Chapter II

Canada's First Sulphite Mill, 1890

The Halifax Wood Fibre Company

Sheet Harbour, N.S.

The Riordon sulphite mill at Merritton, Ontario, which has generally been looked upon as the first in Canada, did not begin to turn out pulp until December 1890; the E.B. Eddy Mitscherlich mill at Hull started to make it in December 1889; the Maritime Chemical Company of Chatham, N.B. about four months before that; and the Toronto Paper Manufacturing Company at Cornwall in May 1888. Not even the last named, however, can claim to be the first sulphite mill in the Dominion, for that of the Halifax Wood Fibre Company at Sheet Harbour, Nova Scotia cooked its first digester in October 1885.

Since the Canadian pulp and paper industry of the present day depends so largely upon the sulphite process, it will be well here to describe the method of its introduction into Canada.

As it is well known, the sulphite process was discovered about 1866 by a Philadelphian chemist, Brig. General Benjamin Chen Tilghman.

News of the Partington process of making sulphite pulp had come to the notice of William Chisholm, a lumber manufacturer of Halifax, and he resolved to test out its possibilities by building a mill on the East River of Sheet Harbour, a mile downstream from his lumber mill. He had acquired some 60,000 acres of the best woodlands in Nova Scotia on the Sheet Harbour rivers, and chiefly manufactured deals from the softwood timber there with piles of 3-foot slabs, edgings and deal ends practically going to waste, and with excellent facilities for shipping pulp and paper mills near the United States seaboard, he foresaw a profitable venture in converting them into sulphite pulp.

Mr. Chisholm enlisted the aid of Samuel Brookfield, who owned a sash and door factory in Halifax, and in April 1885, engaged the services of R.H. "Bob" Semple himself, who at the age of 88 is now living in Stellarton, N.S.

In the first place, he says, a tram line was built to convey the slabs, endings, etc., from the lumber mill to the site. The, amongst other products, there was a lime kiln to be erected and a dam to hold reserve water. It was a rush job. Mr. Semple told them he could find all the carpenters they wanted in an hour's time - and did. Mr. Chisholm shipped frame and lumber to the site without delay, and the mill building went up in record time. At the end of June, when most of the machinery arrived from the Partington Works at Gloosop, Derbyshire, the mill was already roofed in.

With the machinery came the new Superintendent, Albert Bradbury. Mr. Semple pays him a simple tribute of which any man, no matter how highly placed, might well be proud: "He was a find boss, knew his job, and was a man among men."

On August 11^th, the pulp company was incorporated as the Halifax Wood Fibre Company, with Mr. Brookfield as President, Mr. Chisholm as Vice-President, and John McNab and C.F. Mott also of Halifax, as Directors. Ten days later the concern acquired the land on which the mill was built, from Mr. Chisholm. In October 1885 they turned out the first sulphite pulp to be made in Canada.

At this point it will be as well to describe the Partington process - the Canadian to which were held by the inventor Edward Partington (later Lord Doverdale). It was not founded on Ekman's Mitcherlich's Ritter and Kellner's, or any of the other well-known methods, but directly on the original Tilghman disclosure. To outline it we cannot do better than quote the diary of Captain Harry Ellis, who erected the sulphite mills at Cornwall and Merritton, and who visited the Partington "Turn Lee" mill at Glassop about November 1886.

The chemical plant, which was a modification of that invented by the McDougall Brothers of the Isle of Dogs, consisted of three wooden vats, 6 feet high and 12 feet in diameter, placed side by side, each one being five feet higher than the next one in order below it. Each vat had an agitator of wood driven by geared wheels. "The main pipe from the sulphur furnace," writes Captain Ellis, "is connected to all three vats, beginning with the lower, into which the gas passes through two pipes at the bottom on opposite sides, and out at the top, thence through to the other two vats in succession in the same way. The gas is drawn from the furnace by means of an air pump at 3 pounds pressure (vacuum), the pump being connected to the top of the highest vat."

Lime was used as the base. It was first slaked with steam, and the lime mile was then mixed in the proportion of 21 pounds lime to 100 gallons water. From the mixing tank it was "pumped" to the top of the highest vat, from which it ran to the next lower one, the outlet pipe in the upper vat being one foot from the top, and the inlet pipe in the second being one foot from the bottom. From the lowest vat the liquor flowed to be allowed to settle one hour before being used. The strength of liquor produced by this process varied from 10 degrees to 14 degrees Twaddle and was used without being diluted.

