Above the door of the building I could see, beside "De Mittelste Molen," painted by hand and faded with age, a date: "1622." The Mill in the Middle stood between two other papermills on the Loenensebeek, a creek outside the village of Loenen. Originally the building had been shared by two mills, which was common in the region. To ply their craft, papermakers relied on the knowledge and support of colleagues and relatively scarce water power for their mills.1   As I looked at the Mill, many questions came to mind: What would be the condition of mill, parts of which dated back three-hundred-and-fifty years? How well would it function after all these years? What kind of person would it take to run such a mill, and how much traditional Dutch papermaking knowledge would still be in place? I had come here to learn the origins of the craft, and to catch a glimpse of the past. In view of the post-industrial realities of the Netherlands, however, the answers to my questions would be more complex than I had imagined.   In the 19th century, at the end of the golden age of Dutch papermaking, 170 hand papermills operated in Gelderland (where William Rittenhouse, the first papermaker in the American colonies, learned his trade). During the 18th and 19th centuries Dutch paper was renowned in England and on the continent for its quality and its beautiful white tones. These white papers came from the mills in Gelderland, where the papermaking tradition was influenced by two factors. First, there was a supply of very clean water here. When Hans van Aelst established the first papermill in Gelderland in 15862, he found that the water courses in the region were not natural. They had been dug and were fed by a complex system of underground hydraulic constructions. Therefore, substrata sand deposits filtered the area's streams and kept the groundwater clean. Second, talented Dutch papermakers made several improvements to the papermaking process. Papermakers in Gelderland took measures to keep their papers white. They filtered the water further in large basins or in clean pond sediment, and they built their mills without iron-later using copper bedplates and beater blades, for example-to avoid rust. They also added trace amounts of powdered blue glass, or smalt, to the pulp in order to tint it and hide any impurities.3 As papermakers of this region did not bleach their paper until after 1826, they were especially resourceful in developing other ways to keep their paper pure and white.   The Mill in the Middle is situated on a small farm, where alfalfa and hemp are grown and cows raised. A modest farmhouse nearby seemed the right size for a farmer, his wife, and perhaps a child or two. As I stood before the Mill, I imagined what the early papermakers' lives would have been like. Prior to the Eighty Years War, in the late sixteenth century, Dutch farmers had had no economic incentive to supplement their farming with papermaking. Other cottage industries were common on Dutch farms-beekeeping, candlemaking, basket weaving, brewing, and shoemaking-but most paper came from France and Italy. During the War, though, Holland's isolation led to paper shortages. Therefore, merchants and the nobility encouraged the production of paper by extending water rights to papermakers at very low cost. At the same time, however, rent for land and buildings was fairly high. This made it difficult for papermakers to make a reasonable profit over the long term, even though they were encouraged to attempt this. To feed their families, they often had to grow their own staple crops and tend a small herd of cattle. Papermakers commonly borrowed money in order to purchase or fix equipment, or simply to buy the rags necessary for producing paper. In addition, high taxes and dues were levied by the government on top of the rent paid to the landowners. Not surprisingly, these early papermakers often went bankrupt.   The Dutch had broad experience with industrial mills by the 17th century and played a significant role in the development of papermaking technology. Although the date of the innovation is unknown, they adapted several devices to create what came to be known as the Hollander beater. Dutch paper historian Henk Voorn and others believe the Hollander beater resulted from evolutionary improvements to the edgerunner, a device used in Dutch mills to grind materials such as dyewood, tobacco, waste-paper, and mustard seed. It consisted of one or two vertically mounted circular stones, called runners, which turned in a round trough. Voorn theorizes that incremental changes to the edgerunner, such as the replacement of the bedstone by a metal bedplate and the addition of teeth to the runners, led to the final development of the Hollander beater.6   Hollander beaters had several advantages over the stampers that preceded them as the means of separating cloth fibers for papermaking. In addition to needing less power, Hollanders allowed the papermaker to skip the initial putrefaction process required to speed in breaking apart the fibers. This saved much material previously lost through deterioration. Furthermore, the new machine could make the same amount of paper pulp in six hours that the stampers took twenty-four hours to prepare. Like many innovations, however, the Hollander was criticized for compromising quality. Some complained that the Hollander chopped the fibers into shorter sections than did the stampers and produced weaker paper. Still, due to its advantages, the Hollander beater was adopted for use in other European countries throughout the 18th century.   * * * The current papermaker at the Mill in the Middle, Piet Zegers, a stocky man in his thirties, approached me casually, greeting me in fluent English, "Hello. Have you come to see the Mill?"    I followed Mr. Zegers inside and saw both familiar and foreign sights. As a papermaker, I was drawn to the basic tools of papermaking: two large, brick-basin Hollander beaters,4 built directly on the open floor of the Mill; a large loft area for drying the paper; large vats for pulling sheets; and various moulds, deckles, and presses. At the same time, however, I saw other, unexpected touches. For one, the mill was built with a system of open-frame rafters, like a large log-cabin, to avoid the use of nails which could add rust to pure water. The space therefore felt open in a way that I did not expect. In the midst of this raftered space, furthermore, a complicated series of pulleys, gears, and belts powered the Hollander beaters when the flume in the Loenensebeek was opened.5 These belts seemed baroque and convoluted. Installed in the middle of the main floor sat an early-twentieth century fourdrinier machine (which could produce paper mechanically at the speed of three square meters a minute). I also saw several large steam engines and boilers, added to modernize the workings of the Mill in the Middle during the 19th and early 20th centuries. I had never imagined these machines as part of the craft tradition.   Piet Zegers took me on a quick tour, pointing out the rudimentary tools of the Mill. Then, growing convinced that I knew what he was talking about, he led me further inside. Here I would come to think of the Mill in the Middle as a monument to various paper-making epochs. Mr. Zegers opened the mill wheel to show me how it ran the Hollander beaters and an old edgerunner by turning the tangle of pulleys, belts, and gears. Then he showed me the steam engines, the boiler, and the drying cylinder. Finally he ran the fourdrinier for me.   The reluctance of papermakers-like many craftspeople-to embrace change or innovation except in the most desperate of times is both a strength and a weakness. In the case of Dutch papermakers, the need to make paper in the midst of war and the ability to adapt what they knew to a new enterprise forced them to make the great leap forward in designing the Hollander beater. For papermakers in Gelderland, local circumstances led to the development of high-quality white papers. However, Dutch papermaking knowledge, as it was passed down by tradition, would become obsolete as papermakers in other countries adapted the techniques and furthered them. In fact, the Dutch papermaking industry rapidly declined in the final decades of the 19th century. Beginning with a loss in papermill production during the Napoleonic era, when the country again became isolated and was slow to adapt to new technological changes, the decline continued as the Dutch papermakers, without markets elsewhere in Europe, could not afford to make investments in new machinery. At the same time, English papermakers, who had learned the papermaking secrets of Gelderland, undermined the Dutch position in paper markets by producing their own high-quality white papers, which they called "Dutch Cartridge Paper." The inability of Dutch papermakers to continue their adaptive methods would become their final downfall.   As the papermills in the region began to close, the Mill in the Middle faced some difficult times. The Mill burned down twice, although both times, remarkably, it was rebuilt. During the second restoration, c. 1887, the Mill was reconfigured to look as it does today. Redesigned as a single mill, it was owned by the Baron von Hacfort, a scion of the landowner who had rented the land to the original papermaker, Jan Goessens.   The Mill has managed to remain in operation through the 20th century. Steam engines were added in 1903, 1905, and 1923 to modernize production and to run the original fourdrinier. In 1907 a new papermaker, Gerrit Jan Bomhoff, began renting from the Hacfort family, and he remained there for almost fifty years. It was probably his longevity and fortitude that kept the Mill running, as all the other hand papermills in the Netherlands shut down. In 1944, the Wed. J. W. Shut Carton Factory, an industrial paper company in Gelderland, bought the Mill in the Middle from the Hacforts and rented it to Bomhoff. After his death in 1955, the company kept the Mill running as a monument to the distant past of paper-making, producing high-end paper for artists and bookbinders. By 1969 the mill was used only for special demonstrations. It was shut down in 1970, falling into disrepair but still standing.   