History of Maple Syrup Cans – Early Examples

Most maple syrup today is packaged into clear glass bottles or plastic jugs, but back in the day when the maple industry was shifting from making mostly maple sugar to maple syrup and maple syrup was being promoted as a condiment to pour over foods, metal cans were the standard method of packaging for direct sale to a consumer.

The manufacture and use of metal cans for preserving and transporting foods and liquids dates back to the early part of the 1800s, but it wasn’t until after the American Civil War that production of metal food canisters became efficient and affordable enough for most food industries to begin to package their products into smaller sizes more convenient for purchase for home consumption. In addition maple sugar was being underpriced by the more popular refined white cane sugar, leading the maple industry to refocus its attention and production on maple syrup as different and unique from table sugar. The industry shift from maple sugar to maple syrup was fairly gradual, but was well on it is way in the 1870s and 1880s.

Advertisement from the 1870s do tell us that merchants were selling maple syrup readily packaged in one gallon and half gallon cans. This ad from the Manchester Journal in 1873 even advertised for “hermetically sealed cans” of maple syrup. We don’t know what these cans looked like, but we can be sure that they were hand made by a tinware maker who rolled or folded the sheet metal into shape and hand soldered all the seams. Suffice to say, many of the hand made cans of the late 1800s are rather crude in form and neatness. Most larger communities had can-makers at this time and it was a slow and laborious process which led many to to try their hands at developing automated can making equipment.

Into the later 1880s, maple syrup – like many liquids bought in larger volumes, such as cooking oil, motor oil, kerosine, paint, turpentine, and gasoline – were settling on packaging their products into tall rectangular metal cans with top handles and a small opening for pouring.

In most cases manufacturers or packers of products, especially those that were shipping their items to non-local markets, pasted a paper label onto one or more  of the flat faces of these rectangular cans. Unfortunately, it is very rare for such labels to survive over a hundred years later and we don’t have many clearly dated examples of maple syrup labels from that time. The  half-gallon tin to the left is a good example of a hand soldered can with a wire handle and a multi-color paper label for Maple Leaf Brand maple syrup from a packer or grocer in Cummington, Massachusetts possibly named Geo. L. Rowell. Unfortunately, I have not found any information about this brand or packer, so it is difficult to put age the can with any certainty, outside of probably being from the 1880s or 1890s.

One very precisely dated can that is labeled pure maple syrup is a Towle & McCormick Log Cabin Pure Maple Syrup can from 1888 or 1889. Towle & McCormick was an early partnership between P.J. Towle and J.A. McCormick that only lasted from early 1888 to April 1889. From that narrow window, we can very tightly date this Log Cabin syrup can. Whether, the very earliest of the Log Cabin syrup sold was actually pure maple syrup remains to be seen. It may have been, but it was probably a blend of maple syrup and corn syrup or cane sugar even then. What is notable about this small can, that was probably a half gallon or quart size, is the heavy gauge wire handle, the upright, rectangular shape, the round pour spout, the soldered seams, and the multi-colored label. I won’t say this was the earliest maple syrup can of this kind for sale to the consumer, but it was among the earliest.

As much as the maple industry loves to hate the Towle Log Cabin syrup company for its history of creatively pushing the limits of implying their syrup had more pure maple syrup in it than it actually had and for out marketing and out selling pure maple syrup, Log Cabin did still buy and sell an incredible amount of maple syrup and in doing so, led the way in packaging and advertising. One of the next best dated examples of the rectangular one gallon syrup can again comes from Log Cabin, this time dating to at least 1893. By this time the Log Cabin company was starting to settle into a style with their colors and logos that would continue for many decades beyond.

The advertisement above from the Seattle Post Intelligencer in November 1893, while not super clear, shows that it was solely the Towle’s Company at this point and the label featured an image of a wood plank framed winter scene of a log cabin with sap pails on the trees in the sugarbush and a man carrying sap to a boiling kettle of maple sap being tending by a women. The can itself has a handle made from a strap of metal rather than a heavy wire like the earlier can.

The photo to the left show a very similar Log Cabin can from roughly the same time ca. 1895, but with a slightly different label. Again this can is hand soldered with a a strap handle. The reason for noting the strap handle is that it is easy to think that the strap handle is a more modern feature of these style cans. The wire handle has an older feel and appearance than the strap handle and it probably did appear earlier.  The strap handle replaced the more flimsy wire handle and has been used much longer as a carrying feature, but it is important to try and find well dated examples like these that show how early strap handles were in use.

In the 1890s, can making became a quicker process making use of both hand finishing with soldering work and machine processing with the cutting, stamping and molding of forms.

1897 Sears Catalog section for maple syrup listing different sizes and prices and illustrating an oblong square or rectangular can with paper label and strap handle.

The Sears catalog of 1897 included an image of a rectangular can of maple syrup with a paper label and what looks like a strap handle. Syrup could be bought by the gallon in bulk or in five gallon cans and one, one-half, and quart sized tins.

1906 advertisement for L. & J.A. Stewart’s square cans for maple syrup producers.

In 1901 there was a major change in the canning manufacturing world in the United States with the formation of the American Can Company. At that time American Can Co. began to buy up many of the larger can making companies and became the main supplier of mass produced cans to the larger food and packaging markets. The maple syrup industry was a bit more of a niche market and, at least in the beginning of the history of American Can Co., the unique rectangular shapes and sizes of syrup cans  were not a target of their consolidation. As a result, local can makers, like L. & J.A. Stewart of Rutland, Vermont, still produced and marketed rectangular or square cans for the maple industry.

Around this time (early 1900s) we start to see rectangular cans with molded square panels on each face, such as with the example to the right from a 1906 Vermont Farm Machine Company catalog.  Companies selling supplies to maple sugar and maple syrup makers started to offer these kinds of unlabeled syrup cans for individual producers, rather than forcing syrup makers to buy cans from the can manufacturers.

The shapes and sizes varied between manufacturers and volumes for different cans. Some were tall and rectangular in cross section, especially the one gallon cans, while others were tall but square in cross section.  Still others were short cubes as illustrated in the image above from a French language Dominion and Grimm catalog from 1908.

As with the appearance of molded or embossed panels on the side of cans in the early 1900s, this period also saw the beginning of embossed text on cans, most commonly with the words “MAPLE SYRUP” on one face for cans sold to be  filled by individuals producers.

Example of soldered seam can with an wire handle and embossed with MAPLE SYRUP on one face.
Example of soldered seam can with strap handle and embossed with MAPLE SYRUP on one face.

In the first decade of the 1900s, can making became increasingly automated and the technology progressed such that by the 19-teens all cans were made using a locking, folded double seams to connect the side panels to the tops and bottoms of the can, providing a safe and leak-proof seal, eliminating the need for the sometimes sloppy and inconsistent quality of hand soldering.

Embossed unlabeled can with associated cardboard shipping box from 1930s Leader Evaporator Company catalog.

Although there were improvements in the kinds and qualities of sheet metals, for the next three decades there was little significant change in can making technology and appearance for metal cans used in packing maple syrup. Square or rectangular unpainted cans continued to be sold with bare metal exteriors to which personalized paper labels with names or brands, grades, and place of origin were glued on by the individual maple producer or packer.

In the 19-teens technology was also perfected to permanently apply color ink to sheet metal. As will be discussed in a following blog post, the Log Cabin syrup company would begin to use this technology by the 1920s, but it would take another couple of decades to take hold among maple syrup producers.

Nineteenth Century Native American Sugaring Photographs

The role of Native Americans is a popular topic to those interested in the broader history of maple sugaring. Since one of the themes of this website is examining and sharing new evidence and studies of maple history, looking at early lines of Native American maple sugaring is always on my radar, in particular, accurate images and representations from the sugarbush.

Seth Eastman 1853 watercolor titled “Indian Sugar Camp”

While there are a number of engravings  from the mid-19th century showing what the artist imagined or was told a Native American sugarbush looked like, these images were not created from real-life experiences or in the field and are often woefully inaccurate. Artist Seth Eastman brought real-world experience to his water color paintings of Native American activities in Minnesota and created a much more realistic scene with a 1853 image of what are probably Dakota people at a sugarbush near Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Unfortunately, we do not know if this image was painted “en plein air” on site, in the moment, or was a facsimile of what Eastman saw and remembered after visiting a sugarbush.

In most cases, the best way to preserve an image of Native American sugaring was through photography. Interestingly, photographs taken in Native American sugarbushes in the 19th century are surprisingly rare. Estimated dates, that are probably decades off, sometimes get assigned to an old looking image that lacks a verifiable date. Because the Western Great Lakes are the area where Native American maple sugaring was most actively being pursued during the time when photographers began to capture Native Americans at work, the best and earliest examples of sugarbush photos come from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

After examining hundreds of photos, the earliest reliably dated photograph of a Native American maple sugaring scene I have come across is an image from Crawford County, Michigan that was published in the First Report of the Directors of the State Forestry Commission of Michigan for the Years 1887 and 1888, published in 1888.

