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Palmer Falls by Conkey (ca. 1869)
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The creation of
The Hudson River Pulp Company in 1869 marked the beginning
of the modern paper industry. The Hudson River location that
the Company chose to begin operations provided exceptional
access to the water power and forest resources that would
be required to scale-up both wood pulp production and the
manufacture of paper. These were the conditions that attracted
the Pagenstechers to Jessup's Landing from Curtisville, Massahcusetts
where they first manufactured mechanical wood pulp in 1867.
Albrecht, Alberto
and Rudolph Pagenstecher began to produce mechanical wood
pulp at Curtisville using a Keller-Voelter wood grinder that
they had imported from Germany in 1866.They understood that
low cost paper pulp made from wood would quickly replace the
cotton rags and straw that had become the primary sources
of paper pulp. The Pagenstechers had been producing paper
pulp from wood for only a year before they began to plan their
move to the Hudson River.
By the time that
the Company was formed the name Palmer Falls was already beginning
to be used in place of Hadley's Falls. The Falls was widely
known to be the highest natural drop on the Hudson River that
some believed had the potential to develop 25,000 horsepower
for industrial use. Situating their Mill in the foothills
of the Adirondacks, where for nearly one hundred years Adirondack-cut
timber had been driven down the Hudson to Jessup's Landing
and beyond, also placed the new Company in close proximity
to over five million acres of woodlands.
Besides the abundant
water power and available timber, the construction in 1865
of a railroad line between Saratoga Springs and North Creek
in the Adirondacks - with its tracks running through the Town
of Corinth just two miles from the Falls - was another factor
that shaped the Pagenstechers' decision to locate their mill
at Corinth. They realized that they would have an easy means
have pulp delivered to their mill to ship finished paper to
customers.
The Hudson River
Pulp Company produced its first mechanical wood pulp at Palmer
Falls in September, 1869. A year later, a sixty-eight inch
wide machine that produced writing paper was installed in
a building that had formerly housed an edge tool factory operated
by Thomas Brown. The building became available in late 1869
when Brown, who was also a director of the Palmer Water Power
Company, was accidentally shot and killed by his night watchman.
With the operation of its first paper machine, the Hudson
River Mill may have been the first American factory in 1870
to manufacture both mechanical wood pulp and paper at the
same location. Until then pulp and paper manufacturing were
considered as seperate corporate enterprises.
The Hudson River Pulp Company expanded rapidly in the 1870's under the leadership of Warren Curtis who arrived in Corinth in 1871 to serve as its superintendent. Another mill building was constructed in 1873 to house two additional paper machines, and by 1877 over 200 employees were producing 70 tons of mechanical wood pulp and 50 tons of writing papers each week. The construction of a stone raceway and crib dam on the River by 1880 increased the head of Palmer Falls to eighty-four feet, allowing for even greater expansion of the Hudson River Mill. It was at this time that the Company shifted production from printing papers to more profitable newsprint and added the word "Paper" to its name. |
