THE JONES STORY (1845 - 1958)
CHAPTER TWO - Years 1845 to 1866 in East Lee
The proceeding is some of the industrial development that was taking place in East Lee in 1845 when Edward Dorr Griffin Jones (founder of E. D. Jones Company) attained his majority. Up to this time he was located with his parents in Wellington, Ohio, and he learned the trade of wheelwright from his uncle Timothy. That young Edward was attracted to East Lee is not strange, even though general movement of most adventurous people was from east to west. His grandfather, AdoniJah Jones (1748-1820) had settled in Otis only twelve miles from Lee. He was prominent in affairs of this young community (History of Berkshire County - J. B. Beers 1885, Page 253), and in his own right an entrepreneur engaged in sawmill operations with two of his sons.
E. D. Jones was born September 22, 1824 in Otis. His parents, Eber (1787-1860) and Betsy Pelton (1794-1886) moved to Brooklyn, New York, when he was six years old, it was there that Edward received his early education. At twelve the family moved again (about 1836) to settle on a farm at Wellington, Ohio. His uncle Timothy, a factor in Edward's training, also moved to Wellington, but not before achieving considerable distinction for having served as State Senator (1828-29) the district to which Otis belonged.
In 1845 when E. D. Jones returned to Berkshire County and established himself in East Lee in a very modest way. Every indication pointed to an association with Bradford M. Couch whose shop was located along the Greenwater stream, on the opposite side from what now is the East Lee Inn. The exact working relation which he had with Bradford Couch is not clear, i.e. whether Couch, who was about twenty-six at the time, had started a shop earlier; whether they were partners or whether he simply used the Couch shop for headquarters and to get some mill work done or timber that was to be installed in paper mills. In any event, from accounts passed down by word of mouth, E. D. Jones spent much of his time in these first years with his own tools doing millwright work in the paper mills.
Photo at left - Greenwater Stream, somewhere near Jones
fist shop. Click image to enlarge.
Other "service" shops had already been established, either above or below the same stream. For example — "soon after the manufacture of paper was started in this town, Cornelius Barlow, a blacksmith there commenced making rag knives".... "later the business was taken over by one Murray, who joined brothers John and Rex Dowd . In 1877, John Dowd bought out his brother's interest and was assisted by his son, R. J. Dowd; later moving to Beloit, Wisconsin, where they established a similar manufactory". Elsewhere it is reported that "John Dowd's machine shop located on Road 26, in 1850 employed six men in manufacture of paper engine roll bars, bedplates, trimming knives, rag cutter knives/ etc."
Well below the junction of Greenwater and Goose Pond streams towards Lee there was a metal working shop, ". ..engaged in the manufacture of papermaking machinery; it was originally established by Beach and Royce (probably 1820). In 1840 it was purchased by Edward P. Tanner, ... .who managed the concern, his son J. Albert was agent. The shop gave employment to thirty hands". Subsequently after various changes in ownership this became and is currently the Clark-Aiken Company. These two plants were mentioned, not only as having been established early, but because they became a source of metal components, vital in equipment made by E. D. Jones and others.
Map
of East Lee - Left (Circa 1870) showing some businesses along Greenwater and
goose Streams. Click image to enlarge.
"The character of manufacturing on Greenwater stream was very different from that of the mills on Goose Pond stream, though closely connected with it. While Goose Pond stream mills produced paper itself, plants on the lower Greenwater stream made equipment supplied repair parts and furnished maintenance service to keep the paper mills in operation." On the lower stream tubs were made for washing, bleaching; also rectangular round end beater tanks. Later a roll was mounted in which there were radial bars that ran against a bedplate set in the bottom of the beater tank. Cut rags were circulated with water between the roll and bedplate knives until the mass was reduced to pulp suitable for the "making vat".
Beaters made in those early years were quite different machines than ones with which we are familiar. Unfortunately there are few records of construction; rolls were made of wood and the diameters usually limited to the size of tree trunks available, mounting for the roll shaft was likewise of wood and adjustment was obtained by moving wedges under the beams. Time required for beating was not of great importance, crude as these machines were they were a lot more efficient than the stampers which they replaced and they could easily make all the pulp with a few units that could be shaken out by the vat men.