Scene of Crawford County Native American sugaring camp from 1888 Michigan State Forestry Commission report.

The caption in the report reads “Indians making sugar in Crawford County. Three young bear are playing in the foreground.”  and lacks any attribution to a photographer or studio.  The photo appears as a plate between pages 16 and 17 and is not directly connected to any article or text in the Forestry Commission report. We do not known when the Forestry Commission report photo was taken, only that it was published in 1888.

In this image we see three girls, one middle-aged woman standing in front of a rough plank lodge, and one older woman sitting nearby. A pile of folded birch bark sap collection pails is visible to the left of the image along with a large iron boiling kettle suspended on a pole over a fire. In the front center of the image a tapped maple tree is evidence, with a diagonal hatchet cut above a wooden slat tap protruding from the bark and a folded birch bark sap container slightly askew below it. Two of the females stand next to wooden barrels possibly used for the storage of maple sap. A stack of cut poles, possibly for firewood, is in the foreground of the right side of the image. Patches of snow in the woods in the background attest to the spring- time nature of the photo.

Framed photo of Shoppenagon sugaring camp that hangs in the International Maple Museum Centre in Croghan, NY.

Further investigations have discovered that another photograph of this same camp and sugarbush hangs on the wall in a hallway of the International Maple Museum and Centre in Croghan, New York. Fortunately this image has a great deal more information to share about the subject matter and the source of the photo.

Close up view of the Shoppenagon sugar camp photo from International Maple Museum Centre in Croghan, NY.

Donated to the Maple Museum by Michigan State Professor of Forestry Putnam Robbins in 1983, the caption on the label of this image reads:

Like the image described from the 1888 Forestry report, this photo shows the same wood lodge and forest, but from a slightly different angle. This image includes two girls, the daughters Nancy and Mary, one middle age women, Shoppenagon’s wife Irene stirring an iron kettle, and an older women, his mother. Unlike the first image, David Shoppenagon appears seated in the left of the image working on a pole with with a draw knife.

It is an interesting challenge to see what different items, like the kettle, and snow shoes, and wood barrels, that one can recognize in both photos.

David Shoppenagon was a well known Native American figure in the lower peninsula of Michigan in the latter part of the 19th century. Of Ojibwe descent, Shoppenagon was born in the Saginaw Valley in 1809 or 1818 and lived a very long life passing away in 1911. Often referred to as Chief Shoppenagon by the white community, Shoppenagon supposedly never referred to himself as such nor was he known to be a representative of any particular Ojibwe community in Michigan.

Undated studio photo of David Shoppenagon and presumably his wife Irene and one of his daughters. https://michpics.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/grayling-legend-david-shoppenagon/

A historical marker for Shoppogen in Grayling, Michigan, in Crawford County, not far from Frederic Township notes that he settled in the Grayling Michigan area in the 1870s where he trapped, hunted, and served as a well-respected and knowledgeable sportsmen’s guide on the Ausable River and across the lower Peninsula of Michigan.

In later years Shoppenagon appears to have embraced and monetized his local persona even going so far as lending his name and image in full Indian regalia to a local timber company and mill, receiving compensation for his work in promoting their wood products.

The caption attributes the photograph to a glass plate negative originally taken in the late 1860s by Dr. W. Beal, Head of the Botany Department, Michigan Agricultural College. Dr. William J. Beal was one of the earliest botanists at Michigan State University and was the founder of what is now named the Beal Botanical Gardens at MSU, the oldest of its kind in the United States.

I believe the date on the caption stating the image was taken in the late 1860s is incorrect since Beal was away from Michigan at Harvard University for graduate school in the 1860s and didn’t begin working as a professor at Michigan State until 1871. Moreover, Shoppenagon and his family didn’t move from the Saginaw Bay area to Crawford County until 1876.

It is possible, maybe even probable, that the photos of the Shoppenagon sugar camp were taken in the late 1870s or early 1880s, but for now, the oldest we can confidently say those images are is 1888.

Another early photograph of a Native American maple sugar camp was taken by John Munro Longyear, a well-known land surveyor that worked in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the later half of the 19th century. On one visit to the Lac Vieux Desert Ojibwe community he snapped a photograph of the contents of a maple sugaring cache and later preserved the photograph in an album that was dated October 26, 1888.

Photo of maple sugaring cache taken by John M. Longyear and Lac Vieux Desert Ojibwe community. John M. Longyear Library, Marquette, MI.

The Longyear image is an excellent snapshot of the items that were in use and stored from season to season at a Great Lakes Ojibwe sugarbush. One can recognize many iron kettles and pots, snow shoes, birch bark sap pails, reed mats, sheets of rolled-up and reinforced birch bark, and heavier duty sewn birch bark containers.

There are other images in collections and museums that may very well predate the images described here, but a careful investigation and documentation of their source and dating is needed before we should accept any estimate or approximation of the their antiquity. If anyone has a well dated photo of a native American maple sugaring scene as old or older than the images discussed here, please let me know. I would be very happy to share that information on this site.

References

Robert M. Hendershot, “The Legacy of an Ojibwe ‘Lumber Chief’ ” Michigan Historical Review  vol. 29 no. 2 (fall 2003) 40-68.

The History of Paraformaldehyde Use in the Maple Syrup Industry

Like with seeded agricultural crops, maple syrup production, also a plant-based crop, faces the challenges mother nature and the natural environment throw at it.  The challenge has been finding safe and effective methods of overcoming the battle with microorganisms, like bacteria and fungi, that also want to enjoy the sap of a freshly tapped maple tree. Applying pesticides has been a solution in agriculture and food production for eons, and, for better or worse, the maple industry was not spared. Unbeknownst to many, since pesticide use is not allowed today, the previous century was witness to the maple industry working through its own history of finding, embracing, and ultimately abandoning, pesticides in the sugarbush.

In the early 1950s, research began for the development of an antimicrobial application that could be used to slow or eliminate the detrimental effects of microbial growth on sap quality and sap flow at the tap hole of the tree. Researchers at the USDA Northeast Lab, the University of Vermont, Michigan State, and MacDonald College in Ontario all confirmed that the slowing of sap flow, and in some cases stoppage, over the course of the tapping season was in part attributed to the growth of micro-organisms such as yeast and mold at the area of the taphole.  The tap hole was in effect a fresh wound in a tree that emitted sugar rich sap, a welcome environment for microbial growth.

Putnam Robbins demonstrating the insertion of a paraformaldehyde tablet into a tap hole.

Looking for a way to counteract this microbial growth, in 1956 under the direction and funding of C. O. Willits at the USDA’s eastern regional research laboratory, researchers responded with various approaches to tap hole sterilization and improved sanitation. The bulk of the research and development effort was carried out at Michigan State University by forestry professor and maple specialist Putnam Robbins and microbiologist Robert Costilow. Robbins and Costilow experimented with a variety of chemical treatments and methods, eventually settling on trioxymethylene, also known as paraformaldehyde.[1]

Robbins and Costilow found a small pill-like tablet with 250 milligrams of paraformaldehyde embedded in agar to be the simplest and most effect method to administer the chemical at the taphole. Sometimes called PF or PFA pellets, the pellet would be inserted in the fresh drilled tap hole prior to the insertion of the spile, and the agar would slowly dissolve over the course of the season.

Paraformaldehyde tablet going in a freshly drilled tap hole.

Research by Robbins, Costilow and others examined how much PFA residue remained in maple syrup made from PFA treated sap holes.  They found that the overwhelming percent was less than 1 parts per million (ppm) and that 100% of syrup samples tested were less than 2 ppm. Robbins and Costilow began promoting the idea of use of the pellets in 1960 and submitted an application for approval for manufacturing and use to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Paraformaldehyde was registered with the EPA as a pesticide with approval to distribute for use as a disinfectant for bacterial plant pathogens and fungal diseases in maple tree tap holes and went into use for the 1962 maple sugaring season. Formal approval for use began when the tolerance levels were published on February 20, 1962 in the Federal Register under 21 CFR 121.1079. At some point oversight shifted to the EPA and it was moved in 1975 to 21 CFR 123.330 for regulation by the EPA. Based on Robbins and Costilow’ s research, tolerance level for PFA in maple syrup chosen by the FDA was set at not to contain in excess of 2 ppm of PFA. The decision to set the tolerance level at 2 ppm was somewhat controversial, since later studies found naturally occurring levels of PFA being higher than 2 ppm in completely untreated trees, and treated trees showing zero ppm.[2]

1967 advertisement from R. M. Lamb company promoting their sale of the Flomor brand paraformaldehyde tablet.

