The maple syrup industry lost one of its longstanding historians in May with the passing of Wilson “Bill” S. Clark, age 89 of Wells and Pawlet, Vermont. Bill was well known within the maple world for his many leadership and spokesperson roles, including past roles as president of the Rutland County Maple Producers (RCMP), President of the International Maple Syrup Institute, President of the North American Maple Syrup Council, and a 32 year run as president of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association (VMSMA). Amongst a variety of awards and recognition, Bill was also inducted into the Maple Syrup Hall of Fame in 1995. With his connections to and experience with the world of maple syrup, Bill was more than simply interested in maple history, he was a part of making history and understood the importance of recording and preserving that history for future generations.
In 2018 Bill published a history of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association in the Vermont Country Sampler, telling some of the highlights of the first 100 years of the organization. Bill also worked with Betty Ann and Don Lockhart to put together a detailed timeline of the history of maple sugaring in Vermont and the larger maple sugaring world. Various examples of this timeline have appeared in print in past editions of the program for the Vermont Maplerama, the popular tour and showcase of local sugarmakers. The version of the history timeline shared here is from the 2014 Maplerama program.
In addition to his telling the story of the activities of the VMSMA and the RCMP in the latter half of the 20th century, Bill also wrote a short memoir in 2001 on the most busy years of his life with maple that he titled Forty Years and Five Days: A Vermont Story.
My first memory of Bill was meeting him at his home in the spring of 2001 when I was on a research trip to Vermont to begin my “education” on maple syrup history. And boy did I ever dive in head first. Bill spoke to me non-stop of three hours as I scribbled notes as fast as my pencil could write. For those that knew Bill, it was clear that Bill was a thoughtful man and one heck of a talker. He was a treasure trove of recollections and knowledge and also one of very strong opinions that he was never afraid to share. His passion for maple history and his sharing of that by putting much of what he had learned in writing has served us all. Thank you Bill. Rest in Peace.
Below are links to a few of the maple history writings put together and shared by Bill Clark over the years.
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Bill Clark’s history of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association which appeared in the March 2018 edition of The Vermont Country Sampler.
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A Vermont Maple History Timeline compiled by Betty Ann Lockhart and Don Lockhart with substantial contributions by Bill Clark.
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Bill Clark’s history of the beginnings of the Vermont Maplerama, which appeared in the 2014 Maplerama program.
The article tells the story of the maple syrup operation started by Sherman and Pat Holbert in the maple woods around Mille Lacs Lake in east central Minnesota following the end of World War II. Starting in 1946, in a few short years the Holbert brothers maple operation went from nothing to what was probably the largest operation in the country at that time, making syrup from 28,000 taps. In addition, the Holberts became one of the first maple equipment dealers west of Michigan. Less than ten years after it got started, the Holberts shifted their business focus to other things. The operation closed its doors, the evaporators and gathering equipment were sold, and the syrup plant was converted to a roadside tourist attraction and gift shop.
Click on the image of the article above for a PDF of the full story.
Adin Reynolds in front of a steam jacketed kettle. Source: Adirondack Experience P071388.
By one measure of mid-century popular culture, greatness or notoriety was achieved when one appeared on one of the television shows, What’s My Line, I’ve Got a Secret, or To Tell The Truth. On these shows celebrity judges attempted to guess the identity of a notable contestant placed among a group of imposters. In 1965, Adin Reynolds of Aniwa, Wisconsin had the honor of appearing on To Tell The Truth by virtue of his family business, Reynolds Sugar Bush, being the largest maple syrup making operation in the world. Reynolds’s appearance on television was surprising to many since Wisconsin is not among the first states that come to mind when thinking about maple syrup production.[1]
Since the Reynolds family arrived in Wisconsin from New York State in 1845, making maple sugar and syrup had always been one of many components of the family’s diversified subsistence and commercial activities. However, like many of their Shawano County neighbors, it was logging, sawmill operations, and dairy farming, not maple syrup production, that formed the core of the family business during their first 70 years in the state.[2]
Reynolds Sugar Bush pure maple syrup can. Source: Private collection.
Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century maple syrup production in the United States was in a state of gradual decline. While this decline was most pronounced in New England and New York, the core of the maple producing region, it was also true of Wisconsin maple syrup production. Maple syrup and maple sugar making has been a spring time activity in the seasonal rural economy of Wisconsin starting with the resident Native American population to early Euro-American settlers, and on to the dairy and those harvesting forest-products in the far north.[3]
In the years following World War II, maple syrup making reached an all-time low in the United States. At the same time, rural America was witnessing important shifts in attitudes and demographics along with the introduction of new agricultural technology and business models. For those that were able to recognize the opportunities and willing to take the risks, such change presented opportunities previously not possible. It was from such a place and a willingness to think and act independently that Reynolds Sugar Bush grew from making syrup as a small seasonal side pursuit to their sawmill and dairy operation, to a year-round, factory-scale business, becoming the industry leader far from the maple syrup heartland of the northeastern United States and adjacent Quebec.
Cover of Reynolds Sugar Bush 1964 equipment sales catalog. Catalogs from additional years came in different colors schemes (brown, blue, red, green). Source: collection of author.
The ability for a syrup operation to grow so large was possible by building the right processing facilities and infrastructure, having a market to sell the syrup, and literally tapping into the trees of their neighbors. But growth did not happen overnight. The Reynolds family had been tapping a few thousand trees in the mid-1940s but in 1947, things began to change when they built a new sugarhouse near their farm house, adjacent to a paved county road and alongside the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad line. They also began a partnership that year as the midwestern dealer and distributor of maple syrup making equipment for the Vermont Evaporator Company. With the syrup plant now alongside the road and making syrup on two large evaporators, they began buying sap from around 4,000 of their neighbors’ taps, augmenting more than 6,000 taps on their own land.[4]
To provide some stability and supplement their farm and forest products business, years earlier Adin Reynolds had taken work as a part-time mail carrier, later becoming the postmaster of Aniwa in 1948. His new emphasis on maple syrup making and equipment sales were paying off, and in 1951 Adin retired from the post office and began focusing on maple full-time. Up until the late 1940s there were no maple equipment dealers in Wisconsin or adjacent Minnesota and maple producers had to buy their evaporators and other large supplies from dealers in Ohio, New York, or New England. There was a clear opportunity and eager group of customers in the Midwest.[5] Around this same time, Reynolds also entered the syrup buying business, purchasing bulk syrup from other producers to be combined and resold to larger processors, syrup blenders, and bottlers. In 1948 the J.M. Abraham Company of Bellefontaine, Ohio contracted with Reynolds to provide the Ohio syrup packing company with all the syrup Reynolds Sugar Bush was willing to spare from their own production and all the syrup Reynolds could acquire locally. Reynolds Sugar Bush began shipping truckloads of syrup to the Abraham Company, adding syrup buying and brokering to the growing portfolio of their maple syrup operation.[6]
Left to right, Lynn Reynolds, Juan Reynolds, Adin Reynolds, and Bob Lamb in front of Reynolds Sugar Bush Aniwa syrup plant, circa 1960. Source: Adirondack Experience P071388
Although Adin was founder and leader of Reynolds Sugar Bush, his two sons, Juan and Lynn, were graduating from high school and making their way in the world as adults. Both sons always had roles in the syrup business, but as young men they were able to take on greater responsibility. The early half of the 1950s saw Juan and Lynn temporarily pulled away from the family business with Korean War era service in the Army and Marines followed by college education. However, in the late 1950s both sons had returned to Aniwa and began working full-time in the now flourishing family maple business. As Lynn Reynolds later described it, in the late 1950s and 1960s Adin oversaw everything and “created the management, marketing, and financing; Juan managed the plant and the personnel; and Lynn was the public relations person, salesman for equipment, the syrup buyer, and managed the production plants.”[7]
Image of the new Reynolds Sugar Bush building in 1954. Photo by Dean Tvedt. Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison archives.