Photo
at left - Making paper by hand (model on display at Crane Museum, Dalton, MA.)
Click image to enlarge.
However, development of the paper machine changed every other device used in making paper, including the beaters which then had to be made more efficient to keep up production.
Photo
at Left - Dam that provided power for E. D. G. Jones shop (1845-1867). Click
image to enlarge.
The service plants made many essential products for the paper mills, one of these was the overshot water-wheel . They were largely constructed of wood with the exception of the shaft; assembled in the service plant then taken down to be transported to and mounted in place on the main drive shaft of the paper mills. The amount of power that these wheels could supply depended upon diameter, face width and size of buckets. Of course there was no advantage of a wide face wheel with large pockets if there was insufficient water available. It is reported that the largest wheel made by E.D. Jones was 30 feet in diameter by 7 feet face for Benton Brothers Mill, now the Mountain Mill. Later an auxiliary steam engine was coupled to the same line shaft, but the huge wheel remained in use until 1909. These overshot water wheels were an essential source of power for all types of plants at the time, and E.D.Jones is credited as being a master in this business as well as other equipment for paper mills.
Use of kerosene or oil lights to extend the operating day were frequent hazards in early paper mills. It was impossible to operate service plants more than the daylight hours, because wood shavings resulting from planning, fitting and assembling created special dangers.
On Greenwater Stream each of the plants had its own dam for storing water for its water wheel. Dowd was the largest one on the stream and remains of it can be seen today near the Cordonier Bridge two miles east of the center.
During months of good rainfall, drainage from hills east of town into Greenwater Pond and the valley provided sufficient water to fill the dams at night so machinery could be run for a few hours the next day. Plants and paper mills on Greenwater and Goose Pond stream had a plan to use the limited available water in sequence. First one upstream started his equipment then others followed in order as flow moved downstream.
In 1856 Bradford Couch sold his interest in the carpenter and millwright shop to E. D. Jones. During this period, there was continued expansion in the paper industry, not only on Greenwater and Goose Pond streams but in many other nearby streams as well..... "for a time it seemed that paper mills sprung up like mushrooms, all up and down the streams in Lee, Tyringham, Stock-bridge, Housatonic, Great Barrington, and there were times when men, seemingly bemused by the lure of this industry, erected little "one family" mills on their farms and went headlong into the business, knowing Uttle or nothing about it and prospering little or none".
E. D. Jones must have been successful in avoiding most of the marginal ventures in his contracts for complete mills, because he established during this period an excellent reputation for good work and every report indicates that he prospered.
By the middle eighteen fifties, great changes were being realized. Cast iron turbine type waterwheels were finding increased usage. These were adaptable to a greater range of "head"', they were more efficient than overshot wheels and were applied where greater volumes of water were available. E. D. Jones became agent for Leffell Company, manufacturer of these wheels, of Springfield, Ohio. This proved to be a valuable account.
In 1849, after several failures a dam across the Connecticut River at Holyoke was completed. At that time it provided the greatest single source of water power in the country. This started a wave of paper mill expansion all along its three level canal system.
Railroads had some time before invaded Berkshire County, the first east-west run through Pittsfield was made Dec. 27, 1841. In 1850 the Housatonic Railroad that ran from Bridgeport, Connecticut, to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, (where it met the Western Railroad, eventually the Boston and Albany) finally completed a branch from Great Barrington via Stockbridge, Lee, and Lenox to Pittsfield. A spur was never built to serve the various industries in East Lee. One railroad had planned to run north and south from New Haven by way of the Farmington River to Pittsfield but failed to go through.
The stationary steam engine was becoming an ever more important prime source of power. From the paper industry point of view, however by far the most important development was the paper machine. Both cylinder and Fourdrinier types had been invented years before and caused much grief to their inventors and backers. Even when development began to make possible reasonable reliability, there was great secrecy among mills first having these new machines, hoping to slow the acceptance of this revolutionary device so that they might retain competitive advantages for themselves.