With PFA being approved for use by the maple industry, three manufacturers were registered to produce the pellets, all three of which were prominent sellers of maple equipment and supplies. Lamb Natural Flow, Inc. of Liverpool, NY made Flomor brand pellets, Sugar Bush Supply Company of Mason, MI made Ma-pel brand pellets, and Reynolds Sugar Bush of Aniwa, WI in conjunction with the Vicksburg Chemical Company of Newark, NJ made Sapflo pellets. A bottle of 500 pellets generally sold for $5.00 at that time.

As hoped, application of PFA pellets to fresh tapholes resulted in substantial increases in sap production over the course of the season with a 20% increase on average and as much as 50% increase in some cases. One pellet manufacturer and large-scale producer even went so far as to say the pellet was “probably the most significant profitability tool that has ever been developed for our industry.”[3]

1967 advertisement from Vicksburg Chemical Company and their partner Reynolds Sugarbush promoting the Sapflo brand paraformaldehyde tablet along with Fermaban and Myverol, their other chemical preservatives for maple syrup and maple confections.

Manufacturers and marketers of the PFA tablets heavily promoted their use in conjunction with the shift to plastic tubing. The projected increases in sap production from the use of PFA pellets together with plastic tubing were enormous and potential game changers. As with plastic tubing, the use of a chemical aid was viewed by some as simply modernization with the aid of science and technology. Some may even say, better living through chemistry, as the Dupont advertising slogan went. In fact, as noted above, one of the three manufacturers of the PFA pellet was Bob Lamb, the maker of Lamb Naturalflow, tubing, who became the most influential manufacturer and promoter of plastic tubing in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.

Advertisement from 1964 for the Ma-pel brand of paraformaldehyde tablets as sold by Bob Huxtable’s Sugar Bush Supplies Company out of Lansing, Michigan.

The pellets were clearly effective in slowing microbial growth and increasing and extending sap flows during the tapping season; however, several researchers and producers recommended against their use due to the adverse effects of the pellets on the short- and long-term health of the trees. In addition, the mere use of the word “formaldehyde” in association with food production was very unpopular with consumers. Combine that with a growing interest by the maple syrup industry in organic production, labelling, and marketing put the use of PFA pellets further out of favor. At the same time, there was strong push-back from some corners within the industry that the pellets were harmless. Not surprisingly support for the use of PFA was especially strong from the large producers and manufacturers of the pellets, most notably from the influential Robert M. Lamb and Reynolds family, with Lynn Reynolds, serving as the President of the International Maple Syrup Institute at the time.[4]

Ultimately, the state of Vermont appears to have been the first government (state, federal, or provincial) to formally ban the use of PFA pellets, reportedly doing so around 1982. It is interesting to note that a number of references make the claim that Vermont led the way with a ban around this time, yet I have been unable to identify and document the regulatory action or Vermont statutes to support this claim and this date. Likewise, I have been unable to find any news reports from that time announcing the action of the State of Vermont. This is not to say that I don’t believe that the State put in a ban of some sort, rather, it is remarkable that it has been so difficult to verify the details and date of that regulatory action.

By the end of the 1980s, two decades of research demonstrating the ill-effects of the pellets on forest health and sugarbush productivity had convinced most producers to discontinue their use. At the federal level in the United States approval for distribution of PF for use in the maple industry was cancelled by the end of 1989, effectively banning its use. In Canada registration for the use of PF expired at the end of 1990, effectively resulting in a ban on its use beginning in 1991.

Banning of the PFA pellet in the United States was specifically carried out in two ways. First through the voluntary cancellation by the registrants of approval to distribute PFA pellets. Approval to distribute had previously been awarded by the EPA to the three companies manufacturing the pellets. In 1986 Reynolds Sugar Bush, Inc. (Sapflo) cancelled their registration, while Lamb Natural Flow, Inc. (Flomor) and Sugar Bush Supply Company (Ma-pel) both cancelled theirs in 1989. In addition, in 1999 the EPA revoked the previously established tolerance level for residues of paraformaldehyde in maple syrup with publication of the revocation as a final rule in the Federal Register.

In Canada the last registered product containing paraformaldehyde for use as an antimicrobial agent in maple syrup expired on December 31, 1990, effectively making its sale, purchase or use illegal after that date. However, a maximum residue limit of 2 ppm of paraformaldehyde in maple syrup remained on the books until a proposed revocation in 2010. From time to time, examples of its continued use have appeared in the news.For example, investigations in Quebec in 2001 discovered continued use of PFA pellets by sugarmakers with evidence of PFA pellets found at 21 of the 50 sugarbushes visited.[5]

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[1] J.M. Sheneman, R. N. Costilow, P.W. Robbins, and J.E. Douglass, “Correlation Between Microbial Populations and Sap Yields From Maple Trees,” Food Research 24 (1958): 152-159.

[2] Putnam W. Robbins, “Improving Quality and Quantity of Maple Sap,” Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on Maple Products, Eastern Research Utilization and Development Division – USDA (1959): 42-46; “New Pellet Can Increase Maple Syrup Yield 50 Pct,” Traverse City Record-Eagle 16 November 1960, 14; R.N. Costilow, P.W. Robbins, R.J. Simmons, C.O. Willits, “The efficiency and practicability of different types of paraformaldehyde pellets for controlling microbial growth in maple tree tapholes,” Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station Quarterly Bulletin 44, no. 3 (1962): 559-79; 40 CFR Part 185.4650.

[3] Lynn Reynolds, “Editorial,” Maple Syrup Digest 1A, no. 1 (1989): 16-17.

[4] A.L. Shigo and F.M. Laing “Some Effects of Paraformaldehyde on Wood Surrounding Tapholes in Sugar Maple Trees,” U.S. Forest Service Research Paper NE-161. (1970); R.S. Walters and A. Shigo, “Paraformaldehyde Treated Tapholes, Effects on Wood,” Maple Syrup Digest (1979) 19 no. 2 (1979): 12–18; M.F. Morselli, “Effects of the Use of Paraformaldehyde Pellets on Sugar Maple Health: A Review,” Maple Syrup Digest 7A, no. 3(1995): 27–30.

[5] “40 CFR parts 180, 185, and 186 – Tolerance Revocations for Certain Pesticides,” Federal Register, Wednesday, April 7, 1999, vol. 64, no. 66, p. 16874-16880; Established Maximum Residue Limit: Paraformaldehyde EMRL2011-05. Health Canada Pest Management Regulatory Agency, March 14, 2011; “Maple-syrup producers sour: Quebec farmers seek federation’s action to curtail use of banned chemical on trees,” The Gazette 18 July 2001.

The Dean of Vermont Maple Syrup – John Rickaby

There are many well known names in the early 20th century history of maple syrup, most often heading manufacturing and packing companies emblazoned with their names such as George C. Cary, George H. Soule, G. H. Grimm, Leader, and True and Blanchard to name a few.  A less well-known, but influential man with a long history in the industry, was John D. Rickaby.

Rickaby spent 46 years, most of his whole adult life, working with maple syrup as a buyer, packer, plant manager, and company owner in Vermont and Massachusetts. Having worked with some of the largest maple syrup packing firms in the country, Rickaby became well-known throughout the maple industry as an experienced and knowledgeable businessman.  So much so, that by the end of his career, the Burlington Free Press referred to him in 1946 as the Dean of the Vermont maple syrup and maple sugar industry.

Born in 1873 in Lyster, Quebec , Rickaby’s family emigrated to St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 1877. Growing up in St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County was home to Rickaby and throughout his career, he was drawn back to the area. Rickaby began his long career as a businessman at a young age when he went to work helping his father with insurance and real estate sales as a teenager. At age 16, Rickaby lost a leg in a sailing accident and left high school after his second year, possibly in connection to the leg injury. Not surprisingly, this injury kept Rickaby out of World War I. At some point as a young man, Rickaby learned how to take notes in shorthand and became a skilled stenographer. He even offered classes as a private shorthand instructor.

Photo of John Rickaby from 1939 Burlington Free Press story.

In the late 1890s and very early 1900s, Rickaby travelled back and forth between St. Johnsbury; Hartford, Connecticut; and Chelsea, Massachusetts working with a variety of different insurance companies. It was in 1902 that his connection to the maple industry began when he settled into a position as stenographer and bookkeeper to George C. Cary in St. Johnsbury. The Cary Company was quickly growing in size and importance as a buyer and packer of maple sugar and maple syrup. In 1904, the Cary Company formally incorporated to become the George C. Cary Maple Sugar Company with John Rickaby listed as clerk. From the very early years of the Cary Company incorporation, Rickaby was a minor stockholder, later becoming a member of the board of directors and eventually elected company vice-president in 1909.

Rickaby was a close confidant of George Cary and while working as the company bookkeeper also served as the real estate broker for many of Cary’s purchases and sales of farms and maple woods in the North Danville area. Rickaby and his wife even stayed on Cary’s Lookout Farm (which Rickaby helped Cary purchase) a few miles from St. Johnsbury one summer before buying two acres of the farm from Cary and building his own summer cottage.

