Holyoke High School - Annual Yearbook (Holyoke, MA)

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of another dam upon a very different and much stronger pattern, and the work began in April, 1849. When thisdam was being constructed by the Hadley Falls Company, two coffer-dams were built, one on each side of the river extending 200 feet from the bank into the stream. The construction of the main dam was then begun in sections, there were five sections in this dam. As the timber went up, the entire foundation, ninety feet in length, was packed solidly with stone to a height of ten perpendicular feet. The planking on the upper portion of the dam was eighteen inches in thickness of solid timber, all tree-nailed, spiked, and strongly bound together. At twenty-two minutes of one on October 22, 1849, half of the gates were closed, and a few minutes later, the rest were closed and the river ceased its flow until the water finally fell in a broad sheet over its crest. This new dam was intended to be tempo- rary, but it gave excellent service until 1894 when a modern masonry dam was started. During the twelve years that the Hadley Falls Company flourished, over two miles of canals were built. Included are the 3,000 feet of the First Level Canal as far as Dwight Street, 7,000 feet of the Second Level Canal from its southerly end around. to a point near the Valley Paper Company, and 3,600 feet of the Third Level Canal to a point near the Frank- lin Paper Company. This was approximately one-half of the canal system as it exists today. In 1849 a movement started to separate Ireland Parish from West Springfield and at a town meeting in 1849, th people of Ire- land decided to appeal to the legislature. As a result, the town of Holyoke was incorporated on March 14, 1850. The population at that time numbered 3,713. Between 1848 and 1850 the Hadley Falls Company had established a water supply for the city. A reservoir and main and service pipes were laid through the settled sections of the city. The company built two mills on the up- per level canal with blocks of boarding houses sufficient for their employees. Business and professional men were at- tracted to the new city and in the summer of 1850 there were thirteen persons and cor- porations each paying taxes on at least ten thousand dollars. Also in 1850 the first water wheel run by water from the dam was set in motion and the first operations started in the number one mill of the Hadley Falls Company. ln 1853 the Hampden Mills were incorpor- ated and during that year the Hadley Falls Company built them a cotton mill. The Hadley Falls Card and Wire Works and Parsons Paper I5

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Company were also organized in 1853. In 1854, the capitalists decided to separate their enterprises, the Lyman Mills Company was organized to manage the two Hadley Falls mills and its tenements, the remainder, under the management of the Hadley Falls Company Mill No. 1, manufactured cotton sheeting, shirting, and drilling, while Mill No. 2 manu- factured lawns and prints. ln early 1857 the Prentiss Wire Mills started to operate a small mill owned by the Parsons Paper Company manufacturing re- fined wire of every description. Also, in early 1857, the Holyoke Paper Company was or- ganized to manufacture fine writing paper. In 1881, the company received a gold medal at Melbourne for bond and linen paper. During the panic of 1857, the merchants re- ceived a severe setback, the effects of which lasted for the next two years. The Hadley Falls Company became financially embarrassed and went bankrupt on February 29, 1859, and its property was put up for public auction. The Holyoke Water Power Company was in- corporated in June of 1859, the directors be- ing: Alfred Smith, James Goodwin, Boland Mather, and George Bartholemew, all of Hartford, plus John Chase of Chicopee, John Williston of Northampton, and John Turner of Boston. Unlike the Hadley Falls Company, which encouraged only cotton manufacturing, the Holyoke Water Power Company encour- aged any industry which could use water power to come to Holyoke. Thus Holyoke eventually became a paper city and not a cotton town as was originally planned. From 1865 to 1873, eight paper companies came to Holyoke. These were the Riverside Paper Company, the Mt. Tom Paper Company, Franklin Paper Company, Valley Paper Com- pany, the Crocker Paper Company, the Mas- sasoit Paper Company, Beebe and Holbrook Company and the Excelsior Paper Company. The total capitalization of these eight com- panies amounted to one million four hundred thousand dollars. Ultimately the town was to become the Paper City of the world. Certainly. very few manufacturing towns can show greater development of industry than Holyoke in the decade of the sixties. The National Blank Book Company was or- ganized in New York, in 1875, as the J. G. Shaw Company, but was changed in 1880 to its present name and moved to Holyoke in 1881. Papermaking in Holyoke became such a promising business that William Whiting, a clerk for the Holyoke Paper Company, organ- ized the Whiting Paper Company in association with L. O. Brown and E. F. Jenks, with a capital