For Here, There Once Were Mills Down the Hill, Below the Falls

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1 For Here, There Once Were Mills Down the Hill, Below the Falls

By Jennifer L. Adams

1 2 3 Pool Above the Stanley-Colburn Mill Site. Lynne K. Brown

For Here, There Once Were Mills:

Down the Hill, Below the Falls

Jennifer L. Adams

Author Note

Independent historical researcher Jennifer L. Adams is a member [and former Chair] of the Fitzwilliam Historical Society, the Troy Historical Society, Historical Society of Cheshire County (HSCC), and Association of Historical Societies of New Hampshire. She served on the Monadnock Historical Societies Forum Committee, which organized and designed the exhibit and authored the publication described below. She also served on the Troy Conservation Commission.

Publication Notes

Research for this monograph was conducted without financial support. It is intended for nonprofit educational purposes. Fair use of copyrighted material is employed within APA, CMS, and STM policy guidelines, as protected under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107.

Draft portions of the monograph were adapted for the following exhibit and its companion publication:

Historical Society of Cheshire County's Exhibit, The Power of Water: The History of Water Powered Mills in the Monadnock Region, on display in HSCC's Exhibit Hall from November 30, 2012 through June 29, 2013; also, the exhibit’s accompanying Collaborative Publication & Exhibit Companion (of the same title as the presentation) by the Monadnock Historical Societies Forum (November 2012). Keene, NH: Historical Society of Cheshire County.

Cover/Frontispiece

Pool Above the Stanley-Colburn Mill Site – Lynne K. Brown https://www.lynnekbrown.com

For Here, There Once Were Mills ii

Abstract

This longitudinal study documents the history of two small 19th century watermills at East Hill, a location that was separated from Marlborough, NH, and integrated into Troy upon the latter’s 1815 incorporation. Once established, these mills became functional components of the local landscape, and basic supportive elements of their nascent community’s social fabric.

Following an introductory generic overview of watermills, the study examines the interpersonal relationships and topographical features that led to architectural siting and construction of the first mill in this vicinity, c. 1800, and its terrain alterations. Proceeding chronologically through the 19th century, as categorized by sequential eras of this primary mill’s ownership, it delineates the mills’ development and the lives of their “mill people” within a dynamic framework of often- turbulent sociological, technological, and economic factors.

Six appendices provide more detailed attention to topics of specialized interest: the first revisits an unpleasant episode in the life of one of the mill people; the second offers three alternative hypothetical scenarios for the original mill’s destruction by arson; the third delineates sweeping changes in industrial management-employee relationships, attitudes, and concerns, focusing on the 1880s, as experienced locally; the fourth recounts a certain “postmortem inspection” of the larger mill’s premises; the fifth addresses its conjectured conversion, comparing the overshot water wheel with the turbine; the last analyzes the demise of the small American country watermill.

Keywords: industrial archaeology, watermills, Monadnock Region, 19th century, Perkins Pond, Fitzwilliam, Jaffrey, Marlborough, Troy, Cheshire County, NH; Gardner, MA.

Biographical names: H. D. Thoreau, Daniel Goodenough, Richard Roberts, Joseph Frost, Heze- kiah Hodgkins, Pelatiah Hodgkins, Edmund Bemis, Jonas Gary, Moses Perkins, Aaron Hodg- kins, Moses S. Perkins, John Williams, Walter Heywood, William Putnam, David H. Gilmore, Stephen Wheeler, Flood Family, Priest Family, Luke Parkhurst, Jedediah Foster, Stanley Broth- ers (Abner, Alvah, James R.), Joseph Haskell, Cyrus H. Thompson, Luther Chapman, Alpheus Crosby, Abel Baker, Edwin Buttrick, Benjamin Fox, Nora (Fox) and Edwin Flagg, George S. and Frances (Sawyer) Colburn, Cyrus Wakefield, Levi Heywood, Benjamin F. Marshall, Josiah N. Rugg, Asa Swett, Francis A. Faulkner, John B. Proctor, Byron D. Leighton, Alfred Haskins, William H. McNeil, Ozro C. Flint, Henry J. Fassett.

For Here, There Once Were Mills iii

Acknowledgment

Iver and Dorothy Olsen1

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to conduct on-site investigation of the archaeological remains and environs treated in this monograph, kindly granted in 2006 by landowners [World War II Navy veteran] Iver and Dorothy Olsen, before Dorothy’s untimely passing in 2009, and Iver’s in 2017. Their extended interest, warm-hearted cooperation, and steadfast support made this project feasible. The Olsens – active Lifetime Members of the Troy Historical Society – continually welcomed personal visits and discussions as the research progressed. Their cordial presence has been fondly esteemed by all those privileged to know them as good friends. For Here, There Once Were Mills iv

Epigraphs

Water is the driving force of all nature.2

——— Leonardo da Vinci. In L. Pfister, H. Savenije, and F. Fenicia, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Water Theory: On the Origin and Fate of Water.

Throughout rural America . . . country mills, driven in most instances by water, nearly ever[y]where followed closely on the heels of settlement and persisted long after the days of pioneering had passed. They rank with the plow, ax, and oxen as basic equipment of a pioneering people; they played an essential role in the subsistence phase of agricultural development; and they contributed to the transition to a market economy. Gristmills and sawmills were among the first community facilities obtained in frontier areas, in most regions taking precedence over schools, churches, and stores and coming well in advance of wagon roads.

In the common experience the lack of mills was one of the most acutely felt – and most frequently mentioned – hardships of pioneering.3

——— L. C. Hunter, A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1780- 1930: Vol. 1. Waterpower in the Century of the Steam Engine.

Material evidence should play an important role in almost any historical research project focusing on industrial development. Artifacts are, of course, the focus of investigations by industrial archaeologists, who by definition are concerned with the physical remains of the past and the information that “things” can provide. Most people know that archaeologists use objects or structures to answer questions about the creation of an industrial site or the work that was done there. Another critical contribution of material evidence is often overlooked: raising questions that require intensive archival research to answer. A sequence that seems common in the best examples of industrial archaeology is (1) a research question and/or a hypothesis formed in the presence of baffling physical evidence; (2) archival research using the documentary record, ideally done in association with repeated examination of the industrial site; (3) conclusions that are supported by both documentary evidence and “ground proofing.” Few questions of historical significance can be answered by artifacts alone, but physical evidence or even an evocative “sense of place” can create the spark of intuition or curiosity that leads to an effective research project using a variety of evidence.4

——— P. M. Malone, Surplus Water, Hybrid Power Systems, and Industrial Expansion in Lowell.

For Here, There Once Were Mills v

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Acknowledgment ...... iii Epigraphs ...... iv Table of Contents ...... v Lists of Figures and Tables ...... vii Location Map ...... viii Introduction ...... 1 Dedication ...... 2 Generic Overview ...... 3 What is a Watermill? What Physical Concepts Govern its Operation? ...... 3 Motive Power: The Overshot Water Wheel...... 5 Impetus: Need and Location ...... 6 Siting: Prospective Feasibility and Layout ...... 6 Sawmills ...... 8 Gristmills...... 9 Mill Privilege ...... 12 Mill People ...... 12 Beginnings: Southeastern Marlborough ...... 13 Interpersonal Relationships (c. 1770-1802) ...... 13 Topographical Features: Mt. Monadnock, the Falls, Watershed and Flow Rates ...... 15 Architectural Siting and Construction (1802-1803) ...... 19 Terrain Alterations: Hodgkins’ Dual Pond System ...... 21 Hodgkins-Perkins Era: A Third of a Century (1803-1835) ...... 24 The Wild Bunch? ...... 24 Roundabout to Perkins ...... 25 And Back to Hodgkins ...... 25 A New Road ...... 26 Another Mill, Down the Hill ...... 26 To the End of an Era ...... 27 Technological Advances; Transition to a Market Economy ...... 28 Operations: Basic Equipment, Maintenance, Modernization ...... 28 Production: Manufacturing Machinery ...... 31 Transition to a Market Economy: Evolving Mix of Output Goods and Services ...... 31 Gilmore-Wheeler Era: Two “Gentlemen” Investors, and Others (1835-1842) ...... 32 Economic Vicissitudes: Nationwide Panic and Depression ...... 32 David H. Gilmore...... 33 Improvements: Shingle Mill, Blacksmith Shop, and Smut Mill ...... 33 Stephen Wheeler ...... 34 Lower Mill (1835-1843): All in the Family – Floods and Priests ...... 35 Frost Corner (1836-1842): Initiating Jedediah Foster’s Tenancy ...... 35 For Here, There Once Were Mills vi

Stanley Brothers Era: A Quarter-Century (1842-1868) ...... 36 Productivity: Output of Goods (Sawmill) and Services (Gristmill) ...... 37 Integration and Improvements: Timber, Water, Transportation ...... 39 Lower Mill: Parkhurst, Thompson (1843-1861) ...... 42 Frost Corner/Foster House (1842-1868) ...... 43 Civil War: Stanley Brothers, Millers ...... 44 Haskell’s Death; Fox Acquired Lower Mill ...... 45 Impetus for Stanleys to Sell Their Mill...... 45 Colburn Era: Three Decades (1868-1898) ...... 47 George S. Colburn: Background ...... 47 Modernization ...... 51 Toward a Larger, Unified Vision: Vertical Integration ...... 52 Impetus for Colburn to Sell His Mill: “The Best-Laid Plans” ...... 52 Gardner: Heywood Brothers & Company ...... 54 Winners and Losers: The Mill Reacquired After a Brief Interregnum ...... 57 Life Changes ...... 60 History Repeats: The Mill Sold and Reacquired – Again ...... 61 New Management in Troy; New Commercial Ventures in Gardner ...... 63 End of the Mill ...... 65 On the Threshold of a Dream: One Last Fling? ...... 66 Ozro C. Flint, Afterward ...... 68 Colburn’s Later Years ...... 68 “Said Premises Were Formerly a Mill Site” ...... 69 Stanley-Colburn Mill Site ...... 69 Mill Down the Hill: Flagg Family ...... 69 Afterword ...... 71 Sanctuary, Meditation, Benediction ...... 73 Appendix A: Murder Most Foul . . . Or Sour Grapes? ...... 75 Appendix B: Who Burned Down Colburn’s Mill? Three Hypothetical Scenarios ...... 77 An Act of Anger and Revenge ...... 77 1. Henry J. Fassett: Cherchez La Femme? ...... 77 2. Josiah N. Rugg: A Bitter Lawsuit? ...... 78 3. William H. McNeil: Follow the Money? ...... 79 Appendix C: Evolving Industrial Climate; End of the Colburn Era at Heywood Brothers ...... 81 Appendix D: Jim and Arthur’s Whiz Bang Adventure Crash on the Barrelhead! ...... 84 Appendix E: Did Colburn Install a Turbine at His Mill? Vertical (Overshot) Water Wheel vs. Turbine ...... 86 Appendix F: Demise of the Small American Country Watermill ...... 91 Technology ...... 91 Economics ...... 93 Time ...... 94 Index of Names ...... 97 References ...... 98 Endnotes ...... 115 For Here, There Once Were Mills vii

List of Figures

Pool Above the Stanley-Colburn Mill Site. Lynne K. Brown ...... Cover/Frontispiece Portrait of Iver and Dorothy Olsen ...... iii Location Map ...... viii 1. M. C. Escher’s Waterfall (1961) ...... 4 2. Drawing of an overshot water wheel ...... 5 3. Plan and elevation views of a typical water-powered mill system ...... 7 4. Up-and-down frame saw at Old Sturbridge Village, MA ...... 8 5. Drawing of gristmill, front plan view ...... 9 6. Lower millstone from the Stanley-Colburn Mill ...... 10 7. Upper millstone from the Stanley-Colburn Mill ...... 11 8. Mt. Monadnock, from above Perkins Pond ...... 16 9. Pool above Colburn Falls, Troy, NH ...... 17 10. Watershed Map for Hodgkins’ mill site (USGS StreamStats)...... 18 11. Layout of Hodgkins’ mill site ...... 23 12. Ruins of dam and tailrace at lower mill site ...... 27 13. Ruins of wooden water wheel, Howe Mill Site, Fitzwilliam, NH ...... 29 14. Portrait of James R. Stanley ...... 36 15. Mt. Monadnock and Perkins Pond (late 1800s) ...... 40 16. Fagan’s 1858 Map, showing the vicinity of Perkins Pond ...... 44 17. Portrait of George S. Colburn ...... 48 18. Residence of Geo. S. Colburn, West Gardner, MA (1886) ...... 62 19. George S. Colburn’s trade card, 1885 ...... 65 20. Portraits of Nora Fox Flagg and Edwin A. Flagg ...... 70 21. Old Mill Road of 1874 approaching Colburn Falls, Troy, NH ...... 72 22. Becalmed, its head spent, the brook flows gently onward ...... 74 D1. Portrait of Jim Whitcomb and Arthur H. Parker ...... 85 E1. Cutaway drawing of a mill with overshot water wheel ...... 86 E2. Cutaway drawing of (same) mill with turbine ...... 86 E3. Head and fall considerations: overshot wheel versus turbine ...... 88 E4. Last known hardware remnant at Stanley-Colburn mill site ...... 90 F1. Norman Rockwell’s Perpetual Motion (1920) ...... 95 F2. Original sheet music cover: Down by the Old Mill Stream (1910) ...... 96

List of Tables

1. 1850 U.S. Census Data for Stanley Sawmill – Troy, NH ...... 37 2. 1860 U.S. Census Data for Grain Production – Eastern Troy, NH ...... 38 For Here, There Once Were Mills viii

Location Map: Troy Town Center (lower left), Perkins Pond (center), Gap Mountain (lower center), Mount Monadnock (upper right). Adapted from USGS Map: Monadnock, NH Quadrangle, 1949 (http://docs.unh.edu/NH/monadsw.jpg). “According to the guide-board it is two and one fourth miles from Troy to the first fork in the road near the little pond and schoolhouse, and I should say it was near two miles from there to the summit . . . ” (Thoreau’s Journal, Aug. 4, 1860).5 (See also Figure 16, p. 44, showing “School No. 12.”) For Here, There Once Were Mills 1

Introduction

This is the story of a place down in the woods, where people seldom venture anymore, of which a property deed once spoke retrospectively: “Said premises were formerly a Mill site.” 6 A narrative spanning the 19th century at East Hill, a remote corner of what is today eastern Troy, NH, it seeks to encapsulate an overview of the lives of two small rural watermills from their in- ception to unfortunate ends, driven by dynamic sociological, technological, and economic factors. Integrally, it traces the lives of those who made that all happen: their mill people. Colonial settlers came to Cheshire County as pioneers with optimistic ideas, hopes, and dreams. Independent and industrious, they shared the cultural and ethical values of yeomen: non- slaveholding small landowning family farmers seeking to live on their own terms. In the course of events, they would join their compatriots in arms, bravely rising up in a desperate struggle to throw off the oppressive rule of an overbearing aristocratic order and its distant overseas masters. Thence imbued with a newly won sense of freedom and empowerment to follow their aspirations, the more venturesome disposed themselves toward new pursuits, taking on risks of uncertain scope and magnitude. In one respect, despite possessing varied artisanal experience and skills, scarcely any had practiced the trades of millwright (mill builder) or miller. Still, a small few set out to address their nascent communities’ urgent needs that only watermills could fulfill. Once sited and built, these mills became basic elements of the region's landscape and helped shape its social fabric, evolving with the times. Bit by bit the traditionally agrarian-artisan society in which they arose, though buffeted by economic depressions and wars, would be transformed through the American Industrial Revolution into the most progressive and powerful nation ever seen on the face of the earth. As the years passed, some watermills, owned and managed by men of great vision, ambition, and finance – industrial capitalists – rose to prominence, expanding to gigantic proportions. Nonetheless, most remained small, continuing to serve their local communities while adjusting to meet shifting demands and new challenges. Over time, these smaller mills began sending feedstock and finished commercial goods out into a wider world hungry for more of their products. As a general rule mill people persevered, sustained by faith, resourcefulness, and decades of hard work. Even as an elite handful prospered immensely, most millers just muddled through. Yet time would take its inevitable toll. In the end, all would succumb to Nature’s course: as those who gave them life, so too would their mills pass on. Few small watermills remain; nearly all vanished long ago. Mere traces can be found of others, receding back into the earth from whence they were raised. With sparse documentation given in town histories or held in various regional archives (court records and registered property deeds), their existence has been routinely overlooked, casually disregarded as incidental, and left unexamined. Of these, physical vestiges of two such sites yet endure at Perkins Pond Brook. Far overshadowed by greater enterprises, their historical role has been reduced to insignificance: locally, by textile manufacturer Troy Blanket Mill (later called Troy Mills), venerable mainstay of town life; more broadly, dwarfed by the great Northeastern urban-industrial waterpower complexes – famously chronicled, preserved, celebrated, and exhibited. Even so, these two small country mills kept their appointed station in that long-since unnoticed setting, an unex- ceptional rural millstream. And those mill people? At its heart, this is their story, too. Reflecting upon what happened there, now virtually forgotten, Arthur H. Parker wisely (and intriguingly) observed of that small place and its people:

It is also possible, even probable, that no other equal area of the old town is so rich in legend and history. . . . 7 For Here, There Once Were Mills 2

Dedication

Troy, like many towns in the Monadnock Region, enjoyed its share of small watermills during the 1800s, with a significantly larger operation about which town life revolved until just a few years ago: Troy Blanket Mill. While that facility undergoes redevelopment for new purposes, all the others have long since faded from memory. If you were to inquire about those old mills, most folks would just shake their heads: “Ahh … Nope. Can’t rightly say.” But then, with a great stroke of luck, as an afterthought you might be given a bit of helpful advice: “Try asking Bob and Judy Hall; they may know something about that.” As it turns out, they do. A World War II U.S. Navy veteran,8 Bob has long been regarded as Troy’s (unofficial) town historian. His wife Judy, who grew up there, also knows “a thing or two” about the town, its people, land, and history: she has appeared as a regular panelist on the television series Keene Insights, sharing reminiscences of bygone days in Cheshire County. A granddaughter of Oliver P. Whitcomb, of Richmond and Troy, and Troy native Ellen (Parker) Whitcomb, Judy knows her family genealogy quite well. In 1868 her grandparents purchased the entire tract on which East Hill Farm is presently situated.9 Over time, members of her family would come to play distinctive roles in this narrative – in some ways quite surprising! (See Appendix D.) Near Bob and Judy’s home lies an old mill site known to “almost nobody.” Like most such spots, it has been pretty much neglected through the years. True, brief mention can be found in older historical literature, if you know where to look; and the site itself can be found – again, if you know where to look or whom to ask. They have grown more familiar with it than practically anyone – for Judy, since childhood. Her dad, Jim Whitcomb, provided more clues in Troy’s Bicentennial Tribute, with a personal account of remembrances told by his father, Oliver:

A lot of mills were in Troy in the nineties. I doubt if many of the people in Troy know anything about them or where they were. Wonder how many know that there was a sawmill and a grist mill and a clothespin mill a short distance below Perkins Pond near what we called Colburn Falls? Mr. Colburn used to grind corn there for the farmers from Marlborough, Jaffrey and Fitzwilliam and saw out lumber for the farmers. Also got out chair stock. Used to buy hard wood logs from the farmers. Had heard my dad tell about selling him some big white birch logs one winter. . . . “Uncle Jim,” January 26, 1970 10

Occasionally, small clusters of visitors pass nearby. They may take fleeting notice of those tumbledown stones without giving them much thought, before moving along. After all, those woods are full of old stone piles, not something most people get too excited about.11 Have a quick look-see, glance down at their trail maps, and get on with the hike. Linger? No, nothing much to see down there, gotta push on and catch up with the group, can’t be left behind! But if you do happen to wander that way and venture down to the brook, you could do just that: stay a bit, perhaps rest awhile. Be still, listen: you may indeed hear those stones speak! If there were a dedication to this narrative, it would have to recognize Bob and Judy Hall for not only their detailed knowledge and generous assistance, but – especially – their unflagging energy, youthful enthusiasm, and ever-ready welcoming smiles! And Judy’s dad, Jim Whit- comb, who lived there and passed on many years back, and loved that place, the town and its people. And his cousin and buddy Arthur H. Parker, both of whom related memories from over a century ago, with subtle clues as to what really happened there. And Ralph Wentworth, who has gently taught the author a thing or two about life, a gift: a rare sense of what this is all about. For Here, There Once Were Mills 3

Generic Overview

As an overview, let us examine some basic concepts: What is a watermill and how does it function? What is an overshot water wheel? What factors guided location and siting, as for the first mills in Cheshire County? What was their practical purpose? What was the mill privilege? And, crucially, who were the mill people operating them and what sorts of lives did they lead?

What is a Watermill? What Physical Concepts Govern its Operation?

A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel (or turbine) to drive a mechanical process. For centuries, its purpose has been to supplement or replace low-density energy from human and animal labor. This function rests upon Newton’s law of gravity, expressed in the truism that “water flows downhill,” as governed through the physical concepts of energy, power, efficiency, and work. By directing water to flow through a mill from a higher to a lower elevation, its potential energy is converted into kinetic energy of the water wheel and its shaft. The force of this motion is used to drive the mill’s machinery. As here, energy is the capacity for doing work. The term power means the rate of energy conversion or transfer: the amount of energy converted, or work produced, per unit time. For a watermill, the maximum power available is the product of two quantities, head times flow (or flow rate).12 Head refers to the vertical drop from the higher level at which a mill takes in its head water, as from the surface of a calm pond, to the lower level of tail water discharge and exit – a distance commonly measured in feet. Flow rate (streamflow volume) refers to the volumetric amount of water passing a given point per unit time, as typically expressed in cubic feet per second or gallons per minute. At a minimum, in order to function, watermills require adequate head and ample steady flow.a The (operating or operational) efficiency of a facility or its equipment is a measure of the useful power actually realized, or work output produced, as a fraction of the maximum power available as input. This number can never exceed 100%. All else being equal, more energy cannot be extracted from a system than is put into it. Such a violation is depicted in Figure 1: Escher’s iconic lithograph, Waterfall,13 featuring a water wheel. Upon close inspection, one might justifiably exclaim, “But wait! That’s obviously impossible; you can’t do that in real life!” In reality, watermills function imperfectly, in the sense of being less than 100% efficient. According to one estimate, in the United States in 1850 the power of falling water “was converted into mechanical work at an efficiency rate of 39 percent.” 14 For a watermill, reductions in efficiency can result from multiple factors: (a) loss of mass/flow of the working fluid (as by leakage, spillage, splashing, and evaporation); (b) loss of usable energy (as by channel boundary resistance [or friction head losses], mismatch between sluice and peripheral wheel velocities, oblique bucket strike angle, centrifugal wheel forces, turbulence, and [vector] exit velocity); and (c) heat generation by moving components (as by friction, flexing, vibration). Even noise represents a small loss of usable energy, hence a reduction of useful work. As a guiding principle, higher efficiency is better – if achieving that “last incremental improvement” doesn’t cost too much. Finally, a usage note on the term work. To an engineer or physicist it means “transfer of energy,” most simply expressed as “the product of force times distance.” In the common par- lance, however, it connotes activity toward a result, such as sawing timber or grinding grain. a “Lord, what’s a cuboch?” A term coined by Oliver Evans as a unit of hydraulic power: one cubic foot of water multiplied by one foot descent per second (Evans, 1795/1850, p. 113). Unlike James Watt’s earlier mechanical unit horsepower, and the later (electrical and mechanical) unit watt, it never achieved popular acceptance. For Here, There Once Were Mills 4

Figure 1. M. C. Escher’s Waterfall (lithograph, 1961). Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_%28M._C._Escher%29 b b Numerous informative books, articles, and websites on the subject of watermills are readily accessible. From among these, as an introduction, David Macaulay’s delightful educational book Mill presents the illustrated narrative of a fictional small New England town’s typical 19th Century textile mills – their sequential planning, construction, and operation from 1810 onward. For a practical hands-on resource, Theodore R. Hazen’s website “Pond Lily Mill Restorations” is recommended. A more comprehensive academic approach is given in the definitive American waterpower reference for the era, Volume 1 of Louis C. Hunter’s A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1780-1930. For a detailed study of the technological history of the water wheel, see Terry S. Reynolds’ Stronger than a Hundred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel. For a technical milling manual of the 1880s, see Robert E. Grimshaw’s The Miller, Millwright and Millfurnisher: A Practical Treatise. For Here, There Once Were Mills 5

Motive Power: The Overshot Water Wheel

The pivotal element (literally, turning point) of a watermill is its wheel, for actualizing the latent potential energy of water to turn a solid rotating shaft and empower machinery to perform useful work. As such, it fits the standard definition of an engine: a device to convert energy into mechanical force or motion. Of the various configurations employed throughout two mil- lennia of mill history, the vertical overshot wheel came into customary use from the mid-18th century onward, when innovative hydraulic experiments and calculations by John Smeaton and others revealed its superior efficiency over competing arrangements.15 The term vertical orients the wheel’s plane of rotation; overshot means “head water flowing over the top from above.” The wheel is fed by a sluice, in which a portion of the water’s initial static head is converted to velocity. Upon striking each of the wheel’s peripheral buckets, the water’s force exerts an impulse, thus contributing to its circular motion. Descent of the filled buckets – as opposed to simple paddles or blades, which could not be filled – then captures remaining head, as the unbal- anced gravitational force of their weight draws the wheel’s forward side downward. By 1759 Smeaton16 also showed that water carried in the buckets by gravity (as in Figure 2) had superior efficiency over the impulse from its impingement velocity (as in Figure 1). Therefore, minimiz- ing the sluice’s head drop, to maximize the buckets’ useful (filled) vertical span of descent, proved to be advantageous, as long as sufficient flow is maintained. The effluent is allowed to fall sufficiently far below the wheel to prevent its entrainment by exiting tail water. The emptied buckets then rise to be refilled, repeating their steady continuous cycles. (See Appendix E.) As depicted in traditional settings, characteristic images of the overshot wheel have long been popularized (see Figure F2, p. 96), to the general exclusion of other once-prevalent wheel types; hence, alternative arrangements – e. g., undershot, breastshot, backshot, and vertical-axis (also called tub or Norse) wheels – may appear strange and unnatural to the modern eye.

