Crane & Co., based in Dalton, Massachusetts, is a manufacturer of cotton-based paper products used in the printing of national currencies, passports and banknotes as well as in social, business, industrial and technical applications. Crane remains the predominant supplier of paper for use in U.S. currency . Stephen Crane was the first in the Crane family to become a papermaker, buying his first mill, "The Liberty Paper Mill", in 1770. He sold currency-type paper to engraver Paul Revere, who printed the American Colonies’ first paper money. In 1801, Crane was founded by Zenas Crane,... Henry Wiswall, and John Willard. The company's original mill had a daily output of 20 posts . Shortly after, in 1806, Crane began printing currency on cotton paper for local, as well as regional, banks, before officially printing for the government. Crane developed a method to embed parallel silk threads in banknote paper to denominate notes and deter counterfeiting in 1844. In 1879, Crane grew when Winthrop M. Crane won a contract to deliver U.S. currency paper to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C.
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