The Sugar Apparatus Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia was typical of many of the small specialty manufacturers of the region. S. Morris Lillie, the company president, patented his single and multiple effect evaporators and began marketing them in 1893. The evaporators were primarily used to recover crystallized sugar from solutions made from sugar cane or sugar beets. The bulk of the records cease in 1933, leaving no indication of the firm's fate. By 1964, the records and drawings were in the possession of Ford Bros. & Co., coppersmiths and machinists of Philadelphia., which apparently had been building Lillie evaporators for a number of years.