Through the 1950s, Adin continued to expand Reynolds Sugar Bush syrup making operation, using his quiet charisma to convince farmers and woodlot owners around Shawano, Langlade, and Marathon Counties to tap their maple trees and sell their raw sap to Reynolds. Reynolds also began renting additional trees to augment the maples on their own 800 acres as well as buying sap from their neighbors. In 1949 Reynolds added a third large (6’ x 20’) evaporator, and by 1956, the Reynolds were making syrup from 25,000 of their own taps and buying sap from many thousands more. Another evaporator was added to the plant in 1958 and all four evaporators were converted from wood burning to oil burning. Adin Reynolds was said to have hated cutting a maple tree, comparing it to cutting off an arm, so the family never thinned their maple woods and burned waste slabs from a local sawmill prior to switching to oil.[8]
Interior of Reynolds Sugar Bush plant showing large, side-by-side, oil fired evaporators. Source: Unknown.
Processing sap gathered from many independently owned sugarbushes at one large boiling facility became known as the Central Evaporator Plant (CEP) model, and Reynolds Sugar Bush became leaders in perfecting and promoting the CEP.[9] The idea of only selling sap rather than taking on the whole task of making finished syrup was not invented by Reynolds, although he took it to another level. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture had been promoting the idea and use of a central evaporation plant for maple syrup producers since the 1930s.[10] Locally in the 1930s and 1940s, a group called the Antigo Maple Syrup Producers Association, in which Adin Reynolds was an early leader, attempted to pool their efforts in processing sap and marketing maple, without much success.[11] For Wisconsinites, the CEP concept will look familiar, with its strong resemblance to the arrangement of local dairies, creameries, and milk cooperatives, where dozens of farmers sell or deliver their raw milk to a central processing facility. Like butterfat in milk, the value of and compensation for raw maple sap was based on its relative sugar content measured by a refractometer. Sap at 1.5% sugar might get three cents a gallon while sap at 6% sugar might earn six cents a gallon. As Juan Reynolds described it, “if they had a halfway decent season and a good sugar content, they could make at minimum a dollar a tap. One guy down the road had real sweet trees, he often averaged more than $2 a tap, that is more than a guy making maple syrup could do after you have invested in all the boiling equipment and marketed it.”[12] As with milk, sap from multiple sources is combined and handled by individuals with the technology, expertise, and market connections to turn their raw product into a packaged or processed item for sale and distribution. Combining and finishing the concentrated sap at a central location resulted in better quality and more uniform syrup than was often produced in smaller sugar houses and backyard boiling operations at that time.[13]
Adin Reynolds pouring sap from the Sap Sak collection bag he invented. Source: Wausau Daily Herald – April 21, 1972
The countryside around the Aniwa plant is marked with dairy farms interspersed between stands of second growth sugar maples. Farm families had the two most important components for sap production – trees and available labor to tap and gather. Moreover, the months of March and April were the slow and muddy seasons for most farm families. People in the region were more than willing to tap their maple trees and sell their sap for cash. Juan Reynolds recalled that they had as many as 50-60 families from within a 20-mile radius selling sap to them, with most of the sap sellers tapping 500-800 trees.[14]
In 1959, the General Foods Corporation, the makers of Log Cabin Syrup, a blend of cane and maple syrup, contracted with Reynolds Sugar Bush to purchase 20,000 gallons of maple syrup. With scheduled deliveries of syrup from Reynolds’ Aniwa plant to General Foods’ Chicago bottling plant, Reynolds began serious entry into the syrup buying business. For General Foods, the Aniwa bottling plant was attractive because it was close enough to Chicago that Reynolds Sugar Bush could fill syrup orders quickly, if needed. This large of a syrup contract led Reynolds to start shipping syrup 4,000-gallons at a time via tanker truck. Wisconsin was not producing enough syrup to meet this need, so Reynolds began buying in the northeastern United States and Canada.
Tanker truck for hauling large deliveries of maple syrup parked in front of Reynolds Sugar Bush plant, circa early 1960s. Source: unknown.
At its peak, the General Foods contract had Reynolds Sugar Bush shipping twenty-seven tanker loads (108,000 gallons) of syrup from Aniwa to Chicago. At that time in history, moving this volume of maple syrup out of a midwestern hub rather than New England or Quebec was a significant departure from how the maple industry had traditionally operated. Reynolds continued this contract with General Foods for 20 years until General Foods reduced the amount of maple syrup in their Log Cabin blend from 15% in 1959 to 2% by 1979. After the General Foods Corporation merged with Philip Morris in 1985 the previous contract arrangements were no longer honored and Reynolds Sugar Bush stopped supplying maple syrup to General Foods.[15]
With a growing contract for bulk syrup and more markets opening up, Reynolds Sugar Bush went through a period of expansion buying three equally large syrup making operations, beginning in 1960 with the purchase of George Klement’s Maple Orchard in nearby Polar, Wisconsin. For much of the 1950s, the Klement sugarhouse was also operating with a central evaporator plant model similar to Reynolds, buying sap from 50,000 taps and making syrup on four large 6’ x 20’ King brand evaporators. Other than converting the evaporators from wood fired to oil fired, the Reynolds changed little, continuing to work with Klement’s sap sellers and expanded the number of taps coming in to 65,000. In 1963 Reynolds acquired the CEP operation of Sidney Maas at Tilleda, Wisconsin where syrup was made on two 6’ x 16’ Vermont Evaporator Company boiling rigs.
Left to Right, Adin Reynolds, Lynn Reynolds, Juan Reynolds, and Bob Lamb in front of a large oil-fired evaporator at Reynolds Sugar Bush, circa 1960. Source: Adirondack Experience P071388.
