The Collins Paper Company was established in January 1872 when Warren Collins donated acreage on the Chicopee River to the Hollister family. Collins had inherited land in North Wilbraham. He was a farmer who was prominent in town as its first postmaster.
With a capital of $200,000, a large part of which was furnished by funds invested by the trustees of Amherst College. The Collins Paper Company purchased water privilege on the Chicopee River north of and near Collins Depot and proceeded immediately to construct a dam and a first-class mill for the manufacture of fine writing and book paper.
April 5, 1872, the new Collins Paper Company contracted with C. McClallan & Son of Chicopee to build the mill, dam, and canal. That firm has sub-let all the carpentry work to C. L. Shaw. The mill will be a large one – 235’ by 55’, and five stories high with one L, 95’ by 48’, for a machine room, and another, 40’ by 40’, for rag-bleachery. The work will require two million bricks and the mill will be ready for machinery on October 1st.
In addition to building the mill, a grand version of a French Second Empire-style house, two-and-a-half stories in height under a patterned slate mansard roof with bracketed eaves was built at 4 Chapel Street. This grand thirteen-room home with five marble fireplaces was built for the mill superintendent. This home along with the duplex houses on Cottage Avenue, all owned by the mill, was well appointed and all had their own private modern sewage system which emptied into the Chicopee River. Rainwater from the eaves on these houses did not empty onto the ground from the downspouts but was piped underground into the main pipe of the sewer system. These houses also had their drinking water supply from a spring and all of this was maintained by the Collins Manufacturing Company. Because of their geographic location, these houses were the first to be wired for electricity in town. Around 1960, a fire burned the entire top floor and mansard roof of the main house located at 4 Chapel Street. It was rebuilt with the top floor removed and a gable roof added, as seen today. You will note that the original one-and-a-half-story with a mansard roof is still intact at the backside of the home.
Special Massachusetts Legislation was filled and approved on April 12, 1872. This granted the Collins Paper Company the use of water from Nine Mile Pond and conduct the same to their property for use in domestic and manufacturing purposes. In the day, the water from the Chicopee River could not be used other than to supply power to the mill. The river was polluted by upstream mills and not suitable for drinking or making paper. It does not appear that the mill ever utilized this water source. Instead, it relied upon a reservoir very near the river about 1,000 feet west of the mill. This became problematic as time passed.
The name of the company was changed in 1876 to the Collins Manufacturing Company and the capital increased to $300,000.
The Hollister family sold the mill to the Whiting family from Holyoke in 1886. Samuel R. Whiting directed the operations and the mill became a part of the Whiting system of paper interests. This mill was sometimes known as Whiting Paper Mill No. 3. The family owned two other paper mills in Holyoke. The mill continued to make its rag content paper, a fine quality writing paper, and for a time the company was contracted to make paper currency for the United States government. When this U.S. currency was shipped out once a week, it was placed on a steel baggage rail car located on the Collins siding at the mill. When loaded a secret service agent would seal the rail car and it then was taken to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C.
On February 15, 1888, The Collins Manufacturing Company suffered a great fire loss which destroyed the main five-story structure. The loss is over $325,000 and is only insured for $208,000 through the Boston Manufacture’s Mutual Company. The mill produced six tons of fire writing paper a day and had over 200 people employed.
The fire was discovered by Engineer Fogarty in the rag room on the third floor at about 2:40 in the morning. About fourteen men were in the building at the time, most of them employed in tending the beaters and paper machines which are kept running all night long. Fogarty was in the engine room directly under the rag room and saw the gleam of fire through the space between the floor and the brick partition wall and immediately gave the alarm. A stream of water was put on the fire within three minutes and in five minutes two streams were playing while the automatic sprinklers did their share, but it was too late. The fire spread easily up the elevator wall nearby and soon enveloped the fourth and fifth stories.
The local fire department was unable to handle a fire of this magnitude so help was requested from the City of Springfield. Springfield Fire Department Steamer No. 2 was brought out by a special train and arrived on the scene at 5:00 am ready for work. More help was requested from the city and Steamer No. 8 arrived at 11:00 am. By that time the roof and two upper floors of the main building had completely fallen in. The Palmer Steamer arrived soon after and made good work, although an accident rendered it useless for some time. Water streams kept playing away all afternoon. Many of the firemen escaped near death from the brick walls collapsing all around.
