This rare postcard talking about " Ivy Mills" the Million Dollar Village is from about 1920
"Ivy Mills"
The name “Ivy Mills”
is suggestive at once of the relation which Benjamin Franklin bore to it and to
its founder. The walls of the first
structure appear to have been covered with ivy vines in its early days by
Thomas Willcox, who had come from England, and who built it a little before the
time when Franklin, as a young printer, branched out in business in this city
as the publisher of the “Pennsylvania Gazette.”
An ivy leaf, which at a later time in his life he designed for a
daughter of Willcox, is now preserved as a relic of her embroidery. The friendship which existed between him and
her family doubtless grew out of Franklin’s purchase at the mill of the paper
on which he printed the “Gazette,” and continued up to the time of the death of
the mill owner, nearly half a century afterward, when the statesman was in
France. Franklin is known to have been
often a visitor at the Ivy Mills, to have corresponded with Willcox, and
apparently to have used his influence in procuring business for him. The probably included the furnishing of paper
on which the bills of the Pennsylvania provincial money were printed. The account books of Franklin, now in
possession of the American Philosophical Society, show conclusively that he
made his first paper purchase at the Ivy Mills and that he continued to make
purchases there until he retired from the active control of the “Gazette.”
In the course of
the Revolution, Thomas Willcox died, but some time before the war broke out, it
was supposed that he had withdrawn from the management of the mills, having
turned the business over to his son Mark.
It was by him that paper for the first issue of Continental currency
authorized by the Congress in Philadelphia, was made more than a year before
the adoption of the Declaration. At this
time, too, paper of all kinds began to be scarce; subsequently, most of the
people had to be severely economical in the use of it, and Nathan Sellers, who
made the molds for the process of paper manufacture at the Willcox Mill, long
afterward narrated to one of his descendants how fly leaves were torn from
printed books and bank leaves from account books in order to obtain material
for writing letters. While the British
were in occupation of Philadelphia the scarcity was so much felt by the
fugitive government of Pennsylvania, then at Lancaster, that a secret order was
issued to one of the officers of the army to seize the stock in the mill on
Chester Creek. The officer was directed,
too, to make particular inquiry as to the conduct of those who were carrying on
the manufacture inasmuch as it had been “hinted’ that they were unfriendly to
the American cause. The subsequent
career of the proprietor, of course, does not justify this suspicion, and the
fact that the officer was instructed to certify the quantity of the seized
paper because of the intention that he should have a reasonable price,
indicates that strong credence could not have been given to the “hint.” Indeed, it seems that while the British were
in Philadelphia, Wilcox was arrested by them on the charge of obstructing
their officers in obtaining supplies in the country, that he was carried to
this city as a prisoner, and that he was afterwards released by General Howe at
the solicitation of some of his neighbors who were members of the Society of
Friends. He held at various times not a
few public offices, including a seat as Associate or lay Judge of Delaware
County.
Throughout the Revolution,
Willcox furnished large quantities of paper for the Continental money, and when
Robert Morris and his associates, of whom the papermaker was one, in the
establishment of the Bank of North America, wanted paper for the printing of
their notes, they placed their order with him.
The reputation which the mill thus gained, led in the course of time, to
its development as a special source of supply of the various paper used by not
only banks in Philadelphia, and all over the country, but by governments. During the entire period of the old State
bank system, it turned out vast quantities of paper for bank notes. The Bank of the United State, too, was its
customer, and Nicholas Biddle, when he was president of that institution, took
particular pains that the paper for it should be difficult for counterfeiters
to imitate. Several of the South
American governments were patrons of the mill, and on one occasion its
proprietor entered into a contract with the financial authorities of
Greece. Indeed, Mr. Ashmead, the
historian of Delaware County, is authority for the statement that for “a long
period not only were the banks of the United States supplied with their paper
from this mil, but its lofts were, at times, piled with peculiar-looking papers
of various tints, bearing the ingrained watermarks of most of the governments
of South America. Nearly the whole of
the western continent drew its supply of bank paper from the mill.”
It was not only in
the Revolution that the mil was a dependency to the Treasury of the national
authorities, but also in the War of 1812.
At that time, it is stated, a distinctive paper with colored silk woven
through it, was made for the government’s use, and that the mill was guarded by
the government to prevent the paper from falling into unlawful hands. Again, under Tyler’s administration and it
was then that the making of bank paper had come, for some time previous, to be
almost exclusively the chief operation of the mill, it supplied the Federal
government with the sheets for the printing of its bond issues and also during
the Mexican War. When the Civil War
broke out it was once more in requisition; Secretary Chase repeatedly made
contracts with its owners for the paper on which demand notes, bonds, legal
tender notes, certificates and other monetary issues were printed; and it was
difficult to produce the material as fast as it was wanted at Washington on
some occasions. The late Jay Cooke, when
the war was at an end, bore testimony to the value of these services and Chase’s
appreciation of them. He stated,
moreover, that when peace came, the government concluded that it would itself
make the paper for its notes, its bonds and the notes of the national banks,
but that the experiment was then unsuccessful and that the authorities were
obliged to renew their contract with the men who had through generations of
experience in the manufacture of that class of paper.
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SPRINGFIELD
HISTORICAL
SOCIETYY
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The
Springfield Historical Society presents:
“Five Stars in The Window”
Author
David Komarnicki will present his book, Five
Stars In The Window, on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 7:30pm.
Each
star on all the flags flown during WWII in the windows of homes of service men
represented how many sons, brothers, or fathers were participating in the effort to win the war. David’s journey from that home
with 5 stars in the window all happened with a bustling metropolis of Chester during
the 1930’s to 1940’s.
Imagine
for a moment, the hum of the machine that was Chester during that period.
A
true powerhouse of the manufacturing production, Chester played the main backdrop
to the chapters in the author’s early life. A life that included the peddling of
the local paper to shift workers who muscled out ships and everything else that
Chester built!
Come
out and experience Five Stars in the Window. A great American Journey.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 7:30PM,
Springfield Township Building, 50
Powell Road
This program is presented free of charge with
refreshments served at the conclusion.
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