Figure 2. Drawing of an overshot water wheel with inclined buckets. Adapted from Plate XV, The Young Mill-Wright and Miller's Guide (13th ed.), by Oliver Evans.17 For Here, There Once Were Mills 6

Impetus: Need and Location

During late colonial and post-Revolutionary times in Cheshire County, newly-formed households and growing communities were hard-pressed to acquire sufficient amounts of sawn lumber and ground grain to sustain themselves with a bare modicum of comfort. Their plight was further worsened by primitive roads, which severely hindered transport in those remote settings. The urgency of rectifying such trying circumstances is driven home by this tragic anecdote relating to Fitzwilliam and its tiny rustic outpost, North Village:

Benjamin Bigelow, the first settler in town [Fitzwilliam], went to Hinsdale in May, 1771, to have some grain ground, and was drowned in the Ashuelot River in Winchester on his return. It is evident that [Tolman’s] mill [at North Village] was not in working order at this time, as no one would go twenty miles for what he could get done within three miles.18

Such difficulties, though less dire, were commonplace. In order to meet those settlers' vital needs, small local mills came to be dispersed throughout the region, providing shorter distances and more convenient access for their products and services. In his History of neighboring Rindge, Stearns illustrates the stringent conditions encountered by the hardy souls of that town, as were endured throughout the County, and their enthusiastic response to a proposed remedy:

To conquer a wilderness, and surround themselves with the necessities of life, was the mission of the early settlers; and this required the exercise of labor and endur- ance. For several years the grain was carried to the older towns to be ground, and the lumber used in the first dwellings was transported over the rudest highways from the mills in other places. In midwinter the journey was not infrequently made upon snow-shoes, and a bushel of corn or of rye was borne upon the shoul- ders of the sturdy father, that his family might be supplied with their homely fare. The boards that were used for the doors and interior of the first log-houses were brought from the mill in Townsend, and later from New Ipswich. These incon- veniences, and the numerous water-courses in the settlement, were constantly in- viting them to construct mills of their own; and, when once the measure was proposed, few enterprises were conducted with as much success and as little delay.19

Siting: Prospective Feasibility and Layout

Pioneer settlers in Cheshire County possesed a mature cultural familiarity with the essential laborsaving utility of watermills. Here, within the realm of that tradition, they came into a region endowed with meteorological, topographical, and geological features conducive to waterpower generation. Among these favorable attributes were (a) ample precipitation distrib- uted, on average, evenly throughout the year; (b) residual lakes, ponds and watercourses formed by a prior age of glaciation and retreat; and (c) landforms underlain by expanses of near-surface granitic bedrock, commonly called ledge. Little appreciated today – if even suspected – was the age-old constructive role played by Nature’s greatest engineer, the beaver.20 Like countless others, that “residual” waterbody upon which the mills of this monograph depended for siting and reservoir supply – first called Fife Pond, later known as Perkins Pond – may in fact have originated and expanded through succes- For Here, There Once Were Mills 7 sive beaver dams built at or near the position of its present-day outlet. Interestingly, as explained by Cronon, these unique structures often provided opportunities for locating new roads and mills:

The elimination of the beaver had ecological consequences beyond the loss of the animals themselves . . . [T]hey left behind a series of artifacts that would await European settlers when they came to clear the land. When colonists cut a road through freshly opened countryside, they often went out of their way to cross streams on abandoned beaver dams rather than to build bridges. The sites of old dams were often chosen as preferred mill sites. . . . The old pond bottoms . . . could be as much as two hundred acres in extent.21

Collectively, these natural characteristics of place yielded numerous potential mill sites, varying greatly in quality, for discovery and fruitful exploitation. In evaluating a prospective site, recall that adequate head and ample steady flow were minimally required. At East Hill – given a clearly abundant water supply, a position of sufficiently steep elevation drop, and the means by which to channel and regulate flow – these conditions could reasonably be met.

The layout of a typical water-powered mill system is shown in Figure 3.22

Figure 3. Plan and elevation views of a typical water-powered mill system. Adapted from P. L. Lord, Jr., Mills on the Tsatsawassa: Techniques for Documenting Early 19th Century Water- Powered Industry in Rural New York. For Here, There Once Were Mills 8 7 Sawmills

Sawmills frequently became the nuclei for new settlements in wooded areas, furnishing lumber for ships, churches, houses, barns, and all manner of farm outbuildings. A town's roads and highways often converged on its mills, which by cutting wood and grinding grain provided vital economic services for the whole community.23 (See, e.g., p. 26, “A New Road.”)

The water wheel’s circular motion could be converted into up-and-down linear (recipro- cating) motion, suitable for sawing with a straight blade mounted vertically within a traveling frame or sash.24 An uncut log would be positioned upon a sled or carriage and “dogged” into place. By mechanically ratcheting it into the saw’s downward-biting teeth, about ⅛-¼” forward at each stroke, the sawyer could temporarily free himself for other duties. With successive adjustments and passes, lumber was cut to various dimensions as desired, then cured for some period in a nearby dry house. The circular saw was invented in 1813 by Tabitha Babbitt, a member of the Shaker community in Harvard, MA, based upon her familiarity with spinning wheels. It eventually came to displace most original up-and-down configurations, mainly in the decades following 1840, but smaller mills often lacked sufficient power to support such a conversion.

Figure 4. Up-and-down frame/sash saw at Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Photographer unknown. For Here, There Once Were Mills 9

Gristmills

On occasion, you may chance upon a derelict millstone. One such stone can be found embedded within a small grassy triangle between the Fitzwilliam Historical Society’s Blake Museum and the Fitzwilliam Inn, across Rt. 119 from that town’s Common. Farmers would bring their harvested grain to a gristmill to be processed into flour, meal, or animal feed. The grain was fed between two round stones placed like cake layers, whose vertical separation distance could be varied to select the grade desired. The lower, or bedstone, with furrows carved in its topside, sat stationary. The upper, or runner, with furrows carved into its underside, rotated just above, driven by a vertical spindle geared from the main water wheel shaft below. Funneled down through the center eye (hole) of the runner, grain was ground and channeled to the outer rim for collection. In lieu of money, the miller took as payment a custom toll, set by New Hamp- 1 th 25 shire law in 1797 as /16 of the product. And don’t forget the mill cat, to catch rats and mice!

Figure 5. Drawing of gristmill, front plan view. Adapted from The Experienced Millwright, by Andrew Gray.26 Like Evans’ earlier American Guide (1795), Gray’s popular manual (published in Scotland in 1804) included theoretical and experimental material. For Here, There Once Were Mills 10

Figure 6. A lower millstone from the Stanley-Colburn Mill. Jim Whitcomb long ago embedded this 48-inch-diameter lower base, or bedstone, for the Olsens into their residential patio. Its upper face is slightly convex, sloping downward toward the outer rim. Its center eye, measuring nine inches across, enabled a rotating vertical spindle to pass through unhindered from below to drive the upper stone. The furrows, along which grist traversed outwardly from the center, are about ¼-inch deep.c Personal photograph by author, October 3, 2012.

From Ernest Callenbach:

There is beauty in weathered and unpainted wood, in orchards overgrown, even in abandoned cars being incorporated into the earth. Let us learn, like the Forest Service sometimes does, to put unwise or unneeded roads ‘to bed,’ help a little in the healing of the natural contours, the re-vegetation by native plants. Let us embrace decay, for it is the source of all new life and growth.27

c The dynamic scissoring action of the double sets of furrows, which produced this outward radiating movement, is shown in “The Art of the Millstones, How They Work” by Theodore R. Hazen, a thorough and enlightening exposition of the role of the millstone, at http://www.angelfire.com/journal/millrestoration/millstones.html For Here, There Once Were Mills 11

Figure 7. An upper millstone from the Stanley-Colburn Mill. This artifact currently resides in a new location at East Hill Farm. A 60-inch-diameter runner stone, it has been inverted, or turned upside down, so that the furrows (originally carved into its underside) now face upward. Placed thusly, its slightly concave face slopes downward toward the center circular eye, whose diameter is eight inches. (Here, due to photographic perspective distortion, its eye falsely appears to be off-center.) Two additional “wings” extend 16 inches end-to-end from the eye to form a Spanish Cross, into which was fitted the supporting rynd: an iron bar to balance and drive the runner with a rotating spindle from below. This stone’s dimensions, features, and overall condition indicate usage later during the mill’s service life than the bedstone seen in Figure 6. It is instructive to note that the adjacent faces of a properly operating pair of upper and lower millstones, though close, did not actually touch one another. Personal photograph by author, October 9, 2012.

From Ernest Callenbach:

All things ‘go’ somewhere: they evolve, with or without us, into new forms. So as the decades pass, we should try not always to futilely fight these transforma- tions. As the Japanese know, there is much unnoticed beauty in wabi-sabi – the old, the worn, the tumble-down, those things beginning their transformation into something else. We can embrace this process of devolution: embellish it when strength avails, learn to love it.28 For Here, There Once Were Mills 12

Mill Privilege

Traditionally, in simplest terms, the mill privilege conferred the “right to dam a stream to turn a mill wheel.” 29 It emerged from a system called riparian water rights, based in English common law and prevalent in most of the eastern United States, which governed the use of water by riparian landowners: owners of land on or beside a stream.30 The mill privilege represented an exception to the ordinary custom, in “that maintaining the purely natural condition of the stream was no longer required.” 31 Its purpose was to provide a practical legal basis for siting and operating mills, while at the same time imposing distinctly understood responsibilities (lia- bilities) upon their owners, subject to reasonable use. It thus served to ensure an appropriate balance between the competing rights and interests of all landowners, both upstream (as protection from backwater flooding) and downstream (as for discharge flowage). By this measure, the mill became a legally privileged enterprise and, in colonial days, was often exempted from taxation. Once received, the mill privilege could be retained in perpetuity, being explicitly written into deeds of conveyance. It could be lost, however, if certain conditions of continuous occupation and water usage were not met, subject in a broad sense to the imperative “use it (properly) or lose it.” Notably, a mill owner could be held liable for damages if his impounded waters over- flowed neighboring properties without permission or deeded rights. (An illustrative legal case involving these issues arose in Massachusetts in the 1830s. 32) Locally, this very situation occurred at least twice concerning the water level of Perkins Pond. Over time, as water law for smaller brooks and ponds became comparatively “well settled,” larger lakes and rivers engen- dered vastly more complicated quarrels among multiple parties with competing interests.33 According to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, “The water in a New Hampshire stream, brook, or river is considered to be ‘waters of the state;’ however, the stream or river bed is privately owned by the individual(s) owning the land along the banks.” 34 The water itself is thus held by the State in public trust, and its usage is subject to regulation.

Mill People

Although it may be simplistic or even presumptuous to generalize, we might venture to ascribe to mill people an evolution in personal character and temperament, beginning with the first builders – rugged, rough-hewn, enterprising men of action in new lands, accustomed to con- fronting challenges and overcoming obstacles: “Here is something I/we can design, build, do!” Over the years, their descendants and others who followed would settle into the more quotidian lifestyle of on-site proprietors: “Time to saw the timber, grind the grain (and make the doughnuts?), ahh-gain!” Securely nestled within the comfort and stability of family and community life, they stayed on. Like their conscientious, steady-going yeoman neighbors, they engaged in demanding physical labor, dutifully borne throughout conventionally arduous working lives. For some, however, given personal interest, talent, and strong incentive to put economic hardship and privation behind, the appeal of absentee ownership and its recognized status could be irresistible: “Let someone else do that heavy lifting!” Of those who chose to follow this different path, only a fortunate few actually succeeded. This evolution in personality traits became apparent through the years in our chosen milieu, albeit with a notable reversion in 1842. In a word, mill people were resilient: they withstood difficulties and recovered from setbacks. Those not thusly inclined moved on to something else. Still, people are individuals, and many of our mill people seem to have made their own unique mold and then broken it. That trait ran uncommonly strong in millers. For Here, There Once Were Mills 13

Beginnings: Southeastern Marlborough

Given this generic overview, what can be learned about the two small watermills that once played an active role in eastern Troy? Why this place and time: who first came to build here? How did the process evolve? Although no known photographs, drawings, or physical descriptions of the working facilities survive, beyond brief deed citations, we can turn for initial guidance to general principles of siting, construction, and operational techniques, bearing in mind that every mill was different. Through analysis of surrounding topography, investigation of the land and its archaeological remains (ground proofing), examination of legal documents, and interpretation of rare [auto]biographical accounts, we can reconstruct essential elements of the site design and layout, buildings and supportive infrastructure, and operations – again, all within the historical context of sociological, technological, and economic factors. We begin with four broad categories, following the chronological development sequence that brought the first of these two mills to functional life: interpersonal relationships, topographical features, architectural siting and construction, and terrain alterations.

Interpersonal Relationships (c. 1770-1802)

As we have seen for those first settlers coming into the Monadnock Region, establishing watermills (especially, saw and grist mills) was a matter of paramount importance. So pressing was the need, that town proprietors typically offered free land and enabling stipends to encour- age their construction.35 In about 1770, Thomas Tolman built saw and grist mills at a small settlement called North Village, lying along Fitzwilliam’s northern border with Marlborough. With initial supplies of freshly-sawn lumber at hand, he built the village’s first frame house, replacing his log hut. The mills were bought around 1780 and operated for 60 years by three generations of the Harrington family, at the original site of what later became Troy Blanket Mill. A little more than two miles easterly from there, over a tortuous hilly cart path, lay the sparsely inhabited locale of a waterbody known as Fife Pond, after its first backwoods settler, Silas Fife. At the time, this area constituted the outermost portion of Marlborough’s Southeast District. Remote, indeed! As given by both Caverly and Stone, it hosted an oft-retold wildlife encounter:

In the fall of the year 1773, the cornfield of Daniel Goodenough (who was at that time a neighbor of Dea. Fife) was savagely ravaged by bears. Being somewhat provoked at the loss of his corn, Mr. Goodenough determined on the bear's destruction. He was an experienced hunter, but would never use a trap, so one moon- light night he put on his overcoat, took his gun, and went into the woods to watch for his game. He walked cautiously about for awhile, when feeling chilly he crept under a large log, and lay down to listen. Pretty soon he heard a little noise near, and thinking he would ascertain the cause, he very carefully raised his head to look over the log. Just at that moment a bear placed both fore paws upon the opposite side of the log, and was peeping over to see what was behind it. Quick as thought, on seeing the monster's head, Goodenough aimed his gun and fired. No sooner had he discharged his gun, than, knowing the peril of encountering a wounded bear, he jumped upon his feet and fled for home. Not daring to venture back that night to learn the result of his shot, he waited until morning, and then in company with some of his neighbors he returned to the scene of his evening's operations, and at a little distance from the log found the lifeless body of the bear.36 For Here, There Once Were Mills 14

Soon came the American Revolution. As momentum turned favorably in 1777 for pa- triots at the Battle of Bennington, Goodenough’s son-in-law, the enterprising and good-natured Richard Roberts, may have glimpsed in his mind’s eye the vision of a promising future: an influx of settlers and wagonloads of commercial goods streaming through, along the increasingly trav- eled mountain road between Jaffrey and Marlborough Center. By good fortune, that road passed within 1,000 feet of Goodenough’s land by the pond’s outlet brook – readily accessible via that rude cart path to North Village! “Considering it a desirable location for a tavern, [he] was anxious to obtain possession of it” 37 and did so, purchasing the land from his father-in-law.38 There, he built and opened a public house – that most indispensable amenity of civilized intercourse. In 1794 Roberts relocated his business to the vicinity of the Marlborough Meetinghouse, concurrently deeding the tavern and a 100-acre parcel of its original property to his son-in-law, Joseph Frost, for (interestingly) “200 £ lawfull [sic] money.” 39 This continuing ledger usage of the English form of lawful money was widespead: “The colonists at a very early date . . . ceased to use the pound sterling as a basis for reckoning. Although their books were still kept in pounds, shillings, and pence . . . their bills were always made payable in Spanish milled dollars . . . By Act of April 2, 1792, the [U.S.] unit of value, or dollar, was made to conform . . . to the average coin value of the Spanish dollar at that time, which dollar had continued to circulate as the principal money of account and was generally accepted as the standard in all money transactions.” 40 Due as well to chronic shortages of bullion and specie,41 foreign coins (mainly English and Span- ish) would long remain in circulation as legal tender, until passage of the Coinage Act of 1857. 42 Roberts’ filial conveyance, a customary practice of the time, was likely a gift to Frost for which little or no cash money actually changed hands. Notably, he kept the deed in his own possession, unregistered. This procedure not only provided a means by which to both ensure legal passage of the property to his daughter and son-in-law, and establish its nominal basis, or value; it also put into place a strong incentive for the young family to remain at that isolated spot, where Frost was listed in 1794 as a resident of Marlborough’s Southeast District.43 Though remote, the tract offered a generous spread of good farmland, convenient road access, and proximity to a large pond, whose outlet brook – and an impressive waterfall! – lay within its eastern bound. These conducive features being self-evident, the idea may readily have occurred to him of siting a mill. Yet the occupation of miller was a calling he would not have personally taken up, on account of his station, inclination, and lack of physical and technical expertise. Later to serve as a colonel in the town militia, Joseph Frost was, like his father-in-law,

highly respected and esteemed by all who were favored by his acquaintance. As a townsman, he was anxious for the promotion of peace, good order, the improvement of morals, and for the religious and moral education of the rising generation. His townsmen gave ample testimony of their confidence by repeatedly electing him to all the civil offices in their gift. For a number of years, he was chosen to represent the town in the State Legislature, in which capacity he never disappointed the expectation of his constituents. He was a professor of religion for nearly fifty years, and manifested the sincerity of his religious faith by practicing through his whole life upon the principle of pure morality and Christian benevolence.44

In 1795, Frost became a founding member of the Marlborough Social Library,45 formed for the acquisition and exchange of books to benefit the community. Fortuitously, time ripened in another respect with the publication that year of a meticulously detailed American book, Oliver Evans’ The Young Mill-Wright and Miller's Guide – and a new mill would do exactly that! Yet For Here, There Once Were Mills 15 building and running it would entail much more than simply reading that book and blindly following the biblical admonition, “Go, and do thou likewise.” Still, such a prospect could present an excellent opportunity for the right person; but who would venture such a commitment? Within a few years, though yet remote, that location by Fife Pond would come to benefit by Roberts’ prophetic foresight, fulfilling his vision. On Christmas Day 1799 the State Legisla- ture chartered the Third New Hampshire Turnpike. Soon completed, it upgraded separate existing segments – including the mountain road, a portion of today’s NH Route 124 – to form a continuous route between Boston and Walpole. By 1803 the first private stage line would extend over its full length. Passing by the eastern edge of Fife Pond near the [then] Marlborough-Jaf- frey town line, it connected with that side road [the former cart path] leading about 1/5 mile to Frost’s welcome tavern. From there, suitably refreshed and fortified, travelers could continue on another two miles westerly along the uneven, winding cutoff to Fitzwilliam’s North Village. The “very corpulent” Roberts’ demise intervened: “He died in his chaise, Sept. 10, 1801, while returning from Keene, and was found by the side of the road near the village of South Keene.” 46 As administrator and beneficiary of the estate, Frost inherited sizable holdings of real and personal property. Just 11 days later, he formally filed the 1794 deed; now, perhaps the time had come to consider disposal of that outlying 100-acre tract, nearly seven miles from his more favored venue of central Marlborough. To build a mill? A timely undertaking, but for whom? With this in mind, Frost may have tactfully broached the concept with his fellow library member, the feisty, formidable, and capable Hezekiah Hodgkins. Skilled at woodworking and carpentry, the thrice-enlisted Revolutionary War veteran and cabinetmaker had arrived in Marl- borough from New Ipswich in 1788 and built his house “a little south of the old meeting-house,” later “moving several times,” building anew at each instance.47 In his mid-forties with two adult sons (and four younger children), he possessed the background, aptitude, and gumption to accept such a challenge.48 Who better? But would he uproot his family to move out here, to come and build a mill in this place? And then stay on to run it? What will Lydia say? “Hezekiah, we have mouths to feed.” “Yes, but ...” Frost must have been a persuasive conversationalist, as his silver tongue wove its alluring spell upon Hodgkins’ increasingly receptive ears, assuredly dangling the juicy prospect of newly arriving immigrants with those “pressing basic needs.” A few leading words of gentle encouragement? “Go, see for yourself! Down the hill, below the falls...”

