William Rittenhouse, Who Built First Paper
Mill in America, Died February 18,1708
The first paper mill on the American continent was established in 1690 by the Reverend William Rittenhouse, upon a branch of Wissahickon Creek, and from that date until 1710 there was no other paper mill in the American Colonies.
This mill was situated on a meadow along the bank of a stream known as Paper-Mill Run, which empties into the Wissahickon Creek, about two miles above its confluence with the Schuylkill.
The founder emigrated from Holland, where he was born in the Principality of Broich, in the year 1644. He spelled his name then Ryttinhuisen, which is anglicized into Rittenhouse.
His ancestors had been engaged for generations in paper-making, and he had learned the same business. It has been stated that he had a brother who originally came to New York while it was a Dutch Colony; that the brother settled in New Jersey, but William, with his two sons, Claus or Nicholas, and Garrett or Gerhard, came to Pennsylvania prior to or during the year 1690. The Rittenhouses were among “sixty-four of the first Germantown inhabitants,” as they were styled, who were granted naturalization by Thomas Lloyd, Deputy Governor, on May 7, 1691.
At the time Rittenhouse arrived in Germantown there was a printer, William Bradford, already established in an office in Philadelphia, and it may be that he induced the paper-makers to locate there. Anyway they no sooner settled at Germantown than they began the erection of a paper mill, on property purchased from Samuel Carpenter, of Philadelphia.
It appears from the original deed that William Bradford, Robert Turner and Thomas Tresse[Tresse] were interested with William Rittenhouse in the enterprise. They were deeded twenty acres.
The mill was built, but soon thereafter Robert Turner died, and Bradford and Tresse assigned their rights to William Rittenhouse, who became the sole owner. Their deed for this property was acknowledged December 6, 1693. The term of the lease was for 975 years from the 29th of September, 1705, and the rent reserved was five shillings sterling per annum.
It thus appears that there was at first a company regularly organized to establish a paper mill. Samuel Carpenter and Robert Turner were extensive land owners and were advisers and coadjutors of William Penn. Thomas Tresse was a rich iron monger and William Bradford was the famous printer who established the first printing press in the middle colonies of America, in 1685.
The chief and most important member of this company was William Rittenhouse, who became the sole proprietor prior to 1705, unless the interest of Tresse was purchased by Claus Rittenhouse, about 1701. It also seems that the son bought Bradford’s interest in 1704. Father and son were practical papermakers and the owners.
Bradford got himself into trouble when he printed the charter without leave of the ruling powers, and then for printing a pamphlet of George Keith, a seceding Scotch Quaker. He was arraigned in court, and in 1693 left Philadelphia and established himself in New York, where he introduced the first printing plant in that province.
When Bradford left Philadelphia he was to receive for his share of the mill paper of the value of six pounds, two shillings, and the assurance that he had a monopoly of the entire printing paper that was made in America from September 1, 1697, until September 1, 1707. The quantity is not stated, neither is there anything by which we can determine, at this late day, the capacity of the mill.
All paper was then manufactured by hand, each sheet being made separately. At that early day and long afterward the rags were pounded into pulp in stone and iron mortars by the aid of trip-hammers, and several days were required to furnish a sample sheet of dry-finished paper. At that time a day’s production per man was one and a half reams of newspaper of the size of 20 by 30 inches. Small as was this mill, its importance can hardly be understood, for the greatest commercial metropolis of America drew its supply of printing paper from this mill.
There, in this secluded spot, away from any except the hermits who lived in the caves along the Wissahickon, and with no access to Philadelphia except by Germantown, William Rittenhouse, and his son devoted themselves with untiring industry to their useful and honorable art. They soon acquired a wide reputation as producers of “good paper,” and to this they usually affixed a water-mark.
In 1701 a great misfortune overtook the honest craftsmen. The little stream on which they depended for their water-power experienced a freshet of such fury that the mill was swept away and entirely destroyed, and all machinery, stock, tools and much personal property carried away in the flood.
Nothing daunted they resolved to begin anew. They chose another site a short distance below the first mill and in 1702 a mill, better than the original, was erected.
In the new mill Bradford still retained an interest but Claus Rittenhouse would not renew his monopoly on the mill’s supply. On June 30, 1704, Bradford sold his share in the mill, and from that day the paper mill became a Rittenhouse concern and so continued for generations, until the mill had been rebuilt a fourth time, when it was converted into a cotton factory.
William Rittenhouse died February 18, 1708, and was succeeded in the business by his son, Claus. Both father and son were also Mennonite preachers.
Claus continued to supply not only Bradford in New York, but the home market in Germantown and Philadelphia. Bradford paid partly in fine rags for his paper.
A second paper mill was erected in 1710, in Germantown, by William De Wees, a brother-in-law of Claus Rittenhouse, under whom he learned the trade of papermaking. Claus Rittenhouse obtained possession of this mill in 1713, and it was operated for many years.
When Andrew Bradford established The American Mercury, in Philadelphia, December 22, 1719, the first newspaper ever printed in the British Middle Colonies, the paper for his Mercury was made at the Rittenhouse mill.
