Rockland Paper Mill.

The Brandywine river, from it's source in Honeybrook, Pennsylvania, runs through the northern parts of Delaware until it flows into the Delaware river at Wilmington. Over the years the Brandywine has provided power to three paper mills. One of those was located at Rockland - a short distance north of the city of Wilmington.

Rockland was one of the earliest and longest lasting milling sites on the Brandywine. John Gregg and Adam Kirk operated a grist mill on the west bank of the river as early as 1724. The village of Rockland, DE was originally known as Kirk's Ford. In 1793 William Young - a Philadelphia printer - came to the area. Mr. Young emigrated from Scotland to Philadelphia in 1784 where he entered into the printing and bookselling business with great success. From 1790 to 1793 he was the printer for "The Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine". Reliable sources of paper were hard to come by - and at high cost. Frustrated by that fact, Young decided to build his own paper mill.

Why the location on the Brandywine was chosen remains unknown. The paper mill was built on the east bank of the river. Like other millers along the river Young did a lot more than building just the mill. He built housing for workers as well as for the manager, and a church was added. For himself, Young built a "mansion" up on the hill above the village, which became known as Youngstown. The "mansion" is still standing on Black Gates Road.

Paper from the Rockland mill was sold at Young's shop in Philadelphia, which was located just three blocks away from Independence Hall. In 1801 Young sold his bookstore as well as his printing business and started a new venture, the Delaware Paper Mills Warehouse - also in Philadelphia. This lasted until 11805. The Rockland Paper Mill produced various grades of paper - both coarse and fine. The single best customer was the General Stamp Office of the federal government.

The cost of raw materials had long been a headache to paper manufacturers, and by the end of the 1700's most of them were into experimenting, seeking a way to lower the costs. Starting as early as 1796 William Young spent eight years looking for alternative raw materials, and in 1804 ten reams of paper from pulped mulberry roots and Guaia tree bark were made at the Rockland mill. For this Young was awarded a gold medal from the Philadelphia Company of Booksellers.

But the papermaking at Rockland did not prosper and Young branched out into other enterprises. The paper mill burned to the ground in 1814. Papermaking stopped in 1822, when the mill was converted to cotton manufacture. In 1825 the Rockland Manufacturing Company was formed to make woolen cloth. This enterprise struggled on. William Young died in 1829 and the operation was taken over by his sons until it burned down in 1846. Later the same year Alfred Victor DuPont became a director of the company. Mr. DuPont obtained an act of the Delaware legislature to incorporate the company in 1847. But the attempt to reorganize failed. A cotton milling operation followed for a short period, until the property was sold to Augustus E. Jessup and Henry DuPont at a sheriff's sale in 1854.

Jessup & Moore Paper Company - which included Henry DuPont - had established themselves as papermakerss in Delaware in 1843. Just downstream from the old Gilpin mill - at what is today known as Kentmere in Wilmington - they built the Augustine Mills. Bloomfield Haines Moore, a Philadelphia Quaker, and his father-in-law, Augustus E. Jessup from Westfield, Massachusetts, bought an old flour and snuff mill on the Brandywine which they converted to papermaking. The business they started would last until 1942.

The firm of Jessup & Moore expanded, and in 1860 the company bought the abandoned mills at Rockland. At this point there is a conflict between the sources which includes the centennial booklet "A Hundred Years A-Building" published by The Pusey & Jones Company of Wilmington in 1948, as well as writings by the noted Wilmington historians, Marjorie G. McNinch and Barbara E. Benson.

At left is a woodcut from the Pusey & Jones Company Centennial published in 1948. According to The Pusey & Jones Company booklet, the manager at Rockland Paper Mills, Mr. William Luke, approached The Pusey & Jones Company in the spring of 1867, stating - "I am William Luke of the Rockland Paper Mills. As you may have heard, my mill burned to the ground. I need your help." Neither McNinch nor Benson mention anything about a fire at the Rockland Paper Mills at that time. While it may be expected that Mr. Luke's words as they are referred in the Pusey & Jones Centennial booklet are as much fiction as fact, it is very well documented in The P & J Data Sheets of May 1867-March 1868 that Pusey & Jones took orders for their paper-machines no's. 1 and 2 from Jessup & Moore, Rockland Mills in May 1867. The machines went into operation at Rockland Paper Mills as the no's. 1 and 3. This fact indicates that the no. 2, of unknown make, was undamaged by the fire - if there ever was one. One possible conclusion is that the mill in the 1860's may have operated two machines. There was a fire, in which the no. 1 machine was destroyed while the no. 2 survived. In the process of rebuilding, Jessup & Moore decided to expand the operation with a third machine.

