Ivy Mills: Paper for a Revolution

In seventeen twenty-nine, a Quaker named Thomas Willcox built a paper mill on the West Branch of Chester Creek here, establishing what would become one of the most consequential paper mills in American history. Willcox's mill supplied paper to the printing shop of Benjamin Franklin, and as the American Revolution approached, its role grew even larger.

By seventeen seventy-six, Ivy Mills was producing paper for the Continental Congress and for the currency of the new American colonies, the physical medium through which a rebellion declared itself a nation. The Willcox family operated the mill for more than a century and a half, finally closing in eighteen eighty-six. An early Catholic mission was also established on the property, adding a religious chapter to a site already layered with industrial and political history. The mill stood where Chester Creek could power it, and the nation it helped supply still stands as a result.