Rickaby’s eight years with the Cary Company paid off, when in 1910 he was selected to be the manager of a new bottling and packing plant to be opened by Towle’s Maple Products Company in St. Johnsbury. The Towle’s Company out of St. Paul, Minnesota was the manufacturer of Log Cabin Syrup, one of the largest buyers and bottlers of pure and blended maple syrup in the world. Leading the expansion and entry of the midwestern company into Vermont and the heart of the maple syrup producing world was a significant recognition of Rickaby’s connections to the Vermont industry and his business acumen.

The arrival of Towle’s Maple Products Company in St. Johnsbury was facilitated by the Cary Company selling their plant on Bay Street and moving to a new location in the old St. Johnsbury Grocery building a block away. When operated by the Cary Company, the primary focus of operations was to receive mostly maple sugar and some maple syrup and reconstitute it into large blocks of maple sugar for sale and shipment to tobacco companies for curing and flavoring tobacco. As a blending and bottling facility for Log Cabin syrups, a few improvements were needed. Under Rickaby’s direction, Towle’s quickly upgraded the facilities, adding steam jacketed kettles, storage tanks, and many feet of piping for filling bottles and the signature log cabin shaped metal cans.

In spite of the apparent success of the St. Johnsbury operations, following the death of company founder, Patrick J.Towle in 1912, the new leadership of the Towle’s company announced in December 1914 they had decided to close the St. Johnsbury plant the following year. Recognizing he was soon to be out of work, Rickaby purchased a share of the New England Maple Syrup Company and took on a new role as the company’s plant manager in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The New England Maple Syrup Company was described by one newspaper in 1915 as the largest maple syrup concern in the country. It was certainly one of the biggest, selling blended and pure maple syrup under the labels of Uncle John’s Cane and Maple Syrup, Golden Tree Syrup, Rock Maple 100% Vermont Maple Sap Syrup, and Gold Leaf Brand Maple Flavored Corn Syrup. The company also sold individually wrapped maple candies called maple kisses.

Under Rickaby’s leadership, the New England Maple Syrup Company grew, spreading the Uncle John’s label and their syrups all across the United States. However, as befalls many blended syrups, the implication from their packaging and advertising that their products were all pure maple syrup occasionally caught up with them and they were found guilty of adulteration or false labeling on a number of occasions.

Processing and blending sugar and maple syrup on a large scale meant the company usually purchased its ingredients in very large quantities. However, in 1921 this strategy cost them when the price of granulated cane sugar dropped enormously and the New England Maple Syrup Company found themselves sitting on many tons of sugar they already paid for. In the end the price drop was more than they could absorb and the company was forced into bankruptcy by its creditors.

Following bankruptcy proceedings, an auction of their equipment and facilities, and a reorganization, John Rickaby and C.M. Tice purchased the company as the sole owners, relocating to nearby Chelsea, Massachusetts. Rickaby left the reformed company not long after and in 1923 went to work for the Washburn- Crosby Milling Company of Minneapolis as a superintendent for the construction of a cereal production plant in Chicago. Rickaby stayed with Washburn-Crosby a few more years working out of Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1929 George C. Cary persuaded Rickaby to return to St. Johnsbury and the maple business when the Cary Company purchased Maple Grove Candies. Rickaby was selected as the initial Maple Grove Candies company treasurer and manager and oversaw the construction of a new two-story brick building for Maple Grove Candies located in front of the large Cary Company plant on Portland Street in St. Johnsbury.

 

1931 grand opening of new Maple Grove Candies building on Portland Street in St. Johnsbury.

With the completion of the new Maple Grove Candies building, Rickaby opted to take on his own maple syrup venture and, in partnership with W.W. Parsons and his brother-in-law Arthur R. Menut, formed Vermont Maple Orchards, Inc. to manufacture and sell a blended maple and cane syrup. Initially located in a former maple syrup processing building in Essex Junction, Vermont, in the summer of 1930 the company moved to the former Vermont Milk Chocolate Company building on Park Street in Burlington in 1932. Although he was no longer employed by the Cary Company, Rickaby was still a stockholder for the Cary Company and retained a strong tie to the Cary family. In fact, following the bankruptcy and death of George Cary in 1931, John Rickaby asked George’s son, Clinton Cary, then vice-president of the Cary Company to come and work with him in his new company in Essex Junction.  Clinton Cary took him up on that offer and worked for Rickaby for a few years before returning to the Cary Company in St. Johnsbury.

Photo from 1932 with John Rickaby on the right unloading barrels of syrup from Vermont for a maple festival in Massachusetts.

Rickaby stayed at the helm of the Vermont Maple Orchards, Inc. as president-treasurer until 1941 when he sold his interests due to deteriorating health. He then returned to St. Johnsbury and started a new maple sugar candy company called “Maple Bush” which was in operation for three years before Rickaby took a position in St. Albans with the George H. Soule Company’s Fairfield Farms Maple Company. The following year Fairfield Farms shut down its candy making operation and Rickaby returned to St. Johnsbury at which time he retired from active work with the maple syrup industry.

It is perhaps fitting that Rickaby was a product of St. Johnsbury, since it was the Maple Capital of the World at that time. It was common to see men like Rickaby, who had close associations with the Cary Company and Cary family, carry their knowledge and connections beyond the walls of the Cary Company, influencing the maple industry in the years to come.

Following five years of battling Parkinson’s disease, Rickaby died in St. Johnsbury in 1951 at the age of 78. John Rickaby and his wife Charlotte J. Menut Rickaby had no children.

Recent Publications in Maple Syrup History

I want to share two relatively recent scholarly publications on maple syrup history topics that might interest readers of this website. One is a report of archaeological investigations in northern Michigan and the other looks at the formation and role of cooperative organizations in the modernization of the Quebec maple industry.

First up is an article published in 2018 in the journal Historical Archaeology titled “Sucreries and Ziizbaakdokaanan: Racialization, Indigenous Creolization, and the Archaeology of Maple-Sugar Camps in Northern Michigan.”  Written by John G. Franzen, Terrance J. Martin, and Eric C. Drake, the article presents the results of archaeological survey and excavations at four sites believed to have been the location of maple sugaring camps dating from the late 1700s to the late 1800s. In addition to presenting the results of their investigations, the rest of the article focuses on understanding what the archaeological remains tell us about sugaring in the past within the context of maple producers that were navigating and negotiating their way through two or more social, ethnic, and cultural communities, namely Euro-American and indigenous Anishinabe (Chippewa/Ojibwe).

Next up is a historical study by Dr. Brigit Ramsingh looking at the evolution of early twentieth century marketing with the maple syrup industry in Quebec that was presented at the  Dublin Gastronomy Symposium in 2018. Titled Liquid Gold: Tapping into the Power Dynamics of Maple Syrup Supply Chains, the article considers the early development, role, and relative influence of cooperative marketing and sales in bringing the Quebec maple sugar and syrup industry into the position of dominance it enjoys today.

Ramsingh is a historian and Senior Lecturer in Food Safety Management at the Central University of Lancashire in the UK who is the process of expanding the research presented in this article for an even wider look at the influence of co-ops across the maple syrup region in both Canada and the United States.

Horse Shoe Forestry Company – Fieldwork Update

One of my ongoing research projects, and the subject of my next book, looks at the history of Abbot Augustus Low’s Horse Shoe Forestry Company maple sugaring operation in New York’s Adirondack wilderness. Low was a very wealthy New Yorker who at the end of the nineteenth century established an extensive maple operation and associated townsite, mills, dams, and private great camp, all connected by his own personal railroad in the wilderness of the Adirondacks.

Hand painted label for Horse Shoe Forestry Company’s maple sugar featuring the Maple Valley sugar house. From the collections of the Adirondack Experience.

As a part of this research I have been conducting extensive field investigations searching for and mapping the physical remains associated with Low’s maple operations. While there is much to tell, and will be told when my book is finished, here is a small taste of what has been found and how.

Many folks with an interest in Adirondack history and maple sugaring history are familiar with an album from 1901 of hand-colored, unlabeled, photographs taken by George Baldwin titled Adirondack Sugar Bushes – Horseshoe – St. Lawrence Co., N.Y.  These photographs and album were commissioned by Low and the Horse Shoe Forestry Company. There is only one known version of this album which is kept in the collections of the Adirondack Experience, a museum dedicated to Adirondack history in Blue Mountain Lake, NY. What is not as well known, is that there is another set of the same images in non-colorized form that were submitted for copyright purposes and are now held in the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington, D.C.  As a part of the copyright process, the images were published in the 1901 Copyright Office of the Library of Congress – Catalogue of Titles Entries of Books and Other Items, each with corresponding numbers and titles. What is helpful is that the set of images that are now found in the LOC, which I examined in the fall of 2018, all have their original numbers printed on them so one can see what were the actual titles assigned to these images in 1901 by A. A. Low.

