It's because of design, not
accident, that the old Charlotte County town of St. George sits beside
a roaring waterfall on the Magaguadavic River.
Down through the generations,
the industry of the community had revolved around this tumbling torrent,
which has helped the people grind grain, saw lumber, polish granite.
Today the grist mill has vanished.
So have the lumber mills. Ant there is little granite quarrying,
compared with the past.
But the raging cataract is
still at work, providing power for the plant of the St. George Pulp and
Paper Company, which produces 60 tons of mechanical woodpulp a day and
is St. George's chief source of employment.
This is the oldest groundwood
mill in the province, and the smallest, and the most picturesque.
Its weathered brick walls, rising from the gully of the stream, are a favorite
camera subject for tourists.
Yet is it is the oldest mill
of the kind (built in 1902) it is also modern, for it was reconstructed
after a fire in 1946 which left only the solid walls intact.
And if it is the smallest,
it is also, to residents of St. George and the surrounding district, by
far the most important. Of the town's 1,100 population, 114 are on
the payroll of the St. George Pulp and Paper Company. And farmers
for many miles around depend on this concern for a market for their pulpwood.
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The St. George Pulp and Paper
Company was originally organized by Joseph Goodfellow, Albert C. Getten,
Elijah W. Murphy, Edgar G. Murphy, and Mrs. Lansing Howland, all of New
York State. They purchased the Charlotte County timberlands of
John Dewar and Sons and the Gillmors, and the waterpower rights of such
granite manufacturers as Milne-Coutts and Company, Epps-Dodd and Company,
O'Brien and Baldwin, and others.
When the mill was put up,
the falls gully was dammed, with the water being conducted to the turbines
through a 16-foot steel pen stock. The layout was such that the force
of the flow against water wheels not only generated electricity but drove
much of the machinery through an arrangement of belting and shafting.
The output of groundwood pulp,
pressed into sheets, went to the United States, partly by schooner, partly
by rail. It was mixed there with chemical pulp and converted into
paper.
In 1905 the company erected
a paper mill at Norwalk, Conn., which took all the St. George pulp.
In 1920 the famous New York
World, owned by the Pulitzers, acquired the plants at Norwalk and St. George
and used them to produce newsprint for what, in its day, was one of the
greatest and most influential newspapers in the United States.
But by 1927 The World, which
has since ceased publication, was in financial difficulties. It sold its
mills and timberlands to International Paper Company. After that,
International Paper operated irregularly at St. George. There were
long periods when the plant was closed---periods of real hardship for the
little New Brunswick town.
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Things started to pick up
in 1933 when the mill changed hands again, being bought by Edouard Lacroix,
of St. Georges, Que., A. J. Lacroix of Saint John, and Senator B. W. Page,
of Maine. The new owners overhauled the equipment, enlarged the capacity,
and embarked on steady production, which, of course, meant steady jobs.
St. George settled down, prospered moderately.
But then on October 20, 1946,
the jobs went up in smoke. Flames gutted the mill and left it a tangled
mass of iron, pipes, shafting, and broken machinery. It's no exaggeration
to say that despair spread over the community, which had depended to such
an extent on this industry.
But, largely through
the efforts of A. J. Lacroix, who took over the interests of Senator
Page, reconstruction was soon under way.
Mill hands found temporary
employment clearing the debris, repairing such machines as could be salvaged,
and restoring the building. They worked with a will-- and no wonder.
For they knew that the sooner the plant was rebuilt, the sooner the familiar
whistle would be summoning them back to their accustomed jobs.
Shortages of material and
equipment were acute, there were all sorts of difficulties to be overcome.
But toward the end of December,
in 1947, the mill whistle emitted a shrill blast that sounded better to
St. George than the sweetest music. For it signaled the fact that
the plant was open again, modernized throughout, and ready to swing back
into production.
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One of those who smiled happily as the whistle shrieked
was Alvah C. Toy, the superintendent, who has been on the staff of the
St. George mill ever since 1902, when he was sent to New Brunswick from
New York state by the original owners.
Apart from the wood which it buys from farmers,
the St. George Pulp and Paper Company cuts on its own limits, some of which
are along the Magaguadavic River. This river flows from the Magaguadavic
Lake near McAdam, and empties into the Bay of Fundy.
As a rule, the company drives pulpwood down the
Magaguadavic each year. That gives Mr. Toy a chance to recall old
times with his friend Jim Morrow, 84, of Tweedside, York County, who has
been stream-driving on the Magaguadavic every spring for 67 years.
Reminiscences of a former employee of the St.
George Pulp and Paper Company.
Albert Howard, St. George New Brunswick,now
resident of Caledonia Ontario, July 2002
Mr. Howard started work in 1941 at the mill, and
worked until 1943, he was in the air force from 1943 to 1946 and came back
to St. George where he again went to work at the mill. To his recollection,
it was 1946 when the mill burnt down. After the mill burnt down,
Albert and his father Walter (Bunny) both worked as night watchmen until
the mill was rebuilt. He then went back to the mill again and worked until
1952. His take home pay was $17.00 for 48 hour work week, 6 eight hour
shifts. with Sunday off. They rotated and went Days-Evenings-Nights. He
worked on the "wet" machines. These were the machines that changed the
ground wood liquid, to a solid form. His shift foreman was Thomas French,
from Back Bay, and the assistant foreman was Charlie Spinney. Walter Howard
worked at the storage shed on the hill. Two of the men in the pictures
donated by the Howard family and found on the page 'Interior Pictures at
the P& P Mill' are identified as being at the grinding machine was
Ralph Parks, and Sam Henry was an another employee in one of the pictures.
Albert Howard says the wages were quite poor for
what they had to do.
In the 1930's he can remember the 3 and 4 masted schooners coming into
St. George, to the wharf and loading pulp for the United States. The one
3 masted schooner which sticks out in his mind was the Edward R. Smith
and the reason for that was his uncle, Raymond Howard, was killed on it.
That was in 1937 and he is buried in the St. George Rural Cemetery. After
they stopped putting pulp on the schooners, they started shipping pulp
by boxcars.