patent, Henry Ezra Hill, is someone we know much less about. Born in 1849 in Geauga County, Ohio, Hill was said to have invented an evaporator in the Chardon area in the mid-1880s, but it is unclear if this was with Mathews or independently. Census data tells us Hill was a merchant and salesman in the 1890s and early 1900s, but it is not clear who he worked for or with, perhaps the Warren Evaporator Works. Hill appears to have retired by 1919 before passing away in Warren, Ohio in 1925.
Image of the early version of the I.X.L. Evaporator with a flat back pan and no preheater.
I.X.L. was a fairly common product name at the time, sort of like Acme and was not a specific acronym for anything. Rather it was a play on the words “I Excel” proclaiming the high quality and performance capabilities of the product. Early drawings and advertisements emphasized the ease with which the pans could be raised on their hinged connections and that it did not require an engineer to operate.
Image of the later I.X.L. Evaporator (1897 and later) featuring the preheater back pan with vertical tubular flues.
Interestingly, before 1897 the advertising images of the evaporators show a flat bottom to the back pan. Images after that date all show the vertical tubular flues on the raised back pan. I.X.L. Evaporator sales literature gave buyers a choice between a flat back pan or their unique “preheater” which featured an array of round tubular flues on the back pan that extended vertically into the arch.
Man standing alongside a left-sided I.X.L. Evaporator. Note the flared side to the pans and the pipelike hinge. (Photo from the collections of the Geauga County Historical Society).
Considering Hescock died in 1896 and it was at about that time that the I.X.L. Evaporator began to be made with the tubular vertical flues, it is very possible that Milton Mathews’ idea for the vertical tubular flues was sparked by seeing the horizontal tubular flues on the 1893 Hescock patent, a design of which he was most certainly aware.
Demonstrating the ease of use and lifting the hinged pans of an I.X.L. Evaporator. Note the circular vents on the doors on the front of the arch (source unknown).
Although it never appeared in the images of the I.X.L. advertisements and sales brochures, all the known examples and photographs of I.X.L. Evaporators show a round, sunburst pattern vent on each of the cast iron doors. I.X.L. Evaporators are also notable for the one-piece casting of the iron door frames on their arch front and their very squared, vertical wall design on their arches.
A series of images of a recently salvaged and soon to be restored I.X.L. Evaporator from Pennsylvania (Images courtesy of Laurence Frazier).
Mathews’ Warren Evaporator Works was located on the east side of Warren, Ohio on Woodland Avenue between a branch of the Mahoning River and the Ashtabula, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh Railroad. The Warren Evaporator Works continued to manufacture and sell I.X.L. Evaporators into the 19-teens. Around 1918 it appears that the plant was closed, and Milton Mathews retired from evaporator fabrication. Mathews died in Trumbull County a few years later in 1925.
1889 Sanborn Fire Insurance map for Warren, Ohio showing location of Warren Evaporator Works at the corner of Woodland Avenue and Railroad Street.
This presentation traced the origins and early experiments with of the use of plastic tubing in the 1950s for moving maple sap in the sugarbush. In particular, the presentation explored the efforts and interactions of Nelson Griggs, George Breen, and Bob Lamb, the three men most responsible for making plastic tubing a reality for the maple industry.
This presentation was recorded for later viewing and for those that were unable to see the presentation live. you can viewing the webinar on Youtube at this link.
Packaging maple syrup in plastic jugs is now commonplace and jugs are the primary container for retail sales. However, sixty years ago there were no plastic jugs and syrup was either packaged in metal or glass containers. When first introduced to the maple industry, plastic was modern and novel, but it was also an untried and unproven material. In time, the industry found what types of plastic worked best and settled on the familiar shape of a jug with a handle for its plastic containers. In getting to that point there were a few earlier, less well-known attempts at bottling syrup in plastic containers. Prior to the introduction of the jug shape there were a few other examples of plastic maple syrup containers.
The unique and instantly recognizable shape of the modern plastic maple syrup container got its start in the early 1970s when a pair of New England inventors and their companies introduced a new container made from a stiff, unbreakable plastic that could handle the requirements of hot-packed syrup and hold up to the rigors of shipping and transport.
Following the introduction of plastic jugs and increasing popularity of using plastic containers for packaging maple syrup in the 1970s, a group of new manufacturers entered the picture to meet the growing demand. It was during the decade of the 1980s that the plastic syrup jugs most commonly used by syrup makers today got their start, as well as some other manufacturers that operated on a smaller scale or for a limited duration.
1960s
Harry Chapman
Plastic squeeze bottle for maple syrup introduced by Harry Chapman in 1962. From the Collections of Matthew M. Thomas.
The earliest example of bottling with plastic containers was the efforts of sugarmaker Harry Chapman of South Wallingford, Vermont. In 1959 while still an engineering student at the University of Vermont, Harry began experimenting with different available plastic containers and settled on a polypropylene tubular squeeze bottle used for condiments and by the honey industry. In an interview with Harry, he shared that starting in 1962 he purchased bottles from an Albany, NY wholesaler in half pint, full pint, and quart sizes, and added a two-color, yellow and dark green, label on the clear containers using a silk screen set-up he built himself. Beside bottling syrup from the Chapman family sugarbush in the squeeze bottles, for a couple of years, Harry drove around Vermont selling the bottles to other syrup makers with roadside syrup stands and made numerous presentations promoting the use of this new technology and container.