Through a variety of historical and archival references and reports, we know the Horse Shoe Forestry Company built three large buildings for processing maple sap, each containing five enormous Champion Evaporators made by the G.H. Grimm Company. While these were referred to as sugar houses, they were more like maple syrup factories or plants, operating on a scale not before seen in the maple industry. All three of the large plants are featured in images in the colorized album, but I will focus on one of these plants for this particular part of the Horse Shoe story.

Black and white image of “Maple Valley” sugar house taken by George Baldwin and submitted to Library of Congress as part of Horse Shoe Forestry Company copyright registration. From collections of Library of Congress.

This particular image, LOC copyright number 1690, was titled “Maple Valley Sugar House.” For those familiar with the various images and maple sugaring buildings that once stood at Horse Shoe, that title might cause some confusion. There is another, better-known, syrup plant, also called the Maple Valley Sugar House, show in the figure below.  The LOC title for the better-known sugar house is also labeled “Maple Valley Sugar House,” and has been assigned LOC number 1689. For the sake of clarity, I will call these Maple Valley 1 (image 1689) and Maple Valley 2 (image 1690).

Colorized image of Horse Shoe Forestry Company’s Maple Valley 1 sugar house (LOC copyright image 1689) taken by George Baldwin. From the Collections of the Adirondack Experience.

Maple Valley 1 was the showcase sugar house in Low’s maple operation, and the archaeological remains of it are still fairly well preserved, if one knows where to look. Other researchers in the past, such as railroad historian Michael Kudish, have identified and published the location of Maple Valley 1. However, the true location of Maple Valley 2 has been unknown. One of the goals of my fieldwork in this Horse Shoe Forestry Company maple history project has been to identify all the locations of the buildings associated with the maple sugaring operation.

To that end, archival research in the collections at the Adirondack Experience (AE) led to the surprise discovery of another set of previously unknown images taken by photographer George Baldwin as a part of the same sugarbush series of the popular colorized album. These images, which had not been previously digitized and widely shared, brought to light a number of new and interesting details.

Black and white image showing Horse Shoe Forestry Company’s Maple Valley 2 sugar house in distance (AE image P015527) taken by George Baldwin. From the Collections of the Adirondack Experience.

In an attempt to shed light on the location of the Maple Valley 2 sugar house, the following image was especially important. In the image we see a boy tending to a sap collection pail on a hillside. But if one zooms in to what is in the background through the trees, we can clearly see the Maple Valley 2 Sugar House. Wowza! You can also see in the image the many elevated sap pipelines running through the trees downslope carrying sap from the sugarbush  to the sugar house. These pipelines are very evident in the LOC image 1690.  What is particularly notable in the full image of the boy on the hillside is the contour of the landscape in the immediate foreground as well as the land contours to the left of the image across the drainage and the flatter and much more open space surrounding the sugar house in the background.

Close up detail of AE image P015527 showing the Maple Valley 2 sugar house in the background through the trees. From the Collections of the Adirondack Experience.

Finding a place in the landscape that fit location was key to identifying where this image was taken and where the Maple Valley 2 sugar house once stood. In thinking this through and studying the landscape settings that had potential, an initial question was where exactly to start. Conventional wisdom has been that there were three branches to Low’s railroad each with their own names, Wake Robin Railroad, Maple Valley Railroad, and Grasse River Railroad, and we known there were three large sugar houses. Logic would have it that one branch of each railroad went to each of the large sugar houses. But was that true and what was the evidence to support or counter that notion? Well, the evidence from the LOC labels were that the three large sugar houses were named Wake Robin, Maple Valley 1, and Maple Valley 2. That would suggest that one of the large sugar houses was not associated with the Grasse River railroad branch. So, instead of looking in the vicinity of the Grasse River drainage, maybe one should start looking for a location for Maple Valley 2 in a place that was connected to the Maple Valley locale.

After studying topographic maps of the area, air photos from the 1940s to the present, and historic maps that show roads and railroad grades that connect to Maple Valley, I settled on a few possibilities and put them to the test. Could I find the spot where that photo was taken of the boy at the tree with the Maple Valley 2 plant in the background? After a bit of tromping up and down a few drainages, valleys, and hillsides, I think I found the spot!

Modern photo from May 2019 taken from same location as AE image P015527.

To the left is a modern view taken in early May 2019 that attempts to represent the same location and vantage point as Baldwin’s 1901 hillside photo (AE image P015527).  As a stand-in for the boy in the original image is Adirondack trail expert and local history buff Bill Hill, who accompanied me in the field that day. If you are not familiar with Bill’s work you should check out his blog and new book Hiking the Trail to Yesterday for great information on enjoying historical places in the Adirondacks on foot or with paddle.

Side-by-side photographs comparing the 1901 image by Baldwin (AE image P015527) with recent photo taken from same location and vantage point.

And here is the original and the recent, image side-by-side in a repeat photography format. I like what I see, with the angle of the slope, the contours on the far side of the drainage, and the flat valley below, which is now much more grown up with mature spruce and maple.

If this gets us to the right location for the Maple Valley 2 sugar house, which I think it does, then we are left with the next question. What remains of the Maple Valley 2 sugar house, if any, are left on the flat ground in the valley below? And that part of the story I will leave to be told in the book.

A Tangled Web of Early Maple Syrup Packing Companies

By Matthew M. Thomas

There is an interesting and sometimes complex and convoluted history of a group of maple syrup packing companies in Vermont in the first part of the twentieth century.  At that time in the history of the maple industry, many producers sold the bulk of their maple syrup and maple sugar to packing companies that handled the shipping, marketing and repackaging of the maple products into smaller containers for retail sales to consumers. A large part of the packing industry was also engaged in blending maple syrup with cane or corn syrup to create less expensive maple flavored table syrups like the well known Log Cabin syrup and Vermont Maid syrup.

1890 newspaper advertisement for the Welch Brothers Maple Company.

This tangled story starts in 1890 when brothers Llewellyn Welch and Charles Welch along with Harry Miller started the Welch Brothers Maple Company in South Burlington, Vermont. The three met in St. Joseph, Missouri when the two Ohio born brothers were in the general syrup and preserves business. In 1890, all three men came to Burlington, Vermont to specifically start a maple products company. The first plant that they built was on Battery and Cherry Street in Burlington where they made bottled maple syrup, but also made maple sugar candies, maple creams, maple cough drops, and other confections like chocolate bon-bons and caramels. The company was formally incorporated in 1891 with C.B. Welch as president and L.W. Welch as secretary. By the time of the meeting of the 1895 board of directors, C.B. Welch was no longer an officer or member of the board and L.W. Welch had moved into the position of president. The following year, The C.B. Welch Maple Co. was in court against Welch Brothers Maple Co. Under Llewelyn Welch’s leadership, the Welch Brothers Maple Company continued successfully doing business in Burlington. In 1917 Welch Brothers contracted to build a new three-story brick, fireproof plant at the corner of Pine and Marble Streets in Burlington.

Modern street view of Welch Brothers Maple Company building on Pine and Marble Streets, Burlington, Vermont.

You can read an interesting architectural history of the Welch Brothers Maple Company Pine Street location as a part of Karyn Norwood’s 2014 online publication From Cereal to Can Openers: Historic Industries Along Pine Street.  

C.B. Welch made his way from Burlington to St. Johnsbury and in 1904 incorporated a new maple company to purchase, blend, can and bottle maple syrup. However, it appears that this company never got off the ground and a few years later C.B. Welch turns up in Rutland, Vermont trying to interest the town leaders in supporting the establishment of a maple products canning and bottling facility. C.B. Welch was successful in his pitch and in 1908 efforts began to raise capital for the Maple Tree Sugar Company with C.B. Welch as manager and secretary. Formal articles of incorporation were filed in September of 1908 and in 1909 the company occupied a space at the corner of Edson and Willow Streets in Rutland.

The Maple Tree Sugar Company in Rutland got off the ground, but C.B. Welch did not stick around for long and possibly left under difficult terms, as suggested by his again being in court in Rutland in 1911 against Maple Tree Sugar Company. In 1910 C.B. Welch appeared in the communities of Canton, Gouvenuer, and Lowville in northern New York drumming up support for a new corporation and plant for canning and bottling maple syrup. C.B. Welch’s efforts met with success and in the fall of 1910 the Adirondacks Maple Syrup Company was incorporated with $50,000 of capital stock and plans were put into place for construction of a two-story, 40 by 100 foot factory near the railroad in Lowville, NY. As was typical of his pattern of work, C.B. Welch appears to have moved on from the Adirondack Maple Syrup Company the following year.