Topographical Features: Mt. Monadnock, the Falls, Watershed and Flow Rates

Whoever you may be, what your eye will first see from this quarter is Grand Monadnock, “the mountain that stands alone.” Even from afar, it dominates the horizon; it awes, captivates, inspires. All true for most, but as a prospective millwright in 1802 your eye would quickly be drawn downward to that large body of water, your mind beginning to churn with excitement – a natural reservoir! Such well-situated sites were scarce, and this one definitely offered potential! You might first survey that pond from above, taking in the lay of the land, then work your way down to inspect its outlet. Yes, here is good flow, and hereabout stands an abundance of fine timber. All here for the taking! But you? Can you pursue this dream and bring it to fruition? As you could see, goodly portions of that grand mountain’s water poured down through the brook! Working your way along its shallow rapids by Frost’s tavern, a persistent rumble would deepen, intensifying – the waterfall? Slowly, nearing its precipice, a stunning vista would open to you, below: its thickly canopied glen, sculpted for untold centuries into Earth’s ancient hard rock – heavily shaded, cooled, dappled; soft grasses, ferns, mosses, lichens, floating mists. But despite its deafening roar, a sense of stillness: an enchanted haven of peace and tranquility. For Here, There Once Were Mills 16

Figure 8. Mt. Monadnock, from above Perkins Pond. “There was a good view of the mountain from just above the pond, some two miles from Troy” (Thoreau’s Journal, August 9, 1860).49 Personal photograph by author, July 30, 2009.

You would clamber down alongside that threatening torrent, careful not to misstep and plunge. Gaining tenuous purchase, you might pause to absorb a visceral sense of its power, eyes shut – felt moreso than heard. Deeply inhaling its rich mystifying mélange of sweet scents borne upon fresh spray, time would stand still, fixed in that exalted moment, sweeping your soul aloft by the sublime spirit of that Mysterious Mountain! 50 Yet, somehow, “reality” would intrude, creeping back to steal away your reverie. Still entranced, scarcely daring to believe, you would descend onward for another quarter-mile until the ravine leveled, widening. Becalmed, its head spent, the brook flared out into sunlit marshy bottomland to feed an alluvial outwash fan of silt, sand, and gravel, gently veering westward toward North Village. From there you needed go no farther, you knew! That divine surge of joy granted to a select few explorers – and to this one lone aspiring miller – had come upon you: For truly, you had been graced to enter a holy place! ... Even so, would the veteran carpenter decide to set about the undertaking of building at that place? A potentially much-needed combination saw and grist mill? The answer would come in due time: Within a year of Roberts’ death, “gentleman” Frost sold “cabinetmaker” Hodgkins the eastern half of his 100-acre farm – a tract that bordered the pond and included the tavern and brook – for $500 in the new American currency.51 Following in his father-in-law’s footsteps, Frost moved his own growing family to Marlborough Center; despite the brevity of his tenure by the pond, that former tavern’s location would long remain known as the Frost Corner. For Here, There Once Were Mills 17

Figure 9. Pool above Colburn Falls, Troy, NH. “Holy?” the staid, mechanistic chemist might sniff. “Waterfalls are, simply, replete with a surplus of negative ‘feel-good’ ions – petrichor,” we are curtly informed. Personal photograph by author, August 17, 2006. For Here, There Once Were Mills 18

Hodgkins’ watershed area, which includes the southwestern quarter of Mount Monad- nock, is shown in Figure 10. To estimate flow rates, using only tools then at hand – following Evans’ guidance – he could have made simple experimental measurements, but little more. By contrast, the modern Internet provides resources he could not have imagined. One such is “StreamStats: Water Resources of the United States,” 52 a website maintained by the U.S. Geo- logical Survey (USGS). Interestingly, the program’s Project Manager is Kernell G. Ries, III, a hydrologist whose family has owned and operated Damon’s sawmills in Fitzwilliam for over 150 years. By pinpointing any location, one can map and compute the area of its watershed, or (upstream) drainage basin, which here covers nearly three square miles. One can then determine the average annual rainfall and calculate combined losses by ground seepage and absorption, ac- counting for evaporation and transpiration, to gauge a more accurate obtainable flow rate.

Figure 10. Watershed Map for Hodgkins’ mill site. The pink watershed extends at its upper right to the summit of “Monadnock Mountain.” The mill site lies below the pond by its outlet brook, which exits from the watershed’s lowest elevation point, located on its southwestern boundary. Adapted from http://water.usgs.gov/osw/streamstats/new_hampshire.html

Second thoughts? You thought it would be a simple undertaking: “Just build another house – a large one, with a wheel and its workings. Ha! How difficult can that be?” But then, can you get the damn thing to run? You’re a cabinetmaker, not a millwright – let alone a miller! How will you carry water down from the pond, a sluice? Will it hold up under conditions? Will this good flow come in all seasons? Or a single spring freshet, to sweep you away once and for all? Spates have done great damage here, they’ve left their mark! Will neighbors come to take your sawn lumber – yes, you do know good wood – and return to bring you their grist to grind – of which you know little to nothing? How will they get down into this place in fair weather and foul? Will they come? You had to go and listen to Joseph and let that damn book fill your head with such fantastical ideas. Now see what it has done! Should this fail, what then will become of you? But ... You are not alone, you do have two good strong sons. Can we do this, we three together? You are not yet old, good years yet lie ahead. Surely, you and they can raise a mill, and a damn fine one at that! So ... Now ... Where to site it? Down in this ravine, below the falls? For Here, There Once Were Mills 19

Architectural Siting and Construction (1802-1803)

In regard to the question of siting, Hodgkins first needed to verify: Would this placement suffice? And if so, how best then to proceed?” Aside from well-intentioned guesswork, for such an ambitious project he would have approached the region’s [territorially non-competitive] millers, whom he assuredly knew through his carpentry and cabinetmaking, to draw on opinions, advice, and insights from their collective knowledge base and experience. Would conditions be optimal, if seated below the falls? But though good and wise counsel can be of great help, he would rely as well upon assiduous study of Evans’ book, carrying out the suggested experiments and using its tables as a guide in making his own calculations – from the book’s very title! For siting and building a watermill, it stood as the millwright’s bible, the sine qua non of its day. Our earlier half-mile trek downstream from the pond revealed an overall descent of more than 100 feet; but to blithely assume that raw number as “available head” overlooks a critical limitation: wheel diameter. Throughout history, to catch appreciably more of a stream’s full drop entailed a line of sequential mills and wheels, as at Mill Hollow in East Alstead,53 and in Rindge, where mill-themed Emma’s 321 Pub and Kitchen presently occupies a former mill site along a diversion channel running from Grassy Pond down to Pool Pond.54 Such arrangements extended far back to ancient times. Perhaps the most outstanding known historical example was located at Barbégal, near Arles, France, under the Roman Empire.55 Remains were discovered there of a massive flourmill complex believed to have been in service between the early 2nd and 4th centuries A.D.56 Consisting of 16 overshot water wheels cascaded in two parallel rows of eight, it was fed at the top by an aqueduct, with an overall 61-foot descent. In accord with the best practices of the day, Hodgkins shoehorned his mill seat into the nearest feasible spot below the falls, affording a steep gradient – a sharp drop in a short distance:

Waterfalls were frequently chosen as locations for the first mills in an area because their fall of water could be tapped immediately without the cost and effort of erect- ing a dam. By building the mill below the top of the falls, the owner could use a wooden sluice to divert water directly from the stream at the top of the falls onto the wheel below the falls with tremendous force due to the differential elevation between the two points. Thus the miller could begin milling as soon as he could erect his machinery and run a sluice to the top of the falls.57

Too, as given by Woodbury, “in these cold latitudes mills were habitually built just as close to the dam [falls] as possible, in order to keep the penstock from freezing in the winter.” 58 Immediately above his cascade, known today as Colburn Falls, the streambed opens into a shallow pool which, as seen in Figure 9, lends the visual impression of a small placid mill pond. At a point below and to the left of that photographic view, remnants of a diversion channel, or head- race, can be found. That race, whose old bed is still evident, routed flow around the falls to the brink of the ravine, just above Hodgkins’ mill. From there down to its floor, he may have obtained as much as 25 feet of usable head, a parameter crucially important for the mill’s design. What sort of wheel arrangement might he have built and installed – and why? Despite the absence of explicit, distinct evidence – photographs, written descriptions, or archaeological remains – that determination follows nonetheless from both generic considerations and on-site investigation. The Master himself (Oliver Evans) gave ample discussion and guidance, providing this pertinent endorsement: “Overshot wheels receive their water on the top, being moved by its weight; and are much to be recommended where there is fall enough for them,” 59 minimally For Here, There Once Were Mills 20 about 10 feet. Available elevation drop was a key determinant: here, that threshold distance could reasonably be doubled, with extra margin. Given these conditions, Hodgkins would have constructed a short sluice to his mill, channeling water over the top of a single overshot wheel. For sizing the wheel, beyond customary “head and fall” considerations (see pp. 87-89), he needed to address such parameters as wheel width (or face), effective bucket capacity, and rotational speed, to match bucket velocity with that of his sluice flow. Generally, larger wheels, while more powerful, proved progressively cumbersome to install and operate, increasingly vulnerable to damage, and prohibitively more expensive to maintain. Smaller ones, though cheaper and easier to build, required comparatively higher flow rates, entailing wider wheel faces and higher rotational speeds. Thus, to maximize performance, design trade-offs were required. Ultimately, however, such operational decisions were guided by economics. Conducting what is today known as cost-benefit analysis, Hodgkins needed to make reliable estimates of revenues and expenditures – both capital costs and operating expenses, allowing for maintenance, repairs, and improvements. In effect, this meant targeting the best balance among these performance indicators toward optimizing his facility’s viability, productivity, and hence profitability. Built of unmortared stone, portions of the mill’s north and east foundation walls, which supported its primarily wooden structure, stand intact with their intersecting corner; only tumbled stonework remains of its west wall, tied integrally into the ravine’s steep face. Yet, little is known of the building itself, beyond its basic footprint, measuring about 36 by 48 feet, and its 3½-foot-wide wheel pit, defining and limiting wheel width. The mill’s heavier, load-bearing east wall – 3 feet thick, versus the 2-foot-thick north wall – stands adjacent to the brook’s streambed. Although vestiges of its internal layout and structural details have long since disappeared, the facility clearly required a minimum of three stories – conceivably as many as five in all – to accommodate its wheel and associated shafting below, with assorted machinery for various productive functions located above (see Figure 5). In consideration of its 1886 demise, any hitherto undiscovered documentary materials are not likely to be found. As Hunter confirms:

Records . . . throw little light on the manner of [mills’] construction and equipment. Who troubles to document the commonplace? Of the types of waterwheels used, the manner of their construction, the linkage with the driven machinery, and the means used to accumulate and direct the flow of water to the mill, the record, with infrequent exceptions, is silent.60

Ruins of the wheel pit, though littered with debris, are well-defined. Surprisingly, the pit identifies the wheel’s position as having been inside the building – a feature common to New England mills for protection against the region’s harsh winter elements, as contrasted with (more familiar and picturesque) external wheel placements seen farther south. Extending out beyond the pit, a 15-foot-long tailrace can be inspected, virtually intact more than 200 years after its original emplacement. A recessed squared trough lined with fitted stone, it sloped gently downward to remove spent water safely away from the wheel pit, alleviat- ing backflooding as a concern. It also served to protect the mill’s foundation and supporting sub- strate from undue erosion which, if left unchecked, could risk undermining the site’s integrity and stability. As required by law under the mill privilege, the tailrace conducted spent flow back to its “natural watercourse” before passing on to the next downstream riparian landowner. Even at this advanced stage of design and construction, however, a serious – perhaps fatal – problem area had not yet been adequately addressed: effective water supply management.

For Here, There Once Were Mills 21

Terrain Alterations: Hodgkins’ Dual Pond System

One nearly universal feature was the mill pond, whose functional role (aesthetic considerations aside) is usually left unexamined – its implicit purpose being simply to supply water to a mill. Although Evans explicitly mentions the mill pond only once in passing, in a sample problem treating the slope of a canal,61 investigative analysis reveals a far more intricate picture. As the first local riparian landowner to establish a mill privilege, Hodgkins was entitled (absent competing claims) to erect and utilize a dam on his land at Fife Pond, consistent with re- specting the rights of abutting landowners. Though the pond provided superb long-term reservoir storage, or holding capacity, its dam – with a head gate to regulate water level and outflow – stood about 800 to 900 feet north of the mill, far too distant for prompt, practical hands-on flow management. That pond alone afforded minimal operational flexibility: adjustments for short- term, or transient, supply and demand balances were difficult. Further, the mill remained susceptible to both seasonal flow variations and the inevitable threat of catastrophic flooding. Had the intended use for that small pool above the falls (Figure 9) been only for storage and stabilization, its negligible size and efficacy served rather to highlight these perplexing deficiencies. Could a straightforward solution be found to overcome both? One option might be to construct a second, lower mill pond: If you can’t get water from the pond to the mill with a short sluice, then why not (in essence) bring the pond itself to the mill? In that regard, Nature offered a promising, workable approach: West of the ravine, atop its ledge above his mill site, lay a gently sloping oblong expanse of about two acres. By clearing and excavating that area, and shoring up its perimeter with a sturdy embankment, or berm, Hodgkins could fashion that second pond. Such a plan envisaged an innovative dual-tiered system whose separate water bodies could assume complementary functions. The upper, much larger but distant, would serve primarily as a feeder reservoir to collect and hold substantial stores of water. A lower pond, much smaller but adjacent to the mill, could enable efficient, responsive on-site flow management and greatly expanded flow capacity – hence power – by means of positioning a large flow control gate and sluice adjacent to the mill wheel. In all, several crucial objectives could be achieved:

 head and flow management: increase head with raised embankments for higher mill intake elevation; permit placement of a short, gated sluice leading directly to the wheel, assuring stable, secure (ice-free), immediate (rapid-response) flow regulation for power control; pro- mote capacitive flow stabilization – bypassing turbulent brook rapids, the inadequate small pool, and its constricted diversion race – in order to damp out energy-dissipating fluctuations;  power amplification: exploit cyclical operating schedules: (a) diurnal cycling, with daytime operation at significantly enhanced power levels, balanced by nightly refilling from the upper pond; (b) weekly cycling, with Sundays observed as days of rest, allowing additional weekly topping off; and (c) seasonal cycling, with operations prolonged farther out into the marginal late spring shoulder season, to supplement the upper pond’s seasonally-diminished (summer) volume, thus enhancing useful streamflow capacity to postpone forced annual shutdowns;  flow conservation: augment the upper pond’s storage capacity at a location proximate to the mill itself; reduce amounts of excess water lost as ordinary bypass overflow, by accommodat- ing surplus spillover from the upper pond whenever the mill’s interim operating requirements were temporarily exceeded; at such times the lower pond could conveniently be replenished;  safety and site preservation: furnish margin for flood control and damage protection; divert floodwater via a waste gate in the southern berm, capable of discharging overflow into a spillway to bypass the mill itself; permit drainage for structural maintenance and repairs. For Here, There Once Were Mills 22

Power Amplification: A Simplified Calculation. In order to meet these optimistic goals, would such an undertaking actually justify the time, effort, and expense required? Power can most easily be amplified by decreasing the time over which work is performed, using the same total amount of energy. A simplified calculation illustrates how operating flow, hence power, could be enhanced by this means and, quantitatively, by how much. Have no fear of the math: its result may be quite surprising! Let R cubic feet per hour represent the upper pond’s maximum steady discharge rate at full gate (with the dam’s head gate wide open). Flowing con- tinuously day and night, seven days a week, the upper pond’s total weekly outflow would be (R cubic feet/hour) x (24 hours/day) x (7 days/week) = 168 R cubic feet/week. During the early 1800s, a 14-hour six-day operating week would not have been far out of the ordinary,62 with 10-hour nightly shutdowns and Sundays off.d This assumption yields (14 hours/day) x (6 days/week) = 84 operating hours/week. Assuming minimal flow losses, and given an adequately-sized lower pond and control gate to feed a short mill sluice, the upper pond’s weekly discharge flow volume (168 R) could be condensed into an 84-hour workweek, for a sustainable operating flow rate at the mill of (168 R cubic feet/week) / (84 hours/week) = 2 R cubic feet/hour. Thus, by implementing a dual-tiered pond system, the mill’s original base-load power capacity could, for all practical purposes, be doubled during working hours. At a moment’s notice, if adjustments were needed to meet transient power demands, a control gate located at the lower pond’s outlet adjacent to the mill could quickly be repositioned. Inside, shafting (including shafts, gears, and belts) would be reset to match specific rotational speeds required for specialized machinery or processes. And everyone would benefit – including the diligent mill boy, shown in Figure E1 (p. 86) performing this procedure at the gate above his wheel.

Lower Pond Construction. The pond’s creators laboriously cleared and hollowed out a wide depression to deepen and grade its bed, in the process throwing up a massive perimeter wall to bolster its eastern and southern rim, defining its lower end, with the access road bounding its western side. Like most dams of the period, the berm was filled with composite timber, rock, and earth. Its raised height not only translated into greater holding capacity, but also increased deliverable head. When completed, the pond covered approximately two acres. Its northern reach extended up onto marshy shallows to within about 50 feet of the Frost Corner building’s south stone cellar wall, where it could be fed at that favorably higher elevation. In time, Fife Pond would come to be called “Hodgkins’ upper mill pond” to distinguish between the two. Through on-site inspection, a modern-day observer can infer the planning, layout design, and degree of effort expended in the lower pond’s construction. It would have involved the use of crude hand tools (axe, billhook, saw, hammer and spike, pick and shovel), ropes, chains, derricks, hoists, pulleys, winches, and barrows; and scrapers, sledges, carts, and wagons drawn by teams of draft animals – horses or oxen. Regrettably, no known records exist of the project’s details: only its quietly impressive weatherworn earthworks remain. Despite the pond’s somewhat mushy bed, with ground seepage evident below its southern perimeter,63 this remarkable feature met its manifold purposes, ultimately providing varied service for over a century. d While the original leases at Lowell permitted drawing water for 15 hours daily, with a standard 11-hour workday that included a 1-hour midday intermission (Hunter, 1979, p. 259n), the actual workday may have averaged as much as 13 hours, with Sundays taken as days of rest. In 1847 New Hampshire passed the nation’s first 10-hour labor law. For Here, There Once Were Mills 23

Figure 11. Layout of Hodgkins’ mill site, showing the main “Troy-Jaffrey Road” (along the right-hand side), original mill access road, upper and lower mill ponds, and evolving transportation infrastructure. Hodgkins’ “Upper Mill Pond” has long since been known as Perkins Pond; in this view, the brook flows downhill from right to left. The original access road ran southward alongside the lower pond, circled around its southern berm, and began descending into the ravine, passing by Hodgkins’ house (where a level area with scant partial traces of a stone foundation can be found),64 before turning back northward toward the mill’s southern face and entrance. A new bridge and road were constructed in 1827, leading directly from the original access road southeasterly into Jaffrey. As a result, shortly thereafter a second, smaller mill site was established farther downstream, just beyond the left edge of the figure. Three separate records document the location of “Stanley’s dry house,” 65 where a stone foundation remains. In 1874-1875, a new and different road and bridge, connecting with the 1827 Jaffrey road, were put into service to replace the aging bridge, which fell into disuse and disrepair following its official discontinuance by Troy. Today, the old bridge has virtually disappeared; only its sturdy granite abutments remain. From the juncture of the two roads, a short pathway slopes downward into the ravine to a cleared working area adjacent to the mill’s ruins. At different times, smaller outbuildings may have been positioned both north and south of the mill, as well as directly across the brook. The land area shown “was originally covered with a heavy growth of maple, hemlock and beech.” 66 Geologically, the entire vicinity is underlain by a type of igneous, plutonic, granitic bedrock called Spaulding tonalite.67 For Here, There Once Were Mills 24

Hodgkins-Perkins Era: A Third of a Century (1803-1835)

The Wild Bunch?

The “feisty, formidable” (as characterized on p. 15) Hezekiah Hodgkins? Were members of the Hodgkins clan truly such a rough-and-tumble bunch? This may indeed have been so, as indicated by two illustrative anecdotes. The first was told in Hezekiah’s later years, a vignette provided by Bemis suggestive of “rough,” as implied by reputation and personal testimony:

It is related that on one occasion in [Marlborough] town-meeting there was considerable difficulty in choosing a representative. Phinehas Farrar having held that office for several years in succession, it was deemed advisable by many of the leading citizens to choose someone else in his stead; but, being divided in their opinions, they were for some time unable to make any choice among the several candidates. A warm discussion was taking place, when the old Esquire [Esquire Sweetser, who for many years kept the principal tavern in town] – who, by the way, had just patronized his own bar – entered the room. Being a warm friend of Mr. Farrar, he felt himself bound to use his influence to send him again to the General Court [NH State Legislature]. He accordingly rose, and said in his own peculiar tone: “Mr. Moderator and gentlemen, let me give you a few words of advice. If you want a man to represent you in the General Court of this State, send Esquire Farrar by all means, for he has been so many times he knows the way, and the necessary steps to be taken. If you wish to send a man to Canada, send Col. Joseph Frost: he has two or three sons living there, and he would like to visit them. But, if you want to send a man to hell, send Hezekiah Hodgkins; for he will have to go some time, and it is time he was there now.” 68

Another episode, informally suggestive of “tumble,” concerned Hezekiah’s second son, Pelatiah, wherein the 1815 Cheshire County Court Record discloses that one Mirriam Minot of Fitzwilliam claimed under oath that she

“was delivered of two bastard mulatto children that the said Hodgkins is the father of said children . . .” [with details of date, location, and circumstances given] “that he may be charged adjudgeable with their maintenance & be compelled to comply with the provisions of the statute in such case made & provided.” The said Hodg- kins appears and says he is not chargeable. And a jury is impannelled & sworn to try the truth of the allegations contained in the complaint aforesaid, who having heard the parties, their witnesses & evidence, make return of their verdict into Court and upon oath say that the said Pelatiah Hodgkins ought not to be charged. Whereupon it is considered by the Court that the said Hodgkins recover against the said Minot his costs taxed at forty three dollars and ninety six cents. Attest: L. Hale, Clerk 69

Taken separately, an imputation and an accusation. And together? We cannot know where truth lay, colored so indelibly in both instances by subjective points of view: Rashomon.

For Here, There Once Were Mills 25

Roundabout to Perkins . . .

