19th century pulp and paper — Local newsprint for metro dailies

The Glens Falls Paper Co. entered a new contract to supply The New York World with newsprint for another two years, The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on Dec. 4, 1893.

“According to The Paper Mill, a trade journal, the contract is the largest ever awarded for one grade of paper to any one concern in the United States, not excepting the government contract.”

The South Glens Falls paper mill would provide the metropolitan newspaper with 16,000 tons of paper per year for two years, a significant increase for the previous contract of about two tons per year.

“A Ballston paper mill furnishes the New York Sun with paper, and it is said that one carload is carried to New York nightly consigned to the paper,” The Commercial Advertiser of Sandy Hill reported on Aug. 11, 1880

In other 19th century pulp and paper industry news collected from northern New York historic newspapers:

• Business was booming at Sandy Hill Iron and Brass Works, a paper mill machinery manufacturer in Washington County.

The demand prompted the company to construct a 100-foot-long addition to its factory at Sandy Hill, now Hudson Falls, The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on Sept. 24, 1890.

“Their business is growing rapidly. The popularity of this firm for making the highest grades of paper mill machinery is all over the United States and Canada.”

• “The new paper mill at the Thomson Pulp and Paper Company at Thomsons Mills is rapidly nearing completion. The outside work is finished, and the machinery is nearly set up,” The Morning Star reported on Nov. 4, 1893. “The mill is expected to be in running order by January 1, 1894, and will contain a new machine capable of making the largest sheet of wood board in the world.”
• “The Hudson River Water Power Company is about to build at Mechanicville new paper mills that will give employment to 33 additional men,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on July 25, 1890.
• “The largest carload of paper ever sent from this place (Sandy Hill) was shipped by Allen Brothers’ Company recently,” The Morning Star reported on Oct. 18, 1890. “It contained twenty-five tons of paper in rolls.”
• “The Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company is introducing electric lights into their mills,” The Morning Star reported on Nov. 24, 1890. “The pulp and paper company, being short on logs for pulp, have bought a large quantity of river logs and are now bulking them out by steam power.”
• “The old woolen mill property (at Sandy Hill) has been sold to Eber Richards of Glens Falls,” The Morning Star reported on Sept. 22, 1893. “It is understood that Mr. Richards will very soon commence to remodel the mill into a pulp mill for making ground wood pulp, and is also to build an addition for a one-machine paper mill,” to make paper for wallpaper.
• The Glens Falls Paper Co. was using pulp purchased from outside suppliers during an upgrade and expansion project at the South Glens Falls mill.

“The canal boat Levi Ogden, Captain Dennis Nolan, arrived here yesterday with 143 1/2 tons of pulp for the Glens Falls Paper Company,” The Morning Star reported on Sept. 27, 1893. “This is the largest load ever brought up through the Feeder.”

• “The Glens Falls pulp mill has got its last load of spruce logs. It is now well stocked for the winter,” the Fort Ann correspondent reported in The Granville Sentinel on Nov. 27, 1893.