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ORIGINAL: surfaceone

Hello Rob,

Nice one. Sure looks barrelesque to me.

Wolff & Reessing were importers and big in the corn canning business in Bethel, Maine. They were also sardine magnates.

"New York importers, Wolff & Reessing Co., were the first to invest in a Bethel sweet corn canning operation. Canning began in 1880. Wolff & Reessing was already well known along the coast of Maine for its sardine canning factories. The company’s arrival in Maine was due to the Franco – Prussian War of 1870 which had curtailed French exports of sardines to America.

The story of how Wolff & Reessing discovered Bethel may never be known. Possibly a Bethel person found them. The Androscoggin’s intervale land would seem reassuring to a company agent looking for a reasonably good place to open a corn canning enterprise.

For more information about the Wolff & Reessing Company see this Lubec, Maine, web site: http://www.visitlubecmaine.com/about/abouteconomy.htm and another website covering the herring situation in Maine: http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/noreaster/noreasterFW97/Sardine.html

In 1880, America’s food canning industry was only about 75 years old. Food canning had started in France in 1795.

In 1868 Burnham and Morrill opened their South Paris sweet corn canning plant; this factory may have caught the attention of Julius Wolff

In 1875 Julius Wolff went to Eastport, Maine to scout out a new source of sardines. In 1876 Wolff & Reessing opened their first sardine canning factory. His company eventually operated 18 sardine canning plants. Up to this point, it seems that Wolff & Reessing were importers but had not yet opened canning factories in Maine.

The June 8, 1880 Oxford County Democrat reported in the Bethel news that farmers have contracted to plant one hundred acres of sweet corn for the canning factory of John Webb. He is putting the Clough mill in order and is already turning out a large quantity of cans. (The Clough mill site was on the west side of Mill Brook next to the upper, higher dam.) On August 24 the newspaper reported that the corn factory commences packing Monday. The improvements about the business and the improved machinery put in must be a grand success, under the management of their energetic agent, Hon. J. M. Webb and his corps of efficient assistants.

To end the 1880 season, on November 16 the Democrat reported the following: Webb’s corn factory put up 100,000 cans of sweet corn which is being shipped to market by the Grand Trunk. The corn and grain crops were shortened by severe drought, yet some farmers who planted early and used Bradley’s phosphate have made it a paying crop. Mr. W. Town raised $60.00 worth on one acre. S.B. Twitchell raised $90.00 of sugar beets on one acre. (The 1880 news did not connect Webb to Wolff and Reessing directly. Town records have not been examined as to the paying tenant in this case.)

The Wolff & Reesing corn canning factory (left) was on land previously owned by Eber Clough. Due to old age and misfortune Clough had moved elsewhere and had lost his property to foreclosure for non payment of taxes. Clough’s property, now occupied by the corn factory, was located less than one-quarter mile from the site where historians say in 1774 Bethel began. . The company’s rental agreement included the buildings (mill) and two acres on the east side of the Albany road plus the house and 20 acres on the west side of the road opposite the mill. The company’s lease ran until May of 1890. Annual rental was $200.


September 6, 1881, the corn factory was reported to have commenced operations and the corn is very good. They employ about one hundred hands and expect it will take six weeks to can the corn, after which they propose to can beef and mutton until December.

From 1886 through 1889, the only local name connected to the corn factory was Augustus Mellen (A.M. “Gus”) Carter who was 49 in 1889. According to William Lapham, writing in his 1891 History of Bethel, Maine, Carter was a farmer and civil engineer who lived in the Carter neighborhood of Middle Interval (Bethel). Lapham refers to Carter as the “superintendent of corn packing establishment in Bethel.

The Wolff & Reesing corn canning factory (left) was on land previously owned by Eber Clough. Due to old age and misfortune Clough had moved elsewhere and had lost his property to foreclosure for non payment of taxes. Clough’s property, now occupied by the corn factory, was located less than one-quarter mile from the site where historians say in 1774 Bethel began. . The company’s rental agreement included the buildings (mill) and two acres on the east side of the Albany road plus the house and 20 acres on the west side of the road opposite the mill. The company’s lease ran until May of 1890. Annual rental was $200.


September 6, 1881, the corn factory was reported to have commenced operations and the corn is very good. They employ about one hundred hands and expect it will take six weeks to can the corn, after which they propose to can beef and mutton until December.

From 1886 through 1889, the only local name connected to the corn factory was Augustus Mellen (A.M. “Gus”) Carter who was 49 in 1889. According to William Lapham, writing in his 1891 History of Bethel, Maine, Carter was a farmer and civil engineer who lived in the Carter neighborhood of Middle Interval (Bethel). Lapham refers to Carter as the “superintendent of corn packing establishment in Bethel..." From The Bethel Journal.

Here's a 1881 Scientific American article on the American Sardine front.

This 1985 Bangor Dailey News article says of them "the sardine industry in Maine was really fathered by Julius Wolff and Herman Reesing, who packed Russian sardines in New York around 1874..." You've got prime child labor conditions and the coming of Lewis Hine on the horizon.

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Neat bottle but not a barrel... It would be a mustard pot or jar or whatever you want to call it along those lines. To truly be barrel it would have to be shape literally like a barrel... Mustard barrels are a figural bottle