 The result was that these men were primarily interested in marketing the stocks and bonds, and not one was concerned with the manufacture of paper.” Initially the company board sought papermaker and former congressman William Whiting II to serve as its chief executive.Whiting would decline their offer, and indeed the company was unable to absorb his own namesake company, which would become the largest independent manufacturer of writing paper in the United States contemporarily with the trust.The American Writing Paper Company would endure multiple labor strikes and two bankruptcies before being entire liquidated under the name "Holyoke Shares", beginning with reorganization as an investment company under that name in 1963, dissolving by the end of 1970.