NOTES
Contributors to this Issue
RICHARD G. MORGAN is curator of
archaeology; H. HOLMES ELLIS,
assistant curator of archaeology, is now
in war production work; ROBERT
GOSLIN was formerly a museum assistant
in archaeology.
MRS. HOWARD JONES (MARY MCMULLIN JONES) is
president of the
Ohio History Day Association.
ELMER E. NOYES is studying for his doctorate in history at
the
Graduate School of Ohio State
University.
A
Communication
November 13, 1942.
Mr. Charles M. Thomas,
Department of History,
Ohio State University,
Columbus, Ohio.
Dear Mr. Thomas:
The Ohio Archaeological and
Historical Society Quarterly for July,
1942, at page 185, states that the first
paper mill in Ohio was built on the
Little Miami River in 1810. I believe
this honor belongs to East Liverpool,
formerly Fawcettstown. Browne's Western
Calendar for 1807, published at
Cincinnati in 1806, contains a letter
from a gentleman to the Editor dated
Fawcettstown, Columbiana County, July
21, 1806:
The road from Fawcettstown, up the bank
of the river, is open, and leads to
Little Beaver Creek; six miles on which
is a grist and saw-mill. A tollbridge is
erecting, which is, by act of
Legislature, to stand good for a term of fifty years. The
creek is full of large rocks, and
affords a romantic scene.
About two miles up from the mouth is a
paper mill, built of stone, and admirably
calculated to perform a great deal of
business. The paper made at this mill is equal,
if not superior, to any made this side
of the mountains; and there is every reason to
suppose, from the attention paid to the
manufacturing, that a large stroke of business
will be successfully carried on. How
strange to say that, though there are not less
than ten or twelve printing presses in
the State of Ohio, yet the only paper mill in
the State is situated within one mile of
its eastern boundary. There does not appear
to be a better, or more sure and
lucrative speculation.
The earliest history of Columbiana
County, published in 1879, at page
175, contains the following:
In 1805 or 1806, John Bever and John
Coulter built a paper-mill, for making
writing paper, on Little Beaver Creek,
near its mouth, and called it the Ohio Paper
Mill. It was the first industry of its
kind in Ohio, and the second west of the Alle-
ghenies. The mill-dam was carried away
some years after the enterprise was started,
and the paper-mill became a thing of the
past.
John Bever, in his will dated January
26, 1832, devised to his daughter
his 3/4 interest in the Ohio Paper Mill
in St. Clair Township, Columbiana
County, Ohio. He stated that the other
1/4 part belonged to Jacob Bowman
of Brownsville (Pa.). Bever estimated
his 3/4 interest at $9,000.
Yours very truly,
(Signed) WILLIAM H. VODREY.
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