Portrait of Fletcher N. Johnson.

Another chapter in the story features Fletcher N. Johnson, who got his start as a grocery wholesaler in Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1900, incorporating in 1901 as the F.N. Johnson Company. He expanded that business to become a major maple sugar and syrup wholesale dealer, selling syrup under the Sugar Bird brand as early as 1913. In late 1916 he formed a new company as the F.N. Johnson Maple Syrup Company in Bellefontaine. In the intervening years, he tried his hand at politics unsuccessfully running for Congress in Ohio in 1910. As a maple wholesaler, F.N. Johnson often travelled to Vermont to purchase large amounts of syrup and some sugar. Having a familiarity with Vermont, in late September 1916 F.N. Johnson formed a new venture called the Vermont Maple Syrup Company in Essex Junction. F. N. Johnson was joined by his brother in law, Laurrell M. DeVore of Bellefontaine, Ohio, along with Adelbert B. Beeman of Fairfax, and Arthur A. Beeman of Essex Junction, and A.B. Rugg of Essex Junction.

1922 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for Essex Junction showing the Vermont Maple Syrup Company building at lower left.

The Vermont Maple Syrup Company built a new two-story wood building in Essex Junction and began operations in 1917, buying bulk maple syrup for blending and bottling with most of their sales occurring in the western United States.

 

Portrait of the Maple King George C. Cary of the Cary Maple Syrup Company.

At some point in the later 19-teens, the maple sugar magnate, George C. Cary, became a minor stockholder in the Vermont Maple Syrup Company. In 1919 F.N. Johnson sold his 50% controlling share of the Vermont Maple Syrup Company to George Cary, then the very next day, sued his former company for trademark infringement over the use of the “Sugar Bird” brand, something Johnson had brought with him from his Ohio-based F.N. Johnson Company, and had been using for its blended syrup since at least 1913. Cary was caught off guard and assumed that he was free to continue to use the un-trademarked brand name just as the Vermont Maple Syrup Company had in the past. It would appear that Johnson had anticipated the potential for the suit and he and his lawyers were ready with their response the very next day.

Vermont Maple Syrup Company building in Essex Junction.

Despite the legal issues with the Sugar Bird brand, under Cary’s new ownership the Essex Junction plant was expanded with a new addition on the back of the building to house a new larger boiler. Also, in 1919, F.N. Johnson and L.M. DeVore set up a new F.N. Johnson Maple Company in Burlington for bottling maple syrup, leasing the old Welch Brothers plant on Battery and Cherry Streets.

Example of one of the brands of blended cane and maple syrup packaged and sold by the Vermont Maple Syrup Company. Date unknown.

In 1921, the court ruled in Johnson’s favor on his trademark lawsuit. Following that label fiasco, in 1922 George Cary, along with his son Clinton Cary, and Cary Maple Sugar Company employees and personal friends Earl Franklin and Gertrude Franklin along with Harry Wilson of Boston, reorganized the Vermont Maple Syrup Company as a new corporate enterprise and in 1923 left Essex Junction, moving the re-organized company to Cary’s plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. That same year the Vermont Maple Products Co-operative Exchange began to lease the now vacated Vermont Maple Syrup Company building in Essex Junction.

In January 1925, F.N. Johnson came back around in the picture when he purchased a controlling interest in the stock of the Adirondack Maple Syrup Company in Lowville, New York. Johnson then combined his still operating F.N. Johnson Maple Company in Ohio with the Adirondack Maple Syrup Company  under a new corporation called the American Maple Corporation. In 1927, the American Maple Corporation is formally incorporated in Burlington, Vermont under the leadership of F.N. Johnson. Interestingly, Harry Miller, who was working for Welch Brothers Maple Company would later managed Penick & Ford’s Vermont Maid plant, was also on the new board of directors of the American Maple Corporation.  The  Adirondack Maple Company corporate name was formally dissolved in 1927 and in 1929 the maple processing machinery in the Lowville plant was sold to the Cary Company in St. Johnsbury.

Example, circa 1926 to 1927, of the earliest Vermont Maid Syrup logo featuring the maid with a bonnet and a field in the background. Also note the manufacturer as the Vermont Maple Syrup Company of St. Johnsbury Vermont.

The Vermont Maple Syrup Company under the ownership of Cary and company trademarked the Vermont Maid name in 1919 and began selling blended syrup under the popular Vermont Maid brand name around 1920 or 1921 and it was in 1922, that the famous Vermont Maid logo featuring the portrait of a young women with pigtails and a bonnet, began to be used in advertisements and on labels. Interestingly, Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup Company also sold a Vermont Maid brand pure maple sap syrup during their short period of production out of St. Johnsbury from 1910 to 1915, but there is not indication of a direct connection between the two labels, other than George Cary would have been well aware of the idea and availability of the brand name by by 1920.

Towle’s Vermont Maid Pure Sap Maple Syrup packaged in St. Johnsbury, Vermont between 1910 and 1915.
Early Vermont Maid Boston Globe newspaper advertisement from February 1926 showing the iconic Vermont Maid logo and bottle from the Vermont Maple Syrup Company of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Between 1925 and 1926, a series of transactions and corporate shuffling occurred between St. Johnsbury and Burlington. First, F.N. Johnson charters the American Maple Corporation, first in Ohio in 1925 and then in 1926 in Vermont. In doing so, he merged the F.N. Johnson Maple Syrup Company with the Adirondack Maple Company, both of which he had controlling interests.

In July 1926, Llewellyn Welch sold the Welch Brothers Maple Products Company to the newly forming American Maple Company. With this sale, Llewellyn Welch retired from nearly forty years in the maple business. As noted earlier, Charles Welch left the Welch Brothers company some years earlier and would pass away in New York City in 1928. Llewelyn Welch himself died in 1935. Harry Miller stayed on with the new owners, the American maple Corporation (later Vermont Maple Syrup Company), as manager and on through the next owner, Penick & Ford. Miller would go on to have a 60-year long career in the Vermont maple industry, retiring in 1950 as the Vermont Division manager for Penick & Ford.

Then, in early November 1926, the newly formed American Maple Corporation of Burlington merged with George C. Cary ‘s Vermont Maple Syrup Company of St. Johnsbury. In January 1927, the new board of American Maple Corporation met, with F.N. Johnson voted president. Interestingly, there was no mention of George Cary or his usual collaborators on the new board, suggesting American Maple Corporation purchased, rather than merged with, the Vermont Maple Syrup Company. In February, the American Maple Corporation changes its name to the Vermont Maple Syrup Company, and by midway through 1927 begins listing its place of business as Burlington.

1928 Boston Globe newspaper advertisement for Vermont Maid Syrup with the manufacturer Vermont Maple Syrup Company now located in Burlington, Vermont.

In October 1928 in a cash transaction, the Vermont Maple Syrup Company sold their Burlington operation to Penick & Ford, a Louisiana Company that at the time were the largest packers of corn and cane syrups and molasses in the United States. This sale included the former Welch Brothers building on Pine and Marble in Burlington, and all associated brands and labels, including Vermont Maid.

 

Following this sale, there is no indication that F.N. Johnson had any further involvement with Penick & Ford or the maple products industry in Vermont. F.N. Johnson’s grocery business in Bellefontaine, Ohio was still in operation and he returned to Ohio to direct that until his death in 1945. Incidentally, F.N. Johnson’s daughter in law, Helen Clark Johnson, unexpectedly passed away in Burlington in March of 1928. Her husband Russell Morton Johnson was the manager of the F.N. Johnson Maple Syrup Company, which leads one to wonder if this loss in anyway affected the decision to sell his maple company and leave Vermont.

In 1965, Penick & Ford and the Vermont Maid brand was sold to R. J. Reynolds, and despite operating under a new parent company, little changed in the Burlington plant. However, in 1975, R.J. Reynolds closed the Vermont Maid Syrup bottling plant on Pine Street and Marble Avenue in Burlington. Consolidating of a number of their brands and products, the Vermont Maid were moved operations to New Brunswick, New Jersey. Subsequently, in 1985, R.J. Reynolds acquired the Nabisco brand and formed RJNabisco as a single company. Later on, in 1997, Nabisco sold the Vermont Maid brand to B & G Foods, owner of Maple Grove Farms of Vermont and other syrup brands like Spring Tree Maple Syrup and Cary’s Maple Syrup.

 

Originally published May 5, 2019 – Revised February 7, 2020

Evaporator Company Histories: Climax and Champion Evaporators

There is a short lived, but lively history of two evaporator companies from northern Franklin County, in Vermont. For about ten years in the 1800s, the makers of the Climax Evaporator out of Berkshire Center and the Champion Evaporator of West Berkshire waged a hard-fought battle for the hearts and customers of the area.

