According to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, in 2023, Pennsylvania farms produced 205,000 gallons of maple syrup worth more than $7.5 million, and 46 farms across the state had maple syrup sales of over $50,000.

According to the Northwest Pennsylvania Maple Association, Sugar maple trees are unique to North America and grow naturally only in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. The Association reports,” American Indians first discovered how to make maple syrup many years ago. They collected the sap in containers made from birch bark. They boiled it by filling a hollowed-out log with sap, then putting hot rocks into it. The American Indians did not have a way to store the sticky liquid maple syrup very well, so they boiled the syrup a little longer to make maple sugar. 

They used maple sugar to sweeten their food and added it to cold water for a sweet summer drink. When the first Europeans came to North America, the American Indians taught them about making maple syrup. As time passed, the method of making maple syrup improved, but the basic process remained the same. The annual tradition of making maple syrup has been a part of Pennsylvania’s history for well over 200 years.”

Numerous references to sugar camps can be found in newspapers throughout the state. In Coudersport, The Potter Journal and News Item reported in its April 04, 1873, edition, “The depth of snow through all the woods, lying so late this season will, it is feared, prevent the usual amount of sugar making, and one great source of supply to the Wild Cat region of Pennsylvania.

Usually, at the close of a long and perhaps exhausting winter, the making and sale of thirty or forty dollars’ worth of sugar by each family is a relief and a help looked forward to with eagerness and sorely missed by many when seasons come like this one. The few thousand dollars brought into Potter County early, before the butter-making begins to amount to much, have a sweetness that belongs especially to maple sugar.” It concluded, “Perhaps the little that will be made this year may taste thus to some like her who will eat it for the last time. And we hope there may be plenty another year for those who wait to eat it.”

The editor of the Columbian newspaper of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, noted in an April 1867 story of a trip he made to northern Columbia County, “We counted no less than twenty sugar camps on the route. Men, women, and children were gathered around the blazing fires, evidently regarding the matter as fine sport. It is a life in the woods after being pent up all winter. Some camps we found produced 1,000 pounds.” 

Another article in the Columbian in April of 1901 reported, “Farmers who have maple sugar upon their places are full of profitable employment just now. This industry is entirely too much neglected in the Fishing Creek Valley for one that gives such good returns, and the work of which is finished before the farming begins.”

W.J. McKnight, in his 1898 History of Jefferson County, provided a detailed look into the maple sugar industry and his own experiences as a boy in a sugar camp. The description was printed in the Brookville Republican newspaper in April of 1896. “One of the pioneer industries in this wilderness was maple sugar making. The sugar season commenced either in the last of February or the first of March. In any event, at this time, the manufacturer always visited his camp to see or set things in order. The camp was a small cabin made of logs, covered usually with clapboards, and open at one end. The fireplace or crane and hooks were made in this way: Before the opening in the cabin, four wooden forks were deeply set in the ground, and on these forks was suspended a strong pole. On this pole was hung the hook of a limb with a pin in the lower end to hang the kettle on. An average camp had about 300 trees, and it required 6 kettles, averaging about 22 gallons each, to boil the water from that many trees. The trees were tapped in various ways, viz: First, with a three-quarter-inch auger one or two inches deep. In this hole was put a round spile about eighteen inches long, made of sumac or whittled pine, two spiles to a tree. The later way was by cutting a hollow notch in the tree and putting the spile below with a gouge. This spile was made of pine or some soft wood. When a boy, I lived about five years with Joseph and James McCurdy in what is now Washington Township, and the latter method of opening trees was practiced by them. Indeed, all I say here about this industry I learned from and while with them. At the camp, there were always from one to three storage troughs made of cucumber or poplar, and each trough held from 10 barrels upward. Three hundred trees required a storage of 30 barrels and steady boiling with six kettles. The small troughs under the trees were made of pine and cucumber and held from three to six gallons.

We hauled the water to the storage troughs with one horse and a kind of a "pung," the barrel being kept in its place by plank just far enough apart to hold it tight. In the fireplace, there was a large back log and one a little smaller in front. The fire was kept up late and early with smaller wood split in lengths of about three feet. We boiled the water into a thick syrup, then strained it through a woolen cloth while hot, into the syrup barrel. When it had settled and before putting it on to " sugar off," we strained it the second time.

During this sugaring we skimmed the scum off with a tin skimmer and clarified the syrup in the kettle with eggs well beaten in sweet milk. This "sugaring off" was always done on cloudy or cold days when the trees wouldn't run "sap." One barrel of sugar water from a sugar tree, in the beginning of the season, would make from 5 to 7 pounds of sugar. The sugar was always made during the first of the season. The molasses was always made at the last of the season, or else it would turn to sugar in a very few days. The sugar was made in cakes or "stirred off" in a granulated condition and sold in the market from 6¼ to 12½ cents a pound.

In "sugaring off," the syrup had to be frequently sampled by dropping some of it in a tin of cold water, and if the molasses formed a "thread" that was brittle like glass, it was fit to stir. I was good at sampling and always anxious to try the syrup, as James McCurdy, who is still living, can substantiate. In truth, I was never very hungry during sugar making, as I had a continual feast during this season of hot syrup, treacle (goopy syrup), and sugar. Skill and attention were both necessary in " sugaring off," for if the syrup was taken off too soon, the sugar was wet and tough, and if left on too long, the sugar was burnt and bitter. Time has evoluted (transformed) this industry in our county.

In his book’s census chapter of 1840, McKnight listed how many pounds of maple sugar were manufactured in each township and the sum total in pounds for the county. He said his employers, “Joseph and James McCurdy were pioneer settlers. Joseph has been dead many years, and I can cheerfully say that he was an honest man and true Christian.”

According to Agriculture Department estimates, Somerset, Potter, and Tioga Counties were the leading producers of Maple syrup in 2024.