Reynolds converted these from wood to oil and now all the CEPs under Reynolds control were fired with fuel oil. Since those plants relied on sap from the forests of sap providers, Reynolds did not have a ready supply of wood to burn.[16] The sap input was further increased at these plants and by 1964, Reynolds Sugar Bush was making syrup from sap coming in from over 100,000 taps.[17] The Reynolds’ confidence was clearly very high by this time, so much so that in 1961 Adin made the claim that the output from sugarbushes in the Aniwa area could outproduce any comparable area in Vermont![18]
The third maple syrup operation purchased by Reynolds Sugar Bush in the 1960s was in Kingsley, Michigan a short distance south of Traverse City. The Kingsley plant was opened in 1962 by General Foods who wanted to improve their access to maple syrup in an area relatively close to their Chicago bottling facility. Identifying Kingsley as an area with an abundance of maple trees and a local agricultural population that was largely without work in the spring months, General Foods leased an old pickle factory in town, engineered a sap boiling facility, installed four 6’ x 18’ oil fired, stainless steel evaporators, and operated it as a CEP from purchased sap. To assist and encourage the new sap producers to acquire tapping equipment, General Foods purchased large quantities of spiles and buckets to supplement the limited local supply and arranged a loan program with a local bank to finance producers.[19] By 1964, the Kingsley plant was making syrup from 65,000 taps.[20] Despite the size of the operation, its engineering was more complicated than it needed to be, and it was not running as smoothly as General Foods had envisioned. Having an existing relationship with Reynolds Sugar Bush and a familiarity with their other successful plants, in 1966 General Foods sold the plant to Reynolds Sugar Bush for next to nothing with the condition that all the syrup produced by the plant be sold to General Foods.[21] Reynolds operated the Kingsley plant as one of their satellite CEPs until the 1970s when interest in sap selling in the area fell to unmanageably low numbers and the plant was closed.[22]
Reynolds’ sales booth at Wisconsin State Fair, early 1960s. Left to Right, Geraldine Reynolds, Juan Reynolds, unnamed Alice in Dairyland, Adin Reynolds. Source: Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association.
Always looking for new ways to expand and promote the maple syrup industry and Reynolds Sugar Bush, Adin and family often hit the road in the summer, setting up sales and display booths at state fairs and festivals, and giving industry talks around the Midwest. Before the Wisconsin State Maple Syrup Producers’ Association (WMSPA) took over the responsibility in the 1990s, the Reynolds’ 100-foot by 40-foot display was the primary promotional booth for maple syrup at the Wisconsin State Fair.[23]
Color photo postcard of Reynolds Sugar Bush gift shop “The Sugar House,” circa 1965. Source: collections of author.
Reynolds even erected “The Sugar House” a roadside gift shop along Highway 45 targeted at tourist traffic travelling between Milwaukee and Chicago and the woods and lake country of northern Wisconsin.
One of Adin Reynolds most popular ideas for promoting the maple industry was an annual pancake breakfast and maple festival. Starting in 1950 with around 1000 visitors, every spring for over forty years, thousands of people descended on the Reynolds farm to celebrate the state’s maple syrup industry while enjoying a pancake breakfast, seeing what was new in maple syrup production, and finding out who made the state’s best maple syrup that year. In 1956 the WMSPA came on board to help and the festival grew to as many as 5000 attendees.[24]
Lynn Reynolds operating the pancake machine at the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Festival held at the Reynolds Sugar Bush each May. Source: Appleton, WI Post Crescent, May 29, 1966.
Visitors were treated to maple syrup themed exhibits and speakers, live entertainment, and served an all you can eat pancake breakfast. Pancakes were cranked out on an assembly line with a pancake making machine designed by Adin called the “pancake depositor” that poured the batter for 24 pancakes at a time onto a griddle.[25] Maple producers entered their best syrup from the year for judging, competing for the honor of receiving the golden sap pail or golden sap spout. For 45 years the Wisconsin maple syrup festival continued to be held at Reynolds Sugar Bush through 1995 when it moved to Merrill and became the responsibility of the WMSPA.[26]
Patent drawing for Adin Reynolds’ Sap Sak. US patent No. 3,304,654. Source: US Patent and Trademark Office Website.
By the mid to late 1960s, all four plants operated by Reynolds Sugar Bush combined were processing over 1200 gallons of sap an hour on a dozen large evaporators from sap gathered from over 200,000 taps.[27] Adin had even earned a patent for his invention of a simple and economical hanger for disposable plastic sap bags, called the Sap Sak.[28] Without question, as emphasized with Adin’s 1965 television appearance on To Tell the Truth, Reynolds Sugar Bush had become the largest maple syrup making operation in the world.[29]
Although he was operating far from the maple syrup heartland, industry leaders in the North American Maple Syrup Council (NAMSC), recognizing the significance of Adin Reynolds’ influence and leadership, electing him Council Vice President in 1963 and President in 1965.[30] Reynolds were strong proponents for research and bringing together the US and Canada sides of the industry in addressing maple issues important to both countries. Putting those views to action, Adin was instrumental in helping organize the International Maple Syrup Institute (IMSI), a group focused on developing markets for the maple industry. Adin Reynolds served as the IMSI’s second president from 1976 to 1977 and on its Board of Directors from 1980 to 1984.
Lynn Reynolds, past President and Executive Director or the IMSI. Source: Back cover of Reynolds’ book – Reynolds, Maple and History – Fit for Kings.
Sons Juan Reynolds and Lynn Reynolds were as equally engaged as their father and continued his legacy of leadership with Juan an IMSI Board member from 1985 to 1997 and President in 1990 and Lynn an IMSI President from 1993 to 1995 and Executive Director from 1995 until his death in 1998. Lynn also served in a series of roles as NAMSC secretary, then Vice President and President from 1989 to 1993.[31] The IMSI established a Lynn Reynolds Memorial Leadership Award in 1999 to recognize the outstanding leadership of individuals in support of the international maple syrup industry.[32]
Adin Reynolds receiving recognition award from Dean of College of Agriculture in 1982, surrounded by other recipients of recognition. Source: Archives of the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture.
Adin retired from running Reynolds Sugar Bush in 1979 and turned over the leadership of the company to his son Juan. With retirement, Adin was given the highest honor by the maple syrup industry when he was chosen as the fifth inductee for the North American Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame. In 1982 he was one of five men recognized by the University of Wisconsin for his contribution to agriculture and quality of life in Wisconsin by the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[33] Adin passed away in 1987 as the age of 82. Following in his father’s footsteps, Lynn Reynolds was inducted into the Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame in 1995 as the forty-second inductee.[34]
Juan Reynolds testing sugar content of maple syrup. Source: Milwaukee Journal – April 11, 1977.
In the 1980s changing markets and an increased difficulty in finding seasonal labor pushed Reynolds Sugar Bush to scale back its sap buying and syrup production to making syrup at only one plant at their original location on the farm north of Aniwa.[35] Rapid growth in syrup production out of Quebec and lowering syrup prices became too difficult to compete with, leading to the loss of two of their biggest clients on the west coast. Eventually the losses became too great for Reynolds Sugar Bush and in 1991 they were forced to liquidate many of their assets, including their sugarbush, and resize and restructure the company as part of bankruptcy proceedings.[36] Around this time, two of their largest sap providers decided to make their own syrup leaving Reynolds Sugar Bush with too little sap coming in to effectively make syrup in a plant of their size. With reorganization and a limited sap supply, syrup production came to an end for Reynolds Sugar Bush, although equipment sales continued.
Jay Reynolds collecting sap from Sap Sak Source: Milwaukee Journal March 31, 1981.
