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1866 – closed 1890
Founded: The first paper mill put into operation in Allen County was erected in 1866 on the west bank of the St. Joseph River a few rods south of the St. Joseph Center Road bridge (the Paper Mill Bridge), in the south portion of the former Richardville reservation, St. Joseph Township — just north of the city, with the firm's depot, offices and salesroom at 51 Columbia Street in Fort Wayne. It stood on the site of Bates's Johns Mill (his No. XVII): a seven-acre mill strip sold by Thomas Castor in 1834 to John Spencer and Elisha B. Harris, conveyed in 1835 to Henry Johns, and worked by William Augustine until shortly after 1860. Two stone buhrs of that earlier mill lay submerged at the dam site into living memory.
Founders: N. B. Freeman, Samuel Bard and a Mr. Dobolinski, as Dobolinski, Freeman & Bard. Dobolinski withdrew in 1867 and A. G. Barnett entered the partnership; the Fort Wayne city directory of 1868–69 lists the firm as Freeman, Bard & Barnett.
What it did: Paper making. Two large machines each took a two-ton charge of straw and produced a net of 1,800 to 2,000 pounds of newsprint a day, the mill's principal product; it also made a rag-content paper for book printing and, in later years, a fine grade of wrapping paper. The L-shaped frame plant (sections about 40 by 60 and 25 by 80 feet, two stories) could run on steam or on water from an eight-foot turbine wheel, behind a dam about 225 feet long and eight feet high built on the old Johns Mill dam site.
Course: Charles J. Connelley, a foreman of the mill, drowned on 1 April 1870 when his boat went over the dam. Fire almost totally destroyed the mills on 30 April 1871, a $25,000 loss; they were rebuilt and back in operation on 9 May 1872. After the fire the mills were bought at sheriff's sale by William Fleming, then Treasurer of the State of Indiana. The flood of February 1887 badly damaged the plant, but Fleming continued operations.
Fate: The mill closed in 1890. In later years it was referred to as the Fleming Paper Mills.
Sources:
- Roy M. Bates, The Water-Powered Mills of Allen County, Indiana (1942), Nos. XVII and XVIII — the Johns Mill land history, the 1866 erection, equipment, fire, Fleming purchase and the 1890 closing.