Charles Fenerty - Friedrich Gottlob Keller

Friedrich Gottlob Keller

Coincidentally, in around 1838 a German weaver by the name of Friedrich Gottlob Keller read Réaumur's report and got curious. Unaware of Fenerty across the ocean, he experimented for a few years and, in 1845, filed for a patent in Germany for the ground wood pulp process for making modern paper. This was the beginning of a very large industry that exists to this day. In that same year Henry Voelter bought the patent for about five hundred dollars and started making paper. Keller did not have the funds to do it. At one point he did not have sufficient money to renew his patent. Keller died poor, but well remembered in Germany as being the first to discover the process.