One ton of dry pulp required 1,700 gallons liquor, 298 pounds sulphur, and 357 pounds lime. A plant such as the above produced 6,800 gallons of liquor a day, or enough for four tons of dry pulp.

The wood-working plant was rather more intricate than that of today. The logs were sawn into boards (thin, of course, did not apply to the Sheet Harbour mill until they started using round wood), and the edges of the boards were then barked by three horizontal rotary planing machines. Next, the black knots were bored out by means of vertical drills. There were 17 of these machines at Glassop and six at Sheet Harbour. The boards were then cut into chips about 5/8 inches long, and the chips passed by means of a belt conveyor through a pair of toothed rollers, one running three times as fast as the other. Thence they were shovelled through a funnel into the manhole of the digesters below, all the wood-working machinery being situated on the floor above the digester room. The amount of wood required to produce one ton of dry pulp was estimated at 2 tons 11 cwt.

The digesters were spherical, revolving at one r.p.m. They were made of iron lines with lead 3/8 inches thick, and were 10 feet in diameter. Steam was admitted through journals, and at the time of Captain Ellis' visit to Glassop cooking took place at 70 pounds pressure. In the United States, according to Dr. A.D. Little, the pressure was gradually brought up to 85 pounds.

Each digester had a blow-off pipe, through which liquor gas, and steam were blown out when the boiling was completed. During the cook which lasted 15 to 17 hours, at 70 pounds pressure, gas was blown off every hour, and at intervals a small quantity of pulp was ejected for testing.

The Halifax Wood Fibre Company

Sheet Harbour, N.S.

Although these particulars applied especially to the mill at Glassop, the description of the Sheet Harbour mill published in the Pulp and Paper Magazine of 1923 (p. 1349),

Halifax Wood Fibre Sulphite Mill at East River, Sheet Harbour, 1890. (1) roof of the company cookhouse, now the Brookside Hall at Watt Section which the people purchased many years ago, floated down the harbour to the Smelt Brook location; (2) Mr. Daniel Daugherty, who was night watchman at the mill, in his boat.

from the information supplied by Mr. W.W. Connors, tallies with them almost exactly. Mr. Connors, by whose valuable and generous aid we were able to get in touch with Mr. Semple and others and thereby obtain almost everything we know about the mill, was for many years Manager of Woodlands for the A.P.W. Pulp & Paper Company Limited (later the Halifax Paper & Pulp Company Limited) at Sheet Harbour, and obtained from the oldest inhabitants of he village several particulars of the methods in use at the plant. He learned that, from the rag engines, the pulp went to the agitators and then to the wet machines, some of the rolls of the latter being steam heated. It was next taken off in rolls, pressed hydraulically into bales of about 200 pounds each, sewed up in burlap bags, and shipped in schooners to Maine and Massachusetts. Twenty to twenty-five men worked on a single twelve-hour shift, unskilled labour receiving 7 to 10 cents per hour and skilled 15 cents.

Mr. Semple tells us that the lime came from Scotland and the sulphur from Spain, while the 'finished pulp' was shipped to Boston. The mill had the right for nine digesters, but only five were installed; one-tenth of the profits went to Mr. Partington, as royalties.

Toward the beginning of the year 1886, according to Mr. Semple, a name came from the United States with a letter from the Directors in Halifax, giving him permission to look over the mill and make a few sketches. About the same time the firm sold two of their digester to a pulp mill that was being built at Lawrence, Massachusetts, doubtless bu William A. Russell, later founder and first President of the International Paper Company. In the spring of that year an American workman came from Lawrence to the Sheet Harbour mill to learn the art of lead-burning from the Englishman who looked after the lining of the digester, and who, incidentally was not at all keen on giving away the secrets of his art.

Mr. Russell, the ex-Governor Alexander Hamilton Rice of Massachusetts and C.C. Springer, a Boston lawyer, had formed the American Sulphite Company for the purpose of acquiring sulphite rights in the United States. At that time, says Mr. Semple, they were negotiating with Mr. Partington for the purpose of the American rights to his process. The deal was soon put through, and in the spring of 1887 the Russel Paper Company at Lawrence began to turn out sulphite pulp.

For two years the mill at Sheet Harbour ran well, turning out about eight tons of pulp a day and selling it at a good profit. Mr. Bradbury left in the fall of 1887, and his place was taken by John P. Esdale. For two years after that Mr. Semple remained as timekeeper and foreman of the woodroom, but in 1889 he left.

