History of papermaking in New York

The History of Papermaking in New York had its beginnings in the late 18th century, at a time when linen and cotton rags were the primary source of fibers in the manufacturing process.

[3] In 1772 Keating moved his mill to Continental Village, in Putnam County, NY, where it operated for a few years, until it was set afire by British troops in 1777, during the American Revolution.

[3] In 1773, the Manhattan-based printer and bookseller Hugh Gaine, in partnership with Hendrick Onderdonk and Henry Remsen, established a paper mill at Hempstead Harbor (later called Roslyn), on Long Island.

In 1866, Albrecht Pagenstecher, a German immigrant living in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, together with his brother Rudolf, bought two German-made Keller-Voelter grinders.

[8] The New York World reluctantly cancelled its contract for the newsprint, which the Smith Paper Company of Lee, Massachusetts was making from this new woodpulp.

Several years before, Augustus G. Paine Sr. had sold the Champlain Fiber and Pulp Co., of Willsboro, New York, an 'evaporator' to recover and reuse the expensive chemicals used in “cooking” wood chips.

At the time, James Rogers Jr. controlled roughly 75,000 acres of timberland on which much of the hardwood had been cut for charcoal to make iron.

[17] Albrecht Pagenstecher and his friend Senator Warren Miller's trip resulted in the Hudson River Pulp & Paper Company which started making groundwood and newsprint in 1869 at Palmer (Corinth), New York, near Luzerne.

[18] Following its acquisition by the International Paper Company in 1898, the Hudson River facility became the firm's "flagship mill" and site of its principal office.

[25][26][27] In Mechanicville, New York, Westvaco Corporation's MeadWestvaco 6 paper machines ran non-stop to feed the printing presses of the nation's leading publishers.

These mills used the Voelter process allowing a low-cost, high-quality Remington newsprint to be made of 75% rags and 25% wood pulp instead of all-rag content paper costing five times more.

In 1867, Benjamin Tilghman, an American chemist, discovered that sulphurous acid (H2SO3) dissolved the lignin in wood, leaving a residue of cellulose fibers.

However, Alfred D. Remington learned that a Swede, Carl Daniel Ekman, was teaching papermakers in Sweden to make paper entirely out of wood pulp by using a sulphite process (SO3).

[39] The revolution in paper-making in the Black River region was complete: fourdrinier machines became bigger and bigger and faster and faster; the demand for spruce was insatiable and the lumbermen practically denuded the virgin forests; the unpleasant odor of the sulphite mills replaced the equally unpleasant odor of the tanneries.