In December 1807, Hezekiah sold the major portion of his property, including the mill, house, and barn, to “yeoman” Edmund Bemis for $1,550. 70 Reserving to himself a small corner for a new house, he operated a shop manufacturing rakes in his later days.71 He died in October 1821 at the age of 64, and lies buried with his wife Lydia at Troy’s Old Village Cemetery. Bemis’ friend Jonas Gary acquired the farm and mill property in 1809.72 A Revolution- ary War veteran and former Fitzwilliam school teacher and selectman, Gary had married a sister of Gen. Israel Putnam, hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill. (Reportedly, “she was insane for some years before they left town [Fitzwilliam].” 73) Although the specific conveyance remained unregistered, it was confirmed by references in deeds for two abutting tracts as having occurred before February 1810. In 1814 he sold the property (at Bemis’ 1807 price of $1,550) to Moses Perkins,74 a younger brother of the well-known clockmaker and silversmith Robinson Perkins.75 A bit of biograpical data: They were raised in a financially comfortable family. Their father Joseph had marched on Concord in April 1775 as a Minuteman; later Captain of the Jaffrey military company, he became “a large landowner [who] was able to set his sons up on farms of their own as they attained majority.” 76 Born in 1769, Moses was married at the age of 24 by Rev. Laban Ainsworth to Rhoda, daughter of the prominent, enterprising Dea. Eleazer Spofford. Even earlier, he had begun to exercise an active lifelong interest in real estate investment, while yet modestly describing himself in numerous deeds as a “farmer” or “yeoman.” Soon into Perkins’ 11-year tenure of mill ownership there came about a signal event in the political life of this community that would permanently redefine its residents’ public sense of civic identity as to who they were and where they lived. By an 1815 act of the Legislature, the Town of Troy – including the mill’s vicinity – was formed from parts of Fitzwilliam, Richmond, Swanzey, and Marlborough. Fitzwilliam’s North Village thereupon became Troy Village, seat of the newly incorporated, newly named town. Even so, some land tracts descending from Roberts’ original holding were still identified in deeds until as late as 1887 as “being part of lot number one in the seventh range of lots as formerly laid out” in the Marlborough Plan of 1762.77

And Back to Hodgkins

In December 1821, less than two full months after Hezekiah’s death, his son Aaron married Moses Perkins’ daughter Rhoda, named after her mother. Truly, this was a small world: In preparing for service in the War of 1812, Moses and Aaron [mirabile dictu!] had trained together under the tutelage of Col. Joseph Frost – no further introduction to prospective in-laws needed there! As recurred so often, strong friendships and family ties, once forged in this local region, were maintained and strengthened by intermarriage – upon occasion, by today’s standards, to an unusual degree.78 One would need a network visualization diagram to follow many of the multiply-connected, close-knit relationships so often shared among these families. Within 3½ years, in yet another instance of filial conveyance, Aaron acquired the “Hodg- kins” mill back from his father-in-law.79 At age 28, given his own family heritage, coupled with the marriage, he had in all likelihood by then been operating the mill for several years; thus, in every sense, he was well situated for, and fully capable of, assuming its duties of ownership. Incidentally, in the early 1840s – years after passing various Troy properties on to his son and son-in-law – Moses again took up ownership of a saw and grist mill in the nearby Slab City section of Jaffrey. Several of his children (or their spouses) would, in turn, come to enjoy notable financial success, gaining eminence and respect as citizens active in local civic affairs. For Here, There Once Were Mills 26

A New Road

Access from the south, gained via oblique rough segments linked together, had long been troublesome: northwesterly along steep winding grades of the old turnpike road to the Troy cutoff, southwesterly to the Frost Corner; southward past the lower pond, swinging downward and eastward around it, then back northward again to the mill itself. With the route’s rising traffic and poor condition, travelers became increasingly frustrated, complaining that “the road from the southwesterly part of Jaffrey . . . is circuitous, hilly, rocky, and difficult to keep in repair.” 80 Dating back to a March 1823 meeting, efforts in Jaffrey succeeded in having its portion of a new road approved and completed; but Troy refused to undertake responsibility for building and maintaining its connecting link. In March 1826, to break this local impasse, Aaron Hodg- kins and others petitioned the Court of Common Pleas, held at Keene, to mandate its construction. In all, the proposed road would extend 3,000 feet southeasterly from his mill, connecting with Jaffrey, while also providing direct access into Fitzwilliam. They cited the advantages of a straight and level route, saving 530 rods [1⅔ miles], “for the purpose of transporting grain and lumber to and from the [combination saw and grist] mills of Aaron Hodgkins in Troy, to which mills . . . thirty families constantly resort, and many other families in that vicinity are also obliged to resort to said mills for grinding in dry seasons, and must travel said [existing] road.” 81 In March 1827, after examination by an appointed committee, the Court gave its approval for the road’s completion by November,82 anchored by a “bridge over the brook to be built with stone abutments forty feet apart and twenty feet high from bed of brook” 83 about 50 feet downstream from the mill’s wheel pit, as shown in Figure 11. Despite presenting a high, narrow, and somewhat precarious passage (exacerbated under adverse weather conditions), the bridge was to continue in service for nearly 50 years, until its ultimate displacement by an 1874 rerouting. Ex- cept for that long-absent bridge and its obscured approaches, much of this 1827 road remains in current use, but suffers varying stages of poor maintenance and disrepair. Now designated as [the southern portion of] Old Mill Road, hosting several Jaffrey residences, it intersects Bullard Road by the north parking lot and trailhead entrance of the Gap Mountain Reservation, a property of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF, or Forest Society).

Another Mill, Down the Hill

Typically, other water-powered applications followed upon saw and grist mills. With completion of the new road and bridge in 1827, potential sites downstream from Hodgkins’ mill became more readily accessible. By then Moses Perkins and his son Moses S. had acquired the bulk of Roberts’ earlier holdings (Old Marlborough Lot 1 Range 7, ~140 acres), as well as tracts bordering major portions of the upper mill pond, northward across the main road. In 1829 they sold a ¾-acre parcel just below Hodgkins’ mill for $45 to John Williams, a Jaffrey mechanic.84 There, Williams erected a dam (see Figure 12), built a mechanic shop on the brook’s northwest bank, and installed a wheel, shafting, and machinery.85 In 1831 he married Mary Fos- ter, whose sister Nancy 86 had recently (1828) wed chair manufacturer Walter Heywood, one of the noted Heywood Brothers of Gardner,who appears prominently in this narrative (pp. 47-68 passim). Seven months after his marriage, Williams sold the lower mill property to Aaron Hodg- kins for $56.84, then rebought it within a year for $60.28. He sold it again three years later, in the fall of 1835, for $90 to William Putnam of Jaffrey,87 a distant cousin of Gen. Israel Putnam. The Williamses departed for Gardner, where a daughter was born, then to Worcester where he worked for several decades as a “machinist,” remaining there until their deaths in 1882. For Here, There Once Were Mills 27

Figure 12. Ruins of dam and tailrace at lower mill site. This dam, originally built of heavy, rough-fitted stones and filled, raised a small pond for the lower mill up to the level of the higher stones visible at the upper right. Strewn below, tumbled square-cut stones give material evidence of accumulated flood damage. A mechanic shop stood on the bank to the left. The small channel running from there, sloping downward across the foreground to rejoin the brook at the lower right, marks the facility’s tailrace. Personal photograph by author, October 16, 2006.

To the End of an Era

Twice, Aaron Hodgkins mortgaged the upper mill to Dr. Charles W. Whitney, a direct Mayflower descendant.88 His son, Charles W. fils, later became the proprietor of Whitney’s Store, that stately Greek Revival edifice on Route 12 by the falls just below Troy Common. The first loan, for $225, was given in March 1831; the second, replacing it in April 1834, amounted to $500. In December 1835, after 10 years of ownership, Aaron sold the property and a nearby tract for $1,400 to David H. Gilmore of Jaffrey,89 husband of his wife’s first cousin (see p. 33). He then repaid Dr. Whitney, leaving himself at age 38 with a tidy sum – enough to relocate his growing family to a nearby farm a bit closer to town on the same road, where they remained until his death in 1856. That sale marked the end of the Hodgkins family’s direct association with the mill which patriarch Hezekiah had envisaged, designed, and built back in 1802-3. Aaron and his wife Rhoda also lie buried together at Troy’s Old Village Cemetery. For Here, There Once Were Mills 28

Technological Advances; Transition to a Market Economy 90

During the 19th century’s middle decades, rapid technological advances unfolded which directly affected watermills in two major respects: (a) operations: basic equipment, maintenance, and modernization; and (b) production: manufacturing machinery and evolving mixes of output goods and services. Yet, though strongly driven by clear economic incentives, local implementation often lagged until new owners brought in fresh initiative, ambitious plans, and ready capital.

Operations: Basic Equipment, Maintenance, Modernization

Maintaining his facility “in good repair and working order” placed significant demands upon a miller’s time, attention, and pocketbook. His main operating goal was to keep the wheel turning. Any lengthy disruption could prove difficult, frustrating, and potentially ruinous, with open-ended unproductive (lost) downtime. Hence, long costly unscheduled shutdowns for full repairs were often deferred, barring catastrophic events, for as long as patch-ups sufficed and enough water held out – hopefully, until summer. Troubling signs were left to fester, at the cost of anxiety, heightened vigilance, diminished plant capacity, and/or stopgap measures – accompanied by fervent appeals to St. Nicholas, patron saint of millers: “Please, just a little more time!” A perennial source of concern was degradation and breakdown of wooden elements of mill operation. This could be especially bothersome, given wood’s customary use for so many critical components: wheels, buckets, spokes, hubs, shafts, pulleys, hangers, gears and teeth/cogs (see Figures 4 and 5).91 Normally supplied by local artisans, these embodied handcrafted design, sizing, and fitting. Requiring makeshift tinkering and minor repairs, they tended to wear out “too soon, too often!” under harsh working mill conditions, being subject to an exhaustive litany of debilitating factors: continual soaking and drying/dryout, absorption and swelling, warpage, splitting, cracking; repetitive mechanical impacts leading to stress fractures; friction, fretting; torsion/twisting due to variable torque loads; daily and seasonal thermal expansion and contrac- tion; winter ice accretion, biological fouling, and rotting 92 – all lumped into that deceptively benign-sounding (but slippery) textbook phrase, “ordinary wear and tear.” Even with diligent upkeep, the expected service life of a wooden water wheel was at most a decade, often far less. Since hardware had long been adapted to specialized applications, its fabrication and scope of usage became, like wood, bound by age-old convention. Iron components would first be made by an experienced millwright, or the miller himself, until the welcome arrival of a local blacksmith. Exhibiting superior cost, availability, and performance, metal parts gradually came to displace wooden constituents as those older components wore out, reaching the end of their useful lives. “The overall effect of the general substitution of iron for wood was, for wheels of comparable size and power, a much lighter wheel. . . . But lighter weight per unit of horsepower was not the major advantage of iron construction. More important was the fact that iron made possible the construction of larger, more durable, more efficient and more powerful wheels.” 93 Manufactured parts enjoyed advantages of standardization through better-quality design and mass production – and reliability, reducing the miller’s maintenance costs and concerns. With greater confidence (and a certain degree of good fortune!) in avoiding interruptions during the most productive seasons of his regular operating calendar, he could schedule annual shutdowns for drier summer months. Early on, however, given the nonuniform custom-made nature of smaller country mills’ fittings, manufactured parts gained limited market penetration, as conservative millers stuck by the familiar, dependable services of their trusted local artisans; but through the passage of time, even that artisan himself would succumb to the distant factory. For Here, There Once Were Mills 29

Figure 13. Ruins of an abandoned wooden water wheel at Howe Mill Site in Fitzwilliam, NH. Date and photographer unknown; original photograph courtesy of Fitzwilliam Historical Society.

Among pioneering water wheel equipment producers were the Fitz Water Wheel Co. of Hanover, PA (cast iron wheel hubs [early 1840s], all-metal wheels [c. 1852], curved buckets for better fill and longer arc retention); and more locally, from 1840, Rodney Hunt of Orange, MA.94 Despite these developments, overall system design remained essentially unchanged to the layman’s eye, inasmuch as metal replacement elements and assemblies largely retained the same basic look and feel as their predecessor wooden counterparts. Yet, from the 1820s onward, any false sense of finality in their evolution would be shattered, and long-accepted assumptions radi- cally overturned, as waterpower technology underwent breathtaking advances through scientific discoveries, new materials, and creative fabrication methods (see Figures E1 and E2, p. 86):

 Hydrodynamic theory evolved: new equations elucidated the mysteries of flowing water and extracting its power; empirical-experimental research complemented theoretical bases.  Better living through metallurgy: “The trend in material was from wood to [brittle] cast iron to wrought iron and eventually to mass-produced [high-strength] low-carbon steel.” 95  They marry; a synergistic relationship was consummated: the water turbine was born – an innovative practical device with many improved qualities and a revolutionary new capability.

Practical understandings of hydrodynamic processes, or fluid flow, followed from theoretical derivations of the Navier-Stokes equations (1822-1845).96 Marriage of the two disciplines (hydrodynamics and metallurgy) brought synergistic innovations in materials, design, and fabrication, leading to a fundamental systematic breakthrough: the reaction water turbine. Rather than depending purely upon inlet water velocity, or being limited by the span of a traditional wheel, the hydraulic turbine was driven by its potentially tremendous inlet pressure head, causing water to accelerate internally by dropping to a much lower discharge pressure – a process analogous to that of (steep) atmospheric pressure gradients causing severe wind, or air currents. Invented by the French engineer Benoît Fourneyron,97 the first commercial hydraulic turbine appeared in 1827. With encased rotating inner curved blades to contour spiral water path- For Here, There Once Were Mills 30 ways outward toward oppositely-curved fixed guides, it featured high rotational velocity and greatly reduced size. His most notable machine was installed 10 years later at a 354-foot fall:

Previous attempts to make use of this fall had taken the form of a series of overshot wheels, one situated above the other. Fourneyron replaced these with a single turbine which made use of the entire fall. Water was led to the turbine under pressure in a 1,640-foot-long pipe. The results were astounding. The . . . turbine was only 1.5 feet in diameter and weighed less than 40 pounds.98

Thus, the hitherto “inviolable barrier” of usable head, as bounded by the diameter of a single wheel, was permanently broken. Further, these new machines were hardily resistant to intrusive and jarring factors typically encountered in normal wheel operation (physical impacts, extrinsic debris, seasonal icing), by virtue of having their entire mechanism (rotating shaft and blades, fixed guides) protectively enclosed within a sturdy iron casing. Various design improvements brought progressively robust and reliable operating characteristics, as well as significant economic benefit. Savings in capital investment and operating costs could be enormous! At first glance, given such compelling features, it may seem counterintuitive that most small country mills did not immediately adapt this dazzling new technology. When viewed from the miller’s perspective, however, the reasons become more easily understood. As at East Hill, existing facilities had been designed, situated, and built to match available head and flow conditions, as restricted by the inherent limitations of conventional wooden water wheels. Though the brook’s descent extended farther downstream, a single mill could not easily be altered, moved, or replaced to utilize that unexploited elevation drop. Thus, for the proprietors to abandon their substantial prior investments, or sunk costs, would have made little or no economic sense. By contrast, at locations where conditions of higher head and flow did obtain – such as the great textile manufacturing centers along the Merrimack River – turbines superseded water wheels on a breathtaking scale, often with spectacular results.99 Their qualities of easier maintenance, interchangeable parts, superior durability, and measurably higher efficiencies and design capacities prevailed, eventually driving traditional older wheels into obsolescence (see p. 88). Inarguably, the most distinguished waterpower practitioner of the era was James B. Francis, Manager and Chief Engineer of the Locks and Canals Co. in Lowell. Applying scientific calculations and empirical testing in collaboration with Uriah A. Boyden, by the late 1840s he developed the Francis turbine, a versatile inward-flow type that maximized efficiency through matching individual site head and flow characteristics.100 Notably, it remains the most prevalent hydraulic turbine type for modern service. Another well-known regional inventor was Alonzo Warren (with E. Damon, Jr.) of the American Water Wheel Co. in Boston, from 1853 into the 1870s. Joining this march of progress, Rodney Hunt built his first turbine in 1869. Over the course of time, these machines would come into common usage for the vast majority of applications in Cheshire County, as elsewhere. Locally, a Boyden turbine built in Keene and installed in 1865 can be found at Historic Harrisville. Too, persuasive evidence strongly suggests that the proprietor(s) of the upper mill at Perkins Pond Brook made a similar conversion, probably after 1868, of which a more detailed treatment is provided in Appendix E. From the late 19th century onward, evolutionary turbine modifications and improvements were developed and brought into standard use for high-head, high-volume operation. These enabled extensive hydroelectric power generation at newly practicable sites, as by Messrs. Tesla and Westinghouse at Niagara Falls (c. 1895), but that lies beyond our present scope of discussion.

For Here, There Once Were Mills 31

Production: Manufacturing Machinery

Subsequent to introduction of the circular saw, a large industry and its related inventions originated in and around Winchendon, led by Elisha Murdock, inventor of the barrel saw (1834); his company “became the oldest and largest woodenware manufacturing establishment in the country.” 101 Better methods, techniques, and applications promoted efficiency and brought competitive cost savings to manufacturing operations; offering great economic value, these were avidly pursued. Baxter D. Whitney was awarded over 30 patents, including those for a spindle shaper, smoothing machine (1857), and several different types of planers: rotary surface planer (1837), gauge planer (1860), and rotary-head cylinder planer. His inventions found widespread application in making clothespins, pails and tubs, cutting pail ears, chairs, and other woodenware.102 On a social note, Murdock’s grandson, who grew up in the Murdock-Whitney House (currently home of the Winchendon Historical Society), married Whitney’s daughter in 1889.103 These advances enabled cheaper production of diverse finished goods, stimulating demand for ever greater quantities. Yet, with toughening competition, producers typically found themselves held hostage to the Red Queen’s race: running faster just to stay in place.104 For small southern New Hampshire mills, this increased demand brought about a major shift toward supplying wooden stock to larger manufacturers, including the woodenware fabricators of Winchen- don, chairmakers of Gardner, and miscellaneous industrial firms of Fitchburg. Aaron Hodgkins’ son Christopher was counted among the noted machinery makers of Cheshire County:

Christopher Hodgkins commenced the machinist-business in this town [Marlbor- ough] in 1854 in the second story of Franklin R. Thurston’s blacksmith shop. After continuing here a short time, he removed to Keene, where, in company with John Knowlton, he manufactured the circular vent water-wheel, which was one of his own inventions. In 1857, he returned to Marlborough, and soon commenced the manufacture of sewing machines, taking out no less than five different patents. After a few years, he gave up that business and turned his attention to manufacturing various kinds of wood-working-machinery [sic], some of which he has greatly improved. Several years since, he obtained a patent on water-rams [sic: actually two additional patents]: he has built a large number of these which are in successful operation. In the fall of 1878, he purchased the shops formerly owned by Charles Buss, where he is now doing a good business.105

A further description of Christopher’s business in Marlborough, later joined by his son Arthur C. and son-in-law Henry Metcalf to form C. & A. Hodgkins Co., is accessible online at http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1196.106

Transition to a Market Economy: Evolving Mix of Output Goods and Services

Technological advances and economics in the outside world, inseparably linked, together drove the small miller’s role in that oft-wrenching transition from “the subsistence phase of agricultural development . . . to a market economy.” 107 Challenging his continued ability to meet evolving demand, these pressures pushed him into a fundamental redirection and expansion, basically a shift away from simply providing everyday local services (sawing timber, milling grain) toward implementing the new technology and seeking new markets. In large part, it cen- tered not only on producing finished woodenware himself for distribution, but also establishing new relationships for supplying stock to his region’s end-stage manufacturers, as noted above. For Here, There Once Were Mills 32

Gilmore-Wheeler Era: Two “Gentlemen” Investors, and Others (1835-1842)

Economic Vicissitudes: Nationwide Panic and Depression

The “Gilmore-Wheeler Era,” denoting inclusive dates of their successive Hodgkins mill ownership, overlapped the five most turbulent years of the 1837 Panic and its horrific aftermath. Long before the Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs became topics of dinner table conversation, President Andrew Jackson engaged Nicholas Biddle and the Second Bank of the Unit- ed States in a protracted grudge match that lasted until the Bank’s charter expired by nonrenewal in 1836. Another rough-and-tumble fellow, Jackson was admiringly called “Old Hickory” by his supporters, for toughness and fortitude. Had he known in the 1830s of Matt Taibbi’s colorful epithet for Goldman, he would no doubt have tagged it to his own adversary: the “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” 108 Still immensely popular, Jackson left office after completing two terms; but his trusted adviser and successor, former Secretary of State and Vice President Martin Van Buren, inherited the financial precursors to – and bore the full political brunt of – the worst depression our nation had undergone until that time. All hell broke loose in the Panic of 1837:

The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis or market correction in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in specie (gold and silver coinage), forcing a dramatic, deflationary backlash. This was based on the assumption by former president Andrew Jackson that the government was selling land for state bank notes of questionable value. The Panic was followed by a five-year depression, with the failure of banks and then-record-high unemployment level. . . . Martin Van Buren, who became president in March 1837, five weeks before the Panic engulfed the young republic's economy, was blamed for the Panic. . . . Within two months the losses from bank failures in New York alone aggregated nearly $100 million. Out of 850 banks in the United States, 343 closed entirely, 62 failed partially, and the system of State banks received a shock from which it never fully recovered. . . . In 1842, the American economy was able to rebound somewhat and overcome the five year depression. . . . 109

New England was especially hard-hit. As demand plummeted, bringing mass unemployment to the region’s many factory towns, wages at the great textile mills of Lowell were sharply reduced. From a local perspective, those complex financial shenanigans in New York and Phila- delphia and heated political maneuverings in Washington remained impenetrable faraway mysteries. Yet the small New Hampshire farmer, mechanic, laborer, artisan or merchant was directly stricken. 110 As cash money and credit somehow disappeared, large numbers of banks failed and closed their doors, leaving depositors empty-handed. Illiquid debtors could not repay; farmers could not fetch customary prices for their crops or livestock (but could at least feed their families); nor could anyone realistically expect to be paid “fairly” for their labor or goods in trade, as returns continued to slump far below any rates or values within memory; customers vanished. In those days, too, notes and mortgages could be called in at any time, without advance warning, as a common, seemingly innocuous phrase in debt instruments could spell sudden doom: “payable on order or demand.” With insufficient cash on hand, a hapless debtor could be For Here, There Once Were Mills 33 held at a creditor’s mercy, praying to remain within his good graces. Even so, stark necessity too often overwhelmed the best of intentions. Unwittingly linked as counterparties, they became mutually ensnared in a monstrous trap: if one could not repay, the other would be pulled in as well – and so on, forward, in a contagious cascade of debt default. There seemed no way out. A general despondency pervaded. The collapse was not limited solely to borrowers and lenders. As it spread domino-like, successively felling greater numbers of victims, all too many trusted business associates, friends, neighbors, and struggling families were swallowed up into a terrifying morass of ruin and despair. The nation kept hoping this terrible scourge would play out, and soon. Those able to do so hung on a bit longer and endured, sustained only through the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, as hard times dragged on. After five long years, matters finally began to improve, but by then far too much personal and societal damage had been done. Yet, in a period when so many suffered so greatly, some few had not: by all accounts, David H. Gilmore and Stephen Wheeler survived this financial turmoil unscathed.

David H. Gilmore

In December 1835 David H. Gilmore purchased the upper mill property and another nearby tract from Aaron Hodgkins.111 His father, treasurer of the First Cotton and Woolen Factory, and father-in-law had each (separately) owned mills in Jaffrey. His mother-in-law was a younger sister of Moses and Robinson Perkins; thus, through their first-cousin wives, the transaction could, without stretching the point, be construed as a family affair. Born in 1797, Gilmore had

married Marinda, daughter of Lieut. Oliver and Polly (Perkins) Bailey. He settled on the homestead with his father; was an active member of society; was com- mander of the noted rifle company, and colonel of the 12th Regt. N. H. Militia. After the death of his father, in 1850, he retreated [retired] to Fitchburg, and died there in 1869. They had ten children.112

While most languished during these difficult times, others adapted and moved ahead. An astute businessman, Gilmore kept abreast of the latest developments in machinery and commercial opportunities. He took out two mortgages on the property in 1837, both “payable on demand,” likely for upgrades and improvements: one in March from Stephen Wheeler for $500, and a second in June for $437.77 from Moses Perkins, his wife’s uncle. As the depression deepened, foreclosures became all too common, reaching high levels; but in this instance, that unpleasantry would be avoided. Instead, in April 1839 Wheeler purchased the site for $1,250, with buildings and equipment,113 and discharged his mortgage. Upon Gilmore’s immediate repayment, Perkins discharged his the following day and matters were settled, ending well for all.

