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BASSWOOD PAPER

Reported in the New York Daily Times on 18 Dec 1854
reprinted from the Buffalo Democracy

    The article has come. It is before us—three qualities of it. One almost good enough for a newspaper, (quite good enough for the Washington Union, altogether too good for that scoundrel journal the New-York Herald,—the other better than most of the paper The Democracy has had to put up with—and the third a strong, smooth, even sheet, fit for promissory notes—nay for love-notes, the least dangerous of the two. It is made of basswood. The genius who got up the Beardsley Planing Machine, studied out this new paper. He made pulp in the kitchen of his house in Albany—and made the paper there, too, after some primitive fashion, in which a sieve conspicuously figured. On one of these samples is an advertisement for a $50 reward. Basswood has fairly entered into the service of man in the pursuit of stolen property. This handbill indicates a horse and wagon as the object of distress of the gentleman who invokes the linwood to aid his search of a thief. It is of white, and quite smooth paper. We understand that the wood is treated by revolving cutters, which reduce it to fibre in no time. Then something else is done to this fibre, which we don't understand. A caveat is on file at Washington, which will inform the curious what this something else is. Two other things, we are told, of which the most important is, that MR. BEARDSLEY can make the pulp, and make a fortune out of it, by selling it at two cents the pound. The other is, that an edition of the Albany Evening Journal will soon be printed upon the paper. MR. BEARDSLEY was last week engaged in building machinery for a paper mill under his new process. The white cedar is said to yield the finest and strongest paper. There is talk of setting that apart for bank notes. The Cotton Wood of the South, and the Cypress, are said to be especially adapted to it, as also is the Tamarac. Devoutly do we invoke success upon BEARDSLEY'S efforts. - Buffalo Democracy.

Article from: The New York Daily Times, Monday, 18 Dec 1854, page 2, (reprinted from the Buffalo Democracy).

Early U.S. Wood Paper-Pulp Patents

    "A very interesting discovery has lately been made in the State of Pennsylvania, in the art of paper making by Mr. Biddis. It is likely to reduce the price of that important article, by producing a savings of rags. The invention consists of reducing saw dust to a pulp, mixing it with the pulp of rags, and forming the paper from this mixture. We have seen a specimen of paper made in this manner, certified to be composed of one-fourth sawdust, the remainder of rags. The body and surface of the paper appear as good as usual; colour verges a trifle towards a greenish yellow, which we think could be effectually remedied by indigo.
    We understand that in a paper of a coarser kind, a great proportion of saw dust may be used, even in some as far as three-fourths. Mr. Biddis has erected a mill upon the principle of his invention, and taken out a patent, a right to which he proposes selling to one person in each of the States. The saw dust of all our woods may be used for the manufacture, though some are more prefereable than others."

    This was quoted in a letter to "The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries," by John Austin Stevens, Vol XIII, Jan-Jun 1885, page 406. (The details of the patent were lost in the Patent Office fire of 1836 which destroyed all the records there.)
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