Vermont Maple Orchards – Frank Rees
Carol Brown, Vermont Maple Queen in 1962 is show examining the Vermont Maple Orchards plastic syrup container in the shape of a sugarhouse. Image appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer – September 29, 1962.
Beginning in the spring of 1962, Vermont Maple Orchards of Essex Junction, Vermont began selling syrup packaged in a miniature plastic sugarhouse. This container was about a half pint in size and made from clear plastic with a pour spout fashioned to look like the smoke stack of the sugarhouse. The company promoted the benefits of plastic as being unbreakable and free from the threat of rusting. Frank Rees, General Manager of Vermont Maple Orchards at that time, was a chemist by training and was a part of the research in the 1930s to identify the sources of lead in maple syrup. As a result, he was sensitive to potential risks of solder leaching from metal cans into syrup and quickly embraced the potential of plastic as a packaging material. Tom Rees, the son of Frank Rees, recalls that the plastic sugarhouse was not a successful item and only sold for a couple of years, in part because the plastic used at that time, probably polypropylene, was not suited to the hot packing of maple syrup and soon after became brittle and hard. In fact, in a August 1962 letter from Malvine Cole, a spokesperson for Vermont Maple Orchards, to Frank Rees, she noted that when left in the hot sun in her car for a few hours, the plastic appeared to have softened and leaked syrup. Little is known about these plastic sugarhouses, such as where and how they were manufactured or who designed them. Their novelty at the time and short lifespan has made them a rarity and essentially unknown among collectors of vintage maple syrup containers.
Robert Bramhall and Robert M. Lamb
Pint sized plastic container for maple syrup introduced by Robert Bramhall in 1965. From the Collections of Tom McCrumm.
A third early plastic container was introduced in 1965 by Robert “Bob” Bramhall, Sr., the woodlands manager for the J.P. Lewis Company (JPL) working out of Beaver Falls, NY. Bramhall, who supervised JPL’s maple sugaring operation began experimenting in 1963 with the idea of bottling in plastic before settling on a square shaped container with a maple leaf design embossed on the side. Bramhall worked with the American Plastics Corporation in nearby Bainbridge, NY to manufacture the opaque cream and peach-colored containers. In the first year he had 50,000 pint-sized containers made with a quart size added the following year. According to Butch Bramhall, Bob Bramhall’s son, one of the reasons Bob looked at plastic was the shortage in the availability of metal syrup cans in the early 1960s.
The Bramhall plastic container came in pint and quart sizes. Photo by author from the collections of the International Maple Museum Centre.
Bob’s daughter-in-law Pat Bramhall added that Bob wanted to have a container that was smaller and easier for housewives to handle and use than the large half and full gallon tins that were most common at that time. After offering the containers for sale for about one year, in 1966 Bramhall transferred the sales of the containers to Robert M. Lamb’s growing plastic tubing and sugaring supplies company in Baldwinsville, NY. Lamb continued to advertise the container for sale through the end of 1969 when they were replaced by the new plastic syrup jugs coming out on the market.
1970s
Kress Creations – Elmer Kress
Examples of Kress Creations plastic jugs in one pint and a half gallon sizes. Photo by author from the collections of the International Maple Museum Centre.
Elmer Kress got his start as a potter when he opened Kress Ceramics in Seymour, Connecticut in the 1950s. According to his daughter Sarah Jean Davies, Elmer developed health problems related to exposure to ceramic dust and needed to make a change in his business. He sold the pottery business in 1967 and decided to give the manufacturing of plastic maple syrup containers a try under the name Kress Creations.
Kress had previously dabbled with producing small, novelty size stoneware jugs for maple syrup sales, so he had a familiarity and design idea in mind that resembled an antique loop handled stoneware jug.
Elmer and Mary Kress – Source: Maple Syrup Digest, March 1982.
Kress invested in his own blow molding equipment and made his containers from a new plastic called XT Polymer developed by the American Cyanamid Corporation out of Wallingford, Connecticut.
Early 1970s advertisement from ALCOA featuring the Kress syrup container and its use of the ALCOA pilfer-proof screw on metal cap. From the collections of the author.
XT Polymer was chosen by Kress because it could handle the hot packing of syrup. Kress jugs also featured a metal tamper-proof cap made by the ALCOA Company. Kress’ daughter tells that her father did not want his jug to look like cheap plastic, so he specifically used a heavier, glossier plastic that looked more like ceramic. XT polymer was more expensive, but Elmer felt it looked nicer. As an artist, Elmer Kress drew his own designs for the exterior sugarbush scene and did the one-color screen printing on site at the Kress Creations factory.
Elmer Kress working the screen printing machine – Source: Maple Syrup Journal, March 1982.