Operation of the company was put in the hands of Juan’s and Lynn’s children, the next generation of Reynolds, and Juan and Lynn Reynolds moved into retirement, although neither was especially idle when it came to helping with the family business or the involvement in industry associations. Lynn Reynolds carried on with his efforts as a representative and advocate for the industry in North America until his death in 1998 and Juan remained a hands-on advisor to the family business until his passing in 2008.[37]
Appearance of Reynolds Sugar Bush boiling plant when it was no longer operational in 2002. Photo by author.
With the Reynolds’ leadership and the foundation they helped lay, Wisconsin maple syrup producers went from being a minor contributor in the maple syrup industry to one of the leading states.[38] Reynolds own production numbers were undeniably significant, as was their influence as sap buyers, equipment sellers, and syrup brokers. Adin Reynolds succeeded in establishing a collaborative maple syrup production process based on the modern creamery that made sense in a dairy state like Wisconsin. Attempts at making syrup from purchased sap in the Northeastern United States and adjacent Canada have never been embraced the way it was in Wisconsin, possibly a result of the CEP production model being a significant departure and challenge to traditional ideas of syrup making. However, as one of the lead federal maple syrup researchers described it, “the current trend toward central evaporator plants has marked a new era in the maple industry.”[39] During the height of Reynolds Sugar Bush, Wisconsin moved from being the eighth ranked maple syrup producing state in 1930 to fifth in 1940 and 1950, to third in 1960, behind Vermont and New York where it more or less hovered for the next three decades.[40] Unfortunately for the Reynolds, the industry and markets shifted more rapidly than they were able to adjust and they could not maintain the same operation as they had in the past. Change came, as it always does, and it cost them but not before the Reynolds family and Reynolds Sugar Bush left their mark and put Wisconsin maple syrup making on the map.
Acknowledgements: Financial assistance for completion of the research for this article was provided in part by a McIntire-Stennis Program grant from the United States Department of Agriculture as part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral dissertation research of the author. Special thanks to Anne Reynolds for her support and assistance with this research.
Additional posts on this website related to the Reynolds Sugar Bush can be found at these links:
[3] Matthew M. Thomas, Where the Forest Meets the Farm: A Comparison of Spatial and Historical Change in the Euro-American and American Indian Maple Production Landscape PhD dissertation, (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004).
[4] Reynolds would continue to sell for the Vermont Evaporator Company for the lifetime of that company, which was sold to the Leader Evaporator Company in 1972. Reynolds Sugar Bush then carried Leader brands for the remaining years of their equipment sales business. Reynolds, Reynolds, 359.
[5] Ibid, page number; Juan Reynolds, personal interview with author, 31 July 2002.
[8] Juan Reynolds, interviewed by the author, July 31, 2002, Aniwa, WI; Reynolds, 371.
[9] Matthew M. Thomas, “The Central Evaporator Plant in Wis. Maple History,” Wisconsin Maple News 21, no. 2 (2005): 10.
[10] “Favor Central Boiling Plant: State Speaker Says Maple Syrup Should be Made Like Creamery Butter,” Chippewa Herald Telegram, December 2, 1931; Peter Dale Weber, “Wisconsin Maple Products: Production and Marketing”, Wisconsin State Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 335 (Madison, WI, 1956), 37.
[11] “Maple Syrup Plant is now in Operation at Antigo; Sap Delivered from 40 Groves,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 27, 1934; “Maple Syrup Season Near in Wisconsin: Langlade County Center of Production in Wisconsin,” Kenosha Evening News, February 26, 1936; Weber, 25-27.
[12] Jerry -Apps, Cheese: The Making of a Wisconsin Tradition (Amherst, WI: Amherst Press, 1998); Loyal Durand, Jr., “The Migration of Cheese Manufacture in the United States,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 42, no. 2 (1952): 263-282; C.O. Willits and Claude H. Hills, Maple Sirup Producers Manual. Agriculture Handbook No. 134. (Washington, DC: USDA Agricultural Research Service, slightly revised July 1976), 116-117; Juan Reynolds, personal interview with author, 31 July 2002.
[13]Thomas, “Central Evaporator Plant in Wis.”; J.C. Kissinger, Lloyd Sipple, and C.O. Willits, “Maple Sap Delivered to a Central Evaporation Plant – A Progress Report,” Maple Syrup Digest 3, no3 (1964): 8-10.
[14] Juan Reynolds, interviewed by the author, September 19, 2002, Aniwa, WI.
[15] Reynolds, 398-400; “A Sticky Situation: Maple Syrup Providers Can’t Satisfy Demand,” Wall Street Journal June 23, 1967; “Log Cabin Syrup Maker Cuts Maple Use From 3% to 2%,” Pittsburgh Press, January 15, 1979; Juan Reynolds, interviewed by the author, July 31, 2002, Aniwa, WI; Prior to Reynolds, Sherman Holbert in Minnesota had a syrup contract with General Foods in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Matthew M. Thomas, “Short and Sweet: Sherman Holbert’s Mid-Century Mille Lacs Lake Maple Syrup Experiment,” Minnesota History 66 no. 2 (2018): 66-73.
[16] “They stick to syrup: Four-generation operation near Antigo,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, April 5, 1964.
[17] The Tilleda and Polar plants were closed in the1970s when sap prices were too low to continue operation. The Polar plant equipment and facility were sold in pieces and the Tilleda plant was sold back to Sidney Maas. Maas later sold the Tilleda plant to Wagner’s Sugarbush out of Peshtigo who still run the plant as part of their large syrup making operation. Reynolds, 425, 434; Lloyd Sipple, “National Council News,” Maple Syrup Digest 5, no. 4 (1966): 4-6.
[18] “Sweet Challenge for Tree-Tappers in Vermont Given,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, April 3, 1961.
[19] “Sap Goes to Market,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, April 13, 1962; “Streamlined Syrup Operations at Kingsley,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, May 27, 1962.
[20] “Sap Will Flow in U.P., But Not Into Bank,” Escanaba Daily Press, March 1, 1965.
[21] “Reynolds Sugarbush, Inc. of Aniwa, Wisconsin, announces the purchases of General Foods of Kingsley,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, February 21, 1967.
[23] Ibid., 412-413; Adin Reynolds, “Wisconsin Promotes Maple,” Maple Syrup Digest 7, no. 4 (1968): 6-7; “Buckets Fulla dollars: Maple Syrup is Called Bonanza Bet in Peninsula,” Escanaba Daily Press, February 19, 1964; “Local Residents not Utilizing Maple Trees to Fullest for Maple Syrup,” Bedford Daily Times (Bedford, IN), January 9, 1964; “Area Maple Syrup Potential Said Untapped,” Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, MN), February 5, 1965.
[24] Reynolds, 372-373; “1st Maple Syrup Festival Sunday,” Milwaukee Sentinel Extra May 26, 1956, 6; “Maple Syrup Festival Draws Large Turnout,” Wausau Daily Herald, May 23, 1960; “Maple Syrup Promotion in Wisconsin,” National Maple Syrup Digest 3, no. 3 (1964): 7; “Despite Weather, 3,000 Attend Maple Syrup Festival,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, May 27, 1968.