According to Mr. Thomas A. Baker of Windsor, Nova Scotia, who remembers the mill operation, some dissatisfaction arose among the owners on account of the cost of wood. They had contracted to take ti from the Chisholm mill at #3.00 per cord but now they decided to go up the East River, take out spruce in the log, build a slasher near the mill, and drive the wood down to it.

They were not able to operate long, however, on this basis. In 1890 the United States duty on sulphite pulp was raised to six dollars a ton, thereby making the price of the Canadian product prohibitive below the border, and in January 1891, the Sheet Harbour mill was forced to close down. For two year the mill lay idle under the care of a watchman, Mr. Caugherty, and during this time some of the machinery was sold. IN October 1893, Messrs. NcNabl, Chisholm, Brookfield, and others, brought an action against the company for the payment of $34,000 and in default, foreclosure of the equitable mortgage held by them against the company's property. The outcome was that the mill, which had originally coast $110,000 was sold to them for the sum of $1,750. Some of the difference in these two sums was, of course, accounted for by the machinery that had been sold previously.

About three years later, the property was bought by Honorable A.R. Dickey of Amherst, N.S., late Minister of Justice in the Conservative Government, who owned 45,000 acres of good spruce land adjacent, and 43,000 more on the West River. At Dickey's request Thomas R. Allison of Whitney, Ontario, who was looking for a good sulphite mill site in the Maritimes, visited the abandoned mill in February 1897, and reported that in his opinion the site could not be excelled on the continent of America. He estimated that to increase capacity to twenty tons, so as to put the concern on a paying basis, would cost $60,000. Nothing was done, however, and shortly afterwards the mill burned down.

Mr. Chisholm, who seems to have been the man responsible for the venture, continued in the lumber business, and came to play an increasingly important part in the affairs of his city and province. In 1901 he had the honour of being appointed to the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia, and in time became one of its leaders. In politics he was a Liberal, and in religion a Roman Catholic, and although it was never publicly announced, it was well known that he built the convent in Halifax for the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who established in that city upon his recommendation. Honorable Mr. Chisholm devoted much attention, during the later years of his active life, to the improvement of the beautiful Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, and was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors. He died in May 1909 at the age of 77. Halifax and Nova Scotia remember him chiefly as a public benefactor and an able legislator. Let us hope that, in the Canadian paper trade, he will also be remember ed as the man who built the first sulphite mill in the Dominion.

Sulphite Pulp Mill at

East River, Sheet Harbour

The cookhouse which had been used at the sulphite mill in the 1800s was purchased by the residents of Watt Section, Sheet Harbour, floated down East River to its present location at Watts Sections. The building is till in use as Brookside Hall.

During the operation of the sulphite mill, the water supply was insufficient to operate the Mill, located immediately north of the Lions' Club Hall today. In order to obtain sufficient water for the operation of the mill, a canal was dug from Big Brook, which runs into West River waters. This brook was dammed and its water directed into the brook which was used to supply water for the mill. The canal is till visible today.

Mr. William Chisholm, owner of the saw mill and pulp mill, would, by today's standards, be called a conservationist. Between his sawmill and the sulphite pulp mill, a trolley track was laid on the North side of the East River. The purpose of this track was to transport edgings and slab wood to the pulp mill. These off-cuts would also be sed as a source of material for the production of sulphite pulp. In this way most of the sawlog was used for practical purposes.

Afterthoughts

There were restrictions on the amount of Crown land which could be granted to an individual or company, by the Province of Nova Scotia.

In certain instances it was a practice for employees of a Company to be granted the maximum amount of land by the Province. This land would then be transferred to the company for its use.

This was done in order to be able to record such lands in one instance, I was contacted and told that a road was being put through a specific property, which could be Crown Land. My information suggested that he had some doubt that his company owned the land. Since I was involved in the land transfer tax sale, I was able to tell him that the company did have title to the land.

Geographic confusion? I would say that this was the case, when William J. Chisholm, River Boss for Angus MacDonald, took four men in a boat up the Union Dam flowage. They were to travel north along the 12 mile stream, tend the log drive which would be entering the flowage. They were deposited on land which Mr. Chisholm, took to be the mainland, however it turned out to be an island and the four men were left to fend for themselves without food for an entire day. Finally, a boat returned to pick them up that evening, and they were rescued.

After the sulphite mill had ceased operations there was a stock of pulp wood left at the site. In 1897 this pulp wood was being shipped by boat to a market, possibly by A.R. Dickie, who had purchased the mill from its former owner, whose identity is not known.

W

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