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Paper Press

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

Besides grist mills to produce flour, there were numerous other types of mills along Chester Creek including sawmills, textile mills, and papermills. There were two papermills downstream from Newlin Grist Mill. These turned linen and cotton rags into paper for writing, printing, and currency. The iron paper press here (mounted on a reproduction wooden frame) came from Trimble's papermill and would have been used to squeeze water out of the paper pulp and compact the fibers into smooth sheets of paper.

Images

Original iron paper press in a reproduction wooden frame.

Original iron paper press in a reproduction wooden frame.

Detail of screw mechanism.

Detail of screw mechanism.

Detail of Plate XI: "Papermaking, Sizing" by Denis Diderot

Engraving showing workers in a paper mill, one of them at a press.

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The most well-known papermill in Concord Township was Ivy Mills, owned by the Willcox family and located downstream from Newlin Grist Mill on the West Branch of Chester Creek. Started in 1726, it had Benjamin Franklin as one of its customers and would go on to produce the paper for Continental currency. Ivy Mills operated until 1886--its ruins can still be seen today along Polecat Road (the eastern boundary of NGM), near Ivy Mills Road. But from 1796 to 1817, the Willcox family had nearby competition--William Trimble, Jr. also operated a larger papermill along the same creek during that period. William Trimble, Jr. closed his papermill when he purchased Newlin Grist Mill.

Sources

Case, Robert P. Prosperity And Progress: Concord Township, Pennsylvania, 1683-1983. Chester, Pa.: Concord Township Historical Society, 1983.

Making Connections: The Trimble House. Grist From the Mill. Fall 2017/Winter 2018. 1-2.

"Papermaking." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Abigail Wendler Bainbridge and . Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. Web. 17 Dec 2020. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.508>. Trans. of "Papeterie," Supplément à l'Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 5 (plates). Paris, 1765.

Weeks, Lyman Horace. A History of Paper-manufacturing in the United States, 1690-1916. United States, Lockwood trade journal Company, 1916.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Newlin Grist Mill

Newlin Grist Mill

University of Michigan Library

Additional Information