Improvements: Shingle Mill, Blacksmith Shop, and Smut Mill

Within little more than three years of ownership, Gilmore had overseen and modified the facility’s operations, investing in new equipment and noticeably improving separate portions of the premises, with the addition of a shingle mill and mill blacksmith’s shop. These new modes of production and their equipment were first explicitly documented in that 1839 deed to Wheeler:

Reserving one half of the anvils of the blacksmith shop to David Gilmore of Jaffrey . . . also the two iron turning lathes with the apparatus thereunto belonging. The shingle mill, grindstone and smut mill [water-powered machinery for cleansing For Here, There Once Were Mills 34

grain from smut, a black powdery fungal infection] and the mill tools and apparatus thereunto belonging are to go with the mills, and one box stove and pike.114

Apropos of such directional shifts, Hunter notes:

As surpluses of produce increased and improved means of communication permitted, the local mills took on an increasingly commercial role; and as opportunity offered, their operations were enlarged. . . . To the rough boards of the common sawmill, were added shingles or staves . . . 115

Stephen Wheeler

Doubtless viewed as an oddity by contemporary eyes, a peculiar point of interest is that when Gilmore conveyed the property to Wheeler, each party represented himself in the deed as a gentleman: a distinction carried over from English legal tradition, indicating a grade or rank above yeoman.116 At that time, the term was understood to connote a certain cachet in two related senses, indicating (a) social, financial, or occupational status: “a man of independent means who does not need to have a wage-paying job;” and (b) refinement in personal conduct: “a well-mannered and considerate man with high standards of proper behavior.” 117 Throughout their adult lives both men, similarly active in real estate and business enterprises, exemplified these qualities, and were considered leaders in the affairs of their respective towns. Who was this second “gentleman,” Stephen Wheeler? A native of Boxborough, MA, he had come to Troy in 1825 at the age of 38, bringing financial resources sufficient to buy

the [downtown Troy] hotel built by Josiah Morse, and about seventy acres of land adjoining, and commenced keeping a public house. Soon after opening the public house he commenced trade in [what later became known as] the old Chapman house, and engaged in the staging business also, carrying on at the same time, the public house, trade in the store, staging and farming. He built a house and store south [of] and adjoining the hotel, the Jacob Boyce house and other buildings in the vicinity.118

Wheeler had married Polly Wright of Fitzwilliam in 1808, presumably familiarizing himself with the region and its people. Community-minded, he served as postmaster of Troy from 1825 to 1827 and on the committee overseeing his local school district, providing substantial financial support. One son served 14 years as postmaster and twice in the State Legislature. Several of his 10 surviving children married among the more prominent and financially comfortable families, including his youngest son David, who would marry a daughter of Joseph Haskell. Besides the mill and his other Troy holdings, Wheeler held half interest in a woolen mill in Marlborough. As the nation at last shook off the effects of this most recent panic, a brighten- ing picture developed. In 1842, he sold the upper mill for a gain of $400, again giving his occupational status as “gentleman.” 119 With that sale, its ownership reverted directly from gentlemen investors into the capable, practiced hands of working men who had, by some indications, already been conducting the facility’s operational activities for several years (see p. 36). In 1855, after disposing of his many local properties, Wheeler – as industrious as ever – moved to Momence, Illinois, following sons Ephraim and David, where he formed a mercantile business and distillery partnership.120 He died there in 1861, his wife Polly the next year. Their remains were returned for interment at Troy’s Old Village Cemetery. For Here, There Once Were Mills 35

Lower Mill (1835-1843): All in the Family – Floods and Priests

When or where has there ever been such intermingling of Floods and Priests? In the 10½-year span between October 1835 and April 1846, grandchildren (or their spouses) of lifelong friends – Dea. James Flood of Marlborough and Daniel Priest, Sr. of Jaffrey, who had both relocated from Bolton, MA near the beginning of the Revolution – owned the lower mill. After Flood’s 1790 demise, Priest’s son Daniel Jr., a respected finish carpenter, moved his family to the Flood homestead in Marlborough, where in 1795 he joined Joseph Frost and Hezekiah Hodgkins as a founding member of the Marlborough Social Library. In March 1802, he married Flood’s daughter Abigail; six weeks later, her brother Joseph would marry his sister Betsey. In October 1835 William Putnam (see p. 26), husband of James’ granddaughter Mary Ann Flood, bought the mill. He sold it in May 1837 to her first cousin Henry Priest, and the Putnams departed for Marilla, NY, soon to be joined by other Flood family members. From then until October 1843 the mill was owned, variously, by three of Daniel Priest Jr.’s five living sons: Henry, Franklin, and Silas. Henry married Martha Coolidge of Gardner in 1839, moving there by 1840. The next year he sold the mill, along with two Marlborough tracts, to Joseph Haskell for a quickly mortgaged resale to his brothers Silas and Franklin. Haskell thereby became the mill’s mortgagee (lender/creditor), a role he would assume repeatedly over the next 20 years. In August 1843 Franklin sold Silas his half interest in the three properties for $500. Within two months, Silas resold the mill tract for $95 to Luke Parkhurst, husband of the brothers’ first cousin Laurana Priest,121 and removed his family to Ashuelot, where he worked as a pailmaker. Two years later, Franklin married Martha’s sister Abigail, joining Henry and Martha in Gardner, where the two families lived together for several years. By 1870 Silas, too, relocated to Gardner, joining his brothers and their families.122 Laurana was the only child of Daniel Jr.’s brother, Abraham Priest, a character renowned in his own right, who

had come to Marlborough to reside in 1809. He was fond of relating improbable stories, of which the following will serve as a sample: “When I was down below, sir, I saw a machine for making nail-hammers, which was worked by two horses. A junk of iron of a ton's weight was put into a hopper at the top, alongside a piece of wood, and the hammers came out at the bottom all handled and ready for use, just about as fast as you can count, sir.” 123

Frost Corner (1836-1842): Initiating Jedediah Foster’s Tenancy

Recall that during the early 1800s millwrights and newly established millers performed much of their own blacksmithing work. As a matter of practicality, however, the distinct duties of miller and blacksmith eventually came to diverge, complementing one another.124 Records indicate that Jedediah Foster left Jaffrey for Troy in 1836 (see Appendix A), likely at Gilmore’s invitation to reside in his Frost Corner tenement – Roberts’ former tavern by the main road – and work at the mill’s new blacksmith shop. In 1839, several weeks after acquiring the mill tract, Wheeler split off a small ⅛-acre “Frost Corner parcel,” containing the tenement, and sold it for $20 to investors John Lawrence and Joseph Haskell. In February 1842 they sold it in turn to the occupant, “Troy blacksmith” Foster, for $125. Mortgaged for $124.74, denoting a net down payment of just 26 cents, that sale may have symptomized hard times that yet persisted from the Panic of 1837.125 Despite losing ownership of the property within a year through judicial attach- ment to satisfy another debt, Foster would nevertheless stay on as a renter (see p. 43). For Here, There Once Were Mills 36

Stanley Brothers Era: A Quarter-Century (1842-1868)

On April 1, 1842, the Stanley Brothers (Abner, 40; Alvah, 35; and James R., 32) bought the main property for $900, including “the mill, blacksmith’s shop, dwelling house and barn thereon, together with the shingle mill, grist mill, and mill tools that belong to said Wheeler in said mill.” 126 A closer look at this sale prompts the pertinent and logical question: If our “two gentlemen investors” had NOT been running the facility themselves, day-to-day, then who was? Stone provides a suggestive [but misdated] clue, indicating the brothers’ prior hands-on involvement: “In 1837 [sic], he [sic: implying James R., solely] purchased the mill on East Hill . . . manufacturing clothespins and chairs, and also ran a grist mill for several years.” 127

Figure 14. Portrait of James R. Stanley. Adapted from Historical Sketch of the Town of Troy, New Hampshire, by M. T. Stone.128

The brothers’s paternal grandfather had come to Jaffrey from Rindge around 1776 and served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Reminiscent of Goodenough’s 1773 “bear episode” recounted earlier, their uncle Nathaniel Stanley had gained fame for another renowned “wildlife encounter,” having shot the wolf in Jaffrey’s Great Monadnock Wolf Hunt, c. 1800.129 Abner and James R. married sisters Permelia and Abigail Cutting, whose grandfather Daniel (yet another founding member of the Marlborough Social Library) had built a sawmill in 1779 in a part of that town later incorporated into Troy, about a mile north of the Village. 130 A third For Here, There Once Were Mills 37

Cutting sister, Caroline, married Samuel, son of Jonas Gary, owner of Hodgkins’ mill from 1809 to 1814. Alvah married their cousin, Lucy B. Cutting. All were family men: Abner had two daughters; Alvah, two sons and an adopted daughter; 131 James R., one son. The most active in community affairs, James R. served as colonel of the Twelfth Regiment of Militia in 1848, Jaf- frey selectman during the Civil War from 1861 to 1863, and in Troy “town constable for several years and selectman at different times for nine terms.” 132 All remained lifelong area residents. Schedule 1 of the 1850 Census, Enumeration of Free Inhabitants, listed the brothers’ occupations as Abner, miller; Alvah, mechanic; and James R., stone-cutter, a trade learned in his youth while living for several years with an uncle, Oliver Warren 133 (see p. 75). Thus, among other duties, eldest brother Abner likely acted as the senior or “chief executive” partner, with Alvah overseeing the facility’s mechanical operation and maintenance functions, while James R. dressed their millstones, keeping them precisely balanced, with their furrows in good working order. He may also have cut, maintained, and/or improved portions of the site’s structural stonework. With regard to the nature of their business activity, Stone summarizes (1897):

About fifty years ago, James R., Alvah and Abner Stanley purchased the Hodg- kins mill on East Hill, and making some additions and improvements, carried on business for many years, first in getting out chair posts, which were carried to Gardner by team, and later in the manufacture of clothespins and office chairs. They also operated a grist-mill during the time, and did the grinding for the surrounding country in Jaffrey, Marlborough, Fitzwilliam and Troy.134

Productivity: Output of Goods (Sawmill) and Services (Gristmill)

How can we gauge the level of these activities at the mill? Schedule 5 of the 1850 Cen- sus tabulated data from various commercial enterprises in each town, as shown for the Stanley Sawmill in Table 1.135 This was the sole year for which the mill’s operations were reported.

Annual Production at Stanley Sawmill – 1850 Census Category Entry Name A. & A. Stanley (Mill) Product Woodenware Capital Invested $1000 Raw Material 50 cords  Kind  Logs  Value  $150 Motive Power Water Male hands employed 3 Avg. Monthly cost of male labor $75 Annual Product Miscella. Product Value $1200

Table 1. 1850 U.S. Census Data for Stanley Sawmill – Troy, NH. Adapted from Census Micro- film Records: Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont, 1850: Schedule 5. Products of Industry, by the U.S. Census Bureau, 1851. Available at HSCC Library, Keene, NH.

While no records exist of custom tolls collected for grinding grain – the substantial “other side” of their business – we can estimate its volume by sampling grain production statistics for a For Here, There Once Were Mills 38 portion of their clientele, then successively extrapolating to get total whole grain input, processed grist (flour) output, and milling service value added, as apportioned between farmers and millers.

Annual Grain Production in Eastern Troy – 1860 Census

Land Name

[Acres]

Rye [bu.] Rye

Oats [bu.] Oats

Hops [lbs.] Hops

Barley [bu.] Barley

Wheat [bu.] Wheat

Cash Value [$] Value Cash

& Machinery [$] &Machinery

Improved

Indian Corn [bu.] IndianCorn

Unimproved

Value of Implements of Value Maple Molasses [gal.] Molasses Maple 1. John Flagg 22 - 300 5 - - 20 - 5 - - 2. Edmund Bemis, II 115 10 2000 60 12 - 70 - 60 - - 3. Ferris Jackson* 140 32 3000 133 28 - 65 - 133 - - 4. Aug. Hodgkins* 90 5 1500 125 30 6 60 - 125 - - 5. Henry Porter 85 15 1700 150 40 8 75 - 150 - - 6. Lee Rosebrook* 87 7 1000 150 35 - 50 40 150 - - 7. Abner Stanley* 85 25 1700 50 10 5 25 8 50 - - 8. Hamilton Parker* 100 15 2000 100 15 - 20 15 100 - - 9. John Lawrence* 250 30 4000 150 - - 80 50 150 3 15 10. Appleton Oakes 125 15 2500 75 10 - 40 50 75 - -

Table 2. 1860 U.S. Census Data for Grain Production – Eastern Troy, NH. Adapted from Cen- sus Microfilm Records: Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont, 1860: Schedule 4. Products of Agriculture, by the U.S. Census Bureau, 1861. Available at HSCC Library, Keene, NH. These names closely correlate with those of Figure 16. With reference to that map, 10 residents of eastern Troy are given by location, beginning with John Flagg up on the Turnpike Road, then heading westerly past Edmund Bemis, II’s [grandson of Edmund Bemis, and future Selectman] farm toward Troy Village and Bigelow Hill. Notes: (a) Ferris Jackson* farmed Abel Baker’s homestead property; (b) Augustus Hodgkins* [future Town Clerk] married (c) Lee Rosebrook’s* daughter Hannah in 1858; they lived on his father Pelatiah’s home farm, inheriting it upon the latter’s death in July 1860 at age 75; (d) part-time farmer Abner Stanley* patronized his own mill; (e) Hamilton and Eunice Parker’s* son Arthur H. would be born 27 years later; (f) John Lawrence’s* cultivation of barley and hops, together with production of maple molasses, suggests that he was brewing maple beer, perhaps commercially.

In total, these farmers produced 180 bushels of wheat ($1.00/bu.), 19 of rye ($0.80/bu.), 505 of Indian corn ($0.70/bu.), 163 of oats ($0.40/bu.), and 998 of barley ($0.85/bu.). A 60-lb. bushel of whole wheat could be processed into 42 lbs. of flour with an average market price of $5.40/barrel (196 lbs.).136 As a simplified estimate, assume they brought all of their grain to the mill, making up ~20% of the brothers’ clientele, by volume. By extrapolating to include the four towns served, their annual grist-based income statement might have shown, roughly: input, 9,325 bu. grain worth $7,311; output, ~2,000 bbl. flour worth $10,790; farmers’ net increase, $2,805; 1 th the brothers’ gross “custom toll” revenue, /16 of $10,790, or ~$675 (see p. 9). Thus, their grist milling revenues were comparable to, but likely somewhat less than, those from saw milling.

For Here, There Once Were Mills 39

Integration and Improvements: Timber, Water, Transportation

Apart from the Stanley Brothers’ focused internal investments to maintain and upgrade their own facilities, enhancing operations also involved acquisition, manipulation and utilization of external supply and infrastructural resources. This sensible outward-looking strategy would guide their planning and actions regarding timber, water, and transportation.

Timber. Between April 1837 and December 1841, they bought over 150 acres of wood and timber lots 137 – another clear indication of conducting sawmill operations for several years under the ownership tenures of those non-laboring gentlemen investors, Gilmore and Wheeler, before acquiring the mill themselves. Then, for the next 26 years as owner-operators, they continued to make extensive purchases of forested woodlots, timber rights, and consignments of (cut) timber throughout eastern Troy, western Jaffrey, and northeastern Fitzwilliam.

Water. In practical terms, the Stanleys could secure and augment their mill’s water supply by addressing two quantitative parameters: storage (or holding) capacity and inflow. Joseph Haskell, who resided by the Town Common, owned many tracts, including significant margins of the upper pond. In September 1849 they paid him a one-time fee of $40 for the perpetual deeded “privilege of raising their dam to save water in their upper pond . . . with eight inch flash boards to be put on the twentieth of September and have said flash boards taken off the tenth of May each and every year, said pond situated in said Troy, it is known by the name of Hodgkins mill pond.” 138 Three notable takeaways emerge from this brief description:

Flashboards. As holding capacity was crucially important, these horizontal planks were often installed across the top of a dam’s spillway to raise its water level, thus increasing reservoir capacity. Depending on their configuration, many sites also gained additional usable head. Ver- tical iron rods, slots, or guides were located at the spillway flanks for periodic (seasonal) inser- tion and stabilization of the boards; such slots are visible at Perkins Pond’s present outlet dam.

Seasonal operational variations. As their purpose was to enlarge storage capacity, flashboards were utilized to take advantage of plentiful seasonal water supply. Conversely, they provided minimal utility during drier summer months, when mills were routinely forced to reduce or halt production due to depleted water levels. Other seasonal factors affected operational schedul- ing as well. For instance, winter sledging or skidding by teams of oxen over frozen, snow-covered terrain proved far superior for delivering fresh-cut timber to sawmills, as contrasted with “mud season,” a late winter/early spring period known for its quagmires of melting slush.

Pond name. By 1849, Hodgkins’ name had replaced Fife’s in designating the upper pond. Such changes typically lagged their relevant eras of actual ownership by several decades. (Later, two 1868 deeds would make the first known reference to the renamed “Perkins Pond.”)

Among flow-related properties acquired were two contiguous tracts bordering the western side of their upper mill pond, purchased from Moses S. Perkins in 1852.139 These comprised low-lying marshland, eventually known as the Stanley Meadow, featuring a previously dug 650- foot-long trench, likewise called the Stanley [or Stanley’s] Ditch. Running southeasterly along the pond’s present-day southwestern shoreline toward the older dam, it facilitated flow from a brook leading down from a small “watering place” on Bigelow Hill. The brothers also cut another ditch to help feed a different brook flowing into the pond’s eastern end.140 For Here, There Once Were Mills 40

Figure 15. Mt. Monadnock and Perkins Pond (late 1800s), with its [post-1868] higher elevation shoreline evident. As scheduled for the mills’ summertime off-season, the pond was purposely drained, exposing both the newly-flooded “Stanley’s Meadow” to the lower left, and remains of an earlier dam to the lower right. This operation likely accommodated repair work or reconfiguration/re-construction/relocation of a newer, higher dam and roadway bridge, as shown at the extreme lower right. The source and date of this photograph are unknown.

Transportation. Two major infrastructural developments were to take center stage in Troy during the Stanleys’ tenure: (a) the coming of the Cheshire Railroad; and (b) improvements to local public (tax-supported) surface roads for vehicular and foot traffic.

Coming of the Cheshire Railroad. During the late 1840s, the first railroad in Cheshire County – aptly named the Cheshire Railroad – surveyed and completed its line between South Ashburnham, MA and Bellows Falls, VT. Incentives (investment subscriptions, gifts of land, and tax abatements) were customarily solicited and given, as towns sought favorable routings.141 Passing through Winchendon and Keene and connecting to other railways, the new line provided industrial centers of north-central Massachusetts direct access to increasing production of mill-machined wooden stock from Cheshire County, supplementing transport by team. In turn these cities greatly expanded shipment of finished goods out to the world at large, also by rail. As the world shrank and accelerated, personal horizons broadened: Shorter trips between Keene, Troy, Winchendon, Gardner, and Fitchburg became practical, not merely for a privileged few but commonplace for many. Eventually, one could leave Troy or Keene for an early morning commute to Boston, conduct a day’s business, then return home for (a late) dinner. Henry David Thoreau famously paid two visits to Troy by train, departing the depot by foot for excursions on “the road near the little pond” (Perkins Pond; see p. viii) to his beloved Monadnock.142 For Here, There Once Were Mills 41

The railway’s arrival touched many spheres in ways gladly welcomed. New businesses sprouted, towns boomed; well-situated properties enjoyed substantial appreciation. Yet, along with its obvious advantages, progress also brought complications. With terrain being altered in new ways, unanticipated economic and legal disputes arose. A notable 1851 case from Troy 143 came to be widely cited in decisions of land and waterway damages, extending even to clarifica- tions of riparian law.144 Unforeseen stressors emerged to disrupt newly busied lifestyles: rigid timetables, annoying breakdowns and delays, appointments missed, and ... interminable waiting! Predictably, fears were raised of infernal commotion and scared horses and cows.145 All the same, carts, wagons, carriages, feet – and those horses! – continued in service for local transport.

Local public surface roads. By the late 1840s two routes central to supporting the Stan- leys’ mill-related traffic had seen little improvement, despite decades of increased usage and residential settlement. The first, that two-mile-long “tortuous hilly cart path” between Troy Village and East Hill, remained excessively difficult – especially Ward Hill (later known as French Hill) east of the Troy Blanket Mill site, “for a long time the subject of complaint.” 146 The second was a rude, decrepit old ¾-mile road leading southerly from the present SPNHF trailhead (see p. 26) to a junction farther into southwestern Jaffrey,147 where families chafed at the relative isolation from both their own town and the East Hill mills. Betterment of these arteries would enhance travel in respective directions, benefiting the Stanleys and their mills. As the son of a miller and (pre-Troy) Marlborough selectman, and himself a 15-term selectman after Troy’s formation, Daniel Cutting, Jr. was intimately familiar with milling, politics, and the value of good roads: “An upright man, [he] took a deep interest in [Troy’s] affairs and was elected to numerous offices of trust and responsibility.” 148 Kindly respected as the town’s éminence grise, by 1837 he had served eight terms in the State Legislature. The father of three particular sisters (see p. 37), in 1829 he had welcomed Abner as a son-in-law and, indeed, may well have initiated and supported the brothers’ acquaintance with the milling profession. Like Cutting, prominent Jaffrey citizen John Felt – businessman, town moderator, selectman, justice of the peace, and state representative – took a proprietary interest in the well-being of his constituents, including those out in the far southwestern reaches of that town. Given this commonality of needs, in 1847 Felt led a contingent of 53 County Court “petitioners [from both towns] respectfully represent[ing] that the public good requires [two] new highway[s] to be laid out.” 149 In negotiations among petitioners, County Road Commissioners, and the Court, proposed routes were laid out, approved, and ordered to be completed by late 1849, at an estimated cost of $0.50 per rod. The first would bypass toilsome Ward Hill entirely. From Troy Village it would diverge onto the future line of Granite Street, continuing easterly along Quarry Brook, then turn northward to pass by J. R. Stanley’s house, linking up with the 1802-3 mill access road to rejoin the existing main road by his upper pond. Besides providing much straighter, less winding segments, gentle grades were specified, in sharp contrast to those of the original road.150 While the Jaffrey road was built as laid out, the planned Troy route met sectional resistance unrelated to usual difficulties or expense of construction. Not surprisingly, rumblings of discontent arose among residents fearful of losing their accustomed “highway” – mainly those located along the old road between the village and the Stanleys’ upper pond, and others like John Lawrence, who lived up toward Bigelow Hill, easily reachable only via Ward Hill. As Stone explains, despite the standing judicial order “It was found impossible to lay out a road on any ground which should be satisfactory to all parties concerned. But in the fall of 1849, the selectmen, after a careful examination of the whole matter, laid out the present road on the petition of John Lawrence and others, which was completed and opened the following year.” 151 For Here, There Once Were Mills 42

Ever the consummate practical diplomat, having thus achieved his ulterior motive of upgrading the mill’s accessibility, in July 1850 Town Agent Daniel Cutting forwarded to the Court the Town’s action and request to “discontinue” the remaining unbuilt road, with the approval of John Felt and other original petitioners. In truth, it lacked a political constituency, save for one “J. R. Stanley” (see Figure 16). In 1852 the Court agreed, finding its previous order “no longer necessary” since the old road had “been greatly improved by constructing new pieces of highway swinging around some hills and grading others and improving the road generally.”152 This move forestalled any further effort and expense for a new, different, and now unneeded “better road.” Coincidentally with the unfolding of this long drawn-out saga, Cutting gained a second Stanley son-in-law through his daughter Abigail’s 1850 marriage to James R.