Kress jugs were originally released in early 1970 in pint and quart sizes, with half gallon and a unique three-quart sizes added later. The company outgrew the plant in Seymour and moved to a new facility in Oxford, Connecticut in 1975. The Kress operation was a true mom and pop business with the Kress family often taking weekend road trips around New England to peddle their containers out of the back of their car. Kress sold the plastic jug company in 1990 to a Southbury, New Hampshire firm, who in turn sold the molds to Pioneer Plastics in Greenville, New Hampshire who continued to manufacture and sell the Kress jug until around 2005. Elmer Kress passed away in 2005.
Bacon’s Sugar House – Charlie Bacon
Example od the iconic Bacon’s Sugar House plastic jug in one quart size. Photo by author from the collections of the International Maple Museum Centre.
As a syrup maker from Jaffney Center, New Hampshire, Charles “Charlie” Bacon was dissatisfied with metal syrup cans bursting when he shipped syrup across the country. Deciding plastics would be a better option, around 1967 he began researching food grade plastics that could handle hot packing of syrup. According to Bacon’s son, Jim Bacon, Charlie settled on high density polyethylene as the best option and, working from a simple sketch, had a wood form made in the shape of an old-fashioned crockery jug which was then made into a durable metal form for blow-molding by Hillside Plastics in Sunderland, Massachusetts. Early examples of Bacon jugs featured a metal cap with an interior heat activated seal.
Charlie Bacon – Source: Maple Syrup Journal, June 1982.
The first Bacon jug was available for sale in early 1971 in a one-quart size followed by a half gallon and a pint a few months later, and lastly, a one-gallon jug in 1973. Jugs were screen printed and distributed from the Bacon farm. Eventually, they were available in five sizes with either a standard one-color screen-printed design or option to do custom designs. Adoption of Bacon jugs spread quickly with the assistance of a network of dealers located around the maple region to more directly connect with nearby syrup producers. By 1980, Bacon was manufacturing a million jugs a year. Jim Bacon shared that his father never obtained a design patent on his jugs. Although he considered it, Bacon realized that it was not worth the expense of filing the patent paperwork since another maker could come along with a slightly different design that was virtually identical, and there was nothing Bacon could do about it.
Assemblage of different sizes of Bacon jugs from mid-1980s, including the short-lived salad dressing shaped bottle.
Bacon became concerned with the quality of manufacturing at Hillside Plastics in the early 1980s. In response, in 1983 he took his molds to the Hussey Molding Corporation of Manchester, New Hampshire for production. Bacon sold the jug manufacturing, printing, and sales to Hussey around 1986. A few years later, a sales agent for Hussey that knew Hussey was interested in getting out of the screen printing and sales portion of the syrup jug business, recognized that both Dave McClure’s Honey and Maple Products and Roger Ames‘ American Maple Products of Newport, Vermont were each buying a lot of jugs. The agent put McClure and Ames in touch and in 1988 McClure and Ames partnered to purchase the painting and sales portion of the Bacon Jug Company, opening a shop in part of the old Cary Maple Sugar Company warehouse in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Hussey continued to serve as their jug manufacturer. A few years later McClure bought out Ames and moved the printing and distribution to a new facility in Littleton, New Hampshire. McClure himself sold the Bacon Jug Company in 1997 to Dutch Gold Honey, Incorporated and its subsidiary, Gamber Container, out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who continue to own and operate the Bacon Jug Company from the Littleton location. Under the ownership of Dutch Gold and Gamber, manufacturing of the Bacon jug was moved from Hussey to Hillside Plastics of Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Charlie Bacon passed away in 2006.
R.M. Lamb – Bob Lamb
Examples of R.M. Lamb plastic jugs in half liter (16.9 ounces) and 1 liter (33.8 ounces) sizes. Photo by author from the collections of the International Maple Museum Centre.
Robert “Bob” Lamb, inventor and manufacturer of Lamb Naturalflow plastic tubing, also offered a blow molded plastic jug for maple syrup in the 1970s and 1980s. Described as a “pot bellied plastic jug” by Lamb, this container was shaped and colored to look like a stoneware loop handle jug with very rounded shoulders and a tapered base. These were made from XT Polymer plastic, similar to the Kress jugs, and silkscreened with a one color, old-time sugarbush scene created by an unnamed “famous French artist” according to information in a 1973 letter from Bob Lamb to Fred Laing at the University of Vermont. When first released, the Lamb jug featured a metal ALCOA tamper-proof cap, like the Kress jugs, and later replaced by a plastic cap. Not a lot is known about the Lamb jugs. They were released in 1973 in two metric sizes of 125 and 500 milliliters and were targeted for sale to Canadian maple syrup producers. Lamb felt that we were all going to be going metric in North America and it was wise to make his containers in metric sizes from the start. In 1975 Lamb expanded his line to include 1-liter and 2-liter jugs.
Lamb jugs were made of XT Polymer plastic, the same material used by Elmer Kress, because Lamb thought it made for a better looking container; however, the Lamb jugs were slightly more expensive than the Kress containers. The Lamb jug appears in advertisements in the Digest from 1973 through 1977 and in Canadian equipment sales catalogs in the early 1980s before being discontinued by 1985.
