Poof Tardiff Once Upon a Berlin Time

The Burgess Pulp Mill

Hello fellow Berlinites. Recently, I wrote a story about how and when the Cascade Paper Mill got its start. Today I would like to do the same about the beginning years of the Burgess Pulp Mill. Again, for all the people who worked, retired, and even died in this mill, and for its new owners ,Nexfor-Fraser Paper, here is a short story of the mill that sets in the middle of our hometown on the East Side of the Androsscoggin River. From all its history though, this mill had many fatal accidents and was considered the most dangerous in which to work.

This company was organized and incorporated under the laws of Maine and commenced construction in the fall of 1892. Almost one year later the company began its operation of making pulp. The original officers of this company were: W.W. Brown of Portland, Maine, president; T.P. Burgess, treasurer and general manager; Aretas Blood of Manchester N.H., vice-president; and George E. Burgess, superintendent. The directors were F. P. Carpenter of Manchester, NH, H.J. Brown and O.B. Brown of the Berlin Mills Company. The substance with which the new digesters were to be lined was the invention of Mr. T.P. Burgess. The original name of this huge complex when it was completed was the Burgess Sulphite Fibre Company.

At the start this mill manufactured pulp by a chemical process somewhat resembling the soda process in its general features, though it differed greatly in its detail. Spruce was used instead of poplar, and the raw materials from which the liquor was made were lime and sulphur.

The book “Recollections of Early Berlin” stated that wood for this company was obtained in various places, some of which was from Canada, receiving twenty to forty carloads a day from this source. They also obtained a quantity of wood via the Blanchard and Twitchell railroad that came out of Success. The rest was received from the Berlin Mills company. In the mid 1890s, they were using 100,000 cords of spruce annually, and were turning out about one hundred fifty tons of pulp per day. This pulp was being sold to about every paper mill plant east of the Mississippi River and their shipments were about twelve to fifteen cars per day.

In 1897, the Burgess mill was the largest mill of its kind in the world. The next largest one was in Germany. The out going freight bills of the company at this time were $100,000 annually. It had its own blacksmith and carpenter shop, with nearly all their repairs being done on the spot. The whole plant was lighted with electricity furnished by their own dynamo. They were connected with both the Grand Trunk and Boston and Maine railroads, the latter which was built the same year as the pulp mill. They were also hooked up with telephone and telegraphic communications, which connected them to the whole country. That was extremely modern for 1897. They had in their employ some two hundred and fifty men and the monthly payroll was from twelve to fifteen thousand dollars.

The start up of the Burgess mill did not go as smoothly as the start of the Cascade mill. A reporter from the Berlin Independent visited the plant in October of 1893, when it first opened and gave his account. He said that when the mill first went into operation there were leaks discovered in the digesters. This necessitated taking them all out.

There were six digesters in all. They were built by the Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine, from the specifications furnished by the Burgess Sulphite Fibre Company. When they were tried, five of the six were found to leak. One of the six worked alright only part of the time. They were all taken out and being replaced when the reporter arrived on the scene. There was only a part of the mill in operation and he gave a brief description of what he saw one hundred and nine years ago.

He first visited the cutting room, where the wood was cut into lengths of about twenty inches. As mentioned, spruce was used to the exclusion of all other kinds of wood. These blocks of wood then went to a barker, where the bark was shaved off. If too large, they went to a splitting machine and then to the cutters.

The cutters were large wheels with knives on them, and were encased in many iron shells. The wood was then dropped into a trough leading on to the wheel, which was rapidly revolved by waterpower as was all the machinery driven. This is where the blocks were chopped up into small chips.

From here they were carried by an elevator and blown into a storage compartment in the roof of the building covering the digesters. Here they were stored for the digesters when needed.

Another part of the building was the “acid works,” where the acid used in cooking the chips was manufactured. He said that once the digesters are reinstalled and in working order this plant would be one of the largest and best equipped in the country. It would be a great addition to the industries of Berlin.

The original offices when the company was being built were in the Berlin National Bank building, which had just been built. It stood on the corner of Exchange Street, where it comes on to the beginning of Main Street, on the “Square” .When the mill went into operation, Mr. Burgess and his staff eventually moved the office to the plant. This mill eventually came into the sole hands of the Berlin Mills company in 1906. By the early 1920s, as part of the Brown Company, the offices moved to the new buildings on Upper Main Street, some of which still exist today.

By the year 1906, the Burgess Mill employed about five hundred men and was producing six hundred and fifty tons of sulphite fibre per day. This required 600 cords of spruce a day. At this time, it was still considered the largest producer of sulphite fibre in the world. That was great recognition for a small city, tucked away in the northern reaches of New Hampshire.

The first superintendent of this great mill was George E. Burgess. He was the younger brother of T.P. Burgess, who was one of the prime movers in getting this plant started. George was a Harvard graduate of the class of 1893, spent some time at a pulp and paper mill in Orono, Maine, working as a day laborer and then came to Berlin. He and his brother were originally from Dedham, Massachusetts. On arrival in Berlin he was soon made superintendent of this company. He was just twenty-two years of age. In his relatively short time in Berlin he became a director of the City Savings Bank and vice-president of the City National Bank.

George Burgess was loved by most of the men who worked for him. He even guided them financially. He supported a free evening school and established the workingman’s free reading room here.

He showed the peculiar and forceful character that distinguished him, when in the fall of 1901, the company went on strike. He maintained the company’s position and after a hard week’s experience, in which his qualities were tested, the men came back on the same terms. Eight months later, Mr. Burgess voluntarily raised their wages and restored entire mutual good feelings.

I wrote a story about this great first superintendent of the Burgess Mill. It was entitled “The Burgess Fountain”. This fountain was dedicated to him in 1905, and still stands at the corner of Main and Green Streets, next to the Berlin City Bank. He died at the young age of thirty two years, after undergoing an appendectomy.

The Burgess Pulp Mill continued to thrive, and with many improvements, went on to be one of Berlin’s greatest companies. After one hundred and eight years, it was finally shut down. I hope that the new owners can be successful when they reopen this mill in the near future. The Burgess Mill gave thousands of jobs and provided a good life to generations of Berlinites.

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