S.D. Warren & Co.

In 1864, A Boston entrepreneur named Samuel Dennis Warren bought the Copsecook Paper Mill begun in 1852 by the Great Falls Company on the Cobbossee Contee.

He built a new dam to provide more water power for his mill.

Nothing remains of the mill except for the dam.

Warren, known as “Dennis,” to his family, was not just a papermaker, but also a rag merchant. He was, in fact, an early pioneer in the large scale importation of rags into the United States, and actually made more money from the fiber business than he did in papermaking.

This mill also made paper from mummy wrappings.The Copsecook Mill has long disappeared but this modern view of the dam shows why it was called "The Great Falls Mill."

Rags (including mummy wrappings) were unloaded on the docks in Portland, Maine, and then hauled by the wagonload to Warren’s other manufactory, Cumberland Mills, in Westbrook. One of the storehouses for the rags was on the island between the bridges of the Presumpscot River where the mills were situated.

Views of the reservoir and the mills of the S.D. Warren Company in Westbrook Maine. They have been continuously making paper since the mid-nineteenth century.

Rear view of the S.D. Warren Co. on the falls of the Presumpscot. Part of the mill building are still in use as papermills for SAPPI paper company.

The modern image is of the falls and some of the remaining original mill buildingsand dam.