[25] “Flapjack Assembly Line in Production Today in Aniwa,” The Post Crescent Sun, May 29, 1966.
[26] Reynolds Sugar Bush even took their pancake making assembly line on the road. For about 10 years in the 1950s and 60s they provided pancake making services at festivals around the Midwest, while selling their syrup to the visitors. Reynolds, 402.
[27] “Staid Maple Syrup Industry Goes Modern,” Post Crescent (Appleton, WI), April 16, 1967; “Sugar Moon Season,” Wausau Daily Herald, April 21, 1972.
[28] Adin C. Reynolds, Device for Collecting Pourable Materials, US Patent 3304654, issued February 21, 1967.
[29] With an operation of over 200,000 taps by the mid-1960s Reynolds Sugar Bush was unquestionably the largest in the world. Interestingly, as early as 1954 there were those that were describing Reynolds as the world’s largest. “Dr. and Mrs. R.C. Dygert…,” Argos Reflector (Argos, IN), September 16, 1954.
[30] Adin Reynolds, “Council,” National Maple Syrup Digest 4, no. 4 (1965): 5.
[31] “State syrup maker will guide council,” The Country Today, October 30, 1991.
[32] The North American Maple Syrup Council began life in 1959 as the National Maple Syrup Council with a particular focus on advancing and improving the United States maple syrup industry with a special focus on supporting research. It changed its names from National to North American in 1973 to expand its scope and integrate the views and needs of the entire maple industry in both the United States and Canada. “Brief History of the Development of the North American Maple Syrup Council” North America Maple Syrup Council website accessed at http://northamericanmaple.org/index.php/history-of-namsc/.
[33] “UW to honor Adin Reynolds,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 12, 1982.
[34] “Adin Reynolds,” Wausau Daily Herald, December 15, 1987; “Lynn Reynolds Joins Maple Syrup Hall of Fame,” Post Crescent (Appleton, WI) June 4, 1995.
[35] “Snow perks up morale at Reynolds’ Sugarbush,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 18, 1983; “It must be spring, steam is rising in maple country,” The Country Today, April 5, 1984.
[36] “Syrup producer files bankruptcy,” Capital Times, March 27, 1991; Melissa lake, “Price war sours syrup business,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 26, 1991; “Maple syrup maker battles Quebec prices: Reynolds Sugar Bush is largest independent firm,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 18, 1992.
[37] “Lynn H. Reynolds,” Post Crescent (Appleton, WI), September 1, 1998; “In Memorium: Juan L. Reynolds,” Maple Syrup Digest 20A, no. 2 (2008): 38.
[38] “Maple Syrup Promotion in Wisconsin,” Maple Syrup Digest vol 3, no. 4, October 1954: 7.
[40] Gary Graham, Maple Syrup Production Statistics: An Updated Report to the North American Maple Syrup Council (Ohio State University Extension, October 2016); “Maple Syrup Production in State Hits High: Wisconsin Jumps from Fifth to Third in Nation”, AppletonPost Crescent, May 26, 1961. In the 2000s the state of Maine, with strong connections to neighboring Quebec, greatly increased its maple syrup product such that it is now the number two or three producing state behind perpetual leaders Vermont and sometimes New York state. Wisconsin has been bumped to a rank of fourth or fifth depending on the year.
As part of the Dominion & Grimm maple syrup equipment manufacturing company’s Virtual Spring Event, they have put together and shared a great video tracing their origins and history. You can see the video in English at the Youtube link below. There is also a French version available at this link.
It is with great pleasure that this website has been given permission to share an English translation of an interesting and important article tracing the role of Cyrille Vaillancourt and the Georges L’Hoir Company in the manufacturing and adoption of aluminum sap collection pails and the effort to eliminate lead from maple syrup in Quebec.
The original article, written in French by Quebec historian Pierre Prévost, appeared in the Winter 2018 edition (Volume 30, No. 1) of Au fil des ans, Revue de la Société historique de Bellechasse (the Journal of the Bellechasse Historical Society). You can view the original article in French on pages 23 to 28 at this link. For those interested in Quebec maple history, the Winter 2018 edition of this journal contains many other articles, all in French, related to the history of the maple syrup industry in the regional county municipality of Bellechasse, Quebec.
Many thanks to the author, Pierre Prévost, to the President of la Société historique de Bellechasse, and to the editor of the journal for agreeing to my request to translate and share the article on this website.
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L’Hoir Comes to the Aid of the Sugarmakers
By Pierre Prévost
Au fil des ans, Revue de la Société historique de Bellechasse (Winter 2018) Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 23-28.
On April 10, 1936, American customs officers blocked three wagons of maple products shipped by the Quebec maple sugar Cooperative. Lead contamination is involved, the heavy and toxic metal that causes dreaded effects on the nervous system. Research performed in Vermont a few months earlier indicated the presence of lead in sap collected from maple trees. Since this observation, federal inspectors are vigilant and strict.
Americans want quality
Since 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act prohibited the sale of contaminated food on American soil. Americans had been burned in the 1920s by Canadian maple sugar that was often of poor quality and in which was sometimes found oat bran, brown sugar, and even pebbles. The minister of Agriculture of the time, Joseph Edouard Caron, then appointed Cyrille Vaillancourt to organize Quebec maple syrup producers and promote the production of quality sugar and syrup. On May 2, 1925, the “Cooperative of Quebec maple sugar producers” was born and a campaign to educate the maple industry was in full swing. In the fall of 1928, Plessisville located at the center of the maple syrup region, became home to the packaging and processing factory. Vaillancourt brought the maple industry to a level never before seen, and in the 1930s even managed to break the monopoly on purchasing Quebec syrup held by American George Cary. This time the problem is quite different and Vaillancourt must remedy it.
Cyrille Vaillancourt, 1946. Source: Historical Society of Alphonse- Gardens.
The chemists of the Plessisville laboratories do not give up. They find the presence of lead in the shipped syrup and, powerless, appeal to their colleagues from all walks of life. They get the support of Elphège Bois, director of the Department of Biochemistry at Laval University, who, after some experiments, manages to solidify the lead and extract it from the unsaleable syrup. The seized cargo is subjected to the treatment and the purified syrup is allowed to proceed Chicago.
However, the problem of contamination with lead oxides is found to occur in the early stages of maple syrup production, a bitter conclusion of the chemists from Plessisville. Lead is likely entering syrup from the collection and storage of sap. Spiles, sap pails, evaporation equipment, transport containers and tanks are targeted, because tinned iron and solder release a tiny amount of heavy metal when in contact with maple sap and syrup, which are acidic in nature, with a pH between 3.4 to 6.6. Aluminum would be the ideal replacement material but is too expensive for maple syrup producers. The main concern of Cyrille Vaillancourt, the manager of the maple sugar cooperative is to find a manufacturer capable of producing good quality aluminum buckets with a two-gallon capacity.
In a random conversation, Cyrille Vaillancourt hears about the director of a specialized stainless-steel factory located in Liège, Belgium. There was a big report in the news a few years earlier about Professor Auguste Picard who was the first researcher to access the remotest part of Earth’s atmosphere. In the meantime, with a restructuring of the Food and Drug Administration in 1938, Washington was tightening its control of food in the United States.
