Maple and Memory: The Wallace Family's Sugaring Legacy
What began as a modest backyard pastime for Charles and Michelle Wallace has grown into the largest maple syrup producer in the county.
In the northwestern corner of Warren County, where the land folds into wooded ridges that rise toward the High Peaks Wilderness, a quiet kind of resilience defines both the terrain and the people who tend it. Amid the hemlock and hard maple of Thurman, Hidden Hollow Maple Farm stretches across 250 rugged acres—a thriving sugaring operation overseen by Charles and Michelle Wallace. What began as a modest backyard pastime has grown into the largest maple syrup producer in the county, a reflection of generations of care, forest knowledge, and enduring commitment.
Charles Wallace moves through his sugarbush and sugarhouse with the practiced ease of someone born into the rhythm of sap season. His father, Jim Wallace, settled here in 1965 and began sugaring the following spring. "My dad started making syrup in 1966," Charles recalls. "It was just something to do after moving to the farm. A hobby, really. But it didn’t stay that way for long."
For Charles, sugaring has always been part of life. “I was probably three or four when I started helping—gathering sap in one-gallon metal buckets. Of course, as a tiny kid, I’d spill half of it on the way to the collection tank.” Those early memories, sticky and sweet, have matured into a full-time operation that now taps more than 6,000 trees across the hillside.
“I’ve added a lot of modern stuff—reverse osmosis, vacuum, all that,” Charles says, “but I still boil on a very old, wood-fired evaporator.”
Instead of buckets, a network of eighteen to twenty miles of tubing now snakes through the woods, forming a silent system that carries sap from tree to tank. The system is powered in part by gravity, but also by vacuum—a vital assist in maximizing yield. Keeping it all running smoothly is no small task. “Tubing maintenance is probably the most daunting part,” Charles says. “You can’t always see what’s wrong until the sap starts running. Tiny holes, leaks—you might not find them just by looking. It takes time and patience.”
Time and patience define every aspect of the work. Even the weather must cooperate. The ideal conditions for sap flow, Charles explains, are a daily swing between freezing and thawing. “Below freezing at night—maybe the mid-20s—and then up into the 40s during the day. That pressure difference is what gets the sap moving.” Once gathered, the sap is pumped to the sugarhouse and run through a reverse osmosis machine, which removes much of the water and concentrates the sugar—an efficiency Charles appreciates.
Still, at the heart of the operation beats a deeply traditional element: the evaporator. “I’ve added a lot of modern stuff—reverse osmosis, vacuum, all that,” Charles says, “but I still boil on a very old, wood-fired evaporator. That’s probably the biggest difference between me and most others. Almost everyone else uses oil. I’m still using wood.”
Burning wood demands labor—cutting, hauling, splitting—and plenty of it. “I burn a lot of wood,” Charles says, matter-of-factly. “I harvest some from the property, buy some in log lengths. It all has to be cut and split. It’s year-round work.” His son, Rex, helps out when he can, along with a few friends. During boiling season, the scent of woodsmoke fills the sugarhouse, mingling with the thick, sweet aroma of syrup in the making.
Once boiled to exactly 66.6 percent sugar content, the syrup reveals its personality. “We mostly make dark robust syrup,” Charles says. “It has a stronger maple flavor, and it’s influenced by when the sap is collected and how long it sits. The longer it sits, the more the sucrose converts to fructose, which makes for a darker color and richer taste.”
The farm's output goes far beyond traditional syrup. Michelle Wallace plays a key role in developing and producing a diverse line of value-added products that bring their maple flavor to new forms. “Michelle makes the pecan and peanut brittle,” Charles says. “I do the maple cream and candy. She handles most of the packaging, and we both work on the infused syrups and maple-coated nuts.” Their product line includes maple cream, maple cotton candy, maple candy, maple peanut and pecan brittle, and five infused syrups. These creations allow Hidden Hollow to reach a wide array of customers—those looking for something special beyond the breakfast table.
Hidden Hollow thrives on a model that’s rooted in place, grounded in tradition, and sustained by a philosophy of quality over quantity.
Their syrup travels far and wide. “We’ve sold to a few restaurants. I supply SUNY, and I even ship a lot to Hawaii,” Charles says with a smile. “It goes out in different sizes—sometimes even drums.” While Charles once attended many fairs and markets, he’s shifted toward a more streamlined model. “After twenty years of talking to people at shows, I prefer to just sell every drop in bulk. No fuss. But we still open up the farm for Maple Days.”
Thurman Maple Days, a beloved annual event, gives visitors the chance to tour the sugarbush, watch the boiling process, and sample the results. It’s one of the few times Charles and Michelle step out of production mode and welcome the public into the heart of their operation.
Still, most of the time, the work is quiet, seasonal, and deeply physical. “Maple sugaring is more or less year-round,” Charles says. “If you're not marketing syrup, there’s always maintenance in the woods. And there’s always wood to cut.” When asked what he loves most about it, he pauses for a moment, then answers simply: “Being in the woods. That’s the best part.”
As the industry evolves, Charles has seen the rise of large-scale producers, particularly in Canada and northern New York. “In my opinion, it’s going the way dairy farming did,” he reflects. “Most of the small farms disappeared, and now it’s all massive operations. Maple’s going the same way.”
These larger outfits can produce syrup more cheaply, often with more advanced equipment and broader reach. But Hidden Hollow continues to thrive on a different model—rooted in place, grounded in tradition, and sustained by a philosophy of quality over quantity.
In every bottle of Hidden Hollow syrup, there’s more than just sweetness. There’s the story of a family who chose to live by the rhythms of the forest, embracing both the innovation and the integrity that maple sugaring demands. There’s a sense of place, a love of labor, and a deep respect for the trees that give so generously, season after season.
Author’s Acknowledgement
I wrote this story with substantial help from three AI tools.
I describe the process here