Fairfield Plastics – S. Allen Soule
Allen Soule, the Vermont inventor of the first lithographed metal can for maple syrup producers in the late 1940s, got into the plastic jug making business in 1975 when he purchased a blow molding machine for the manufacturing of small sized polypropylene plastic containers. Soule’s containers were designed for sales in gift shops and the tourist trade. Most of Soule’s jugs were made for use in bottling syrup from his Fairfield Farms brand pure maple and blended syrups. In addition to making containers for his own maple products, Soule sold containers to syrup makers under the name Fairfield Plastics. Soule’s containers resembled small ceramic jugs with short necks and loop handles and in some cases were made from a bright yellow plastic. According to John Soule, son of S. Allen Soule, Fairfield Plastics ended production in 1987 when the molding machine and molds were destroyed in a fire at their Fairfield, Vermont bottling plant. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate examples of the S. Allen Soule jug to illustrate here.
1980s
P.H. S. Syrup Jugs – Peter Stransky
Examples of Stransky jugs in 375, 250, and 100 ml sizes. Image Source: Photo by author. Photo by author from the collections of the International Maple Museum Centre.
Peter Stransky entered the maple business in the 1960s, selling maple syrup equipment out of Collingwood, Ontario, later adding syrup buying, packing, and sales to the company activities. Between 1967 and 1979, Stransky saw early success as the primary distributor of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association orange, white, and green metal cans. Stransky realized that if he made his own plastic containers, he could cut out the middleman for container purchases and have better control over quality and availability. In 1978, Stransky had molds designed for five smaller sizes of jugs, ranging from 3.4 ounces to a quart. His jugs were made by Olympus Plastics, a blow-molding company in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The containers were a round jug shape with a loop handle, a pronounced shoulder break, a reinforced ridge near the lip, and were painted with one color screen printing of a traditional maple sugaring scene. Stransky’s primary intent was making containers for his own packaging, but he also offered the containers for sale, primarily to Ontario and U.S. syrup producers. Manufacture and sale of the Stransky jugs continued until 1998 when Peter Stransky retired and closed his equipment and syrup sales business without selling or transferring the molds for his containers. Peter Stransky passed away in 2020.
Sugarhill Maple Containers – Dick Haas
Examples of Sugarhill containers in five sizes. Image Source: Brookfield Maple Products website.
Hillside Plastics got its start in 1967 as a small family-owned plastics company operating out of a horse barn in Sunderland, Massachusetts, blow molding containers for apple cider and fluid milk. As a young man in his twenties, Richard Haas began working as an employee at Hillside Plastics in 1969. In the early years, the company struggled and was not always able to cover Dick’s salary. Instead, Dick was occasionally paid in company shares, which ultimately led Dick and Janet Haas to purchase the company in the mid-1970s.
Hillside Plastics first made plastic jugs for maple syrup in 1970 when Charlie Bacon contracted with Hillside to do the blow molding of his new Bacon Jug (see Part II of this article in December 2021 issue of the Digest). When the Bacon Jug company decided to take their business elsewhere in 1980, Hillside Plastics, having learned a great deal about the plastic syrup jug business, formed Sugarhill Containers to manufacture and sell a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) maple syrup jug of its own design. According to Peter Haas, Dick’s son, demand for plastic jugs really increased in the 1980s when the large wholesale club stores on the west coast began to shift to shipping and selling syrup packed in plastic.
Haas family in early 1990s with Sugarhill containers, left to right Kate, Peter, Janet, Dick, and Greg Haas. Image Source: Peter Haas.
The company grew to a workforce of over fifty employees producing 60,000 jugs a day, necessitating a move in 1993 to a larger and new 47,000 square foot building up the road in Turners Falls. In addition to maple syrup jugs and even a plastic cabin-shaped container in 1995, Hillside Plastics expanded their catalog to manufacture blow-molded containers for a variety of other industrial, automotive, and food products; however, maple syrup jugs were always the centerpiece of their business.
Sugarhill Containers grew so popular over time that Dick Haas noted in 1997 that they were making more containers in one day than they made in an entire year in the early 1970s. The Sugarhill Containers are noted for being the leaders in developing and patenting the Extended Life (XL) exterior coating as a measure to reduce the air and moisture permeability of the plastic and better preserve the color grade of the syrup inside. Hillside has come up with other materials and design innovations, like developing a material for labels that would not wrinkle and could expand and shrink with the hot filling and cooling of plastic syrup jugs. In addition to producing Sugarhill Containers, Hillside Plastics does contract molding for other brands of maple syrup jugs, such as the Bacon Jug in the 1970s and again in the 2000s. Following the death of Dick Haas in 2010, the company continued to operate under the leadership of his wife Janet, and three children Peter Haas, Greg Haas, and Kate (Haas) Colby. The Haas family sold the business in 2015 to its current owner, Plastic Industries, Inc. and its parent company Carr Management, Inc.
T.A.P. Farm, Inc. – Chris Audley
Chris Audley seated with Bacon Jugs printed in French for Canadian market. Image Source: Maple Syrup Journal, issue 1, 1981.