The expertise of L’Hoir
Auguste Piccard pose in front of the sphere manufactured at L’Hoir. This inventor is known to be one of inspirations for the author Hergé’s character of the teacher Sunflower. Source: Federal Archives of Germany.
Originally from Switzerland, Auguste Piccard (1884-1962) became an expert in physics and went to university in Brussels to teach. In 1929, Piccard submitted a daring project to the national scientific research fund recently founded by King Albert. Seduced by the idea of exploring the stratosphere in a balloon, the organization granted him the 400,000 Belgian francs required for the experimental manned flight in the upper atmosphere. Piccard needed a lightweight sphere made from a sufficiently robust aluminum that could withstand an environment where the pressure is only a tenth of that measured on the ground.
Piccard went to meet Georges L’Hoir, who then ran a beer can manufacturing factory in Angleur, on the outskirts of Liège, the cradle of the zinc industry and a former world capital of the steel industry. L’Hoir saw no problem with the request despite not knowing what the 2.1 meters in diameter and 3.5 millimeters thick sphere was intended for. This sphere will become the pride of L’Hoir and will help spread their notoriety throughout the world. “This is the first time that we’ve make a beer barrel in this shape! “(Reply by Georges-Armand L’Hoir to Auguste Piccard)
A first test set for September 14, 1930 was postponed due to adverse weather conditions. Early on the morning of May 27, 1931, near Augsburg, Germany, Auguste Piccard, assisted by engineer Paul Kipfer, took off inside the aluminum capsule supported by a balloon that had to expand to a diameter of 30 meters.
Ascending at the rate of half a kilometer a minute allowed him to realize the first pressurized flight while climbing to 15,781 meters, a height never previously reached by a living being and the first of a series of world records assigned to Piccard. Despite some pitfalls, the crew travelled 1,800 kilometers and finally landing on a glacier in Austria, before the reserves of oxygen ran out. Their return to civilization was triumphant and the news toured the globe.
Auguste Piccard returned to Georges L’Hoir’s factory to have a second, improved version of the capsule manufactured: the first having been battered by the squalls of wind during its second test, its tightness was no longer insured. On August 18, 1932, Piccard rose again into the stratosphere, this time with the Belgian engineer Max Cosyns. They reached 16,940 meters altitude.
Georges-Armand L’Hoir in Canada
Portrait of Georges-Armand L’Hoir. Source: Society for the History of Lévis.
The exploits of Professor Piccard caused a sensation on all continents and the notoriety of Georges L’Hoir followed in their wake. Cyrille Vaillancourt had found the man for the job to supply millions of revolutionary sap pails. He communicates with the Belgian manufacturer to let him know what he is seeking and sends him samples. A few weeks pass, other samples come back with a written proposal then they wait. To their surprise, in May, Georges-Armand L’Hoir arrives in Lévis, a few days before the royal couple, and knocks on Cyril’s Vaillancourt’s door. It is not L’Hoir’s first visit to American soil, since he monitored the production of buses intended for Belgian government during the Great War. On this trip he wanted to come back to America to establish a new factory. It is said that he was courted by the citizens of Kitchener, Ontario who were ready to build him a factory to accommodate his machinery. The ball was now in the camp of the people of Lévis, and Vaillancourt, administrator of the Caisse populaire de Lévis, worked out some scenarios.
Note: Lévis is a city in eastern Quebec, Canada, located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, opposite Quebec City. A caisse populaire in Quebec is most similar to a what is called a credit union in the United States.
With the support of his counterpart Valmore de Billy, president of the Caisse de Lévis, Cyrille Vaillancourt submits a proposal to his colleagues to build a factory for the production of aluminum sap pails in Lévis. The credit committee deliberates and considers two financing scenarios for this project: either a group of citizens endorses Georges-Armand L’Hoir for a loan of up to $ 20,000; or the Caisse builds the factory at its own expense and L’Hoir would rent the facility at cost plus 5% interest. The leaders of the Caisse choose the second option considering that L’Hoir is a recognized industrialist, who has a strong credit rating with banks in Belgium and France, and on the condition that he agrees to stay in Lévis if he wants to expand his factory. A disbursement up to up to $ 20,000 is allowed for the construction of a factory of about 180 feet by 40 situated on reclaimed land by the river, a little downstream from Hadlow Cove. L’Hoir will have to pay monthly rent while the Maple Syrup Cooperative guarantees the purchase of all the sap pails as long as their price and quality are maintained.
Around 1960, these ladies work to complete the assembly and the polishing of aluminum spiles. Source: Company History of Lévis.
The idea of living in a traditional Quebec house that was the birthplace of the poet Louis Frechette quickly seduced the Belgian industrialist. A factory built behind the attractive house would benefit from a dock and access to the Canadian National Railway. Georges-Armand L’Hoir probably made the best choice since a highly militarized Nazi Germany was threating Liège which is only a few away kilometers from the border with Germany.
The Lévis plant is ready to open in the fall of 1939, when the German troops invade Poland, an act which leads to the declaration of war. The metallurgist and his family in retreat from Europe, settled in to their new Quebec home, while the factory receives machining tools and await the arrival of aluminum.
A vast replacement operation
Everything is in place to produce sap pails intended for Quebec maple syrup producers. However, aluminum is scarce since the aeronautical industry requires huge amounts of the white metal for the war effort. This situation goes against the views of Adélard Godbout, the newly elected Liberal Minister who was recently elected in solidarity with Ottawa Liberals who supported the war effort but did not advocate for conscription.
An agronomist by training, Adélard Godbout campaigns for the promotion of trade between Quebec and the United States. To this end, he negotiates with the federal government and the Aluminum Company of Canada (ALCAN) to allow a meager but sufficient share of the aluminum for the L’Hoir plant to meet the demands for new sap pails. Using his influence in Ottawa, the prime minister facilitates a temporary supply which, without it, the L’Hoir factory would have to close its doors. Production at the factory is vital for soldiers since it manufactures military containers, among other things. Almost two years have passed since the American embargo on Canadian maple products when, in 1940, Godbout established a trade delegation from the provincial general assembly to New York to promote and highlight Quebec products.
The next three images show the evolution of the L’Hoir factory originally built in 1939 in the backfilled land, enlarged towards the west in 1940 with a serrated roof to let in natural light, then again in 1950. Source: Historical Society of Lévis.
Aerial view of the L’Hoir factory, after 1950. Source: Historical Society of Lévis.
The country waits in vain for the end of rationing on metals. In the September 1940 edition of the publication L’Abeille et l’erable, Cyrille Vaillancourt announces that the metal controller in Ottawa has rationed 400,000 sap pails to be available for the spring season of 1941. At this rate, he would not see the end of the replacement operation. Vaillancourt had reached an agreement with the two governments to subsidize the cost of the pail replacement program being administered by the Cooperative. The producers must turn in their old sap pails and pay a third of the cost of the new pails with the federal and provincial governments each picking up a third of the remaining cost.