Lower Mill: Parkhurst, Thompson (1843-1861)

Like both his father and at least one son, Luke Parkhurst (1809-1874) spent much of his adult life working on farms and in small mills.153 For several years in the 1830s he owned and operated a sawmill and blacksmith shop, with dam and sluice, on the Ashuelot River just north of Troy in Marlborough, before acquiring the lower mill tract in 1843. Although its prior deeds had specified the “shop thereon and all the shafting & machinery in said shop,” he sold the property in 1846 to Joseph Haskell’s son-in-law for $260, encumbered by a mortgage to Haskell, with the singular proviso: “hereby reserving the wheel in the mill and all the machinery above the floor in said mill.” Three days later he bought a farm-and-mill property in western Troy and relocated, presumably removing the designated equipment to furnish his new facility. 154 Cyrus H. Thompson, purchaser of the evacuated structure, was one of those in this world who seemed to struggle at every turn.155 Perhaps one of the best – or luckiest – lifetime decisions he made was to marry Eliza Ann, eldest child of prosperous businessman, tavern keeper, and investor Joseph Haskell. The couple resided on a six-acre tract just east of the pond’s outlet dam by Jaffrey Road (today’s Monadnock Street), a location known for decades thereafter as the Thompson Land. Moving back and forth between Troy and Orange, MA, they alternately shared occupancy of this dwelling with Eliza’s sister Harriet and brother-in-law William Jackson. To supplement the original mechanic shop, Thompson operated a “mop stick factory” on the brook’s opposite bank (see Figure 16), with both being documented in the site’s later deeds as “buildings [plural] standing thereon.” The location of this additional structure is evidenced by a cleared graded area below the dam, with motive power most likely supplied by a short connecting wooden sluice. From there a cart path ran eastward to Old Mill Road. By comparison with the main mill property immediately upstream, this secondary site received a markedly lower valuation assessment on the town’s annual tax invoice throughout its functional life (see p. 51). From 1847 onward, Thompson mortgaged the site (with shop, shafting, and machinery) to Haskell four more times, the last recorded in July 1857.156 Two days before, he had also given a personal mortgage deed to others for $394.08, offering as collateral “15,000 mop handles at said Thompson’s shop and dry house; 1 shop stove; 1 bbl. mop castings; 1 sleigh; 1 sled; 1 porta- ble forge; 1 saw bench; all the belting; all the shop machinery; lot wire; 1 buffalo robe; 1 old wagon.” 157 Thus, notably, the same machinery was pledged as collateral to multiple lenders. If financial exigencies had prompted those repeated borrowings, any hope of “good times ahead” were crushed by September’s Panic of 1857, rendering repayment extremely doubtful. What, under such turbulent circumstances, could he reasonably have done with 15,000 mop handles for which there was no market? Once again, Eliza Ann’s assuredly disappointed father – the ever-obliging paterfamilias – would step in to provide much-needed and appreciated support. For Here, There Once Were Mills 43

This less-than-flattering synopsis was corroborated by testimony of Dr. Abiel M. Caverly in a legal case some years later, recalling a personal conversation with Haskell, who voiced a note of futility: “He made a few remarks in relation to three of his children. He said he had as- sisted them. He spoke in particular of Mr. Thompson. He said he had given him considerable, but it was of no use . . .” 158 In March 1861 the Town abated Thompson’s tax bill, amounting to $2.16, and he relocated his family, with four children in tow, to Keene. The next year, he enlisted in the 14th Regiment, N. H. Volunteer Infantry, and left to serve the cause of the Union.159

Frost Corner/Foster House (1842-1868)

With impeccable – nay, exquisite – timing, attorney Luther Chapman, having recovered judgment against Jedediah Foster in a separate matter, took possession of the Frost Corner tract, “being the same on which the said Jedediah now lives,” on Christmas Eve, 1842.160 Mercifully, however, rather than evict Jedediah, his wife Linda, and their children, including newborn son Jonas, he allowed the family to remain as renters. From Stone:

The fact is but one lawyer ever resided in Troy: Luther Chapman, Esq. . . . He was for many years a conspicuous member of the Cheshire bar, and although not regarded by many of his associates as a very brilliant lawyer, was considered as one of the "best read" lawyers in the state. The following anecdote is related of him: It is said that at one time he was defendant in a suit brought against him by Cyrus Merrifield, which, though very small in magnitude, maintained its place upon the court docket through many successive terms, and afforded some amuse- ment among his professional brethren. Whenever a term of court commenced and he appeared, their first inquiry would be concerning the progress of the Merrifield suit. On one of these occasions he was asked how he got along with Merrifield; to which he replied, "I guess the suit is about done; I told Merrifield the other day that he might take fifteen dollars and go to h--l, and I guess he will do it." 161 [Chapman also won an 1849 judgment against Merrifield, executed in 1852.162 ]

One day short of a year later, Chapman sold the property to “blacksmith” Alpheus Crosby for $25.163 Born in Jaffrey, Crosby’s mother Elizabeth (née Gilmore) was David H. Gil- more’s aunt, making the two men first cousins. An active entrepreneur who had relocated to Troy in 1821, Crosby first developed, named, and for several years in the 1830s owned the Falls Quarry, which decades later became the Troy Granite Quarry, and built himself a large granite house in town. Presumably looking after the aging Jedediah, whom Gilmore had brought in several years earlier as the mill’s blacksmith, Crosby let the Fosters stay on in the dwelling. In 1854 he sold the property, described as “a certain tenement and land,” for $170 to Jedediah’s elder son Edward,164 then living across the road in the household of Crosby’s son-in- law, Abel Baker; whereupon Edward moved back in with his parents. In 1860 Jedediah’s wife Linda bought from Baker 1½ acres, “being a corner of land taken from [his] old farm,” in two small tracts westerly of Stanley’s Ditch, for $36 – the purchase being made in her name in all likelihood to deter Jedediah’s [legions of] creditors.165 The elderly couple remained at the Frost Corner (thereafter known as the Foster House) with Edward, who married in late 1862. Jedediah died the next year of “old age” at 82; after the 1865 birth of Edward’s first son, Linda stayed on until 1868, when both would sell their properties to George S. Colburn. She died in Keene the following year at 72. Jedediah and Linda lie buried together at Troy’s Old Village Cemetery. For Here, There Once Were Mills 44

Figure 16. Fagan’s 1858 Map, showing the vicinity of Perkins Pond. Seen here are the named residences of many families discussed in this narrative: Joseph Haskell’s turnpike tavern, Flagg (/Fox), Pelatiah Hodgkins, Abel Baker, Cyrus Thompson (house to the right of his name), Foster, Bolster, Fassett, two Stanley families, Stanleys Saw Mill (“S.M.”), and Thompson’s “Mop Stick Facty.” Jaffrey’s “School No. 12” was the “schoolhouse” mentioned in Thoreau’s Journal.166 Edmund Bemis, II purchased the dwelling shown (to the left of his name, with its 90-acre farm – his grandfather’s former property) from Moses S. Perkins in 1853. Mt. Monadnock covers the entire upper right portion; the waterbody is Perkins Pond; heavier straight lines are town boundaries, with Jaffrey to the right, Marlborough at the upper center, and Troy to the left. Perkins Pond appears smaller, at its earlier elevation, approximately as bound by the lower dam in the photograph of Figure 15. Since being raised by newer dams, it has grown appreciably larger than as shown here. Adapted from Map of Cheshire Co., New Hampshire (1858), by L. Fagan.

Civil War: Stanley Brothers, Millers

The American Civil War marked a seminal period in our nation’s history. As the war es- calated in 1862, President Lincoln ordered states to conscript from their militias, if necessary, to meet “volunteer” quotas, and each New Hampshire town’s “enrollment for military service” was compiled – in Troy, on August 13.167 Upon subsequent passage of the Draft Act of 1863, the Stanley Brothers would reach 60, 55, and 50, well beyond its upper age bound (35 if married).168 Further, by time-honored tradition from colonial days, the occupation of miller had been exempted from military service as being crucial to societal functioning in times of war. Thereby excused either way, the brothers busily soldiered on at home. Beyond meeting continued civilian demand for grist, woodenware, furniture, and lumber, mills supplied a variety of vital military products, from gun carriages, limbers, caissons, wagons, wheels, and axles, to packing containers (boxes, crates, barrels, and powder kegs), thus ensuring their fevered activity and prosperity. For Here, There Once Were Mills 45

Haskell’s Death; Fox Acquired Lower Mill

According to Troy town tax records, the lower mill property tax remained abated between March 1861 and April 1865, possibly awaiting Cyrus Thompson’s return from military service. Lying dormant, its de facto guardianship may, in his absence, have rested in the hands of mortgagee Joseph Haskell, who died intestate on Tuesday, April 18, 1865 – nine days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, and four days after President Lincoln’s assassination. As one war was concluding down South, another would heat up in Cheshire County Probate Court: settling Haskell’s byzantine estate. One of the town’s most propertied citizens, he had: agreed in 1849 to let the Stanleys raise their upper mill pond; disputed the town’s ownership of its Common in 1856; 169 and long been saddled with that ne’er-do-well son-in-law, Cyrus H. Thompson. In the absence of a will and last testament, and at the family’s written request, Town Moderator Edwin Buttrick was appointed Administrator. Claimants descended vulture-like, hoping to carry off pieces of the estate. Many bore alleged handwritten receipts for loans they asserted to have previously granted Haskell, seeking repayment now that he would be unable to contest them. The task fell to the respected Buttrick to sort through these and present his findings. When all was said and done, he (and the Court) were to allow 59 different claims against the estate for unpaid notes, bills, and loans on account, totaling $2,522.64. Many of Haskell’s properties were sold at auction, with net proceeds accruing to his widow and their six daughters. These conveyances were formally registered in 23 separate deeds, most including multiple tracts. One noteworthy expense borne by the estate – $4.50 incurred on Saturday, August 26, 1865 – covered “crackers & cheese at auction.” 170 Other individuals were found by the Administrator to owe the estate: Buttrick was driven in several instances to sue for recovery before the Supreme Judicial Court. All in all, final settlement, delayed by more than three years after Haskell’s passing, was not completed until the third Tuesday of May 1868. Joseph Haskell and his wife Ruth lie buried together at Troy’s Old Vil- lage Cemetery, the gravesite marked by a distinctive flat, raised (above-ground) horizontal stone. Among these defendants was Benjamin F. Fox, who had bought John Flagg’s farm in 1865 (see Figure 16).171 Despite losing a smaller estate issue – one bitterly contested – Fox emerged in clear possession of the lower mill property. Though first being invoiced and taxed for “mills and machinery” in the month of Haskell’s death, he neglected to register a conveyance deed, possibly related to clouded ownership status between Thompson and Haskell’s estate. This prompted a hiatus in the deed chain, for which no corrective documentation has been discovered; nevertheless, the tract was to remain in his family for the next 44 years. When it passed in 1874 to his granddaughter Nora and her husband, Civil War veteran and cooper (barrel and tub maker) Edwin A. Flagg, a nephew of John Flagg, the younger couple covenanted in a companion deed to comfortably maintain Benjamin and his wife Hannah for the rest of their natural lives, as well as provide them “a decent Christian burial.” 172 Those promises would faithfully be kept (see p. 69).

Impetus for Stanleys to Sell Their Mill

Judging by estimates of their operations (pp. 37-38), the Stanleys were clearing enough to live modestly, with three families to support, but showing little in retained earnings. As the seasons rolled by, they must have begun to cast wary eyes toward some uncertain future when they would, as must we all, come face to face with the infirmities and realizations of advancing age. By the spring of 1868, that time had arrived. Into their 27th year of mill ownership, Abner would turn 66, Alvah, 61, and James R., 58. To be sure, as their physical capabilities declined, even For Here, There Once Were Mills 46 performing everyday activities would have presented a growing challenge. There also loomed the specter of a financial bind: James R., by then the mill’s sole nominal owner, had borrowed $800 four years earlier from Dr. John Fox, a prominent citizen of Jaffrey, President of the Monadnock State Bank, and brother-in-law of Alpheus Crosby. That mortgage was secured by several properties, including the mill lot, “with the mill, blacksmith shop, house and barn thereon, together with the mill tools and saws, arbers [sic], bitting, and all other machinery.” 173 It had in all likelihood been taken more out of basic need than profligate indulgence. Sensing increased vulnerability to any unforeseen event, and holding little optimism for an appreciable business recovery following the 1865-7 post-war recession, James R. may not have been able to repay that debt without selling either the mill itself or other tracts from among his holdings. Then the town provided an additional push – or rather a shove – toward a decisive resolu- tion. Despite Haskell’s 1849 agreement, it pointedly ordered James R. to lower his (obstructive) dam to relieve late winter flooding and encroachment from the upper pond due to ice blockage:

To James R. Stanley of Troy in the County of Cheshire:

You are hereby notified and required: to cut down and lower your dam near the dwelling house of Edward S. Foster in said town, so as at all times to free the highway Southerly of the dwelling house of Benjaman [sic] F. Fox and at all other points in this town from water, which in conveyance of the present height of said dam is at all times liable to, and at times does, set back upon the same. Also to keep the water off the town meadow.

Dated at Troy this tenth day of March A.D. 1868.

The Town of Troy

Stephen B. Farrar By Edmund Bemis, II Charles W. Brown

Selectmen of Said Town174

From about 1803 onward, successive dams, with improvements, have stood at the pond outlet by Monadnock Street, where the present concrete structure can be seen and inspected.175 As cited by deeds, the upper mill pond had come by 1868 to be called “Perkins Pond,” the name it has kept ever since.176 By way of clarification, at that time Edward Foster dwelt with his family at the Frost Corner residence (labeled “J. Foster” in the 1858 map of Figure 16), and Ben- jamin Fox lived on the turnpike road, north of the pond (labeled “J. Flagg”). That road, today’s NH Route 124, flooded in its lowest-lying segment, where its Perkins Pond causeway remains susceptible upon occasion to this day, as did the nearby town meadow, then used as pasturage. This irritant was the deciding blow: Those crucial eight-inch flashboards – perhaps even a portion of the dam itself – would have to come down! Given little choice, he complied; but a much better, more comprehensive solution soon offered – one that would fulfill the needs of all parties. In November James R. sold the mill property for $1,200 to George S. Colburn, a trusted friend, neighbor, and active customer of 2½ years’ standing.177 The next day he was able to pay off his mortgage to Dr. Fox, netting a gain of $400, while keeping all his other tracts free and clear; but the Stanley Brothers Era of mill ownership had drawn to a close. James R. lived until 1888; he and his wife Abigail lie buried with their son James L. at Troy’s Old Village Cemetery. For Here, There Once Were Mills 47

Colburn Era: Three Decades (1868-1898)

In April 1866 George S. Colburn bought and moved his family onto the sizable homestead where East Hill Farm is presently situated, on the north side of the Troy-Jaffrey road across from Stanley’s mill. To satisfy its atypical mortgage terms, timber cut on his land would have made its way across the road, down to the mill, and onward to Massachusetts as chair stock.178 By mid-1868, well-positioned for over two years to observe operations, he had – given his background – plausibly developed a strategy for gaining the mill’s possession, tactfully broaching with Stanley the mutual advantages of such a transaction. In apparent anticipation, he bought the Thompson Land from Joel Oakes in June; then, on the final day of August, a tract west of the Stanley Ditch from Jedediah Foster’s widow Linda, and the Foster House from Edward.179 Com- bined with ownership of these properties, the November mill purchase – with Haskell’s perpetual flashboard privilege from 1849 – provided as well full control of the Perkins Pond perimeter. He would thus be able to further raise the pond to assimilate fallow marshland, increasing its capacity, while not encroaching upon adjacent properties or public roadways (see Figure 15, p. 40).

George S. Colburn: Background

Who was George S. Colburn, the man? What were his talents, interests, and aspirations? What circumstances and events may have shaped his character and attitudes? And what brought him to Troy? Now long forgotten, he was one of the most extraordinary people who came there to live and do business, a complex person leading a complicated life. Yet, his fellow townspeo- ple may have seen someone much like themselves: a personable, industrious, mechanically adept family man from a hardscrabble background, with childhood roots in neighboring Swanzey. For a more comprehensive description, we turn to Hurd’s detailed biographical sketch:

GEORGE S. COLBURN. The student of local history who has carefully followed the pages of these volumes has not failed to be impressed with the record of mechanical devices produced and perfected by the men of Worcester County. To their inventive genius is due the thanks of all our citizens, for they primarily, have produced the whirling wheels of the mill and factory to sing of comfortable homes and good table for the operatives there employed. The manufacture of chairs, which forms by far the largest part of our industry, has materially changed during the past quarter of a century, and prominent among the names of the men who have by their brain invented and developed machinery for this particular branch of our industry is that of George S. Colburn, the subject of this sketch, who was born in Leominster May 5 [sic: July 5], 1820. His father Simeon died when the boy was but three months old, leaving his widow [Susan (Stone) Colburn] in straitened circumstances, and as soon as the boy was sufficiently large to “do chores” he was sent to live with an uncle in Cambridge, where he remained working for his board two years. Then he went to live with Deacon Joseph Dickenson in Swanzey, N. H., with whom he remained until his 17th year, working early and late on the rocky farm nine months in the year, attending the district school the other three, and acquiring the branches then taught therein. A taste for mechanics developed itself early in Mr. Colburn's life, and in boyhood he was wont to arrange and adjust small mechanical devices. At the age of seventeen he apprenticed himself with Mr. James Clark, of Royalston, to learn For Here, There Once Were Mills 48

the shoemaker's trade, remaining four years [until age 21], receiving his board and $2.00 for his labor, out of which he had to clothe himself. At the age of 24 [sic: see below] he went to work in a furniture shop. Here he was impressed with the lack of machinery for the treatment of cane, and began to study and experiment upon machinery for doing this work. He was so successful that he gave his whole attention to the manufacture of this class of machinery and to the manipulation of cane. In 1857 [sic: see below] he went to Wakefield [then South Reading], MA to assist Mr. Cyrus Wakefield in the development of [emphasis added] the Wakefield Rattan Co., one of the most important industries of that whole section. Here he remained until, his health breaking down, he was obliged to go out of doors and so purchased a small farm [sic: 100 acres]. After a year he recovered.180

Figure 17. Portrait of George S. Colburn. Adapted from Genealogy of the Descendants of Ed- ward Colburn/Coburn, by G. A. Gordon and S. R. Coburn.181 For Here, There Once Were Mills 49

To fill some gaps: Both of George’s grandfathers had fought in the Revolutionary War. By dark coincidence, his mother’s father had also died when she was three months old; accordingly, she must have been especially sensitive to the rigors of raising a child as a single parent. Like her own mother, she never remarried, turning instead to her family, originally from Lancas- ter, for assistance. George’s placement with Deacon Dickenson, cited above, was arranged by two maternal uncles, David and Col. Phineas Stone, who resided on separate farms in Swanzey. As well, David took in George’s grandmother Jemima, a Revolutionary War pensioner, who remained there until her death at 88 in 1842. Upon leaving Clark, George “went to work in a furniture shop” nearby, most likely at the age of 21 – not 24 as given by Hurd. This premise is substantiated by his 1842 marriage, at 22, to Frances Sawyer of Royalston, daughter of the prominent mechanic and furniture maker “Uncle Joseph” Sawyer, who held several patents dealing with chair-making machinery, the first awarded in 1826. From Caswell:

During the first half of the last century the hollow north of the Common [of Royalston] became quite a manufacturing locality. The waters of “Little Pond,” west of the Common, were diverted from their natural outlet and carried around by a canal through the hollow, furnishing water power for several shops. The most important one was the cabinet shop of Joseph Sawyer, in which pine furniture was manufactured quite extensively for a number of years. Joseph Sawyer belonged to the well-known Sawyer family,182 noted as inventors, and of which [his famous nephews] Sylvanus183 and Addison M. Sawyer were members. He is said to have been the original inventor of a cane cutting machine, that, with improvements made upon it, revolutionized the rattan industry of the country, and which developed into the American Rattan Co.184

The 1850 Census records that George, Frances, and his mother Susan resided next to Frances’ parents. Joseph’s nephews gained wealth and fame as the Sawyer Brothers, establishing a prosperous chair manufacturing business in East Templeton. They also founded the Ameri- can Rattan Company in Fitchburg, “at that time . . . the only company using machinery to split rattan products,” 185 based upon Joseph’s patents. Their rattan was supplied by Cyrus Wakefield, monopolistic Boston importer and reseller of raw material from the Orient. Soon joining the nephews in Fitchburg, Joseph and George became well acquainted not only with Wakefield, a native of Roxbury, NH, but also local chair manufacturer Walter Heywood, and his brother Levi who headed Heywood Brothers & Co. of Gardner. Notably, “about this time a rival company was organized by Levi Heywood and others, and began business with the Uncle Joseph patents [which they had previously licensed] in Boston.” 186 By 1851, Wakefield had begun acquiring property in South Reading, MA to expand production of finished rattan-based goods. In view of their unmatched aptitude, experience, and expert mastery of pioneering advances in automated machinery – as reported by Hurd – he in- vited Joseph and George to come “to assist . . . in the development of . . .” his new South Read- ing factory, which opened in 1855.187 Although Hurd gives “1857,” Colburn may have bought property there as early as 1852; 188 as well, his elder daughter Emma’s 1879 marriage registration gave her 1854 birthplace as “Wakefield” [formerly South Reading].189 In December 1857 he pre-assigned his first patent to Wakefield, concerning “certain Improvements in Machines for Splitting Ratans [sic],” as witnessed by Lucius and Charles S. Beebe.190 Again, from Hurd: For Here, There Once Were Mills 50

In [January] 1858, George S. Colburn . . . took out his first patent for a rattan- machine, as he has also received several since that period. Some of these machines were . . . helps to that more perfect system of mechanisms and devices by which cane is now prepared for the multiform uses to which it is applied. As a matter of fact, out of these several inventions there were evolved two or three machines, differing from each other in some respects, which were put to effectual use, and for a time supplied very largely the needs of the cane-seat chair-making public . . . Indeed, they . . . gave reasonable satisfaction, a result which was achieved about the year 1858 [with Colburn’s first patent] . . . that the problem of getting out cane by machinery was regarded as solved, and that a new era had opened to that branch of business.191

With respect to family matters, George’s mother passed away in June 1854 at 59, likely prompting him into a stage of reflection and assessment. Family ties were soon broadened in March 1856, when Wakefield’s younger sister Hannah (whom he had brought to South Reading, the siblings remaining near and dear to one another) married Edwin Sawyer, lumber and chair manufacturer of Templeton.192 According to the 1860 Census, their last year there, the Colburns resided with Frances’ parents adjacent to Cyrus [and his wife Eliza] Wakefield’s first home, “a comparatively simple colonial on the present [northerly] corner of Main and Armory Streets.” 193 During that time, the families grew quite close, as would be evidenced in succeeding decades. Citing George’s health concerns, in 1860 the family moved to a farm in Lancaster,194 where their second daughter Cora was born in November 1863.195 The next month, well beyond draft age, he was chosen to serve on a fund-raising committee to support the war effort.196 In April 1864, accepting an invitation to affiliate with the Walter Heywood Chair Co., he sold the farm for an $1100 profit, bought two adjoining residential tracts in Fitchburg,197 and moved his family there. Twelve months later, the Company bought two tracts from the estimable Abel Baker of Troy, including his homestead farm, with large acreages of forested timberland.198 Caswell recounts an incident from that time – perhaps amusing on the surface, but possibly tragic due to unspecified injuries – involving Joseph in Royalston, shortly before his death:

