Read Ebook: Two men on a mill by Castonguay A Harold

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Ebook has 208 lines and 15161 words, and 5 pages

Release date: October 25, 2023

Original publication: South Yarmouth, MA: The Wayside Studio, 1962

TWO MEN ON A MILL

--DOBSON

A few days before Christmas of 1961 we will raise a pen gate in a flume adjoining the Mill Pond in West Yarmouth, on Cape Cod, and a 250-year old water grist mill will again grind corn into corn meal.

And so, a vanishing part of Americana, especially old New England dating to our colonial days, has been restored. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of people have been going by this little old building, especially in the summer, without giving it a thought but the mill's visitors from now on, growing up in our modern world of television, jet airplanes, and high-powered automobiles, to say nothing of electric can openers, will get a glimpse of early America, a view of the simplicity of the mechanism, and the quiet dignity of the building itself.

The mill is the only one of its kind on Cape Cod, the few others being either windmills or outside water wheels.

The original mill was probably built about 1710 by John and Shubael Baxter, sons of Thomas, who arrived in Yarmouth from Rhode Island after the close of King Philip's War. Originally a mason, the loss of a hand in the war made it impossible for Baxter to continue his trade, and he became a millwright. His will, probated in 1714, disposes of fulling mill equipment. This equipment was from the fulling mill which he built on Swan Pond, now Parker's River, in West Yarmouth.

The Baxter mill passed from John and Shubael to their children, Richard and Jennie, first cousins who were wed. From them, it went to their son, Prince, and from him to his son, Prince, Jr., whose guardian, David Scudder, sold one-half of the mill to Timothy Baker and his son, Eleazer, and the other half to Alexander Baxter, a remote cousin of Prince, Jr., through their common great-grandfather, John.

Extensive repairs were made to the Baxter mill around 1850. It is likely that Prince, Sr., who inherited the mill on the death of his father, Richard, in 1785, either made the repairs or caused them to be made.

After about two hundred years of continuous operation, the mill was finally abandoned around the turn of the century, the last miller being a man aptly named Dustin Baker, who earned the magnificent sum of 68? per day for his work.

The mill did lend itself as a gift shop and a lobster stand in the past few years, but as it stands today, completely restored in all authenticity it is doing exactly the work it did originally, with the same machinery, except the turbine which had to be replaced.

So many people have asked me,

"What are you doing this for?"

"Is there any money to be made grinding corn?"

"What are you ever going to do with this useless old building?"

And most people, when they get an answer, sadly walk away shaking their heads, wondering.

I suppose no one person or no one episode gave rise to my thought in acquiring the mill and entering upon a program of restoration, unless it could be what I have heard in the various entertaining stories of people such as C. Milton Chase, Dean of the Massachusetts Town Clerks, and retired Town Clerk of Barnstable, who tells most engaging tales of his trips as a young lad to the mill with a horse and team, carrying corn to be ground.

Perhaps I was fired by my friend, George Kelley, a ponderous, phlegmatic, Cape Codder, attempting to perpetuate some of the characters of old Cape Cod, personified in Joe Lincoln's stories; and perhaps by the stories of Walter B. Chase and Howard Hinckley of their nostalgic remembrances of the old mill.

If you ever meet Milton Chase, see if you can get him to tell you of the adventures, and strange doings of an old-time travelling barber, one Frank Clifford, who went around to all the business places, livery stables, and grain stores with his little black bag, plying his barber trade, and who employed a most ingenious method of warming the shaving lather for his customers.

Or perhaps it was enthusiasm of Margaret Perkins. Maggie, as we affectionally call her, spent long hours in tedious searching of the records at the Deed Registry, Town Clerk's office, Proprietor's Records of the Town of Yarmouth, and interviewing everyone she could think of who might know something of the history of the old mill. Maggie was the motivating force in presenting an article at our Town Meeting about a year ago, requesting the Town to purchase the mill or take it by so-called eminent domain proceedings, so that it might be preserved and restored, but the townspeople were not eager to invest in the past.

Strange how so many people insist upon their rights and forget their obligations. Strange again, how so many people are looking for something without giving part of themselves.

Whatever it was, or however it arose, I found myself engulfed in the middle of hard but fascinating work.

Having lived for thirty-five years close by the old Baxter Mill in West Yarmouth, it is not surprising that my curiosity and interest were aroused. Somehow, I felt called upon to restore this old mill, perhaps to keep a way of life now forgotten in our present civilization, perhaps merely as a means of self-expression.

A clipping from the Yarmouth Register, November of 1935, speaks for itself of the lethargy of present day thought, when the old Farris Mill that stood for many years at the corner of Berry Avenue and Main Street in West Yarmouth was purchased by Henry Ford and moved to Dearborn, Michigan, despite violent protest. The clipping reads as follows:

It is reported that the oldest windmill on Cape Cod is to be moved from West Yarmouth. The West Yarmouth Association is attempting to obtain the sentiments of Cape Cod residents, both permanent and seasonal, on the rumored removal of one of the Cape's most picturesque objects of great historical value to the Cape--the old windmill in West Yarmouth. Mrs. George Breed of Englewood and Germantown has wired Mr Ford, the new owner, direct, expressing her individual feelings in the matter, and the West Yarmouth Improvement Society has done the same.

We quote from a letter also dispatched, "If the windmill is to be retained by you upon its present location, we are delighted, but if it is to be removed it is a calamity." "It may be well to explain that there is no record in the offices of the Town of Yarmouth whereby any offer was ever made and presented to the voters that the windmill was to be a gift or offered to be purchased; thus the townspeople have never been allowed to express their opinion on this matter, nor have they been allowed to visit and inspect the mill. The door is always locked."