Chris Audley, a Quebec syrup maker, became the Bacon Jug distributor for Canada in 1979. In 1980, at roughly the same time the Bacon Jug company made a shift in manufacturers away from Hillside Plastics to Hussey Plastics, Charlie Bacon and Chris Audley realized that importing American made jugs into Canada was too expensive. Instead, Charlie Bacon had a set of molds sent to Audley to begin manufacturing Bacon jugs in Quebec. Audley found a blow-molder near Montreal, Quebec and ensured jugs were printed in French and English as required for sale in Canada. Audley formalized his container business in 1982 when he formed company called T.A.P. Farm, Inc. with the T.A.P. name an acronym for Ton Acériculteur Provincal, meaning “your provincial sugarmaker.”
Audley’s T.A.P. Farm, Inc. unfortunately went bankrupt in 1983 when it unsuccessfully tried to launch 250 ml and 500ml foil-lined, cardboard containers for packaging maple syrup. Later that year, Audley sold the plastic jug portion of the business to Gerard Filion, a hardware store owner in St. Andrews East, Quebec who carried maple syrup making supplies and sold a good amount of Audley’s Canadian Bacon Jug.
Les Cruchons J.U.G.S. – Gerard Filion
Earliest Les Cruchons JUGS with looping handle and stepped shoulder. Image source 1983 Dominion & Grimm catalog.
In the late 1970s, Gerard Filion and his wife Lise were running St. Andrews Hardware store in St. Andrews Est, Quebec. Their store specialized in the sale of maple sugaring supplies, including the Bacon Jug supplied to Filion by Chris Audley, the Canadian distributor for Bacon Jugs. In 1983, Filion purchased Audley’s T.A.P. Farm, Inc. syrup container company and entered the plastic jug manufacturing business, calling his new company Les Cruchons J.U.G.S. Since he did not assume Audley’s Bacon Jug distributorship, one of the first things Filion did was develop his own jug design and molds.
Catalog image of Les Cruchons JUGS showing two jug designs. In the front row is the earliest variation with the stepped shoulder. In the back row is the later variation with an angled shoulder and squared handle. Image Source: 1994 Dominion & Grimm catalog.
His first jugs featured a step on the shoulder of the jug and a looping handle and were made under contract by a Montreal blow molding firm. In 1992, Filion purchased his own silk-screening machine and was doing the printing on the jugs in the back of the hardware store. Around 1994, Filion introduced a new jug design featuring a more angled shoulder and a squared loop handle. By 1996, this design replaced the stepped shoulder jugs and became the Les Cruchons jug shape that is still in use today.
Examples of the current Les Cruchons – Ampak jugs available and in wide use by syrup makers today.
The popularity of Les Cruchons syrup jugs grew fast and in 2000, Filion made the move to go into the jug manufacturing business full time and compete with the American manufacturers for a piece of the syrup jug market. That year he purchased a large warehouse production facility just across the border in nearby Hawkesbury, Ontario where corporate taxes were lower than in Quebec. He also began to do his own blow-molding of HDPE syrup jugs, as well as a variety of other food, pharmaceutical, and detergent containers. By 2005, sales had grown to include around five million syrup jugs a year produced in eleven shapes and sizes. Wishing to see the company grow, Filion made the decision in 2005 to sell Les Cruchons J.U.G.S. to Salvatore Nicastro and the AMPAK Corporation, investors from Montreal with experience in the plastics business and the necessary capital to fund the expansion. Gerard Filion and members of his family stayed on to assist the company for another 5 to 6 years. In 2014, Les Cruchons J.U.G.S., Inc. formally changed its name to Ampak Plast Inc., and continues to manufacture and distribute the Les Cruchons plastic syrup containers from their Hawkesbury facility.
As illustrated in this article, the story of the development and introduction of the jug-shaped plastic container for packaging maple syrup spanned three decades, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Although the industry continues to evolve and grow, the largest manufacturers in the modern syrup jug market can trace their origins to the 1980s and the earlier efforts, events, and individuals that paved the way for them.
This article first appeared in 2021 in three parts (Part I, Part II, Part III) in three separate issues of the Maple Syrup Digest. It has been condensed into one updated article here with the addition of a few more images, some images in color that were in black and white in the Maple Digest version, and few new details and lines of text.
This contribution takes a closer look at how the in the early 1900s, the Towle Log Cabin Syrup Company creatively used the term and idea of a “pure” product to advertise their table syrups. It was fairly well-known that Log Cabin Syrups were made from a blend of cane sugar syrup and maple syrup. Some in the maple industry wanted any blended syrups that weren’t 100% maple syrup to be labeled adulterated. To the disappointment of the maple industry, when regulations finally came out in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the term adulteration was more rigidly applied to the presence of dangerous chemicals or unnatural additives. As a result, Log Cabin Syrup complied with the truth in advertising to say their syrup was a blend, but emphasized it was a blend of pure ingredients and what could have been a regulatory nightmare was instead turned into a promotional windfall.
Two examples of the iconic Québec maple syrup can. Photography by Amy Cavanaugh.