The Climax Evaporator was the invention of George Cutter of nearby Sutton, Quebec, who patented his unique design in Canada on June 10, 1881 and in the United States in August 1881 following a May 31, 1881 application filing. The Climax evaporator featured series of horizontal tubes instead of drop or raised flues to increase surface area of sap exposed to heat in the back or sap pan.

Design drawing of Climax Evaporator from Cutter’s 1881 patent application (US244983).

Cutter sold his Climax Evaporator on the Quebec side of the border through his own sales business of Cutter & Co. Across the border on the Vermont side, Homer S. Clark, out of the town of Berkshire or Berkshire Center obtained a sole proprietor for U.S. sales of Cutter’s Climax beginning in 1881. By December 1881, H.S. Clark had reported that he had sold 40 evaporators in Franklin and Lamoille Counties.

The West Berkshire Champion Evaporator was invented by Philo S. Ewins just a few miles down the road from the home of Clark’s Climax Evaporator. Not to be confused with the G.H. Grimm Company’s Champion Evaporator, Ewins’ evaporator was patented in the U.S. and Canada in 1882 and featured a tubular flue design similar in appearance to the Climax Evaporator, which led to a fair amount of friendly and not so friendly competition between the two neighboring companies.

Design drawing from Ewins 1882 Champion Evaporator patent application (US261325).

Getting his invention and manufacturing off the ground, P.S. Ewins partnered with local tin worker M.B. Marsh in 1882 to manufacture the Champion evaporator. Marsh had begun running a tin works in West Berkshire since 1878, but left the partnership to move to Massachusetts in 1883. In January 1885, Ewins relocated his Champion manufacturing shop from West Berkshire to the nearby town of Richford and brought Mr. Harlow C. Ayer on board to assist with evaporator sales.

In the following months strong words and criticism were shared in the local newspaper, the Richmond Journal and Gazette, between people connected to the two companies and a back and forth battle raged for the better part of a year. Criticism largely centered on claims and accusations of poor-quality workmanship, bad business practices, and inferior performance of each of the competitors.

Advertisement from 1883 for H.S. Clark’s sales of the Climax Evaporator out of Berkshire Center, Vermont.

Following the spirited back and forth, tit for tat and he said she said, spat in the newspaper that played out from January into late March of 1885, Ewins laid down $500 for a head-to-head challenge of his Champion Evaporator against Clark’s Climax Evaporator in a performance test to see which evaporator could make more syrup in 12 hours under identical conditions. Clark responded with a lesser wager that the editors of the paper made clear was not equal and insufficient to match the challenge. To further complicate matters, in April in 1885 Ewins filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Clark and the Climax evaporator. Such a challenge is itself interesting since the Climax Evaporator was patented over 6 months prior to the Champion design. However, it seems to have had the effect of taking the stuffing out of Clark in their back and forth argument.

Advertisement for the “Improved” Champion and Defiance Evaporators by the Champion Evaporator Company of Richford, Vermont.

In spite of the substantial amount of ink that was spent in trading insults in print, it is unclear if the proposed competition was ever carried out or, if so, what was the outcome.  Similarly, the results of the patent infringement lawsuit are not known. Following the introduction of the lawsuit and the possibly failed head-to-head challenge, we see no more mention of Clark or the Climax Sap Evaporator in the Richford newspaper. We do know not that not long after, Clark and his wife moved from Berkshire to Somerville, Massachusetts. On the Canadian side of the border, the Climax Evaporator continued to be manufactured and sold by Cutter & Co. out of Sutton, Quebec as late as 1891 and possibly longer. George Cutter the inventor of the Climax Evaporator passed away in Sutton in 1932 at age 78.

By March 1886, the Champion Evaporator Company had started to manufacture another evaporator line called the Defiance Evaporator which featured the more popular drop flue design. The arrival on the scene and the growing success of G.H. Grimm’s Champion evaporator, out of Ohio at that time, may have prompted Ewins to abandon the use of the name Champion in his evaporator, not to mention the realities of the superior design in Grimm’s raised flue evaporator over the tubular design.

The last advertisement we see selling the Champion and Defiance Evaporators by The Champion Evaporator Company of Richmond, Vermont is in 1887 although the name of Champion Evaporator Company continued to be used into 1888 in selling stoves, ranges, and farm equipment. In early 1888 L.D. Rowley, a local businessman who owned a horse and livery operation joined H.C. Ayer in running the Champion Evaporator Company. The Champion Evaporator Company continued to advertise as a farm implement dealer into 1888, but despite their name, was no longer listing evaporators among the tools and equipment they were offering. By the 1890s H.C. Ayer and L.D. Rowley had started a beeswax oil company, and later Rowley was running a hotel in Richford, and Ayer was selling coal.

 

 

Citadelle Online History Exhibition

Citadelle, the maple syrup producers cooperative headquartered in Plessisville, Quebec with over 2000 members, has posted an excellent history exhibition on the organization’s website. Titled A Cooperative History: A Struggle for Survival of the Maple Industry, the story is presented in a more or less chronological fashion beginning in the 1920s and their collective efforts to secure a fair and reliable price for maple sugar and syrup.

The narrative  chosen to tell the early years of their history is an interesting, almost Robin Hood-like perspective.  Capitalist American maple sugar tycoon, George Cary, is presented as the evil villain who is vanquished by Cyrille Vaillancourt, the heroic representative from the government and champion of the small maple farmer. While there are certainly truths to the storyline that Cary was a barrier to the Quebec producers getting the prices they thought they deserved, the reality of those relationships and the industry in that era are not so simple.  As someone who has conducted extensive research on George Cary and the Cary Company, and even published a book about him,  I must say that role and relationship of Cary to Vaillancourt, the Quebec producers, and the industry as a whole, was a bit more complicated than the Citadelle presentation. But altruistic hero defeats the capitalist villain is always a much more interesting story.

The well-written and descriptive narrative text is available in both English and French and is illustrated with dozens of wonderful historic photographs. The story is broken into six sections, each with their own subsections – The beginnings of the Cooperative, Making a place in the Industry, The Quality Policy; The Catholic Heritage; Plessisville, World’s Maple Capital; and Producers of Pure Innovation.

Regardless of my feelings on the chosen tone of the narrative, the Citadelle history exhibition is a fantastic online addition to maple syrup history. With its presentation in both English and French, Citadelle should be applauded for sharing their history in such an accessible and informative format.

In addition to this special multi-tiered history exhibition, one can also read about the coop’s history and timeline at additional links on their website.

Evaporator Company Histories: Leader Evaporator

Portrait of William E. Burt, founder and president of the Leader Evaporator Company.

The Leader Evaporator Company is arguably the largest maple syrup equipment manufacturing and supply company in the world. Like many of the evaporator companies in the past, its beginning was small and humble. William E. Burt started the company as a tin shop under the name of W.E. Burt & Co. in 1888 in partnership with Alfred Simkins in Enosburg Falls, Vermont.  Their original location was in the old Woodworth Feed Store on Railroad Street in Enosburg Falls, Vermont before moving their business to Main Street, and finally to a building on Bismark Street.  They moved the company from Enosburg Falls to Burlington, Vermont in 1904.

Patent drawing for Hall and Wright’s evaporator design that would be purchased by W.E. Burt and become his Leader Evaporator.

The evaporator that W.E. Burt & Co. sold as the Improved Leader Evaporator was based on a design developed and patented by William Henry Wright and Clark Hall out of the East Farnham/Cowansville area of Quebec. Hall and Wright’s evaporator design was patented in Canada in 1888 (CA28644/CA32481) and the US in 1889 (US415653) and featured drop flues, alternating draw offs to reverse sap flows, a sap preheater, and a maze of baffles and compartments to facilitate the flow of sap to finished syrup.

In 1889, a short while after opening their doors, John A. Potter joined W.E. Burt & Co. in the hardware business, which became colloquially known as Burt & Potter. In January of 1890, a fire in downtown Enosburg Falls destroyed the W.E. Burt & Co. hardware store, as well as the home and barn of W.E. Burt. The fire appeared to have started when a stove exploded in the nearby millinery store of W.E. Burt’s wife, also located on Main Street. Numerous downtown buildings were destroyed and for a time it was thought the entire village may be lost if not for the aid of a heavy rain.

Advertisement from 1891 for W.E. Burt & Co. on Main Street in Enosburg Falls, Vermont and selling “Hall & Wright’s” Patent Improved Leader Evaporator.

W.E. Burt and J.A. Potter may have had a difficult time recovering from the fire, since in September 1891, W.E. Burt & Co. was in court for insolvency. Sometime in 1891, the name W.E. Burt & Co. was dropped in favor of doing business as the Leader Evaporator Co., possibly related to or a result of settling the insolvency.