Mr. Sawyer also invented the first automobile seen in this part of the country, and described by one who saw it as “a buggy with a wood burning steam engine for motor.” Mr. Sawyer came up from Fitchburg with his newly invented vehicle, to the Centennial Anniversary in 1865, and as related by Mr. George E. Pierce, who was a witness to the event, he drove down the Common at a good rate of speed until he collided with a tree and the machine was demolished.199

Joseph passed away in Fitchburg that year at age 67 of cancer,200 and lies buried with his wife Jerusha at the city’s Laurel Hill Cemetery. The next year, encouraging Colburn to transfer to New Hampshire to oversee the company’s timber production and chair stock milling, Hey- wood bought his two residential Fitchburg properties, in turn selling him the two tracts bordering Perkins Pond: a 153-acre farm on its west, lying on the Troy road, and 10 acres in Jaffrey with a ditch feeding in from the east (see p. 40). 201 Notably, as further inducement, he provided generous terms on the related mortgage: rather than repay its $2,200 cash price, Colburn covenanted “to cut and deliver fifty cords of oak timber to the Walter Heywood Chair Co.” 202 Here, he would experience handling the first vital stage of management in chair manufacturing, the supply chain: the production and distribution of a commodity (timber). A year later he would sell the farm, reserving to himself its occupancy and oak timber rights, while keeping the smaller tract.203 For Here, There Once Were Mills 51

Modernization

When Colburn bought the mill in November 1868, an active autumn season was well underway. From his observations, dealings, and discussions with the Stanleys, extending back at least to early 1866, he could be confident that any accumulated residual deficiencies, or serious defects of aging from their long tenure, would have been revealed. Too, with ample resources at hand for capital expenditures, he was eager to update the facility’s assuredly antiquated physical condition and layout to enhance its operations for increased efficiency and expanded production. Modernization would have entailed a number of changes: upgrading his entire water delivery system, from renovating and raising Perkins Pond dam, to reinforcing the lower pond’s embankments and overhauling its gated sluice to the mill wheel. For operations, newly recon- figured millwork was in order: massive aged wooden shafts and gear wheels would have been replaced by lighter, standardized manufactured hardware featuring compact hangers and pulleys, with leather belting for power transmission. This would also have freed up additional space for new equipment, including a circular saw in 1870 to replace the old up-and-down apparatus. Exchanging old wooden wheel components for iron would have permitted thin curved bucket walls (lighter and stronger) designed for greater volume capacity and retention with less spillage, and a much less cumbersome wheel and main shaft to turn.204 Going a step further, substantive evidence indicates that – at some point – Colburn installed a modern turbine (see Appendix E). These improvements were reflected by significantly increased town property tax valua- tions of the site’s “mills and machinery” in the years immediately after his acquisition, as determined each following April. At an equalization rate of 0.5 (50%), assessments totaled, for Stanley: 1865-1868, $600; for Colburn: 1869, $600; 1870, $700; and 1871-1874, $1,000. By comparison, between 1865 and 1874, the lower mill was assessed at a constant $300. A partial equipment listing is given in the deed of an 1870 probate bond posted for the benefit of younger daughter Cora: “. . . one circular saw mill now being situated in the Stanley mill [emphasis added] so-called situated in said Troy together with the belting belonging to the same. Also one Stretcher Lathe and one Gage Lathe, situated in said mill, together with the belting belonging to the same.” 205 On the identical date as that of the bond, he mortgaged a catalog of livestock and transport/utility items, and one suggesting some level of musical refinement in that bucolic setting – a nod toward a wife and two young daughters comprising the household?206

one pair grey horses, seven and eight years old; one pair oxen, one brindle and the other black, being the same and purchased of Lorenzo Putnam [William’s brother]; two cows, one milch cow color red, the other beef color red; one two-years-old heifer colored red; one buggy wagon; 12 harnesses; one ox cart; one piano forte.207

For the time being, Colburn would address the initial supply and intermediate-stage milling of timber by furnishing prepared stock to his close personal friends (business associates), the chair manufacturers of Massachusetts. Accordingly, he may have pictured the mill, in con- cert with an additional 75-acre forested woodlot acquired in Jaffrey,208 as synergistic elements to satisfy his immediate driving motivation, like that of the Stanleys, of “getting out chair stock.” Thusly situated, he further engaged heavily in real estate investment, putting (leveraged) money to work buying and selling tracts of farmland, timber woodlots, residential properties, and mortgage securities. Having comfortably settled in as a family man and resident mill owner- operator, his plans seemed to be coming together. Tellingly, the 1870 Census gave his occupation as “manufacturer,” and listed 10-year-old Warren Oakes, a neighbor’s son, as a boarder. 209 For Here, There Once Were Mills 52

Toward a Larger, Unified Vision: Vertical Integration

By 1868, the bulk of Colburn’s experience and expertise lay in the late-stage chair manufacturing process: machinery design, assembly, and implementation, as applied toward finishing products for retail distribution, with particular focus on developing and introducing cutting-edge mechanical equipment. Though new to raising, harvesting, and supplying timber, and its milling, actual hands-on immersion into these activities – as a means of rounding out his professional knowledge, skills, and experience – could in time prove to be of immense empirical value. With an eye toward the longer term, he may well have held the all-encompassing, unified vision of creating his own vertically-integrated supply, preparation (milling), and late-stage (assembly/fabrication) manufacturing business, following in the illustrious (and appealing!) footsteps of his mentors in that regard: Cyrus Wakefield, and Walter and Levi Heywood. Given their precept and example, there seemed to be no limit as to what that promising future might bring:

Tracts of wood-land are sometimes owned by the manufacturers themselves, as are also the mills employed in connection with them, so that the entire process, or series of processes, required in the production of chairs, from the time of the felling of the tree [emphasis added] whence comes the material that enters into their construction to the time when they are finally put upon the market, is under one and the same general management.210

Impetus for Colburn to Sell His Mill: “The Best-Laid Plans ...”

A challenge: “Fancy footwork” required.

Though Colburn would own the Troy mill properties for the better part of a 30-year span, that era was punctuated by two noteworthy disruptions – the first being precipitated by the sudden, untimely death of Cyrus Wakefield, his longtime mentor, friend, benefactor, and (through the Sawyers) distant relative. By 1869, the two men had remained close for nearly 18 years. That January, Wakefield had generously provided an $1,800 mortgage on the mill site and Foster House, for working capital – $200 more than Colburn had paid for the two tracts. So esteemed was the genial Wakefield that in 1868 the good people of South Reading, where his factory was located, renamed their town in his honor, as it is known to the present day. That grand gesture was all well and fine; but as fate would have it, on October 26, 1873, the “Rattan King of the World” died unexpectedly at the age of 62 of a heart attack, intestate and without lineal heirs. Hydra-like, Wakefield’s estate held a vast panoply of diversified business assets. Aside from his Wakefield Rattan Company, the world’s leading manufacturer of rattan products (furniture and carriage bodies), its huge material inventories, fleet of ships, and other interests, he had acquired extensive real estate holdings in Boston and was the largest stockholder of both the Boston & Maine and Fitchburg Railroads, as well as a founder of the Boston Globe. Had he survived, there would have been no problem; but for Colburn this sudden tragedy posed an unanticipated financial threat. As was customary, the terms of his mortgage specified “payable . . . on order, or demand,” 211 and therein lay the catch: it was now held by Wakefield’s estate! The dreadful realization must have dawned that its unsympathetic administrators, with whom he lacked the same warm personal ties, could – as soon as they identified that loan, without prior notice – take immediate action against him for its recovery. Powerless to forestall such an eventuality, despite his own sizable personal net worth Colburn risked lacking sufficient cash on hand to meet that inevitable call, having heavily invested in the mill and its related properties. For Here, There Once Were Mills 53

Further compounding his vulnerability, the Panic of 1873 had just struck in September, plunging the nation into yet another “worst economic depression ever seen.” As recognized from the precedents of 1837 and 1857, he faced the potentially nightmarish prospect of being caught overextended, strapped for liquidity, and placed in imminent peril of financial ruin. Yet, given the overwhelming complexity involved, Colburn may also have realized (or hoped, at any rate) that the estate’s administrators would be delayed by tediously sorting through voluminous stacks of paperwork before uncovering his comparatively small mortgage. Equally as important, but easily overlooked, was the fact that his document had specified no schedule of regular interest payments or repayment of principal that might have flagged their attention! Still, being practical like Wakefield – “a man who made his own luck,” 212 he was loath to let chance rule his affairs or affect his personal well-being. As a former shoemaker, he had come to display an exceptional talent for fancy footwork in times of need, managing to land back on his feet with an unusually keen sense of situational awareness, timing, and balance. With a prudent fusion of acuity, analysis, planning, careful application of his sharpening business acumen, and quiet discretion – even so, still requiring more than a smidgen of that intangible asset, “luck” – might he find a way to nimbly sidestep this dire predicament? And if so, then what?

History repeats: Another new road.

By 1873, that old 1827 bridge below Colburn’s mill had become outmoded, in constant need of upkeep, and hazardous to travel. Upon local petition, the town laid out an alternate route east of the brook, bypassing the mills with a low crossing several hundred feet north of the falls,213 providing a much safer, more easily maintained passageway. To reach the mills from Jaffrey and Fitzwilliam, one could now choose either to risk the old bridge or take the slightly longer – but much safer – new road, additionally circumnavigating Colburn’s lower pond. By retaining its “official” status, however, the old bridge continued to drain town coffers – an anachronism perceived as narrowly benefiting the mill owners, who continued to use it for their own personal shortcut, as between mill and dry house, between mechanic shop and mop stick factory, and for hauling timber. A movement took hold to withdraw town support, as petitioners claimed that “the building of the new highway as a substitute for the old highway . . . is an improvement on the old highway as far as the keeping of the same in repair is concerned.” 214 Despite strong objections by Colburn, Fox, and others, represented by Fitzwilliam attorney Amos J. Blake as counsel, Troy voted at its March 1874 Town Meeting to discontinue the aged structure and its abutting roadway. For another year, the town would seek formal approval of that vote from the County Road Commissioners and ratification by the Supreme Judicial Court. While causing a minor detour for some retail mill traffic, this annoying, disruptive process raised another serious concern for Colburn, which could not have made him (or Fox) happy.

History repeats: Another town order.

Then, as if that were not enough, another blow struck nine days after the town meeting. Reprising its earlier action of 1868, the Town issued Colburn an order to lower his dam, as excessive winter precipitation had caused Perkins Pond to overflow the road above its eastern bank:

Notice to George S. Colburn of the town of Troy:

Sir, you are hereby notified to remove so much of the dam across the outlet of the Perkins Pond so-called forthwith as will prevent the overflowing of the town road For Here, There Once Were Mills 54

between the house of Benj. F. Foxes [sic] & Aaron Bolster’s as the overflowing of that road has caused much inconvenience to those who have had occasion to travel on that road and the town has been applied to to remove the said obstruction.

Troy March 19th 1874 William N. Watson, Selectman of Troy

I hereby certify that I delivered to George S. Colburn a true copy of the within notice this nineteenth day of March 1874. William N. Watson, Selectman of Troy

A true Copy of Notice Attest. Augustus Hodgkins Town Clerk215

The Four Horsemen?

Just as for Stanley six years before, this order came down ahead of the vitally important spring season, thus limiting operations and hastening a summer shutdown: all that water would be lost, squandered! Millers do not appreciate being “notified” to do anything, particularly to lower their dam. Dealt yet another one-two punch – the road relocation and dam order, following hard upon Wakefield’s demise and the latest Panic – Colburn may have viewed this bizarre conflux of tribulations as his own visitation from that biblical fearsome foursome, the apocalyp- tic horsemen. He found himself beset by: war, of battling the town over discontinuance of “his” convenient road and bridge; famine, of feed water denied, starving his mill; pestilence, of the nation’s ill financial system, suffering a severe bout of depression; and, worst of all, death of his principal creditor, meaning accounts must soon be settled with hard-nosed businesslike strangers. To fish or cut bait? Had he held any intention of attempting to continue operations and carry Wakefield’s mortgage under such onerous conditions, those hopes quickly vanished. In- stead, he devised a new comprehensive plan, to extricate himself from Troy while quietly shifting assets down to Massachusetts. Profiting by Stanley’s example, nine days after receiving that town notice Colburn sold his Jaffrey woodlot and discharged its bank mortgage. 216 In August the couple bought two adjoining tracts comprising 98 acres by Ponakin Brook in Lancaster, the town where they had lived from 1860 to 1864. Notably, the purchase was made in Frances’ name, with its deed kept unregistered until 1884 – a maneuver likely intended to provide some degree of anonymity and protection from potential creditors, “if need be.” 217 In November, George finally managed to sell his remaining New Hampshire tracts, including the mill and adjacent properties, to a Lunenburg building contractor for $3,500, 218 thereby offloading the remaining $900 balance on Wakefield’s mortgage, for a total realized value of $4,400. Hence, at a single stroke, all those vexatious entanglements were resolved: he no longer had to worry about estate administrators calling in his debt; or detrimental effects of lowering the dam; or fallout from that quarrel over the bridge; or the ongoing national liquidity crisis, with another depression underway. Freed of the mortgage lien, he realized a net capital gain of $2,600 over his initial investment, minus modernization expenditures, having achieved six unbroken years of productive service. The horsemen had been safely eluded, but at the uncertain cost of disrupting his family’s lifestyle and tranquility: where would they go, and what would he do?

Gardner: Heywood Brothers & Company

Colburn was not alone in his predicament. The Panic of September 1873 had triggered another nationwide deflationary depression, with the widespread damage and fears that accompanied such deeply troubled times. These concerns clearly affected matters in Gardner as well: For Here, There Once Were Mills 55

June 27, 1874: The chair manufacturing business in this town is very dull indeed at present, and it will probably remain in this condition till fall at least. Nearly all the manufacturers have a considerable quantity of goods on hand, and a reduction of help or the hours of labor must necessarily follow; probably the former. The general dullness fully equals that of the past fall and winter.219

February 6, 1875: Last week many of the mills only run fourteen hours, and even if business revives, the next two months will be the most trying that workmen have experienced for many years. Well informed business men say that if the financial distress continues six months, more than one-half of all the business firms in the country will inevitably fall. On the other side, one of our business firms [liquor distributors?] report a sale of one hundred cases of goods at advanced prices. 220

March 20, 1875: The chair business seems to be improving a little in this vicinity, and our manufacturers are anticipating a fair trade when spring opens. Business has certainly been dull enough during the winter, and we hope they may realize a change for the better before long. 221 [A rare glimmer of “hope”?]

March 27, 1875: Beal & Hooper, furniture dealers of Boston, who recently failed, owe quite a sum of money to the manufacturers of this town. 222

Absent any actual improvement in general economic outlook, how could they hope to overcome these doldrums? Yet, amidst such circumstances, Colburn cannily sensed a potential opportunity: as a chair stock supplier, he had become acutely attuned to the particulars of their situation, insofar as it had directly impacted his own business. Through the years he had earned an impressive reputation for technical prowess and business acumen, having achieved remarkable results – often despite adversity – through proven talent, hands-on experience, and unusual people skills. Equally as valuable, if not moreso, was his unique circle of long-standing personal relationships and professional associations with such luminaries as Joseph Sawyer and his nephews, [the late] Cyrus Wakefield, Walter Heywood, and especially his like-minded brother, Levi. At the same time, while Heywood Brothers possessed idled physical assets (land, buildings, and equipment), a surplus of available skilled workers, and adequate financial capital – the three classic factors of production – they visibly lacked a vital sense of entrepreneurial optimism in the face of greatly diminished consumer demand. In this respect, Colburn was ideally moti- vated, qualified, and positioned to propose and negotiate a daring new venture. Under the aegis of company president Levi Heywood, he would assume a leadership role, with responsibility as:

Manager of the [newly established] cane department of the Heywood Manufac- tory. . . . For some years [prec]eding that period but little cane was worked in Gardner, that which was consumed in the town being prepared for the most part at Boston or Fitchburg [by the Wakefield Rattan Company of Boston, and Walter Heywood’s chair company and the Sawyers’ American Rattan Company (which had merged with Levi Heywood’s Boston company) in Fitchburg223], where large companies organized for the purpose, had control of that department of the chair- making industry, and supplied the demand existing in this vicinity. Later on, however, arrangements were entered into by the parties concerned, under which the business of getting out cane was resumed in this place [Gardner] about the year 1875, where it has been continued to the present time [1889].” 224 For Here, There Once Were Mills 56

As related by its official corporate history, published a half-century later, “In or about 1874 the Company began making chairs and furniture of reed and rattan as an addition to the regular line of wooden chairs, and the extent and variety of the production increased rapidly.” 225 In order to succeed, they needed enormous quantities of serviceable cane. This challenge assuredly focused Colburn’s energies, as he set about establishing and managing his new department with an adroit hand – stoked in part, no doubt, by his own quickly emergent rivalry of competing head-on with the Wakefield Rattan Company, now under new management.226 Within a few short months, as the extensive process of organizational planning, preparation, and physical construction neared completion, the impending startup of this new undertaking was announced:

An important industry is about to be developed in this town by Heywood Bros. & Co., which is the manufacture of cane for cane-seat chairs. The machines necessary for the work . . . will be in operation within a few days. The importance of this business project may be inferred from the fact that this well known firm alone use over one hundred thousand dollars worth of cane annually, and the consumption by other factories of this and neighboring towns is very large. It is quite probable that within a reasonable length of time they will be in a condition to supply the chair manufacturers of this section in such quantities as they may desire. 227

Demand for cane would expand rapidly, as summarized by the Gardner Museum:

By 1878 twelve chair shops had been established in Gardner. One of these shops was . . . what would become the Heywood-Wakefield Company, the single largest manufacturer of chairs in the United States. . . . innovative production methods were introduced [and] a whole new line of products. In addition to wooden chairs, rattan and reed chairs and furniture were manufactured, and eventually the company was the first to produce baby carriages made of rattan and reed. . . . [Among] other companies who conducted chair and furniture manufacturing in the city were Conant Ball Company which made cane seat chairs and later bedroom and dining chairs . . . 228

His associates in Gardner would not be disappointed, as Colburn’s initiative brought about astonishing results. From 1879:

Aside from the manufacture of a great variety of cane-seated chairs, the Heywood Brothers & Co. have recently engaged in the manufacture of rattan chairs, of varied and beautiful designs. Another important part of the business of this firm is its cane department, through which it not only supplies itself with its required cane, but most of the chair-shops in the town and vicinity. This cane is imported by this company from Singapore, being brought from the seaboard directly to the doors of their shops upon the cars of the Boston, Barre and Gardner Railroad. Here it is prepared by being passed through its various processes, for its final use in the backs and seats of the multitude of chairs made in this and adjoining towns.

The business of this company exceeds, perhaps, that of all other firms here established, and is the result of steady growth, indomitable energy and skillful business management, which has made a market for its products in all parts of the world.229 For Here, There Once Were Mills 57

Advances in cane production technology continued; from Hurd (1889):

Numerous improvements have been made in cane-working machinery as the business has gone on, and many new inventions have been brought forward. . . . One of the most important of these later [cane-working] machines, however, it may be stated, was the fruit of the practical sagacity of Mr. George S. Colburn, for which he received letters in recognition of its originality and merit from the United States Patent Office, [two patents] bearing date November 18, 1879. It is substantially the machine now in operation in the only cane-producing establishment in Gardner [Heywood Brothers & Co.], one of the largest in the world, and one from which all the cane used in the vicinity is now received, though it has been subjected since it was first started to sundry modifications and improvements, whereby its work is rendered more perfect and satisfactory.230

Those “modifications and improvements” were largely attributable to the man himself, flourishing in that familiar, welcoming environment. Eight years after leaving Troy, still active at 62, his name would again appear in the Gardner Weekly News: “Among the list of patents granted we notice one to George S. Colburn of this town, for a rattan scraping machine.” 231

As summarized by Gordon and Coburn (1913):

[Colburn] returned to the factory, locating at Gardner with Heywood Bros., where he again commenced the treatment of cane, and where he remained until he retired from active business to enjoy freedom from business cares. He took out a large number of patents for cane machinery, which still continue to be in use, and for simplicity and neatness of work, have not been superseded by any other kind in Gardner.232

Winners and Losers: The Mill Reacquired After a Brief Interregnum

When Colburn sold his last four remaining mill tracts in November 1874, he must have felt great relief at having that tremendous burden lifted; but what of those on the other side of his transactions – not only the initial buyer, a Lunenburg builder and real estate investor, Civil War veteran Benjamin F. Marshall, but any others who might follow? Marshall delivered $2,500 in cash plus a Fitchburg mortgage nominally valued at $1,000, 233 for which he had paid $850 only seven days before, bringing the purchase price to $3,500. He also knowingly assumed about $900 on Wakefield’s mortgage for two of the tracts: the Foster House and mill tract, both lying south of the Troy-Jaffrey Road. Within seven months Colburn would sell that Fitchburg mortgage for $850 to Josiah N. Rugg,234 a childhood friend from Lancaster, of whom we shall shortly hear a great deal. In a period of tight money, while taking a small paper loss in divesting his last real estate asset from the affair, Colburn augmented his cash liquidity for two more years. By February 1875, just three months after his own purchase, Marshall sold the four Troy tracts, including the two that carried Wakefield’s mortgage, to Boston resident Asa Swett for $5,000, receiving in exchange a residential Keene lot measuring 35 squares [“square rods,” a rod being 16 ½ feet] “with buildings thereon,” valued at $3500, plus $1,500 in cash. 235 Curiously, Swett’s wife had bought the Keene property only 12 days before that sale, in her own name, for exactly the same price, $3,500. Considering the property swap as being even in value, Marshall thus netted $1,650 in these transactions over a relatively brief timespan – wise trades indeed! For Here, There Once Were Mills 58

Swett, however, unwittingly committed an inexcusable blunder, neglecting to inspect the terms of Wakefield’s mortgage, as written into his own deed: “the payment of or upon which is now due.” Possibly by making indiscreet inquiries after the purchase, he may have alerted administrators to its obscure existence. As the estate’s assets were being probated, with inventory and appraisal ongoing, a virtually predictable result ensued. Within a year of Colburn’s sale and departure, Keene attorney Francis A. Faulkner, administrator of the Cheshire portion of the estate, recovered judgment, on “the Third Tuesday of October 1875,” against both Colburn and Swett in Cheshire County Circuit Court for physical repossession, in lieu of payment of “condi- tional damages of $976.05” for the outstanding amount on that 1869 mortgage, plus fees. 236 For Colburn, this brought affairs in Troy once again to the fore, recapturing his full attention. His primary objective had been to sidestep that looming mortgage foreclosure in such a way as to eliminate his own financial obligation. Having anticipated such a judicial outcome, he readily demonstrated that his liability had been wholly passed on to the next party, and so on in a line of deeded transfers, with the properties themselves – not the initial mortgagor – being encumbered. This placed Swett in an extremely awkward position: like an unlucky holder of the Old Maid card, as the tracts’ last indebted “owner” he alone would be held fully liable for their mortgage! In all likelihood caught short of available cash, he became the proverbial “greater fool at the end of the line.” In late December 1875 the Court commanded the County Sheriff to deliver “full seizure and possession of the premises” of the two tracts to Faulkner.237 Now unable to sell, Swett continued to be taxed annually on the properties, from April 1875 onward, with mortgage interest still accruing. Anxious to free himself of further financial liability in Troy, as a non-resident who never moved there, he finally just wanted out! in Febru- ary 1877, more than a year after the Court order, he conveyed “remise, release and quitclaim” of all four tracts to prominent Fitchburg real estate businessman, broker, and auctioneer John B. Proctor for the grand sum of one dollar:

