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Hugh J Chisholm

Hugh J. Chisholm, (May 2, 1947 – July 1, 1912) Canadian industrialist who later became a citizen of the United States, was born in Niagara Falls, Canada to parents of Scottish ancestry. His early years as an entrepreneur in the news distribution business provided a foundation for his later accomplishments in the pulp and paper industry. His founding and leadership of pulp and paper, fibre-ware, and light and power companies as well as banks and railways made him a dominant figure in Maine industry. His legacy went beyond his reputation as a capitalist, however; he created the first forest management program for Industrial Paper Company and developed a planned community for the workers in his mills which was a model for the nation.

Early life

Hugh J. Chisholm was the fifth of ten children of Alexander Chisholm and Mary Margaret Phelan of Niagara Falls, Canada. He attended school there until he was thirteen, when his father’s death made it necessary for him to leave school to help support the family. In Toronto, he found employment as a newsboy distributing newspapers to passengers on the Grand Trunk Railway and the steamboats, where he reputedly made friends with Thomas Edison, who was a newsboy on a nearby line.

An entrepreneur from an early age, Chisholm soon began buying his own copies of the papers, rather than selling them as an agent for another company. As his earnings grew, he was able to attend business classes at the Commercial College of Bryant and Stratton. In 1861, his brothers joined him and formed the Chisholm Brothers which distributed papers over much of Canada and the Northeastern United States. By the time he was sixteen, he was able to buy out his former employer, hiring over two hundred newsboys to sell papers, magazines, and books to railway and steamboat customers.

Industrialist and Entrepreneur

With his knowledge of what customers were reading, Chisholm began printing travel guides and founded a lithograph company in Portland, Maine, moving to half-tone photographs and then eventually, in 1888, to picture post cards. Chisholm became a U.S. citizen and moved to Portland, Maine, in the mid-1870s. After a foray into patenting and manufacturing fibre-ware products, Chisholm, became interested in paper and pulp, and, with other capitalists whom he interested in his projects, started several pulp and paper companies in western Maine, including the Umbagog Pulp Company; Otis Falls Pulp and Paper Co.; Rumford Falls Paper Company, Somerset Fibre Company the Oxford Paper Company, the Rumford Falls Sulfite Company; the Continental Bag Company and, with two associates, the International Paper Company. The Otis Falls Pulp Company mill in Jay, built in 1988 was then the third largest paper mill in the country. The Oxford Paper Company’s mill in Rumford began producing paper in 1901 and subsequently produced all the post cards for the United States Post Office. This mill became the largest bookpaper mill in the world under one roof and has operated continuously since that time under several different companies. Chisholm was the primary founder and president from 1898 to 1907 of International Paper Company that brought together 30 pulp and paper mills from across US and Canada. He initiated the first forest management program for that company and developed a close relationship with Yale University’s Forestry School.

Chisholm’s entrepreneurial interests also included founding and leading the Livermore Falls Iron Foundry; Rumford Falls Power Company; Portland & Rumford Falls Railroad, and the Rumford Falls & Rangeley Lakes Railroad.

Community Builder and Philanthropist

Chisholm, with George N. Fletcher of Detroit and Charles D. Brown of Boston acquired considerable land around the Rumford Falls in Maine and planned together for the town of Rumford Falls, which grew up around the mills very much in accord with their plans. Chisholm had a particular interest in providing comfortable housing for the many mill workers who were attracted by employment from Europe, Canada, and other parts of the United States, and to that end researched mill housing initiatives at that time. He was aware of the difficulties faced by housing situations with mills in Manchester, New Hampshire and Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts and became convinced that satisfactory comfort and amenities was both practical and enlightened. He established the Rumford Realty Company and began construction of one of the first planned communities in Maine, and a model for the nation. The large brick and slate houses with large grassy lawns were to be arranged around treed parks. Named after his ancestral home in Scotland and designed and built by architect Cass Gilbert, Strathglass Park in Rumford provided housing for many mill workers.

His interest in developing a community in which people would want to live extended to other aspects of the town as well. 1911, he founded the Rumford Mechanics Institute

In September 5, 1972, he married Henrietta Mason, of Portland, and they had one son, Hugh Chisholm, Jr. Chisholm’s son and then his grandson were subsequent presidents of the Oxford Paper Mill.

References

Bennett, Randall H. (2006). Bowler versus Chisholm and the Ill-fated Bethel-Rumford Electric Railway. Bethel, ME: The Courier. Volume 30, No. 2. Bethel Historical Society.

Hatch, Louis Clinton. (1919). Maine: A History. New York: the American Historical Society. Digitized by Google.

Hugh J. Chisholm: Biographical Review, Cumberland County, Maine. (1896) Boston: Biographical Review Publishing Company, pp. 306-310. Contributed by C. Wendlund.

Little, George Thomas, Burrage, Henry Sweetser, Stubbs, Albert Roscoe. (1909). Genealogical and family history of the state of Maine. Lewis Historical Publishing Company, p. 659. Digitized by Google.

Maine: A History: Biographical. (1919). New York: The American Historical Society New York. Centennial Edition.

Paper Industry International Hall of Fame, Inc. Paper Industry International Hall of Fame Inductees, 1998. Appleton, WI.

Peters, Bradley L. (1976) Maine Central Railroad Company: A Story of Success and Independence. (Unpublished). Maine Central Railroad.

Weeks, Lyman Horace. (1916) A history of paper-manufacturing in the United States, 1690-1916. New York: The Lockwood Trade Journal Company.

Great American Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century. Harvard Business School Leadership. Retrieved at http://www.hbs.edu/leadership/database/leaders/hugh_j_chisholm.html