THE JONES STORY (1845 - 1958)
CHAPTER ONE - The paper town, Lee, Massachusetts
It began in 1845 in the village of East Lee, part of Lee, Massachusetts. This concise statement of fact, however, has a fascinating background which is vital to our story as it forms a part of our local and national industrial history. It all stems back to the years before and following our Revolutionary War, and it has to do with paper. By the time this long struggle was done, the paper industry in the United States was already nearly one hundred years old. "During the greater part of the first hundred years of its existence, American paper-making was indeed a feeble industry. Many things operated to its disadvantage, cramped its efficiency, curtailed the variety and amount of its production and retarded its development. From 1690 when Rittenhouse (first paper maker in the Colonies with his mill on Brandywine stream near Philadelphia) began operations, and for about the following fifty years mills were few in number, small and meagrely equipped;
capable workmen were hard to find; machinery was of the simplest kind; methods were slow and crude." Most of the mills at this time were located close to Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
Following the Revolution there was a long period of uncertainty, the people were poor and too widely separated to achieve common interests. Communication was difficult as most roads were frightfully poor. It took anywhere from two to six days to go from Berkshire County to Boston, depending upon the type conveyance and time of year. Movement of heavy loads overland was mostly by ox carts. Water transportation was favored wherever it was available. Gradually there emerged out of all the difficulties a re-awakening of the small paper industry. The almost universal school system, although extremely humble, the development of trade and simple requirements for records of local government created a need for paper. For a time much of the need was satisfied through imports and at prices which were high. The combination of high prices and slow deliveries no doubt encouraged local young industry to take hold.
To Zenas Crane goes the credit for establishing the first paper mill in the Berkshires. He had received training from his elder brother, Stephen Crane, Jr., who had established himself in Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts. It is said of Zenas Crane, "Having reached this stage of preparedness, he determined to have a mill of his own and to this end, in 1799 when he was twenty-two years of age, he journeyed to the western part of the state, and there, in the town of Dalton, selected a site for the first paper mill in Massachusetts west of the Connecticut River. Not until two years later was the mill built, as appears from an advertisement for rags, printed by Crane and his two partners in the Pittsfield Sun,February 8, 1801."
The second paper mill was started in South Lee. J.B. Beers in his history of Berkshire County (1885) says:
"But the industry destined to surpass all others, and almost to monopolize the resources of the town, was begun in 1806 by Samuel Church of East Hartford, Connecticut, at South Lee where the large paper mill of the Hurl but Paper Company, a part of the Mead Paper Corporation, now stands. At their one hundred fiftieth anniversary in 1956, Hurlbut published a booklet, "Papermaking in the Berkshires" by Penrose Scull. 'All work was done by hand, rags were pounded into pulp in mortars, and twenty mortars were required to reduce 100 pounds of rags to pulp each day. From a small beginning the business spread into all parts of town, until in 1857 there were no less than twenty-five mills in town with an annual production of $2,000,000. Until the establishment of Holyoke, Lee was the leading town in the country for manufacture of paper."
When these mills were built, those which proceeded them, and those which followed in the first half of the nineteenth century, were small and equipped simply so they could be designed and mostly built on the spot. All paper was made by hand.
These two descriptions of mills before the turn of the century are typical of those which followed during the first half of the nineteenth century.
"It was a two vat mill. A breast-wheel twelve feet in diameter furnished power to drive the greatest portion of machinery in the mill, which was composed of two engines with rolls two feet in length and twenty-six inches in diameter, one duster and a grindstone with which to sharpen the bed-plates to the engine. The rags were cut by hand on a scythe fixed in a post, or a long knife, and five men with ten or twelve girls made up the required quota of help. By running two engines to their full capacity, the accustomed fifteen hours per day, they were able to turn out from two hundred and thirty, to two hundred and fifty pounds of paper daily or about one thousand five hundred pounds per week."
"A building occupied as a Paper Mill, 36 by 32 feet, had two vats upon the ground floor, which had a cast iron pot in each of them, sunk into brick chimneys, for heating vats. The first floor had two engines for beating stuff, a room for dressing rags, with a brick chimney and fire place, also two other rooms for rags. The second floor was occupied for a rag warehouse."
"Another building connected to the mill by a covered passage way 20 ft. long, used for drying and keeping paper before finished in an area 20 by 24 feet, at the end next to the mill; a part of the drying-house is taken off for a finishing room, 27 by 24 feet, in which a cast and brick chimney. Another building 35 feet from the mill, 24 ft. by 20, was for rags and finished paper. Another building, 131 feet from the mil!, 20 x 13 ft. was for rope and other lumber."
Photo
at left - Artist Concept of East lee (circa 1850) E. D. G. Jones shop location
was up the valley on the left. Click the image forenlargedview.
About the only product which could not be "home pro-days of the industry were brought in from Europe. Eventually requirements of paper industry for bronze wire and wire cloth brought about a subsidiary industry, which also has a most interesting history.
For the historian an interesting story was published by Hercules Powder Company in their house organ "Paper Maker" Volume 29, No.l, 1960. This account by John W. Maxson, Jr. tells the record of Nathan Sellers "America's first large-scale maker of moulds". His skill was so vital to Revolutionary War paper needs that a petition was made to Congress, August 26, 1776 to have him released from military service to return home to make moulds for the paper industry. This was granted.
Even though all early mills produced paper by hand not many of them continued the laborious task of reducing rags by hand in mortars. Long before Rittenhouse built his first mill in 1690 the "stamper", which is really a power driven pestle working in a mortar was well known. It was usual to drive a group of these units from a single overshot water wheel. Approximately five horsepower generated In this way was sufficient stamping mills and these would reduce all the rags to pulp which one vat man could convert to a wet sheet of paper.
Early in the nineteenth century the "Hollander" Beater was well known and it is supposed that this machine supplanted all other means of reducing rags or any other types of papermaking fibers to the required pulp consistency. Thus we speak of fibers being "beaten". These machines were far more effective than stamping mills and required much less space. Their use made paper mills were located alongside of streams which could be dammed to supply the essential power.
Although the first mill in Lee (Hurlbut 1806) was located along the Housatonic River in South Lee much of the paper mill expansion that followed was located in East Lee, along a tributary to tlie Housatonic River known as Goose Pond stream. Today this stream is rated as a small brook, but in the early nineteenth century when paper mills were small this stream was ideal. It had a fall From pond, at elevation 1483 feet, to valley floor, elevation 963 feet, of 520 feet. It was dammed at frequent intervals and provided power needs for many small mills. Spring water also was plentiful for washing rags, the source of fiber for paper.
Another interesting facet concerned with early development of these mills in Lee was transportation. Obviously when these mills were expanding most of their market was outside this area. New York City by way of the Hudson River was the most accessible market place. "It is estimated that 1626 tons were annually transported to and from the Hudson River, by inhabitants of this town, in their various occupations. Seven hundred tons were supposed, to be annually transported by those concerned in various paper mills. The whole cost of transportation was estimated at $8,943. every year". The route to the Hudson was by dirt roads and over the range of hills bordering Massachusetts and New York, roughly fifty miles. This was easy when compared with the route eastward/over two major ranges of hills to Boston which was roughly one hundred fifty miles away.