The cause of the fire is unknown but it’s presumed that it was the spontaneous combustion of materials stored in the rag room. Congressman Whiting, the president of the company, was in Washington DC at the time of the fire. He arrived in town by train shortly after to survey the damage.
March 2, 1888, the insurance on the mill was satisfactorily adjusted and the work of rebuilding the burned-out mill was started soon after. D. H. & A. B. Tower were the architects of the project. Casper Ranger has been awarded the contract for rebuilding the mill along with Patrick Kilkelly & Son from South Hadley Falls, doing the brickwork. Holyoke Machine Company will furnish the machinery.
The machine room, engine room, and boiler house were saved during the fire so only the main building will need to be rebuilt. The new main building will be 235’ long and 55’ wide and three stories above the partially exposed basement. Meanwhile, many of the workers have found employment at other mills in Holyoke and elsewhere. Once reconstructed, the mill continued to make its rag content paper, a fine writing paper, and for a time the company was contracted to make currency paper for the United States government.
In November 1902 work on adding additional buildings to the existing paper mill was nearly complete and it became fully operational in January 1903. This made the Collins Manufacturing Company one of the largest loft-dried fine-writing paper mills in the country. All summer long contractor Casper Ranger of Holyoke, who does most of the big millwork in this section, has been very busy practically remodeling the entire facility. Originally the mill was not situated in the best position, located as it was between the river bank and the canal. This made the project more difficult.
The new machine room that was added to the north by the river is a two-story, 85’ by 195’ building with a steel truss roof that gives 85’ of clear open space. On the canal side, a new wheel pit and wheelhouse were constructed along with four new electric McCormick turbines, two 51” and two 54”, with a total of 1,000 horse-power. A new boiler house was also added to the south of the smokestack. The other large building that was added to the east end is four stories, 40’ by 100’. Other smaller buildings were also added during the construction.
Samuel R. Whiting oversaw pretty much of the construction, which during the fall has made the trip out to Wilbraham from his home in Holyoke, two or three times a week in his automobile. The trip was about fourteen miles and would take approximately one hour. Mr. Whiting was very fond of automobiles and happy to combine work and pleasure.
February 7, 1903, at approximately 5:00 in the morning, a fire was discovered in the loft of the paper mill, by men on a passing freight train. The alarm was given, and the mill pumps were set to work, putting the fire out in less than a half-hour. The damage by fire was minor but a considerable amount of water damage was done to a large amount of paper stored in the room below the loft. The origin of the fire was unknown.
At about 9:00 in the morning on June 30, 1907, a large part of the tailrace caved in. The raceway was built of brick in the form of an arch and conducts the water from the wheel pit out under the rack room to the river below. Part of the flooring in the filter room was washed away. Several men were working in that part of the room all night Saturday and, fortunately, no one was injured. The mill was shut down for a week while rebuilding the raceway. Five years before this incident, a large part of the mill caved into the wheelhouse which shut down the mill for three months.
On June 29, 1911, two burglaries were committed in town possibly by the same “gang”. The first break-in was at the blacksmith shop occupied by John F. Bannister, where a bitstock, chisel, monkey wrench, and $1.50 in money were obtained. Entry was gained by removing two panes of glass from a window in the rear of the shop. From the blacksmith shop, they went to the nearby office of the Collins Manufacturing Company, where they gained entrance by forcing the window. They then blew open the fault with nitroglycerin. The lock was pried up with the stolen chisel so that the explosive could be placed accordingly. A smaller safe was forced open and $400.00 in cash was obtained. The only clues left were the chisel taken from the blacksmith shop and a few footprints in the vicinity. The work was probably not done by professionals but by someone who was very well-informed about the affairs of the mill. Because payday was Wednesday instead of Thursday, as usual. This week there was more money in the safe because many employees failed to call for their pay envelopes on Wednesday, not knowing the change. Whoever committed the crime was either aware of this fact or believed that the pay money for Thursday was kept in the safe. The explosion was heard about 2:00 in the morning and shortly afterward a carriage was heard driving away from that vicinity of the mill.
