Historical As To Paper

As mcntioned in another place in tliis Dumber of the Paper World, we chronicle the Wasp as the firat paper-inaker known, but we are uuable to give the exact date whon he coiumenced busrness. Muncell's " Curonology oí Paper and Papér-Maktbg status that 670 B. C. Nmua, who lived 300 years before Alexunder, lelt several works upon papyrus, and that this ia pfrhapS the earliest authenti eated use of this material. As fur back as 1,800 years ago tho ('hiñese are thought to have dicovered how to uiake paper t'roui fibmus matter reduced to a pulp in water. About the ycar 706 A. 1). an Arabian manulactory of paper (rom cotton was establi.slied at Saniarcaud. ín 1151 the Spaniards nianuláctured from cotton various kinds of paper scarcely inferior in (luality to those made froiu unen raga. qualny (o tlioso maae iruiu unen rag. Lmen paper eotns to have been first used ín Kngland about ibe year 1342, and it trailuully supplantcd that made ot' cotton. The Frenen are Hiipposed to have erected their first paper milis in 1314, and the Grermans bogan the manufacture of paper at a not tuuch later date. John Tate is said to have built the first paper milis of England at Hartford in 14U8. But Franco lupplied Kngland with the most of her paper, uniil Loaii XIV drove out the Huguenot manufacturen, many of whom, ftor emïgrating o Enghmd, begsn making a fine white quality of paper, not producid befbn i tlmt country, where froin that time t.1 1 tr paper industry enlarged and prespered, uatil soon more than enough of the material was manufacturad to eover home coDsutnption. Tho ancient hatigings of tapeatry wero superseded about the year 1G40 by wall paper of beautiful designs. ïhe first paper mili in the United States was erected by Win. Rittinghuysep, in eompany with Wm. BradPird, a printer, near Philadelphia, on the.-tream still called I'aper-Mill Hun, in the year 1690. The paper was made largely of linea rags, the proddot of flax grown in that section. In LT28 a patent wa granted to erect the first paper mili in New Epgland, whieh went int,i opoMtioB ii t IMilton, Mass., in 1730, but was discontinued after wvcral years to be revived in 1760. The niill is supposed to harve In-en establisbed by Daniel llenchman, an entorprising bookseller of Boston. About the year 176B, 'hristopher IjerBngwell aetabjiehad tlm first paper niill in C#n necticut, at .N..nvir.li. In 1770 the number of paper milis loeated in Pennsylvania, New Jersi y M(j Delaware was forty, and the valuc of their aiinual proiluet estitnated at L100,000. At the bezinning of the Hevolutionary War, Ma.s-:irhu-etts had three small paper mjlls, New llampshire none and Ithode Island ono, out of repair, l'aper was very scurce, and what was manamrared por in qaafity. One of the wateit drffiúultiea under whieh AmericaS p:iier-makers labored for many years, was their inability to procure a sufficient quantity of rags ; and the itants were uuain and again urged in printcd réquesti, appealing to their patriotism M self-interest, to save every scrap of waste linea and cottonmatcrial, and eelf it to the milis. One of tbese petitions contained the following quaint and seductive passage : " If the uueessary stock is denied paper milis, young maid.s must languish in vain for tender epistles from their respective swains; bachelors may be reduced to the ity of a personal attendance upon the fair, when a written coniinunicatiou would be an excellent substituto. For clean cntton and linen rags of every color and description, matrons an bc furnished witli Bibles, spectacles and snufF; mothers with grammars, spelling-books and primers for their children ; and younr missos may lie gupplied with bonnets, ribbons and ear rings for the docoration of their benott (by means of which they may obtain Imsbatidu), or by sending thetu to the said mili they may receive the cash." In regard to discoveries and improvenicnts in the manufacture of paper, it may be said that the process pursued for generations in Europe was substantially lóllowed until the year 1750, when cyliuders with sharp steel blades for tearing rags - invented in Holland- began to be used in other countries, in place of the slow-working and tedious stampers lliat had heretofure been employed to reduce rags to pulp. In 1790, while the wife of an Knglish paper-maker was busy with her usual wat-hing, in paling a vat in which pulp for lier huxband's paper lay in an advanccd state of preparatiou, she accidentally dropped i In rein a bas containing powdered blue. The husband, however, made the colored pulp u'p into paper, wliich provcd so superior in quality that he obtained f'our shillings extra tor it in the London market : anil thus, curiously enough, the process of bluing paper was discovered. But the most notable and important discovery, and one which wasdestined to developan epocb in the history of paper-making, canie out in 1799, when Louis Kubert, a eomuuon workwan in a paper mili at Essonne, France. first successfully mastered the principie of' making paper in an endless webb by machinery. But it was reMryed lor Messrs. Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, wealthy London book-sellers and stationen wlio in 1804 parobaaed the patent rigut for Great Britain, to muko the invention widely known to the world and to greatly improve it ; and to-day the principal paper machine used still bears the name Foor drinier. Mr. Donkin, as well as the Fourdriniers, with whom he was associated in business, greatly improved the machine. By the old hand processes three months were needed, dating from the day the rags eame into the mili, in wliich to complete t In: paper ready for delivery ; by the Fourdriuier the sauie amount of work may be done in a single day. Mr. DicktBBOn, a noted Engliah jiaper-maker, invtnted in 1809 another method of manufaoturiog endless paper, which to a certain extent comneted with the Fourdrinier machine. The 6zai !"■ ri. iu wlm 'wi-n, nlroduced extensive iniprovements iiito the manufacture ot' paper was Juhn Auies, of Springfield, Mass.,who in 1822 obtoraed a patent on his celebrated cylinder machine, now used in this country on all coarse papers instead of' the Fourdrinier; and ibis was but one of his ruany useful inventions, including trimraing, ruling and stamping machines. A poor kind of' paper f'rom straw was manufactured in Philadelphia in 1854, but eeven years later the quality was so much improved that the big dailies began to use it. Of the numerous other mechanical deyelopuients and important improvements in the paper industry, especially withiu recent years, luention cannot be made in this orticle of limited reach. In 1810, :i few yeais after the close of' the revolution, there were 185 milis íd this country, whose total production in that yearwas estimated at about 330,000 reams, ofwhich 110,000 were writing paper. Of these milis thirty-eight were in iMassachusetts and sixty in Pennsylvania. In Masa achusetts at this time a common mili contaiuud but a single engine, had two vata, turned out 10U pounds per day, and required a capital of' about $10,000. In 1825 the most extensive manufactory in the United States, which ran twelve enginei and enmli'Yfd. in udiliiion o 'u. - "'uur oi men uei aea, IUU tamalee, is said to have been that ot' Messrs. D. & J. Ames, Springfield, Mass. It is estimated that about $700,000 worth of paper was pro duced, and neady 1,700 [ons of rags, etc., consumed by the milis of Massaelmsetts - about sixty in number, and six of' them liaving machines - in the year 1829. About 1831 the machinery recently ïntroduced into this country, and certain other inipruvemcnts, hugan to give ao Ímpetus to the paper industry in all MOtions. In 152 " the manufacture of paper in the United States was estimated at $7.000,000 per aimum, ot' wliich $3,500,000 was p;til liir rags, and $1,200,000 fot labor. The price of paper had declined frotu twenty to twenty-five per cent., while the quaüty had advanced in about the same ratio." Six hundred and seven thousand one hundred and seventy-five reams of' papsr, valued al 1,750,200, are stated to have been turned out iu 1845 frora the eighty-ninc paper milis in Massachusetts, which also then annually consumed 15,886 tons of stock and employed 1,369 workuien. Af'ter the Ameses of Springficld could no longer be called the largest paper makers in the United States, that ho ior feil to Platner & Smith, of Lee, Mass., which town, before Ilolyoke was ever built, was noted ibr its paper manufactories, the first mili in it being erected at South Lee in 1812. In 1851 Lee contained twcnty-five tuillsrun bythirteen couipanies, and producing $2,000,000 worth of paper annually, or at the rate of 25,000 pounds per day, valued at $6,300. In 1856 there wero twenty paper milis in Lee, suppliod with seventy-five engines, and employiog 1,000 hands. It was not until 1853 that the first paper mili was erected in Ilolyoke, " the paper city," whose growth as a 111:111ufacturiug center, especially in this brDoh of industry, has been wonderful. In 1874 Ilolyoke was said to uiatiufacture moni fa'ne writing paper than any other town or city in the world, and to-day she has a capital exceeding f'our and one-hulf niillions iri vested in this industry alone. " The milis are twenty in number, employ 2,200 hands, make a nionthly payment to (hem of $69,000, and produce eighty-flve tons of paper per day, of which forty tons are animal sized." Quite a number of towns and villajes in Western Massachusetts besides Ilolyoke and Lee have attaioed more or less notoriety for the manufacture of paper, so that this section ot' the State has becoine oelebratcd as a placo of' paper milis. Fur other faots oonoerning tlie history of the paper industry in this country, aiul also and particularty, for statements regarding its present condition and pHMjeot& ee future article, "Statistical as to l'aper."-