I can distinctly remember at about this time the concern and heated meetings held by civic groups, the letters and telegrams of indignation sent to high public officials, and the angry voice of the people protesting the removal of this old landmark, but it struck me as being a bit strange that not one person came forward with donations to purchase the Farris Mill and keep it where it belonged. Needless to say, it was the usual story of "Let George do it."

In looking back, it was probably George Kelley and Walter Chase who finally prodded me into action. George Kelley is engaged in a flourishing insurance business in Hyannis and is very handy and exceptionally good with tools. As a matter of fact, he is better than the usual expert, and has an extensive knowledge of craftsmanship. He is meticulous, patient, and without his assistance I don't think we could ever have accomplished the project.

Walter B. Chase and his brother, Milton, are two of the last old-school gentlemen left on the Cape, both of them well-known and beloved by everyone and the living examples of young boys graduating from high school and immediately starting in business as a clerk or as an ordinary laborer. One rose to be the Dean of Massachusetts Town Clerks and the other rose to be the President of the Hyannis Trust Company, the largest commercial bank on the Cape. They represent a living contrast to the average youth of today, the product of our so-called schools.

These gentlemen, through their own efforts and by virtue of the simple, ordinary and basic fundamentals learned in their school days, made a complete success of their lives and are vigorously engaged today in directing the affairs of two banks. Both are in their 80's, alert, and enterprising, as were their contemporaries, young men of 18, 20 and 22 who became masters and captains of deep-sea sailing vessels going all over the world, purchasing cargo, handling all kinds of men, and making money and profit for their employers.

I mention this because of the things uncovered in working on the mill to show the sharp contrast of the average youth of today who is taken to school on the bus so that he can engage in physical exercise and who, when graduating from the glamorous schools, hasn't the slightest idea of fundamental mathematics, of figuring simple interest, or of handling ordinary division or multiplication.

Around 1870 the water wheel was disposed of and a so-called "new and improved" metal turbine was installed for a few very good reasons.

The old outside wooden water wheel in the winter became lopsided with ice forming on the paddles and the uneven motion was undoubtedly disconcerting to the miller to feel the building and the machinery wobbling about. Whenever solid ice blocked the wheel, it was useless. Further, the mill pond was limited in its volume of water , so that when the pond was low there wasn't very much water to turn a large outside wheel.

Ingenious engineers of that era came up with the so-called "improved" iron turbine to rest under the water and under the mill where ice could not get at it and where there would always be some water in the pond to turn it.

About two or three months after we started reconstruction, my friend, George Kelley, came up with an old pamphlet put out by the J. Leffel Company of Springfield, Ohio, dated 1870, and sure enough the pamphlet referred to a "satisfied customer" as "J. Baker and Company, Hyannis," who were successors in title at that time to the Baxter boys.

I wrote to the Company in Springfield, Ohio, and much to my surprise received a most magnificent brochure showing they were still in business after all these years, now supplying turbines to great power dams, but ready to build a small turbine. I thought it very interesting that at least there was one company left that could turn out and furnish a small turbine.

Everyone likes to play in the water, so we went to work about August 1, 1960. You can well imagine the condition of the mill. Windows were shattered, the sills were powder, the roof practically gone, and the building had a definite cant to the east'ard. It really looked hopeless.

Fortunately, most of the ancient machinery--the stones, gears, brakes, and chutes--were still intact, even the miller's little desk where he kept his records, and the ancient bin for storage.

The beams, the corner post studs, etc. are of tremendous size and all mortised, tenoned and dowelled, and hard as rock. The stairs were worn paper thin; the floor was practically gone. Dirt and dust, of course, were everywhere.

The stones are the French buhr type, which are practically impossible to obtain today, to say nothing of the fact that probably no stone could be obtained, except in upper New England, so many of the old mills having been raided and the equipment, especially the stones, taken away for steps and other decorative purposes.

Eric Sloane, in his exceptionally fine and exhaustive research entitled "The Vanishing Landscape," refers to the pattern of the stones, meaning the furrows or grooves cut in the stone, against which the corn was ground.

Directly underneath the first floor of the mill were the remains of a wooden pit, which was filled with sand, gravel, and debris, accumulated over the years, particularly because of the raising of the adjacent State Highway from time to time, and more or less by the action of the elements.

Sticking out of the debris beneath the first floor was an iron bar or shaft, about five inches in diameter, so George and I and a couple of hired help went to work, and on hands and knees we finally managed to dig enough away to stand upright and eventually came to the top of the old turbine which was so far rusted as to be beyond reconditioning. We uncovered the complete wheel pit, the floor of which was about twelve to fifteen feet below the level of the first floor of the mill. This pit was made of hard pine, 2 1/2 inch planks, set against 12 x 12 hard pine uprights, and was about 10 foot square and probably 12 feet deep to the lower shelf, called the "tail race."

We had a rough time removing the old turbine with some hydraulic jacks, muscle power, and the sage advice and help of friend George.

Now, George is a married man, blessed with three children, and I noticed in our local newspaper one evening shortly after we had started work that his wife had experienced another happy event. George had not mentioned this to anyone, including me so when I suggested the next day that this was a bit of a surprise, he said,

"You know, it was news to me, too. Last night about three o'clock, my wife woke me up and said, 'George, I think you have to take me to the hospital.'

"I muttered, 'What for?', and she replied that she was going to have a baby.

"You know", said George, "I do declare that is just what happened."

I suppose everyone has a desire to investigate, to explore into the past, and to relive some of our history and past traditions. This mill and its restoration has provided us an excellent opportunity to test our ability to do what the old folks did. They were able, with their crude tools, to build this mill and to actually make it grind corn in excellent fashion, even to the extent of doing a thriving business. It is interesting to reflect that they did not have the modern power tools available today, nor did they really have the time we have today, but these folks really built for permanence.

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