The Fourdrinier machine came inio the local picture at Lee in 1848 and one in Dalton in 1850. Previous to their introduction the Ames cylinder machines had been used and it was considered better adapted to small mills.
E. D. Jones was certainly aware of all the new influences that were taking place, the geographic range of his activities were expanding and sizes of orders which he was being asked to undertake were also increasing. During this period drawings were scanty, written description was at a minimum, so that much work was undertaken by verbal agreement, between owner on one hand and contractor on the other. Engineering organizations as such were unknown. Layouts as needed were often made on boards, then subsequently planed smooth and reused. Smith and Winchester in their history written by Eden C. Cook,April 29, 1964, commented as follows:
"Upon completion (of the machine), the drawing was planed off and a new design started on the same board. (Not much danger of drawings being stolen or copied and workmen were secure with details only from memory.)"
E. D. Jones functioned as a combination engineer, contractor and builder. A typical example with a tinge of tragedy mixed with humor follows: "Mr. Jones' largest work in Lee was the building of the present Columbia Mill, formerly ' Crow Hollow '. 'Crow Hollow ' mill was destroyed by fire on September 2, 1865 while the wedding festivities of Elizier Smith (owner of the mill) and his bride were in progress at their home a mile or two away. Mr. Smith would allow no interruption to the joyousness of the reception, but early next morning he was directing clearing away the ruins and Mr. Jones was soon at work with his corps of men rebuilding." This is now part of the Schweitzer Division of Kimberly-Clark.
In 1856 Kingsland invented and patented the four disk refiner and in 1858 Joseph Jordan brought forth his conical machine. Both were proposed by their inventors as potential devices to process fibers continuously thus making the Hollander Beater obsolete, however this use of their machines keenly disappointed both men. The Kings-land machine was too advanced to be properly produced by available machine tools. It was not until many years later that machines of this concept were built with required accuracy and materials that finally gave them favorable acceptance. Mr. Jordan's conical machine finally called a "Jordan" fared somewhat better. It received limited acceptance as a processing tool for finishing work of the beater. Had either of these units met the expectations of their inventors the course of E. D. Jones' business might soon have changed. As it was, he continued supplying the beater to meet the needs of his customers. However, both of these machines later became part of the Jones activity.
It was during this same period 1858, that Beloit Iron Works became manufacturers of the Fourdrinier type paper machine in Beloit, Wisconsin. Exactly one hundred years later this company became the owner of the JONES organization. This is a later part of our story, the Beloit history has been recorded and makes interesting reading that parallels the JONES story.
Tensions which led to the Civil War had little effect on paper products.
"In Massachusetts business increased tremendously between 1850 and 1855. A-census of the later year, taken by Secretary of State, showed: number of mills, one hundred twenty-one; capital engaged, $2,564,500; value of product, $4,141,847; persons employed 2,630.
Throughout the period, Berkshire County continued to hold its position as the section of state foremost in number of paper mills and value of products.
The Smith Paper Company which became one of the big concerns of this region, was developed in the middle of this century.".... "At one time this concern was the largest producer of writing papers in the United States, or perhaps the world".
Not only was there this activity in Berkshire County and in Massachusetts but there-was expansion elsewhere in the whole tier of northeastern states. Even during the war period new mills were built, in spite of material and man power shortages. Just before the war, however, mill expansion had reached such a peak that a serious over-capacity was reached.
Image
at left - Earliest known business record of E. D. G. Jones (from Col. W. H.
Weingar (Circa 1856). Click image to enlarge.
Manufacturers of fine writing paper met in Pittsfield, Mass., in February, 1861, representatives of twenty-one of the thirty-six mills in the country were present. A protective association was formed and it was decided that for three months from the first of March production should be curtailed one-third. But, firing upon Fort Sum-ter in April changed everything, in the twinkling of an eye. From that time on prices went up and up, and mills had plenty to do."
