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 TresseTresse 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.

129The 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 130the 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.