The most recent stage in the Mill's history began around 1990, when the Dutch paper industry commissioned Arnold Zegers,7 Piet's father, to fully restore the Mill and begin producing paper there. Now the Mill produces high-grade watercolor and etching paper for artists and specialized collectors, although in amounts rather reduced from its days as a full-production papermill. Arnold Zegers and Piet have both concerned themselves with a study of the working methods of the papermakers of the past, even though it has been virtually impossible for them to fully recreate the old methods.8 Piet, one of a new generation of paper enthusiasts in the Netherlands, studied hand papermaking both with his father and at a Dutch school which specializes in papermaking. He told me near the end of my visit to the mill, "I want to make paper the way papermakers did it two hundred years ago," and he showed me some of his work while warmly discussing what papers must have been like during the times of Rembrandt. His bright white papers, made from cotton, linen, flax, and hemp, are items of high quality and beauty, suitable for all sorts of purposes that ordinary machine-made paper is not.    While Dutch papermaking is mostly a subject in history, a working hand papermill, whose operation for the most part has continued from the earliest days of the Dutch tradition, still stands. In addition, commercial machine papermills can be found today throughout Gelderland. Nine high-tech, ecologically-sensitive, mechanized mills in the region carry on much of the spirit of the Dutch paper tradition, if not the actual handicraft of it. They also support the preservation of the traditional methods through a foundation that runs the Mill in the Middle and pays its costs.    The real work of the ancient artisans who set the standards in papermaking was much more fortuitous and organic than I had previously believed. The development of the Dutch form of papermaking, though it might seem logical today, occurred in more accidental stages. The Dutch, who began making paper out of necessity, gradually found the most efficient way of beating rags for paper. The principles of the machine they invented, the Hollander beater, are still used by hand papermakers and even some industrial papermills today. The papermakers in Gelderland, whose white papers developed partly out of the circumstances of the environment, could not guarantee prosperity despite the fame of their product. In the end, the Dutch hand papermaking industry disappeared, while the Mill in the Middle somehow managed to survive. Today, a visit to this mill can provide the willing visitor a glimpse of the real history of Dutch papermaking.9    Notes   1 Two or even three papermills often shared the same building and many papermaking families were related by marriage, so much of the craft knowledge was kept in the region.   2 Papermaking came to the Netherlands as early as 1428, but it did not fully establish itself until after Hans van Aelst was authorized to set up a papermill near Dordrecht in 1581. The Eighty Years War (1568-1648) was in progress and connections with the papermaking centers of France and Italy had been severed the year before with the capture of Antwerp by the Spaniards. Many merchants moved from Antwerp to Amsterdam, increasing the need for paper. Papermaking, Art and Craft. Washington: Library of Congress Press. 1968. Page 23.   3 Krill, John. English Artists Paper: Renaissance to Regency. London: Trefoil. 1987. Page 94. Krill mentions reports from two scholars on this point: Johann Beckmann in 1781 and Charles Thomlinson in 1854.   4 The Mill in the Middle, like most papermills in Gelderland, originally had the stampers which many found so superior to the Hollander beater. The stampers were eventually removed. One can see such stampers in use today in the Netherlands near Arnhem. At the Openlucht Museum, equipment from the Onderste Molen (the "Lowest Mill") on the Loenensebeek has been restored and is on display.   5 Despite the Dutch expertise in constructing wind-powered mills, the Mill in the Middle, like the majority of the papermills in Gelderland, was constructed as a water-powered mill. Historians attribute this to the larger amount of money (two or three times more) needed to build and maintain a windmill. As a result, only the largest volume papermills could afford to make use of wind power.   6 Papermaking. Art and Craft, pp. 44-46.   7 Arnold Zegers learned his papermaking during a fifteen year residency at the distinguished Van Gelder papermill, which closed in 1960.   8 For instance, the water in Gelderland, while still fed by underground springs, is now tainted somewhat by the run-off of modern agriculture; cobalt for smalt, once considered crucial for the whiteness of the paper, is now too expensive to be economically used as a papermaking product; it is more difficult to find high quality linen rag; and the processing methods in the textile industry are much changed in the modern era.   9 A great amount of the factual information in this article was supplied by Piet and Arnold Zegers, who were generous with their time and who provided textual material on the history of Dutch paper-making. This material, much of it in the original Dutch, would not have been useful without the explanations and translations of Ellen Bavinck. The article itself might never have come to be without the encouragement and editorial skills of Lynette Nyman. For all this help and support I am grateful.

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