WILLIAM C. HAMILTON owner of the Riverside Mill is a native of Chester Co., Pa., born near West Grove, September 1, 1819. His only means of education were such as be found in the common schools, which he attended until he reached the age of eleven years and a subsequent term of three months. When he left school, at the age mentioned, he commenced working in a small carding and fulling-mill, and remained there until sixteen years of age, when he entered as an apprentice in a one-vat hand paper-mill about three miles from Willow Grove, on a branch of White Clay Creek. It was owned by Robert Lisle, and operated by McCall & Wardell. He remained there two years and then entered the Wagontown hand-mill of Steadman & Markle, where he also remained two years, including the commencement of the great panic of 1837; when the mill was temporarily shut down. In the spring of 1838 he went to work in a small machine-mill, called the Beaver Dam Mill, on Buck Run, in Chester County. There he remained less than one year. In the winter of 1838-39 he worked for Jessup & Brothers in their two-vat hand-mill, located in Westfield, Mass., which was then running on fine writing-papers. In 1839, Mr. Hamilton left Massachusetts and went to Newark, Del., where he worked a short time in a small machine-mill. Thence he went to the two-vat hand-mill of John Eckstein, on Darby Creek, where he was employed on very fine work (bank-note and heavy ledger-paper), under the then widely-known manager, Joseph Robinson. He remained there during 1839-40. In the spring of 1841 he commenced work in the Glen Mills of James M. Wilcox & Co., on Chester Creek, Delaware Co. This mill, then running on fine book-papers, was somewhat famed because using a fourdrinier machine, one of the first used in the State. Mr. Hamilton worked in the mill of the Messrs. Wilcox & Co., until the fall of 1844, when he went to start a machine in the new Wissahickon Paper-Mill of Charles Magarge & Co., where, at the end of a few months, he was promoted to the position of manager. He remained in that capacity at the Wissahickon Mill twelve years, until 1856, when he took an interest in the new Riverside Mill, and remained six years, as has already been mentioned. After leaving the Riverside he was again engaged at Charles Magarge's  Wissahickon Mill, where he remained in exceedingly remunerative employment until the fall of 1865. His purchase, at that time, of the mill property at Lafayette Station, as also his subsequent business history, is embraced in the account of the Riverside Mill. Mr. Hamilton was married, May 16, 1845, to Elizabeth W. Gregg, daughter of Herman Gregg, of Delaware County. Their children are Rebecca J. (now the wife of Frank W. Lockwood, of Philadelphia) Charles L. Wilbur F. Edwin E. Hamilton

The three sons are associated with their father in the firm of W. C. Hamilton & Sons.

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