On December 7, 1911, The State Board of Health examined the sources of water supply for the mill and tenements. It revealed that the reservoir to the west of the mill building supplied unsafe drinking water to the mill and tenements even though it was filtered. River water however was allowed to enter the reservoir at times. Two other sources of drinking water were examined. The first is from a spring on the Ludlow side of the river a shallow excavation a few feet from the river at the end of a culvert under the railroad tracks. The surroundings were filthy with no protection from surface water entering the spring. In addition, the river when flooded enters this area. This spring was deemed unsafe for drinking. The second source was the Fitzgerald Well, which was found to be badly polluted. The Board recommended that a suitable water supply for drinking and domestic purposes be provided in the mill and tenements as soon as practical. It is my understanding that a new water source was provided from an underground pipeline from the old woolen mill dam on Twelve Mile Brook, approximately one and a half miles southeast of the paper mill. This underground pipe was 20" in diameter and it crossed under the Chicopee River twice before crossing under Cottage Avenue to the mill.
For the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birthday, the Collins Manufacturing Company produced a special watermark that was made using their Fourdrinier No. 3 paper-making machine in the Wilbraham mill. The watermark roll, called in the paper-making business a "Dandy Roll" was placed on the stock across the width of the machine. The watermark would contain some lettering or design or both, which was impressed permanently into the paper. These watermarking rolls were usually eight to twelve inches in diameter and the Atheneum Society of Wilbraham has a good example of a large watermark in the portrait of George Washington. The management of the Collins Mill made sure that this watermark was made exactly on the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birthday. So the watermark was made on Monday, February 22, 1932. Collins Manufacturing Company made hundreds of different watermarks throughout its years of operations.
The 1938 Great New England Hurricane was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike New England. On September 21st property of the Collins Manufacturing Company received about $250,000 worth of damage. The Chicopee River reached its peak at 3:00 in the morning when seven feet of water flowed over the covered bridge at Cottage Avenue. The bridge was badly damaged and the area around the bridge was washed away. The bridge was eventually torn down and replaced by a new steel bridge. The river started to recede and at 11:00 it dropped two feet. About fifty families were forced to evacuate the Cottage Avenue and Mill Street sections of town, and these families were given refuge at Grace Union Church on Chapel Street.
The building of the Quabbin Reservoir from 1930 to 1939 would prove to be a major issue that affected the mill's operations. The lower water level of the river reduced the water power in operating the generators that produced electricity for the mill. The Collins Manufacturing Company erected a shed at the head gates at the beginning of the canal so that automatic water level recorders with charts could show whatever drop in water level occurred over the years. When Quabbin came into use, the result of the water level evidence that they had accumulated, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts awarded the Collins Manufacturing Company the amount of $350,000. This would eventually be one of the reasons for the mill to close.
The mill officially closed in 1940 but continued partial operations until 1950. In 1948 the mill was taken over by the N. E. Forest Company which, in 1950, was sold to the Alchard Company of North Bergen, New Jersey, where they rented space to various companies.
On April 18, 1948, a flash fire caused $100,000 in damage to the mill. The flash fire was caused by several explosions when a drum of Solvay Peroxide fell off a forklift in the storage room on the third floor at about 1:30 in the afternoon. A series of five explosions followed the initial blast filling the storage room with fire and smoke. The automatic sprinkler system poured thousands of gallons of water on the fire. The fire department arrived with two pumpers and supplied six attack hose lines to the fire which extinguished it in about three hours.
The Collins Manufacturing Company was the largest factor in the growth and development of the northern part of Wilbraham and ran continuously until 1950 when it closed down paper-making operations for good. After that, it was used primarily for cold storage before becoming home to several small businesses and a plastics manufacturing firm.
On March 7, 1979, the original timber crib and stone dam that was built in 1872, was breached due to high water from the spring thaw.
Today the mill stands partially developed but the majority of the mill buildings are in poor condition with some structural collapse in some areas.
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