From my earliest recollection everything pertaining 

 to papermaking was familiar to me. I might almost 

 claim to having been born to the business, my grand- 

 father, Nathan Sellers, having been the first person to 

 establish the business of wire-drawing and wire- 

 working, and certainly the first man who made a 

 pair of paper moulds on this continent .... 



I have often listened with great interest to my grand- 

 father's account of the straits the people were reduced 

 to for want of paper during the revolutionary embargo. 

 Fly-leaves were torn from printed works and blank 

 leaves from account books for letter-writing. The 

 stock of paper for printing Continental money had 

 run out, the English-made paper moulds had worn 

 out, and there was no wire in the country to reface 

 them. 117 This was the state of affairs when his 

 honorable discharge from the army was granted by 

 special Act of Congress. From the many conversa- 

 tions I had with him on the subject, I got the impres- 

 sion that the object was to employ him in making 

 moulds for the Government use; that it had been 

 represented that he was competent to do so, and not 

 that he had been pursuing the business; and that on 

 his return he had immediately gone to Yorktown, Pa., 

 and there made the moulds for the Government, but 

 his diaries . . . throw a different light on it. 118 



On the 3d [of September, 1 776] we find him at work 

 on paper moulds, continuing in the old routine, 

 diversified by signing Continental money on Septem- 

 ber 24 and 25; brassing (this means new facing) and 

 water-marking moulds for Willcox, of Ivy Mills, 

 Chester County, Pa., now Delaware County, at 

 that time making paper for Congress and for Conti- 

 nental money under military protection. I will here 

 remark that up to the present time the Willcoxes 

 continue extensively engaged in making the finest 

 qualities of bank-note paper .... 



The entry of May 17, 1776, of "Straightening wire 

 for paper moulds" refers to what was known as laid 

 moulds, in contradiction to woven or vellum-faced, 

 each successive wire being laid by hand on the frames 

 they were to cover and form the faces of; being secured 



117 This paper shortage is further documented in Lyman H. 

 Weeks, A History of Paper-Manufacturing in the United States, 

 i6go-igi6 (Xevv York: Lockwood Trade Journal Co., 1916), 

 pp. 41-56. 



118 The diaries, more properly journals, are in the American 

 Philosophical Society Library. Their contents are sampled in 

 Hunter's and Maxon's accounts of Nathan Sellers. See note 

 1 1 6, above. 



at each bar, one to the other, by hand-twisting the 

 crosswires that were of such a thickness as to regulate 

 the spaces between each parallel wire. It must be 

 self-evident to any one that the hard brass wire from 

 the reel or coil, and simply cut into lengths with its 

 set or curvature, could never be laid one wire parallel 

 with the other, preserving equal distances apart, 

 without first having the curvatures taken out and 

 being made perfectly straight. My grandfather had 

 preserved all of his original tools, including the 

 straightening board used at the time of the above 

 entry; also a wire-drawing block, made of lignum- 

 vitae, wire plates, rippers, that is, link pincers that 

 closed, gripping the wire in the act of drawing it — 

 all of which were in my possession until my removal 

 to the West in 1841. 



Looking at these old relics it was always a marvel to 

 me how a young man, fresh from the farm, could have 

 taken up and successfully pursued a business without 

 any knowledge of what had been previously done. 

 It must have been a series of inventions and experi- 

 ments. 



As to this first straightening board, it was on the 

 same principle as was in use in England and France, 

 but in construction greatly improved, so much so as 

 to have been re-invented and patented in France as 

 late as 1800 or thereabouts. The principle of taking 

 the curvature out of the wire is by drawing it between 

 stiff wire pins fixed in a board, which act to bend the 

 wire first in one direction, then in the reverse, in a 

 waving line, the waves decreasing or growing shorter 

 until the last bend leaves the wire perfectly straight. 

 The placing of the pins required considerable skill on 

 the part of the operator, and often considerable adjust- 

 ment by bending in or out by strokes of a hammer. 

 In my grandfather's original straightener, two or 

 three first bends were made by pins permanently 

 driven into the board; the after bends by a series of 

 small flat steel bolts, rounded at the working ends, and 

 slightly grooved for the wire to run smoothly in. 

 These bolts were secured to the board by a couple of 

 staples to each bolt. They were set in position and 

 adjusted to give the required bends by set screws 

 against their ends. Immediately in front of the last 

 bolt was set a permanent shear or cutting blade, 

 jointed to it an upper blade with a wooden handle 

 that the operator held in his left hand, while with a 

 pair of pliers in the right hand he took hold of the 

 wire, drawing straight by running his thumb on the 

 edge of a straight-edge secured to the board to the 

 mark indicating the length of wire required when, by ■ 



90 