At left is a wood engraving of the Rockland paper mill. The engraving was by John De Pol. The date when the wood engraving was done is unknown. This image was reproduced from the article, "Papermaking in Delaware" by Barbara E. Benson of the Historical Society of Delaware. Note in the zoomed view of the image, the engraving shows two waterwheels and the building appears larger than one would imagine for the time.

Specifications of the Rockland Paper Mills machine no. 1 (Pusey & Jones no. 1) was:

Wire 86" wide - 40 ft. long. 2 presses. 15 dryers - 36" diameter. 1 calander stack of 7 rolls and 2 calander stacks of 9 rolls each.

Wire 86" wide - 40 ft. long. 2 presses. 13 dryers - 36" diameter. 2 calander stacks of 7 rolls each.

The no. 1 was a right-hand machine while the no. 3 was a left-hander. These machines were said to have been the widest paper machines in the world at that time. The Rockland Paper Mills produced magazine paper and paper for school-books. Business prospered, and in the 1880's the village of Rockland had a population of 200 souls. There was a school, a hotel, two churches and a huge paper milling complex - all built of solid rock, as a traveler into Rockland in the 1880's described it.

Early on the company had switched from rags to wood pulp and straw for raw materials, and in 1881 they built a wood pulp mill on the Christina river in Wilmington. It was called The Delaware Pulp Works. Jessup & Moore also operated another pulp mill at Manayunk, PA as well as two paper mills in Maryland. In the Maryland based mill the company produced paper for bank notes under contract with the US. Government.

P & J Data Sheet - May 1888 to May 1894 In 1891 Pusey & Jones built a new no. 2 machine for the Rockland Paper Mills (Pusey & Jones no. 108) and specs were the following: Wire 107" wide - 40 ft. long. 2 presses. 18 dryers - 36" diameter. 1 calender stack of 3 rolls and 2 calender stacks of 7 rolls each. The machine was a right-hander.

As mentioned earlier, Jessup & Moore Paper Company made magazine- and book-papers both at Rockland and at the Augustine Mills downstream. The Rockland Paper Mills continued to operate under the Jessup & Moore ownership until 1933, when it came under the ownership of Doeskin and was converted to tissue production. The paper production at the Rockland Paper Mills was shut down in 1971.

A traveler into Rockland, DE today will see much the same sights as the traveler of the 1880's. The former paper milling complex is now an apartment complex. From downtown Wilmington, take Rt. 202 north out of town. When traveling I-95, north or south, take exit 8 onto Rt. 202 north. At the intersection 202/141, take left onto Rt. 141. After maybe half a mile you will come to a traffic light. Take a left and at the next traffic light, take a right. You are now on Rockland Road and will pass under the 141 and travel through the DuPont Country Club.

After a couple of miles or so, you will go down steep hills into Rockland. If you chose to drive through, you will pass over the Rockland bridge. The mill property has been developed. An apartment complex occupies a great share of the property. One of the main old mill buildings still stands adjacent to the Rockland Bridge.

At the far end of the bridge, you can turn left and continue uphill on Rockland Road and wind up at Montchanin Village.Turning left onto Rt. 100 will eventually take you back to Rt. 141 and 202. If at the far end of the Rockland bridge you turn right and go uphill, you are on Adams Dam Road. When you reach Rt. 92 you may want to turn left and wind up at Montchanin Village. Turn right onto Rt. 92 and follow that route until you are back on Rt. 202.

An interesting sidebar to this story. During my last visit to the Rockland Mill Site in May 2001, I discovered a marker which I overlooked or was added since my earlier visit. It is unknown when this marker was erected or if the stone is original from one of the mill buildings.

The Rockland Mill is gone but the name lives on!!

This article and photos were submitted by Oyvind Haugen. Mr. Haugen has authored several articles and 2 books on paper history and is a frequent contributor to the History Channel. He has visited the US on several occasions to follow-up in his pursuit of his hobby-the history of paper mills and paper machinery. To contact Mr. Haugen by e-mail at gringo2@frisurf.no