In Québec, it is common for maple syrup to be packaged and sold in a unique round, flat-topped metal can, similar in size and shape to a large can of soup or crushed tomatoes. In other parts of the maple syrup producing region in Canada and the United States, maple syrup is more commonly packed in plastic jugs with handles, fancy glass bottles, or rectangular metal cans of various sizes. Today, Québec cans are filled with 540 milliliters of syrup, about the same as 19 fluid ounces, a little more than the 16 oz. American pint. When these cans were first introduced in 1952, they were marked with their container or net weight of 26 oz. and when Canada converted to metric in 1980 the cans began to be labeled in liquid volume of 540 ml.
A contemporary example of the iconic Dominion & Grimm design on the Québec can. The bands of ridges around the can are known as beading and add strength and stability to the walls of a round can. Source – Amazon.com listing.
Although, plastic, glass, and rectangular cans also see limited use in Québec today, maple syrup makers and consumers in Québec have hung on tightly to the Québec round can since its introduction, almost as a sort of identity marker and a reminder of their role as world leaders in the modern maple syrup industry. In fact, one could say this can, in particular the version with the design artwork of the Dominion & Grimm Company, has become iconic in Québec. So much so, that one can find the image of the can in pop artwork, on greeting cards, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, body tattoos, and even as a central theme of popular Montreal street artist Whatisadam!
Yet, there is a bit of mystery surrounding the details of the origins and introduction of this can. As recounted over the last few years in a few Québec publications, the Québec can was introduced as an option for syrup makers in 1952 following a 1951 contest asking participants to design a new and attractive label for this special sized can. That such a contest was held was known to be true, but beyond that, the details of the contest were thought to be lost.[1] It was a mystery who won, what the winning design looked like, and if that design was ever put to use . . . until now. My research with the digital collections in the National Archives of Québec has brought forward a number of important documentary sources and previously unreported details related to this contest. But first, some background on the introduction of the 26 oz. Québec can.
In the 1950s, Jules Méthot, chief of the honey and maple products division at the Québec Ministry of Agriculture, wanted to take advantage of the growing shift to buying goods from grocery markets. Méthot felt that the maple syrup industry in Québec would have greater success if they packaged syrup in smaller containers than the traditional one-gallon can. Méthot argued that the gallon sized can was cost prohibitive to the average household, and packaging syrup in smaller cans that could be consumed in a shorter period of time and would better preserve the unique flavors of pure maple syrup.[2]
June 1951 announcement and invitation to submit entries to the label design contest. Source – L’Action Catholique, 14 June 1952, p 10.
Under Méthot’s leadership, a concerted effort began to promote the use of smaller cans for syrup. In 1951, the Ministry of Agriculture partnered with Les Producteurs de sucre d’erable du Québec, the influential maple syrup cooperative out of Plessisville, Québec, to sponsor a label design contest held at that summer’s annual Provincial Exposition in Québec City. It was no surprise that Méthot was working hand in hand with the cooperative. As a syrup maker himself, Méthot was involved in the formation of the cooperative from the very beginning and managed the cooperative’s Plessisville plant from 1928 to 1940.
In June 1951, announcements for the contest appeared in various newspapers calling for submissions of the most interesting designs for labels that could be attached to No. 2 and 2 ½ size metal food cans. These sized cans were round in shape and generally held about 26 oz. Moreover, the Continental Can Company and the syrup producers cooperative each contributed $50 for the cash for prizes to be awarded to the three winning entrants.[3]
September 1951 article describing the awards event and the names of the winners of the label design contest. Source – L’Action Catholique Quebec, 6 Sept 1951, p2.
My research has uncovered that over forty designs were entered in the contest, and on September 5th, 1951, the winners were announced at a reception at the Agricultural Pavilion at the Québec Expo before an audience of guests and government officials including Méthot; the Honorable Senator and Director of the syrup cooperative, Cyrille Vaillancourt; J.H. Lavoie, Director of the Horticulture Services at the Ministry of Agriculture; and Dr. Georges Maheux, Director of Information and Research Services at the Ministry of Agriculture.[4] According to news accounts of the reception, first prize was awarded to Mrs. Henri Brunelle of Batiscan, Second prize to Mr. Lionel Bégin, of Lévis, and third prize to Mr. H. Jacques, of Limoilou. Additional genealogical research suggests that Mrs. Henri Brunelle’s full name was probably Emilliana St-Cyr Brunelle.[5]
Furthermore, I was also able to locate a pair of photographs in the National Archives of Québec, taken at the 1951 Québec Exposition by noted Québec photographer Omer Beaudoin that illustrate a display of the entries of in the syrup can label contest.
First of two photos showing the left side of the case displaying the entries and winners of the label design contest at the Provincial Exposition. Photo by Omer Beaudoin – BANQ – – E6,S7,SSI,P88159Second of two photos showing the right side of the case displaying the entries and winners of the label design contest at the Provincial Exposition. Photo by Omer Beaudoin – BANQ – E6,S7,SSI,P88160
If one zooms in closely, it is possible to see that three of the entries have unique tags attached to each of them, which probably mark the three winning entries. Unfortunately, the photos available online are not clear or close enough read the names on the tags or distinguish the labels.[6]
Syrup producers’ cooperative announcement for new 26 oz. round cans that appeared as early as February 1952. Source – Le Bulletin des Agriculteurs, 1 February 1952, p 80.