In December 1942, the L’Hoir company obtains a letters patent, and forms a corporation under the name “Les Produits en Aluminium et Acier Inoxydable L’Hoir Inc.” to “manufacture, buy, sell, and import all kinds of products, articles, and merchandise in metal and conduct trade in general and in particular engage in transactions directly or indirectly, to industry or commerce, for objects manufactured from aluminum or stainless steel”. In 1943, Vaillancourt obtains a better position to affect the supply when he became and advisor to the wartime price commission.
When the war is over, aluminum becomes abundant again and industry experiences unexpected economic growth. The L’Hoir factory continues to produce maple syrup equipment as well as lightweight saucepans that are popular with housewives. However, their founder dies in 1948, leaving his son Georges in charge of the company.
During the 1950s, larger and larger objects are coming out of the factory. The factory produces tanks of all kinds and shapes, fixed and mobile, that are intended for different liquids, such as alcoholic beverages, dairy products, vinegars, and other food products. In the case of sap pails, the replacement program comes to an end in March 1960. In all, about 18 million sap pails were made at L’Hoir, before plastic begins to see increased use in the maple industry.
In 1984, the company experienced difficulties and was sold in a last-ditch attempt to save it from bankruptcy. Ultimately, the factory closed its doors and looked for a new tenant and use. The house where Louis Fréchette was born remains uninhabited since 1985 and its fate remains uncertain. On November 11, 2000, Georges L’Hoir died at the Hôtel-Dieu in Lévis. His factory was demolished a few years later and the sale of the property remains unfinished. Ironically, Georges L’Hoir’s Belgian factory in Angleur, near the center of Liège, still partly exists, and is currently occupied by Drytec, a pneumatic industrial company.
“Our home was not precisely rich, but its relative elegance contrasted with most other houses in the neighborhood. I still see her in her frame of old hairy elms, with its green shutters, on a white background, its veranda, and its vegetable garden. “(Louis-Honoré Fréchette)
Thanks to L’Hoir’s expertise, maple products have seen a significant reduction in lead contamination. Since that time, the lead content in maple syrup made in Quebec is tested. If the concentration is too high, above 250 parts per billion, the maple syrup is destroyed. Aluminum sap pails are now antiques. Nevertheless, they are still widely used and recognized by almost any Quebecer whether they are being used for maple syrup or not.
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Pierre Prévost is vice-president of la Société historique de Bellechasse and carpenter-joiner. (Photography : Marie-Josée Deschênes, 2017.)
The Maple Syrup History website is pleased to share the following guest contributor post.
By Brenda Battel
The Battel family has produced maple syrup on its Michigan centennial farm since 1882. That’s when George Battel came from Ontario to settle 80 acres of land that he had purchased from a lumber company. The farm is located six miles northeast of Cass City, Tuscola County, MI.
George Battel stands near the iron kettle he used to boil sap over an open fire. He was the first of six generations to make syrup on the family farm.
In 1882, much of the land in Michigan’s “Thumb Area” was no longer of use to the lumber companies. The Great Fire of 1881 swept through Tuscola and surrounding counties in early September. More than a million acres burned. Hundreds died. Thousands were left destitute. It was the first official disaster that the American Red Cross responded to.
On the future site of the Battel farm, the fire spared a ten-acre grove of sugar maple and beech trees. This is where, six generations later, the family continues the tradition that George started in 1882.
Syrup in the early decades was produced for personal consumption. In the late 1920s, George’s sons (John, George and Daniel) started selling syrup commercially. It sold for $1 a gallon during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The brothers produced 75 to 100 gallons of syrup each spring.
Bob Battel taps a maple tree on the family’s’ syrup farm.
Every generation since has carried on the tradition: the Arthur Battel family (third generation), the Mark Battel family (fourth generation), and the Bob Battel family (5th generation). That includes Bob’s daughters (sixth generation). There are currently three generations working together in the family business: Mark and his wife, Diane; son Bob; his daughters, Addy and Dori; and their mom, Sue.
Bob says he feels a connection to his ancestors every spring.
“You kind of relate with what they did,” Bob said. “Each spring you look forward to the season starting. I’m sure George did too — and John and Dan and Art… You kind of feel connected to the ancestors in the end of February and beginning of March.”
Not only has the current price increased from $1 to $54 per gallon, but production has doubled since the Battel brothers started selling syrup in the 1920s. This is due to technology and efficiency — which are welcome improvements considering the amount of manual labor the task of making syrup entailed in the past.
Technology also allows the farm to be a family operation. Because of tubing, reverse osmosis and an evaporator upgrade, the Battels do not need to hire anyone outside of the family.
“(Production) depends a lot on the weather during the season,” Mark said. Below freezing temperatures at night and warmer days allow for optimum sap flow.
He said that in the early years of the commercial operation, the entire woods didn’t always get tapped. A tree must be tapped in order to harvest sap. A small hole is drilled into the tree so that the sap can flow through a spile, which is placed inside the hole. For more than a century, buckets were hung from the spiles to collect sap.
Twenty years ago, the family invested in a tubing and pump system, which eliminated buckets. Tubes are connected to the spiles. Tubes carry the sap through the woods to a pump station, which creates a vacuum. The sap is pumped into a holding tank near the sugar shack, where it is boiled into syrup. The tubing/pump system allows the Battels to harvest sap from smaller trees. Production increased by a third when the tubes were added.
Mark Battel holds a quart of maple syrup made on the family farm.
Prior to installing tubes, there were about 500 taps in the woods. Today, there are 700. The tubing/pump system didn’t just make it possible to tap more trees. It reduced a lot of labor spent gathering sap. Before the tubes were installed, Mark would drive a tractor and wagon through the trails in the woods. All 500 buckets of sap were manually dumped into the holding tank on the wagon.
Bob’s most vivid syrup-making memory is of his grandfather, Art, driving the tractor and wagon through trails in the woods to collect sap from the buckets hanging from the trees.
Seven years ago, the syrup operation, now known as Battel’s Sugarbush, LLC, invested in a reverse osmosis system.
“It takes some of the water out,” Mark said. “So it reduces your boiling time, and it uses less wood — less fuel.”
In 2020, the Battels upgraded the evaporator, which also makes the process more efficient and further reduces boiling time. The evaporator is 3 feet wide and 8 feet long. It preheats the sap. The fire is also hotter due to a fan beneath the evaporator. Another change is that thick steam no longer clouds the sugar shack. The steam goes from the enclosed evaporator directly up the chimney.
One thing hasn’t changed since 1882. It still takes 40 gallons of sap to boil down into one gallon of syrup. But it takes a lot less time today than it did for George 139 years ago. He used an iron kettle over an open fire. Near the very spot where George boiled his syrup sits the modern sugar shack. It houses the evaporator, reverse osmosis system, wood pile and canning station.
Addy Battel cans syrup for her business, County Line Kids Pure Maple Syrup.
When Addy was 12, she won a grant to launch a new syrup business with neighbor and former business partner, Ethan Healy, who was 13. County Line Kids Pure Maple Syrup taps and gathers 100 of the taps on the farm. They boil, can, market and sell 10-15 gallons of syrup each spring. The kids use small, novelty containers for the finished product. The largest size is a pint. County Line Kids splits the profits with Mark, to pay for leasing the trees and using the facility to boil down and can the product.