"Early in 1862, ordinary printing paper was selling for nine cents and eight cents net cash a pound. Manufacturers agreed to increase price, with the result that news went to seventeen cents cash and twenty-two cents before the end of the year. Manufacturers of fine writing took similar action and raised prices from thirteen and fourteen cents to seventeen cents for fine writing and from fifteen to twenty-five cents for letter and note paper. Within a few months all writing papers were forty cents a pound and No. I printing thirty cents. In 1864, news was selling for twenty-eight cents and fine book for forty-five cents.
Stock was scarce. Waste paper commanded eight cents a pound and thousands of tons of old books and news papers, school and account books, correspondence and business papers went to the mills. And still the price of white paper kept well up.
In 1863, William Platner of Platner & Porter, of Uionville. Conn., drew up a carefully itemized estimated cost of running a mill making eighteen hundred pounds of writing paper a day. The total was $528.26, and from this it appeared that the average cost of paper at the mill at that time was twenty-nine and one-half cents per pound, while the paper was bringing from forty to fifty cents."
Continued demand for paper exhausted available supplies of rags, almost the sole source of fiber. This severe shortage also was being felt in Europe and it set off extensive searches for other suitable materials. It is not the purpose of this book to delve into the many efforts made to find other fibers, these are well recorded elsewhere. However, the introduction of groundwood from Germany where it had first been successfully produced, is a tale, which bears repeating. Especially because of the proximity to Jones" operation in its first use in Lee.
"Carl Wurzbach of Lee, son of Frederick Wurzbach, can remember his father, an expert papermaker employed by
the Pagenstecher brothers, emigrants from Germany, turned out the first batch of wood pulp ground from native Berkshire poplar, in a little wooden mill on the bank of Lake Mahkeenac (Stockbridge Bowl) stream at Curtiss-ville, in March 1867.
Alberto Pagenstecher had made some money in railroad construction work in South America and he wrote his nephew Albrecht in this country, asking advice on possible good investments in United States businesses. Albrecht and his brother Rudolph, had just heard about the Voelker process and its success in Germany. So Albrecht, a shrewd investor, advised that the/purchase patent rights of the Voelker process and build a mill in America to manufacture groundwood pulp.
Alfredo came to America and joined his nephews, imported machines from Germany, sought and found the right site, erected a small, wooden mill, bringing from Germany Frederick Wurzbach to supervise construction and the wood grinding process. Wurzbach was a skilled woodworker and before leaving Germany acquainted himself thoroughly, with the Voelker process. He was promised a position as superintendent of a big shop in Magdeburgh, Germany, when he returned.
Wurzbach never intended to remain in America, but following the success of his pioneer work at Curtissville mill, he was induced to stay and sent for his wife and three children. He made his home in Lee and lived out a long and useful life as a papermaker.
His son Carl, an immigrant to America at the tender age of three years, lived in Lee all his life and was among its most prominent citizens.
Incidentally the Voelker process had been displayed at both the World's Exposition in London and the Paris Exhibition in 1867, but it was not enthusiastically received outside Germany.
Photo
at left - Gossett Store,nEast Lee, E. D. G. Jones first shop can be seen
between two buildings on the right. Click photo to enlarge.
And neither was it too enthusiastically received in this country, at first. For at this time, introduction of 'foreign matter' into paper made from rags was, more or less, considered shameful adulteration. However, it was tried out; although it is more a matter of local legend if not of history, that the first wagonloads of new pulp which were to be processed in 'Crow Hollow' mill at Lee, were hauled from Curtissville by a roundabout route at night, to keep it from being known that the 'stuff was used in papermaking. Whether this was from a desire to keep it as a possibly valuable industrial secret, or because it was feared it might put a blot on the rag escutcheon of the manufacturer. This pulp was processed at the Columbia Mill in Crow Hollow, Lee, under supervision of Wellington Smith. So here on March 18, 1867, was manufactured the first newsprint from wood pulp in America."
E.
D. Jones house in East lee. (Photo by Col. W. H. Weingar 1957) Click photo to
enlarge).