than 1829, about which time we began to keep them 

 on hand to fill orders. 



The cost to the paper maker of a complete cylinder, 

 2 feet diameter by 3 feet long, was $160, with a charge 

 of $3 for every additional inch in length. A few 

 cylinders, as much as 30 inches diameter, were made, 

 mostly for making inferior grades of wrapping paper 

 out of stock lacking in felting property requiring more 

 difference between the dilute pulp outside and the 

 water inside of the cylinder, such as straw digested 

 with quick-lime, discovered and introduced about that 

 time by George Shryock, of York, Pa. 132 The cost of 

 putting and starting a simple squirrel-cage cylinder 

 machine with wooden press-rolls, was from S500 

 to $600. 



From about the year 1830 we had a number of 

 millwrights constantly out and employed on this 

 kind of work, it being about that period that the 

 rapid change from hand made to machine made 

 paper had fairly set in. I give the above figures 

 entirely from recollection. When my brother and 

 mvself left Philadelphia in 1840, the old account 

 and order books were stored there; but since the 

 death of the person they were left with I have lost 

 all trace of them, which I regret, as from them 

 reliable and actual dates of all the advances made in 

 paper making machinery, from Gilpin's machine and 

 the New Jersey cylinder of the Frenchman, up to 

 the close of 1839, could have been obtained. 



From the best of my recollection, Messrs. Phelps 

 & Spafford 133 were the first builders in the United 

 States of the long-web Fourdrinier machine, with 

 steam driers complete, their machine being a close 

 copy of Bryan Donkin's. About the same period 

 cvlinder machines with driers were being built at 



Brattleboro, Vt., and other places, our works at 

 that time being confined exclusively to cylinder 

 machines without driers, which we did not commence 

 building until 1833. 



The rapid change from hand to machine made 

 paper, when the start had fairly been made, created 

 so great a demand that many establishments went 

 into the manufacturing of both cylinder and Four- 

 drinier machines, the names of many of which I 

 cannot recall. Nelson Gavatt, who had been em- 

 ployed in setting up and starting machines for 

 Phelps & Spafford, established works in Philadelphia. 

 At a later period Barton, Rice & Co. and F L. Severs. 

 of Worcester, Mass.; Smith & Winchester, of South 

 Windham; Merrill & Co., Beloit, are among the 

 names that at present occur to me who built paper 

 machinery. 



About the years 1831 and 1832 there was much 

 discussion as to the merits of copper or cast iron 

 for drying-cylinders. The thin copper transmitting 

 the heat rapidly, it was urged that the same regularity 

 could not be kept as when the thicker and less rapid 

 conductor, cast-iron, was used. It was reported that 

 John Dickinson, for his fine qualities of copper plate 

 veneered paper, used cast-iron drying cylinders, and 

 that Bryan Donkin was covering cast-iron drying 

 cylinders with sheet copper that was so perfectly 

 and beautifully done as to excite the admiration of 

 everyone. They bore the appearance of having been 

 finished by turning with great accuracy, a very dif- 

 ficult job with copper as thin as used when not 

 soldered or cemented to the cast iron. Fetters from 

 England spoke in such high terms of these improved 

 dryers that several prominent paper makers were 

 contemplating importing machines from Donkin. [37] 



132 Paper of straw was made by George A. Shryock, of Cham- 

 bersburg (not York,) in 1829. He purchased the rights to the 

 process from William Magaw, of Meadville, Pennsylvania. 

 (Weeks, cited in note 117 above, pp. [61—162, 221-223.) 



133 of Windham, Connecticut, in 1830 (Manufactures of the 

 United Stairs in i860 . . . Eighth Census, U.S. Census Office, 

 Washington, 1865, p. exxvii). The first Fourdrinier machine 



in the United States was built by Bryan Donkin and erected 

 in Saugerties, New York, in 1827 (R. H. Clapperton, "In- 

 vention and Development of the Endless Wire, or Fourdrinier, 

 Paper Machine," The Paper Maker, February 1954, vol. 23, no. i , 

 pp. 1 -1 7). On these points, see also Weeks, (cited in note 

 117 above), pp. 179-181. A satisfactory history of paper- 

 making machinery in the United States remains to be written. 



101 