Claus Rittenhouse, the second papermaker in America, died in May, 1734, aged sixty-eight. He was born in Holland, June 15, 1666. He was the grandfather of David Rittenhouse, the American astronomer, who was also treasurer of Pennsylvania during the Revolution.
Canal System Started with Committee Report
of February 19, 1791
In the earliest days, before railroads and steam power were developed, water communication was the popular mode of commercial transportation. The spirit of the early settlers in Pennsylvania was alive with the idea of internal improvement, and very early they were anxious to reach out toward the western empire that was to become the promised land and furnish food for the world. The ultimate result of this vision was the construction of the grand system of canals connecting the navigable rivers, Delaware and Ohio, by which products of the States and Territories to the westward could be carried to Philadelphia, the metropolitan seaport city of Pennsylvania.
William Penn fostered the idea and recommended a scheme to connect the Susquehanna at what is now Middletown with Philadelphia by uniting the waters of the Schuylkill River at Reading with those of Tulpehocken Creek and the Quittapahilla, which flowed into the Swatara ten miles westward and thence into the Susquehanna at Middletown.
As early as 1761 Commissioners were appointed by the Proprietaries to clear, scour and make the Schuylkill navigable for boats, flats, rafts, canoes and other small vessels, from the ridge of mountains commonly called the Blue Mountains to the river Delaware. This action was the initial step in the formation of the Schuylkill Navigation Company.
The broad river itself in many portions was concentrated into pools forming slack water navigation and these pools were connected by sections of canals with a depth of six feet of water, passing boats with a capacity of 200 tons.
The committee appointed in January, 1791, to examine the report of the Commissioners who explored the Delaware and western waters of the Susquehanna, reported February 19. They considered the Delaware toward New York State and to Lake Ontario; the Lehigh and Schuylkill, the latter with the object of reaching Harrisburg; the Juniata and the north and west branches of the Susquehanna.
The several principal canals of the State in the order of the dates in which they were created by acts of Assembly, and from which all others were either extensions or feeders, were as follows:
1. Schuylkill and Susquehanna Navigation Company, created September 29, 1791, passed through the counties of Dauphin, Lebanon and Berks. It began at Columbia on the Susquehanna and extended to the mouth of the Juniata, then later on up along that river to Hollidaysburg at the eastern base of the Allegheny Mountains—a total length of 171 miles.
2. Delaware and Schuylkill, April 10, 1792, in Berks, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties.
3. Conewago Canal in York County, April 10, 1793.
4. Brandywine Canal and Lock Navigation, April 10, 1793.
5. Lehigh Navigation, February 27, 1798, in Northampton and Luzerne Counties. A total of forty-six miles.
6. Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, February 19, 1801.
7. Concocheague Navigation, February 7, 1803; connected Chambersburg with the Potomac.
8. Conestoga Lock and Dam Navigation, March 17, 1806, in Lancaster County, was an improvement of Conestoga Creek by locks and dams from its mouth to the city of Lancaster, a distance of fourteen miles.
9. Union Canal Company, April 2, 1811, connected the Susquehanna at Middletown to the Schuylkill two miles below Reading; length eighty-two miles. There was also a branch canal and feeder twenty-two miles in length with a railroad of four miles to Pine Grove coal mines.
10. Neshaminy Lock Navigation, March 26, 1814.
11. Schuylkill Navigation, March 8, 1815, in Schuylkill, Berks, Montgomery, Chester and Philadelphia Counties. This began at Port Carbon on Schuylkill, and ran to Philadelphia, a distance of 108 miles.
12. Lackawanna Navigation, February 5, 1817, a part of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, from Honesdale on the Lackawaxen to the mouth of that stream, a distance of twenty miles.
13. Monongahela Navigation, March 24, 1817, in Fayette, Greene, Westmoreland, Washington and Allegheny Counties. From Johnstown on the Conemaugh, at the western base of the Allegheny down the Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas and Allegheny to Pittsburgh—distance, 105 miles.
14. Octoraro Navigation, March 29, 1819.
15. Conewago Canal, east side, March 29, 1814.
In the report of Canal Commissioners made in 1827 was this paragraph:
“In the latter end of May the location of a line from the mouth of the Juniata to Northumberland was commenced, beginning at Duncan Island, and extending up the west side to a point opposite Northumberland.” This canal was thirty-seven miles in length.
The North Branch began at Northumberland and extended to two miles below Wilkes-Barre, and later extended to New York State line.
The West Branch began at Northumberland and ran to Muncy Dam, a distance of twenty-six miles, but later was extended to Bald Eagle, where it united with the Erie Canal.
After extensive surveys made in 1824 and 1825, the Commonwealth entered, in the year 1826, into the actual construction of an extended system of internal improvements and continued the annual expenditure of large sums of money for canals and railroads for fifteen years, or until 1841.
Ground was broken at Harrisburg for the building of the Pennsylvania Canal, on July 4, 1826. By the year 1834 a total of 673 miles of public works had been completed, at a time when the credit of the State was good. But unfortunately too extensive a system was undertaken and the works were not constructed or managed with economy. The debt of 1834 had mounted to twenty-three millions. By 1841 it reached forty-two millions, and the State defaulted even the interest on these bonds and all work ceased.