Addy, now 18, is attending Michigan State University as a third-generation Spartan. Although Addy still helps in the woods, she passed the responsibility for managing County Line Kids to 15-year-old Dori.
“It gives me experience running a business,” Dori said.
She has been involved in managing the business for a couple of years. “I’ve been helping Addy from the start (of County Line Kids),” she said.
Dori is happy to carry on the tradition that George started in 1882. “It shows how committed everyone is,” she said.
Addy is a proud syrup maker as well.
“I’m proud to be the sixth generation in my family to make maple syrup,” Addy said. “Spending springs in the woods with my family watching the woods come to life is a pretty great legacy to be a part of.”
The sugar shack remains popular as ever with Battel kids like Asher, age 12 and Elias, age 11 (Bob’s sons). It is a spot for weenie roasts and family gatherings. The menu includes marshmallows and s’mores. The boys also help maintain the woodpile.
Bob continues the tradition because he enjoys it and it’s fulfilling. “It’s something to share with my kids,” he said.
The syrup season is short. It usually starts in early March, and lasts four to six weeks, depending on the weather. When the nights freeze and the day temperatures are above freezing, the trees are tapped. The season ends when the trees start to bud.
Other Battels involved in syrup making over the generations include: Annie (George’s wife), Bessie (John’s wife/Art’s mother), Lilian (Art’s sister), Marjory (Art’s wife), John (Art’s son) and Margaret (Art’s daughter).
Over the past 139 years, the tradition has required a lot of hard work, dedication and perseverance from six generations of Battels. Nevertheless, sweet memories abound and are cherished by them all.
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Brenda Battel, Mark and Diane’s daughter, is a member of the fifth generation to grow up on the maple syrup farm alongside brother Bob. She is a writer who lives in Cass City, MI, not far from Battel’s Sugar Bush. She can be reached at brendabattel1@gmail.com.
In a short, thought-provoking article published in the fall of 2020, Dr. Brigit Ramsingh examined a moment in Canadian history when maple syrup and nationalism intersected and the ideas and promotion of food purity (versus adulteration) were equated with promoting the national spirit of Canada.
Dr. Ramsingh’s article reminds us, that while we may see maple syrup as benign and free from political association today, foods and other iconic images have often been used as symbols of nativist identity and cultural association. We are reminded that in the past, and maybe even today, there may be meaning and power in the images and associations of maple syrup that are not always evident at first glance.
A new project was recently launched in Vermont to document the many historic sugarhouses that dot the the state’s rural landscape. Be they abandoned, inactive, or currently in use, the project, led by Dori Ross, a maple syrup maker and founder of Tonewood maple products company, is aimed at creating a well-illustrated record of old sugarhouses, and where possible and appropriate, helping share information on preservation tools and funding opportunities for these iconic symbols of the maple syrup industry.
Sugarhouse Vermont website for documenting historic sugarhouses.
A major tool in gathering information on where these sugarhouses are found is on the Sugarhouse Vermont website where sugarhouse owners can fill out an online form to share details and information on the sugarhouse’s location as a prelude to a more intensive photo and written documentation by the project team.
Dori Ross, Sugarhouse Vermont project leader.
In addition to sugarhouse documentation and creating an inventory of old sugarhouses, another long term goal of the project is to publish a photo history book as a tool to preserve and share the story, beauty, and histories of Vermont sugarhouses. I am pleased to be a part of the project team as an advisor and the project historian and I plan to contribute a chapter on the history and evolution of the sugarhouse for the book. In addition to myself and Dori Ross, our project team has the assistance of Sawyer Loftus, an experienced journalist and University of Vermont student made available through the support of the UVM Center for Research on Vermont.
If you own an old or just plain older sugarhouse, or know where a less well known historic sugarhouse is located, please consider contacting us through the information provided at the Sugarhouse Vermont website. You can learn more about the project at the Sugarhouse Vermont website or read and hear more about it in a recent Vermont Public Radio story that aired on April 8, 2021.
The Vermont Historical Society’s journal Vermont History recently published an article I wrote on the origins of plastic tubing for making maple syrup. Specifically titled, “From Pails to Pipelines: The Origins and Early Adoption of Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry,” the article examines the evolution of pipeline and tubing technology for gathering and moving maple sap with special attention to the relationship and interplay of the three men who carried plastic tubing from idea and experiment to commercial reality. The article appears in Volume 89, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2021 and is sent to all members of the Vermont Historical Society.
Unfortunately, since this is the current issue of the Vermont History and is hot off the presses, I am not permitted to share an electronic copy of the article for 6 months. But anyone can join the Vermont Historical Society and get the paper journal mailed to their door as well as online access to all their current and past journals (including this issue), all the while supporting the preservation and sharing of Vermont history.
This fall I will post a PDF copy of this article on this blog, so check back in September to get a copy.
I recently had the honor of doing a joint online presentation about Adirondack maple sugaring with Ivy Gocker, Library Director at the Adirondack Experience – The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake. Specifically, our presentation focused on the history of the maple sugaring operation of Abbot Augustus Low’s Horse Shoe Forestry Company in the Adirondacks 120 years ago.
If you missed it and would like to watch you the program, you are in luck. The Adirondack Museum recorded our ZOOM webinar and has graciously shared it on their website, which you can find at this link or by clicking on the image above. This program was made possible by a partnership between the Adirondack Experience and co-sponsored the Albany Public Library.
The maple syrup industry lost one of its longstanding historians in May with the passing of Wilson “Bill” S. Clark, age 89 of Wells and Pawlet, Vermont. Bill was well known within the maple world for his many leadership and spokesperson roles, including past roles as president of the Rutland County Maple Producers (RCMP), President of the International Maple Syrup Institute, President of the North American Maple Syrup Council, and a 32 year run as president of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association (VMSMA). Amongst a variety of awards and recognition, Bill was also inducted into the Maple Syrup Hall of Fame in 1995. With his connections to and experience with the world of maple syrup, Bill was more than simply interested in maple history, he was a part of making history and understood the importance of recording and preserving that history for future generations.
Bill Clark’s history of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association which appeared in the March 2018 edition of The Vermont Country Sampler.
A Vermont Maple History Timeline compiled by Betty Ann Lockhart and Don Lockhart with substantial contributions by Bill Clark.
Bill Clark’s history of the beginnings of the Vermont Maplerama, which appeared in the 2014 Maplerama program.
At its peak, the General Foods contract had Reynolds Sugar Bush shipping twenty-seven tanker loads (108,000 gallons) of syrup from Aniwa to Chicago. At that time in history, moving this volume of maple syrup out of a midwestern hub rather than New England or Quebec was a significant departure from how the maple industry had traditionally operated. Reynolds continued this contract with General Foods for 20 years until General Foods reduced the amount of maple syrup in their Log Cabin blend from 15% in 1959 to 2% by 1979. After the General Foods Corporation merged with Philip Morris in 1985 the previous contract arrangements were no longer honored and Reynolds Sugar Bush stopped supplying maple syrup to General Foods.
The 
