The History of Gillilan Family Maple

In the early 1900's the first Sugar House was built on the family farm in Fletcher, VT.  At that time much of the woods we tap today was pasture land for the small dairy farm.  Over the next few decades little changed at Gillilan Family Maple, other than a strategic move of the sugar house to allow for more effective boiling.  In the 1960's Cleon Gillilan shut down the family farm and temporarily suspended the family maple operation to go to work at Leader Evaporator Company, Inc.  In the 1970's Cleon and son Bruce re-started the family operation.  From that point on, it has been a constant evolution with the times.

Bruce and Cleon built the family evaporator themselves, using the talents learned working at Leader Evaporator.  Coming home after work and gathering the family's buckets, and then getting the evaporator fired up, always getting the days sap boiled before a short night of sleep and back to work tomorrow.  

In 1985 Cleon retired from Leader Evaporator and things got a little easier.  Starting the sap collecting a little earlier in the afternoon, meant late nights were a little earlier, but still things needed to improve.  So, Bruce and Cleon once again innovated, designed and rebuilt a more efficient wood fired arch to fuel the 4x13 evaporator they had.  

It was about this time another major change took place.  Bradley, Brett, Bryan, and Brandy, Bruce's four children were getting old enough to help gather the maple sap from the 400-500 family buckets.  Cleon at this point handed over the sugar house operations to Bruce, and took the most important job in our operation, Grandpa.  Grandpa's job is to teach the next generation of maple producers everything about the process.  When they could Cleon's daughter Pam and her four children would join in the sugaring fun, because family is always welcome at Gillilan Family Maple.  Grandpa Cleon taught us all the value of hard work through tapping the trees, collecting the sap, thinning the sugar woods to make the wood for the evaporator, driving the tractor, and so much more.

Throughout the 90's the family began transitioning more and more of the woods over to a tubing collection system assisted by vacuum.  This doesn't reduce the time in the woods, it just changes the work to be done.  Keeping a tight tubing system is a never ending battle with the elements of a northern winter turning to spring.

The passion for maple was passed down to Bradley as he was named Vermont Maple King in 2000 and followed that with a career of his own at Leader Evaporator that ultimately culminated in being named President of the corporation in 2015.  

In 2005, we lost Grandpa Cleon, and the family operation had to face the sharp reality of making syrup without him.  In his honor just a few years later, Bruce and Bradley cleaned and renovated Cleon's shop to turn it into a new Sugar House that is more conveniently located next to the road, and a place for the whole family to congregate.  You will often find Bruce's wife, Grandma Josie, Bradley's wife, Carey, and Bryan's wife Gabrielle with all the kids for dinner at the sugar house.

Over the last 20 years Bruce and Bradley have designed or co-designed virtually all of the technology used in the family maple operation.  Bradley designed the Max Flue Pan, and Vortex Wood Fired Arch used on the new 30x10 High Efficiency Evaporator (that boils just as fast as the old 4x13 used too).  Bruce designed the revolution syrup pan the family uses, and both Bruce and Brad have helped to develop tubing and vacuum technology to improve yields for maple producers all over the maple industry.  They couldn't do this without the help of Brett, who is a master fabricator at Leader Evaporator, and has shown that he inherited Grandpa Cleon's magic in building the family equipment.

We now tap approximately 1200 trees in Fletcher, VT, producing 400-600 gallons of pure Vermont maple syrup per year.  While mother nature definitely still determines our season, we have found ways to make the seasons more consistent and predictable over the past 20 years.

Together, Bruce, Bradley, and Bryan take care of the tubing system, tap the trees each spring, and run the day to day operations.  Often times in the evenings, when the steam is flowing from our stacks, you can find all three of them in the sugar house.  Bradley runs the evaporator (most of the time), Bryan tends to the fire, and Bruce keeps he syrup filtered.  We couldn't keep the sugar house going without having the kids around with the best job of the sugar house, our official taste testers.

Now the next generation is starting to take a larger role in the operation.  Bradley and Bryan both have children regularly helping around the sugar house (they are soon to be out of a job) and to gather the few buckets remaining in the operation.  Bruce has now been promoted to the highest ranking position of Grandpa, and cherishes the time he gets to teach Gavin, Xavier, Adelaide, Fiona, Penelope, Lachlan, William and Ben, all about the Gillilan Family Maple way of making Maple Syrup.  

Bruce was named to the North American Maple Hall of Fame for his lifetime of service to the maple industry in 2018.  In 2019 he retired from Leader Evaporator and now spends more time in the family woods looking to make improvements for the future.

Bradley has gotten involved in the International Maple Syrup Institute, the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association, and the Vermont Maple Industry Committee.  In 2019 he was named Vermont Maple Person of the Year for his commitment and contributions to the Maple Industry.

These personal achievements are great, but the real pride of the family are the numerous awards for the outstanding quality Pure Vermont Maple Syrup that we produce.  These awards include Being named North America's Best Maple Syrup 4 times, over 40 Best of Show awards at various local maple events, and Hundreds of blue ribbons of excellence.  When you buy maple products from Gillilan Family Maple you are truly buying "Generations of Award-Winning Tradition."

We are proud of our history and the lessons we learn while harvesting sap from these wild maple trees.  We cherish our role as stewards of this wild forest, while we get to produce a single ingredient, all-natural sweetener, with more health benefits than any other common sweetener.  We are committed to 5 core values in honor of our 5 generations:  Quality, Tradition, Award-Winning, Customer Service, and Family.