Following the results of the label design competition the previous summer, in February 1952 the producers’ cooperative began announcing to maple syrup producers that a new No. 2 sized sanitary can that will hold 26 oz. of syrup was now available for purchase to package and sell their syrup. Each can was produced with a color glossy lithographed label featuring Mrs. Emiliana St-Cyr Brunelle’s winning design. When using the new cans, syrup producers only needed to indicate the grade of the syrup and their name and address, which could be completed with a special stamp and ink the cooperative was happy to provide.[7]
A newspaper article from March 1952 indicated that the new 26 oz. tins were lithographed with three colors, red, white, and green. As it turns out, a number of maple antique collectors have preserved examples of these original 26-ounce yellow, red, and green lithographed cans.[8]
Well-preserved example of the 26 oz. can introduced by the cooperative in 1952. Photos courtesy of Réjean Bilodeau.
UPDATE: Since publishing this story, my friend and Québec maple historian, Réjean Bilodeau was kind enough to share with me photographs of an example of the 1952 can from his collection of maple syrup antiques. As can be seen in the photos, the can shows the same design as in the cooperative’s newspaper announcements with the above mentioned red and green colors, along with either a white that has discolored with age, or a creamy yellow. Also, as became standard on Canadian syrup cans, one side appears in French and the other in English.
Updated section added 1 December 2021
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Early image of actual 26 oz, No. 2 size cans in use with a maple leaf motif on the label design. Source – 1952 Ministry of Agriculture Bulletin No. 169. Original photo caption – “Display of maple products along our highways”.
Another early photographic of what appears to be a 26 oz. tin can be found in a 1952 Ministry of Agriculture Bulletin (No. 169) co-authored by Jules R. Méthot and Napoleon Rompré titled, L’érable à sucre du Québec. The bulletin includes a photo of two individuals examining a display of 26 oz. syrup cans with a caption that translates to “display of our maple products along our tourist routes.” The cans in this image do appear to show a maple leaf design, but one that looks different than the maple leaf design in the cooperative’s announcements for the availability of the new cans and does not look like it features a yellow background. At present. this is a new mystery can and maybe there are examples of this can sitting on a collector’s shelf . Perhaps another design entry from the 1951 competition?[9]
Photograph of a 1957 display of Citadelle brand syrup in bottles and cans, including the 26 oz. Québec can. Source – Citadelle website.
The cooperative had been packaging its syrup for many years under the brands of Citadelle and Camp. Through the 1930s and 1940s, their syrup and maple butter was packaged in both bottles and cans of various shapes and sizes. For the most part, cooperative members delivered the majority of their syrup in bulk barrels to the cooperative to be blended, marketed, and sold under the Camp and Citadelle labels. Advertisements show that by July 1952, grocery stores in Canada began to sell Citadelle brand syrup in 26 oz. tins. According to a history presentation on the cooperative’s website, the producers’ cooperative changed its Citadelle label in 1957 to a distinctive design of a red, white, and blue shield over yellow and white vertical stripes.[10]
Example of the producers’ cooperative Citadelle brand syrup in the 26 oz. Québec can featuring a red, white, and blue shield logo over vertical yellow and white stripes. Source – Worthpoint online auction site.
However, a film dating to 1955 and produced by the cooperative and available in the BANQ archives clearly shows the yellow and white stripe motif with the red, white, and blue shield in use on rectangular metal cans and more importantly on round 26 ounce cans.
Frame shots from the Cooperative’s 1955 film titled “Sucre d’érable et coopération”. source – https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2280556
Cooperative members were also free to engage in local and direct sales of their syrup, packed in containers of a gallon or less in size. Although the announcements for the new 26 oz. cans were placed in newspapers by the producers cooperative, these cans were not meant for exclusive use by cooperative members. In fact, Méthot and the Québec Ministry of Agriculture wanted all syrup makers, whether or not they belonged to the cooperative, to start using them to sell syrup to customers. These cans were printed without any brand names and included a space for the syrup maker to add their name and address.[11]
In the US, unbranded, lithographed cans were introduced for filling for direct sale by syrup producers by S. Allen Soule out of Fairfield, Vermont in advance of the 1948 season. In contrast to the Québec can, Soule’s cans were all rectangular in shape and initially came out in larger sizes of quart, half-gallon, and full-gallon volumes.[12]
Advertisement from 1926 for maple syrup packed in round sanitary cans by the L.L. Jenne Maple Syrup and Sugar Company out of Sutton, Québec. Source – Ottawa Citizen, 7 December 1926, p 13.
The Québec can was not the first use of a round colored lithographed metal can in sizes less than a quart for packaging maple syrup in Canada or the US. Prior to this time, a number of syrup packing companies sold both pure and blended maple syrups in round cans of various sizes under their brand names. For example, the L.L. Jenne Maple Sugar and Syrup Company, LTD., out of Sutton, Québec sold syrup in 2 ½ and 5 pound round sanitary cans as early as the 1920s.[13] The cooperative itself sold tall round cans with a screw top under the Camp brand in the 1930s and 1940s. However, the Québec can in interest here was Québec’s first unbranded and generic lithographed can for individual syrup makers to pack their syrup for direct or local sale.[14]
Advertising cover from 1932 booklet published by the producers’ cooperative showing Camp and Citadelle branded maple syrup containers, including tall round cans with a pour spout and the Camp label.