As the new name implies, in the 1890s, Burt focused his energies and tin works on manufacturing evaporators. In an 1894 government report of metal implement manufacturers related to the effects of tariffs on their businesses, the Leader Evaporator Company noted that its value of production was $8000 for the year of 1893. They employed two skilled men at a rate of two dollars a day, two common laborers at one dollar a day, all at sixty hours a week, and also had the assistance and time of W.E. Burt’s son. They had a number of sales agents that worked on commission. Their evaporators were manufactured from tin plate, and their sugaring off pans from Russian iron, galvanized iron, and tin plate. Leader Company arches were made of iron and their sugaring tools of tin plate.

Sanborn fire insurance map from 1895 for Enosburg Falls showing in blue the location of W.E. Burt’s tin shop on Bismarck Street.

In 1894, Burt sold the tin ware and stove portion of his business to N.A. Gilbert in Enosburg Falls and focused his energies on manufacturing maple sugaring evaporators and selling maple sugaring tools and supplies.  Later that year it was reported that the Leader Evaporator Co. had outgrown its old space and W.E. Burt was building a new building fronting on Bismarck Street in Enosburg Falls.

Current view looking northeast of the building that once served as W.E. Burt’s tin shop on Bismarck Street in Enosburg Falls, Vermont.
Patent design drawing for W.E. Burt’s Monitor sap gathering tank.

Although the design for the main evaporator made by the Leader Evaporator Company came from the patent of two Canadian inventors, W.E. Burt and the company designed and manufactured other notable maple sugaring implements. In particular, in 1894, Burt patented his design for a sap gathering tank (US559358/CA54042) which the Leader Company manufactured and sold as the popular Monitor Gathering Tank.

It is not clear when Alfred Simkins and W.E. Burt parted ways as partners and Simkins left the company, it may have been only a year or two after they started the company together in 1888. However; by late 1896, Burt was on his own and Simkins was in court for bankruptcy. Also in 1896, W.E. Burt announced that the Leader Company was starting to sell evaporators in Canada with Julius M. Ruiter of Brome, Quebec handling sales across the border.

Sanborn FIre Insurance map from 1906 for Burlington, Vermont showing the location of the new Leader Evaporator Company near the northeast corner of College Street and Battery Street.

In the spring of 1904, the Leader Company decided it was going to relocate its factory to either Essex Junction, Vermont or Burlington, Vermont, putting the two communities in competition with one another to see which might offer the Leader Company an exemption from city taxes for ten years. A gathering of Burlington citizens was called for by the mayor and the citizens agreed to grant the exemption.

Close up of 1906 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map showing Leader Evaporator Company building outlined in gray, indicating that the building was clad in metal.

Property was purchase and on May 25, ground was broken on Battery Street, near the corner of College Street, for the construction of a 36 x 72-foot, three-story, wood-framed building, with a tin roof and brick and iron siding. Initially the company employed around twelve men but expected to increase its workforce in the coming years.  Burt’s brother in law J. M. Ruiter was a key figure in the company by this time and was instrumental in ensuring a smooth process for the relocation of their facilities from Enosburg Falls to Burlington in 1904.

In April 1910, the Leader Evaporator Company was formally incorporated in the State of Vermont, with a capital stock of $100,000. Shareholders were nearly all family members, consisting of William E. Burt, his wife Tillie J. Burt, his brother in law J.M. Ruiter, his nephew A.A. Hunter, and prominent Burlington businessman and investor F.O. Sinclair.

Leader Company advertisement from 1907 promoting the prize winning New Double Leader Evaporator that has reached “near perfection” in design with guaranteed satisfaction.

Interestingly, five years later, Ruiter, along with shareholder, Leader employee, and fellow family member, A.A. Hunter, broke with Burt and partnered with George H. Soule in 1915 to form the Burlington Evaporator Company. The relationship with Ruiter, Hunter, and Soule was short-lived and the Burlington Evaporator Company partnership was dissolved a year later. Two years later Soule reorganized the Burlington Evaporator Company to form the George H. Soule Company.

It would appear that Hunter and Ruiter’s split from the Leader Company was probably less than amicable since the Leader Company took out ads in newspapers all over Vermont announcing to sugarmakers that Hunter and Ruiter no longer represented the Leader Company. However, in the 1920s local gossip in the newspapers indicated that the Burt, Ruiter, and Hunter families were vacationing together, so any internal family misgivings appeared to be relatively short-lived.

Leader Evaporator Company letterhead from the 1930s.

Leadership of the company during the period it was owned by W.E. Burt was very much a family organization. In the 1930s, letterhead for the company lists W.E. Burt as president, his son in law George E. Partridge as vice-president, his wife T.J. Burt (Matilda “Tillie” J. Burt) treasurer, and his daughter B.B. Partridge (Beth Burt Partridge) as assistant-treasurer.

Tillie Burt passed away in 1941 and W.E. Burt remarried to Lucille Roy in 1945. In September of 1955, W.E. Burt himself passed away in the hospital in Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont at age 94. Following the death of W.E. Burt, Lucille Roy Burt continued to run the company with the assistance of longtime employee and manager Alton E. Lynde. Lynde died a few years later in 1961. Lester C. Brown followed behind Lynde as the manager of the company.

Leader Evaporator Company advertisement from their 1961 catalog promoting their sales and distribution of the Mapleflo sap gathering system manufactured by the 3M company.

Changes in the technology of the maple industry was relatively slow and almost stagnant between the 1920s to the 1960s. Notable new inventions were portable power tappers, plastic sap collection bags, metal lithographed cans, gas burners, and eventually flexible plastic tubing for sap collection. The Leader Company of course got on board with sales of most of these products. Most notably among these was the Leader Company securing an exclusive dealership in the United States with the 3M company for the sale of their new plastic tubing called Mapleflo for the 1958 season. In time, other vendors carried the 3M tubing, but the Leader Company was out of the gate at the same time in a side-by-side race with the Lamb Plastic Tubing Company and their Naturalfow tubing.

Image of a typical Leader Evaporator Company boiling arch from the first 100 or so years of production. Note the scripted letter “L” on each door of the arch front, a feature unique to the Leader Evaporators.

In May of 1963 the Burlington Free Press announced that the Leader Evaporator Company was being sold and Lucille Roy Burt was stepping down from her post as president and treasurer. The purchase was led by a local group of men including Leader Company manager Lester C. Brown, who assumed the role of president, as well as Robert C. Coombs of Jacksonville, Charles E. Branon of Fairfield, and Fortis H. Abbott of Essex Junction, three well-known men in the maple industry; and Leonard O. Bombard of Burlington. Other new stockholders included Harold W. Cook of DeRuyter, NY; and W.W. Manes of East Orwell, Ohio.

The Willard Building in St. Albans showing the Leader Evaporator Company sign following the acquisition of the building with the purchase of the George H. Soule Co.

The new Leader Evaporator Company stockholders wasted no time in breathing new life into the company and the following spring announced that they had purchased the George H. Soule Company and were moving the majority of their operations from their space on Battery Street in Burlington to the factory space of their newly acquired Soule Company in the Willard Building in St. Albans, Vermont.

In 1978 the Leader Company made the controversial decision to enter the can manufacturing business when it purchased the maple syrup can production arm from the Empire Can Company of Brooklyn, New York. Despite building a nearly 10,000 square foot production facility and moving equipment from New York to St. Albans, by June 1980, Leader’s can manufacturing venture was short-lived.  Two years later the can making equipment was sold to Rollie Devost and the New England Can Company in Swanton, Vermont.

Leader Evaporator Company advertisement from the 1990s showing their promotion of their subsidiary companies G.H. Grimm and Lamb Naturallow tubing. In time, the Grimm and Lamb names would be dropped and it would just become the Leader Evaporator Company.

Over the next few decades the Leader Company continued to grow, largely through the purchase and absorption of other maple syrup equipment manufacturers. In 1972 the Leader Company purchased the Vermont Evaporator Company of Ogdensburg, New York and in October 1989 it was announced that Leader had purchased the G.H. Grimm Company of Rutland, VT. The purchase of Grimm brought Grimm’s previous purchases of Lightning Evaporator Company and its partnership with the Lamb Naturalflow Tubing Company into the Leader Company. Now the Leader Company was the undisputedly the largest maple sugaring equipment company in the world.

As a privately held company with a 120-year history, the Leader Company has had surprisingly few presidents. Beginning with William E. Burt, followed by his second wife Lucille Roy Burt, Lester C. Brown served as president from 1961 to the mid 1960s, and later Robert Bordeau served from the 1960s to 1980. For 25 years, from 1980 to 2015, Gary Gaudette led the company and in 2015 Bradley Gillilan took over the reins as president.

In 2005 the Leader Company relocated operations to an industrial park in Swanton, Vermont. In doing so, the Leader Company vacated the Willard Building in St. Albans, and the G.H. Grimm building they continued to use in Rutland, Vermont, consolidating the companies under one roof in a more expansive and modern 85,000 square-foot manufacturing and sales facility.