It should also be pointed out that these No. 2 cans holding 26 oz. did not replace the one-gallon metal cans, they merely added a new sized and shaped container that made it easier for producers to get their syrup on the grocery store shelf, and easier and more attractive to those purchasing syrup. In fact, the larger sized cans in sizes of 5 liters or less, have never gone away as an option for Québec syrup makers to fill and for consumers to buy. Unlike the larger sized tall rectangular cans that had a screw-on cap and a pour spout, packaging syrup in these round sanitary cans required syrup makers to close and seal the can by attaching a lid over the entire top portion of the can. This form of closure required syrup makers to invest in a specialized can sealer, either hand powered or the more expensive power-operated can sealer.
Dominion & Grimm, Inc., advertisement from 1955 announcing the introduction of a new gallon sized lithographed can for packing maple syrup. Source – Le Bulletin des Agriculteurs, 1 December 1955, p58.
Although it was the cooperative, with the nudge from Méthot at the Ministry of Agriculture, that led the way in promoting and making possible the introduction of the 26 oz. tin, by no means was the producer’s cooperative the only source in Québec for 26 oz., No. 2 cans for packing syrup. The most iconic design to appear on these sized tins was introduced in 1955 by the Dominion & Grimm (D & G) maple syrup equipment company.[15]
Excerpt from the 1961 Dominion & Grimm maple syrup equipment and supplies catalog showing both rectangular cans and the round 26 oz. Québec can with the iconic D & G design.
Their design features a square red banner with the words “Pure Maple Syrup” above a sugarbush scene with a sugar house painted red. Dominion & Grimm first introduced this four-color lithographed design on tall rectangular -shaped one-gallon tins in 1955, but a few years later were offering the design on rectangular gallon, half-gallon, quart cans, and the infamous 26 oz. round cans. The earliest dated example I have found so far of the D & G round can is from their 1961 catalog. D & G’s beloved design continues to be in use after over sixty years.[16]
It is interesting that Dominion & Grimm did not appear to get on the band wagon for a 26 oz. sanitary can for maple syrup in Québec sooner than sometime after 1955, considering that the Dominion Company (before it combined with Grimm Mfg. LTD in 1953) had been selling canning and sterilizing equipment for years and was selling sanitary cans, for packaging honey, including the No. 2 size can, as early as 1953. [17]
Excerpt from 1981 advertisement for sale of Peter Stransky’s maple syrup cans. Note the Québec style can in the lower left. Source – 1981 Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association Annual tour booklet.
For the greater part of the 1960s and 1970s, the only Québec cans available were manufactured by D & G. In the 1980s, a few Ontario based can makers and equipment dealers, such as Peter Stransky and Robson-Smith Sugar Bush Supplies introduced their own 540 ml round cans presumably for the Québec market, although those particular Québec cans did not appear for very long in their advertisements.
Although the producers’ cooperative led the way with introducing the size and shape of the Québec can, the D & G design became the iconic and most recognized design. But who is to be credited with that design!? One Québec historian described the D & G can as one of the most celebrated commercial designs in Québec history![18] In essence there were two mysteries of the Québec can, first who submitted the winning designs in the contest to introduce the Québec can and how were they used, which I have solved. The second, the question of the artist behind the most famous and lasting D & G image on the Québec can, still eludes us.
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UPDATE: Since posting the original article further research uncovered additional information about who may be credited with the design of the Dominion & Grimm can. See my post from February 11, 2022 for more details.
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With a little deeper digging and maple history detective work, I was able to learn a bit more about the story of the design contest that jump started these cans. With this knowledge, we are permitted to re-congratulate the winners, Emilianna Brunelle, Lionel Bégin, and H. Jacques and acknowledge the role they had in the origins of the famous maple syrup can Québec.
Updates – 1 December 2021 and 11 February 2022 and 23 September 2023
Acknowledgements: Special thanks to Québec maple historian, Pierre Rheaume, for sharing information related to this story and also to Ontario maple industry expert Bev Campbell for sharing information and images of containers from Ontario. Additional thanks to Réjean Bilodeau for allowing me to share photographs of a preserved example of the cooperative’s original can from 1952 and thanks to Maxime Caouette for calling to my attention the 1955 film by the Citadelle cooperative.
Chris Audley, a Quebec syrup maker, became the Bacon Jug distributor for Canada in 1979. In 1980, at roughly the same time the Bacon Jug company made a shift in manufacturers away from Hillside Plastics to Hussey Plastics, Charlie Bacon and Chris Audley realized that importing American made jugs into Canada was too expensive. Instead, Charlie Bacon had a set of molds sent to Audley to begin manufacturing Bacon jugs in Quebec. Audley found a blow-molder near Montreal, Quebec and ensured jugs were printed in French and English as required for sale in Canada. Audley formalized his container business in 1982 when he formed company called T.A.P. Farm, Inc. with the T.A.P. name an acronym for Ton Acériculteur Provincal, meaning “your provincial sugarmaker.”