The above property is hereby conveyed subject to a mortgage of nine hundred ($900) dollars and the interest & taxes on the same and with the understanding that the mortgage has been foreclosed, the said Proctor requiring to pay all costs and forever hold said Swett harmless therefrom, it being distinctly understood that the said Proctor is to assume the debt, cost, interest & taxes of every kind and nature suffered by the said Grantor [Swett]. 238

On August 3, 1877, the County Probate Court authorized Faulkner “to sell at public auction all of the real estate . . . to pay and discharge debts with incidental charges;” included was “all the machinery in the mill, except the chair machinery.” 239 By this point, Colburn’s own active mental machinery must have been fully engaged. After succeeding in escaping responsibility for that mortgage, incurring no loss whatsoever, he now saw a potential opportunity to regain those properties at a greatly reduced price! Various factors would have come into play, not the least of which being the facility’s physical and structural condition and functionality. From lying idle in the interim since its 1874 sale, the main property had likely suffered noticeable deterioration and depreciation, as reflected by town tax assessments on the mill itself, which dropped from $1,000 to $600 (again, at a 50% equalization rate). Quite simply, a prospective buyer would thus expect to offer appreciably less for the property as compared with similar facilities known to be in good working order. As well, the impaired economic/financial climate made attracting able buyers difficult: in such an evironment, potential investors – if any could be found – had become extremely skittish. For Here, There Once Were Mills 59

Residential foreclosures and personal bankruptcies were mounting at historically high rates, with commercial concerns closing as well: retailers and other interests – mills, tanneries, factories, and farms, all stranding their unused equipment and swollen inventories of unsold goods. Sales and auction markets had become saturated with supply, rendering disposal difficult. While disastrous for sellers, conditions were ripe for those few courageous buyers with cash on hand. Most significant in this instance, however, were the advantages of long-lasting interpersonal relationships. George and Frances Colburn had remained neighbors and close friends with Cyrus and Eliza Wakefield, reaching back into the 1850s. To be sure, Cyrus’ widow and principal heir, along with his sister Hannah, would have exercised some guidance and discretion in the properties’ disposal. If Colburn were intending to reacquire them, he might easily have arranged to bring together all interested parties: the heir(s), Administrator Faulkner, and Proctor by virtue of that quitclaim from Swett. A month after the Court’s auction authorization, a curious legal notice appeared for three consecutive weeks in Keene’s New Hampshire Sentinel:

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, CHESHIRE, SS The Judge of Probate for said County. To the Heirs-at-Law of the Estate of CYRUS WAKEFIELD, late of Wakefield, Mass., deceased, and to all others interested therein. YOU are hereby cited to appear at a Court of Probate to be held at Keene, in said County, on the third Friday of September next, to show cause, if any of you have, why the account of F. A. Faulkner, Administrator, of the Estate of the said deceased, should not be allowed. Given at Keene in said County, this 27th day of August, A. D. 1877. By order. 36 D. W. BUCKMINSTER, Register. 240

That notice conceivably signaled movement toward an alternate solution: a direct private sale, as no subsequent public announcements of any kind were made regarding the matter. After some further administrative delays, a buyer did, indeed, ultimately emerge (pause for incredibly dramatic effect): . . . George S. Colburn, for the eminently reasonable sum of $900 – equal simply to the amount of the mortgage outstanding! The deed was signed by Faulkner on May 2, 1878 – the same day Proctor filed Swett’s quitclaim. 241 Through his dealings – selling the properties at full value, then regaining them for merely the amount of the loan balance – Colburn seems also to have established himself on a favorable footing with attorney Faulkner, a scion of the Keene textile milling family, and vice versa. Later that month Colburn paid Proctor $200 to quitclaim the four properties, recovering as well title to the Thompson Land and Stanley Meadow north of the Troy-Jaffrey Road, 242 giving Proctor his own small profit. Interestingly, these deeds reference “the dam and bridge at the outlet of the Perkins Pond” – a roadway bridge (seen in the lower right corner of Figure 15) that was later culverted and filled. In 1881 Proctor would buy John Felt’s former Jaffrey farm and country mansion, becoming “proprietor of the Proctor House, [a tavern] situated on the pleasant southern slope of Monadnock Mountain,” 243 the current Grand View Inn & Resort. As a side note, final settlement of Wakefield’s estate would not occur until 12 years after his death, with administrative expenses amounting to (a paltry) $180,000 in ~1880s dollars.244 This entire episode evokes a familiar adage attributed to, among others, Sun Tzu and the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus: “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.” For Here, There Once Were Mills 60

Life Changes

After recovering the East Hill mill in 1878, absentee proprietor Colburn chose a 36-year- old Civil War veteran, mechanic, saw-miller and wood craftsman from Rindge, Byron D. Leigh- ton, to oversee its operation.245 Moving onsite with his wife and six children, Leighton remained for the next three years. Alfred F. Haskins, age 23, also came to work there, “getting out chair stock.” Boarding with the Edwin Bemis family, he and their daughter Emma would marry in 1886; the next year they acquired the Bemis house and farm, remaining as lifelong residents. 246 Thus, with the mill back in operation and George’s professional activities firmly secured in Gardner, life appeared to be looking up for the Colburns. Accordingly, the couple added to their Lancaster holdings, purchasing another five contiguous tracts by Ponakin Brook. Compris- ing 160 acres in all, their land included ample brook frontage as well as the old Sam Rugg mill site. 247 To judge by written descriptions, the site’s size and specific topography seemed well suited to George’s long-bubbling plans for locating and developing a new water-powered manufacturing complex – as good a place as any! When elder daughter Emma married in 1879, the young couple moved onto those conjoined properties, where the 1880 census gave his occupation as “farmer,” hers as “keeping house.” Interestingly, the deeds were witnessed by Justice of the Peace William H. McNeil who, along with Rugg, would figure prominently in coming events. For several years, as depressed local real estate continued its decline, the Colburns elected to share a rental triplex near the plant with two other families, the husbands all reporting their occupation as the prevalent, ostensibly egalitarian “works in chair/cane shop.” 248 In April 1881, perhaps sensing a market turnaround, they bought their own residence two miles northward.249 As well, with Leighton still supplying chair stock, George may have seen Troy as part of his envisioned vertically integrated business. 250 Hence, he began further investing in the area, taking on three additional tracts: 5 acres of Bolster land at the end of Jaffrey Road (see Figure 16), a 50- acre woodlot in southeast Troy from James R. Stanley, and 200 woodland acres in Jaffrey bordering Dublin, at a combined cost of $1,750. But then, in a sudden twist of events, they sold McNeil the Lancaster holdings in April 1882 for $5,000, encumbered by $1,100 in mortgages, for a net return of $6,100, 251 and Emma moved with her husband into the Foster House. On the surface, these transactions may have signified a strategic consolidation of his Troy interests, with the pleasant return of generous proceeds from the Lancaster sale. Could that old vision of vertical integration have yet been simmering away, but redirected toward Troy? Yet, a darker portent may have lurked – a serious health issue known only to them: in three months, while visiting Emma on July 4, Frances died of heart disease at the relatively young age of 57.252 Perhaps indicative of a chronic progressive illness, its worsening may have prompted those April property sales. 253 Whether expected or not, her death in their 40th year of marriage left the family to absorb the full impact of her loss. At 18, Cora stood at the brink of adulthood. George – just a day shy of his 62nd birthday – would be challenged to carry on, at the same time facing a quickened sense of his own mortality. Though not yet plotted, a new course lay ahead for both. At this time, perhaps as a diversion to assuage his sorrow, and reflective of his improved financial circumstances, Colburn evidently believed that local economic conditions would soon rebound. Confident that real estate investment offered especially attractive opportunities in the vicinity of Heywood Brothers’ factory, he plunged into buying nearby West Gardner properties. Notably, these included five contiguous tracts two short blocks west of the plant, upon which to locate and erect his own spacious residence (Figure 18). Then unexpectedly, just a year after disposing of the Lancaster properties, he sold his New Hampshire holdings to Rugg for $5,000 254 – a good price, to be sure, but a transaction that would soon bring unintended consequences. For Here, There Once Were Mills 61

In short order, both father and younger daughter would find solace in the companionship of new partners. Most surprisingly, that October in Boston, George married a woman 36 years his junior, Addie I. Mason, a native of Brookline, VT. The following May, Cora would marry and move to Templeton, soon to deliver his first grandchild. With both adult children having left home, and affairs now consolidated in Gardner, a renewed sense of stability took firmer root. In early 1885, approaching 65 and comfortable in his newly-built mansion, shared with a young second wife and servant boarders, and with fresh business ventures already underway, he retired from his eminently productive association with Heywood Brothers & Co. Years later, to recapit- ulate public aspects of his first decade there, Hurd would provide a glowing summary:

In 1875 [he] came to Gardner to assist Messrs. Heywood & Co. in the development of that part of their extensive plant relating to the treatment of cane . . . [as] manager of the cane department . . . until a recent date . . . [when] he retired from active business. . . . He occupies a charming home in the west village, conscious of having performed life’s allotted tasks uncomplainingly and faithfully.” 255

History Repeats: The Mill Sold and Reacquired – Again

Meanwhile, in 1884 (like that certain proverbial cat) the mill came back . . . through a complex set of real estate transactions that would lead to an unfortunate falling out. Josiah N. Rugg, born in 1822 in Lancaster, had become Colburn’s childhood friend from George’s time spent there with his mother’s family. In the 1850s and 1860s, Rugg had worked in Cambridge, MA, and by 1870 in Albany, NY, as a bookbinder and stationer – trades likely learned as a youth at Carter, Andrews & Co. in Lancaster, “among the leading enterprises of the country in the line of type-founding, printing, engraving, illustrating, binding and publishing works for the press.” 256 Returning to his native town as a “retail grocer” (1880 Census), he resided with his wife, a teenage daughter, and a grandson on Rugg family land by Ponakin Brook, adjacent to the property then owned by Colburn, where his uncle had formerly operated “the old Sam Rugg mill.” 257 Somewhat younger, born about 1837 in Guernsey, Channel Islands, William H. McNeil had come to Lancaster from Canada before the Civil War.258 An ambitious, purposeful individual well-versed in matters of finance and real estate, one highly respected in his local community, he would become the town’s political boss and by 1885 president of its local bank. On April 19, 1883, Rugg – just a week after buying Colburn’s seven New Hampshire tracts for the benefit of his son, tenant operator Charles F. Rugg – conveyed “one undivided half part” to McNeil. Over the next year he would take out several smaller loans from Colburn, repaying each in full. Again short of funds, on May 20, 1884, he obtained a mortgage loan for $2,750 on his remaining half of the properties, the first payment falling due in two months, but defaulted two weeks later on a prior $300 loan. On June 17, sensing further discord, McNeil wisely quitclaimed his half interest back to Colburn for $2,500, thus wholly and cleanly removing himself from the affair. The next month Rugg failed to make his first mortgage payment. Colburn promptly foreclosed: alleging non-payment of the agreed terms (see pp. 78-79), he sued Rugg in Superior Court at Keene for damages of $3,500; represented by Francis Faulk- ner, his case was heard the “Third Tuesday in October.” Unsurprisingly, the Court rendered judgment in his favor for total costs and damages totaling $2,809, of which $2,750 represented the value of the defaulted mortgage. With Rugg unable to pay, Colburn was awarded “full seizure and possession” of all seven tracts, restoring his original full position. And once again, with some degree of fancy footwork, he had navigated a difficult situation, but at the regrettable cost of losing a long-term friendship. For Here, There Once Were Mills 62

Figure 18. Lithograph of Colburn’s “charming home” in West Gardner. The attached carriage house and greenhouse extended as far back again as the width of the residence itself to form an ell-shape. One of only five residential illustrations in the Gardner Atlas, the other four depicted residences belonging to members of the Heywood (Brothers) Family. Adapted from Atlas of Gardner Town, Massachusetts, by Oscar W. Walker.259 Also archived at the Local History Room, Levi Heywood Memorial Library, Gardner, MA. For Here, There Once Were Mills 63

New Management in Troy; New Commercial Ventures in Gardner

Hurd gives a contemporaneous snapshot of the mill’s activity in early 1886: “George S. Colburn, of West Gardner, Mass., manufactures chair-stock, hubs, etc., on East Hill, employing from three to six hands.” 260 Yet, despite its reacquisition, he was still fully occupied in Gardner, unable to exercise personal hands-on oversight in Troy. Advancing in age and with no suitable heir in place to assume operations, he entrusted its management to a younger experienced miller, Ozro C. Flint, with both parties reasonably envisioning an eventual property transfer. Born in Amherst, NH in 1854, Flint had grown up in Richmond, where for some period he played cornet in the town’s Brass Band. Milling ran in the family: his father had been instantly killed by a circular saw in Handy & Bowen’s Mill on Richmond’s Tully Brook in 1869, when Ozro was just 14.261 In 1872 his older sister Emma had married Orrin B. Howe of Troy, another miller, who by 1884 owned the Harkness Mill on Fall Brook in Richmond. By that year, at the age of 30, Ozro already held interests in two enterprises in Jamaica, VT:

Wardwell & Flint's steam saw-mill [in partnership with Olin N. Wardwell, a Civil War veteran and native of Sullivan, NH, who had also resided in Keene and Win- chester, NH] located at the base of Bald mountain, which was built in 1881. It is supplied with a circular board saw, edging saws, band saw, cutting-up machinery, etc., and cuts about 1,000,000 feet of lumber per annum, 250,000 feet of which is converted into chair-stock.

O. C. Flint’s chair-stock factory and grist-mill, located on Mechanic street, of Jamaica village, has three lathes, bench saws, etc., and a mill for grinding meal and feed. He usually employs five men in the manufacture of turned chair-stock and in doing custom grinding.262

Flint had likely been supplying chair stock to Gardner, further bringing his qualifications to Colburn’s attention. Given his background, circumstances, and connections, he seemed particularly well-suited to the task. Returning from Vermont in 1884 to his childhood environs with a wife and two young daughters, he was listed as a Troy resident in the April 1885 town poll. Early that same year (1885), Colburn retired from Heywood Brothers & Co. Counted among the Twenty Thousand Rich New Englanders,263 he had by then reached the admired (or envied) top 1% of population as measured by wealth. The couple settled into their new home, where they took in lodgers and for some years pursued disparate commercial interests. Putting her horticultural talents to good effect, Addie operated a floral shop from their greenhouse, visible in Figure 18 at the mansion’s left flank, suitably aligned for a southern exposure. Inter- estingly, in addition to acquiring and managing numerous local rental properties, he had opened a store at 7 Central Street (in the Stevens Block, downtown Gardner) to market a variety of shoes, boots, overshoes, and umbrellas, later adding “Colburn’s Shoe Dressing,” a proprietary waterproofing concoction formulated many years earlier, but not patented and sold until 1885.264 In June, to celebrate the town’s 100th anniversary, the Gardner News issued a special “Centennial Edition,” in part summarizing the biographies of several prominent local merchants and businessmen. Including Colburn, it provided further logistical details of his decade there:

Geo. S. Colburn carries on a double business in Stevens block, West Gardner, one side of his store being boots and shoes, and the other, fruit, confectionery and peri- For Here, There Once Were Mills 64

odicals. Mr. Colburn is a native of Leominster. He came to this town in 1875, and took a situation in Heywood Bros. & Co.’s cane works, which he retained until the present year. While there he made several important inventions, upon which he secured patents. In ’82 [shortly before the death of Levi Heywood] he purchased the boot and shoe business of H. A. Campbell in Alger’s block, removing it to its present quarters, and last spring he purchased the newspaper, fruit, and cigar store of S. H. Eldredge, Jr. & Son, located next door. Since purchasing these stores, Mr. Colburn has made decided improvements in each, and this spring commenced the manufacture of a shoe dressing which is superior to anything in the market, and has met with a large sale. During the past year, he has erected a large and elegant residence . . . 265

Figure 19. George S. Colburn’s trade card: “Loaded with Colburn’s Dressing,” c. 1885. 266

At this juncture all was well, with both daughters managing their own households; one grandchild already born locally; and another on the way in far-off St. Paul, MN, where Emma and her husband had relocated. With that productive watermill again running in Troy, Colburn had freely taken up the more relaxed pursuit of small shopkeeper, after completing an exceptionally rewarding corporate career, while also managing a portfolio of local real estate holdings; he counted many long-standing friends among colleagues and acquaintances; indeed, life was good. For Here, There Once Were Mills 65

End of the Mill

Fire was never far from a miller’s mind. Flouring mills, with their three-story structure and fluelike elevators, resembled wooden chimneys. Under certain conditions, when flour dust was suspended in the enclosed rooms, it would explode like a powder magazine when ignited.267

Likewise, few buildings were more susceptible to fire than sawmills, strewn throughout with sawdust, wood shavings, and chips as latent tinder, while holding large inventories of lumber and stock at various stages of production – especially during busy seasons. Colburn’s aging mill, a wooden structure atop a stone foundation, was itself highly vulnerable. Even though great care and attention had long been directed toward mitigating this fearsome hazard, malicious human action would intervene. Less than two years into Flint’s tenancy, the mill’s end came abruptly one late winter night in 1886. Water had brought it to life and sustained it, day by day, for thirteen years beyond the biblical human lifespan of threescore and ten. Yet, a deliberate visitation of fire would bring its sudden death (see Appendix B). Overnight, by this act of intentional violence, George Colburn lost one of his most prized possessions and its steady, assured stream of income. As reported in the Cheshire Republican:

Troy. The loss on the chair stock mill in the eastern part of the town, which was burned Wednesday night, March 10, was about $4,000, with no insurance. The mill was owned by George S. Colburn of Gardner, Mass., and operated by O. C. Flint of this place who loses considerable on stock, machinery, etc., and who as well as Mr. Colburn has the sympathy of the community. We understand the mill will be rebuilt at once. It being evident that the fire was the work of an incendi- ary, and circumstances tended to show that Henry Fassett might know something about it, he was arrested last Saturday and lodged in jail.268

Upon his petition at the April 10 Annual Town Meeting, the motion carried to exempt Colburn’s mill site from taxation for a period of five years.269 As reported several weeks afterward, he may have considered plans to salvage the properties through a new development:

Troy. G. S. Colburn is building another mill in place of the one destroyed by fire. Parties have been in town for the past two weeks making arrangements to build a dam 25 feet high, near Colburn’s mill, which will flow about 200 acres or more of land, and make one of the most beautiful ponds of water in New England. We understand that the company has purchased all land in that vicinity, and as it is at the foot of the Monadnock mountain will, when completed, be one of the most pleasant summer resorts in the state. A large hotel and cottages will be built, and right here in the shadows of the old Monadnock, if our town’s people will encour- age it, a great summer resort will be built up.270

As matters turned out, the mill was not rebuilt. Those premature grandiose published claims never came to fruition. No record of any such “company” or deed of purchase has been un- earthed, nor any other mention of that project or plans for the mill site and its immediate vicinity.271 Nonetheless, Colburn would retain his Cheshire holdings for an extended period. The mill’s destruction understandably diminished his attentiveness toward Troy but, for reasons which would later become evident, did not entirely extinguish it. For Here, There Once Were Mills 66

On the Threshold of a Dream: One Last Fling?

In early 1887, the major American chair cane manufacturers announced their “chair cane trust,” an arrangement to reduce competition amongst themselves and eliminate competitors in the treatment of raw cane – one provision of which would come to benefit Colburn directly:

Conant & Bush, it is understood, will get out no more chair cane [emphasis added], they having become associate members of the new chair cane combination or pool, which includes Heywood Bros. & Co. of this town, the Wakefield Rattan Co. of Wakefield, the Union Rattan Co. of Brooklyn, and R. Newton & Sons of New York city, and the sale of chair cane is confined to the above named firms. 272

In late 1889, a local newspaper article concerning the cane trust quoted an anonymous “manufacturer,” who may well have been the thinly-veiled Colburn himself, signaling (and justifying) his long-anticipated primary commercial venture, while going up against the trust:

A manufacturer of rattan goods who operates machines for cane-splitting of his own design recently said: “I find that I am able to sell my goods in competition with the three or four big concerns supposed to have a corner upon cane goods. They control certain machines by which they have been able to preserve in their clique some slight advantage, but I have a machine here for which I am able to do good work, and unless they make an unusual profit on their work, can do it as cheaply as they can do it.

They cannot corner the rattan industry now. . . . As to the reported trust: I do not see in it any conditions that are new. A clique of manufacturers have for some time controlled certain machines which they have operated at their several works. The same clique controlling the same, or other, machines which they may have secured, propose to operate them for their exclusive advantage, as they clearly have a right to do under the spirit of our patent laws, but instead of operating three or four sets of machines in as many places, they propose to draw their supplies from a common point, thereby to effect a saving in cost. I do not think the public will notice any change [beneficial retail price reduction] in the market for rattan or cane goods. 273

Just over a year after that “anonymous” observation, Colburn would avail himself of Conant & Bush’s 1887 termination of chair cane production and their resultant surplus equipment:

The rattan shaving and splitting machines at Conant & Bush’s cane shop have been bought by George S. Colburn and moved to the Walter Heywood chair shops in Fitchburg: The machinery has not been in use here since the formation of the cane combination several years ago. 274

For an insight as to why he retained his New Hampshire holdings, consider Colburn’s formation of the Worcester Reed Chair Company in May 1893: to secure an uninterruptible [in- house] chair stock supply for that long-dreamed-of vertically-integrated enterprise – at last! The public announcement, made ten days after its formal certification, outlined a somewhat optimistic plan for the company, detailing its progress: For Here, There Once Were Mills 67

The shop at the depot formerly occupied by Conant & Bush, has been leased by the Worcester Reed Chair Co. for the manufacture of reed and rattan chairs and the concern will commence business there as soon as the premises can be made ready for their use. A new engine and boiler has been ordered and repairs are already under way. The company hopes to be able to begin manufacturing by the first of July and will eventually furnish employment to about 75 operatives. It has been doing business in Worcester as a partnership but was recently formed into a corporation of which George S. Colburn is president and treasurer. W. S. Chapin has conducted the negotiations which led to its locating in Gardner. 275

Note the application of steam power, in the form of “a new engine and boiler,” for manufacturing operations. The company declared $15,000 in “capital stock as fixed by the corporation,” meaning its (arbitrarily-claimed) book value, but listing as assets no real estate (land or buildings), or water rights for power, and minimal amounts for machinery, cash, and receiva- bles.276 Colburn then mortgaged one of his Gardner tracts to raise an additional $4,500. With the Troy mill properties and 250 acres of nearby woodlots still in hand years after the fire, those long-envisioned hopes of crafting that vertically-integrated enterprise were nearing fruition. These elaborate plans did not turn out well, however, due at least in part to disastrous timing. His company’s founding date coincided with the onset of the Panic of 1893, yet another “worst economic depression the United States had ever experienced at the time.” 277 In starting up a new business, other unanticipated setbacks were bound to occur; one, as noted in late 1895:

Mrs. S. K. Pierce has brought suit in superior court against the Worcester Reed Chair company, to recover 14 months’ rent of the Conant & Bush shop at the depot, together with accrued interest, amounting in all to $962. G. S. Colburn, the president and treasurer of the company, has engaged E. D. Howe to defend the firm. He claims that the rent should not be paid as the building was not put into fit shape for use. 278

While he would receive three additional patents in 1895-6,279 the worsening economic climate took its toll. Inflicting widespread damage over several years, symptoms of its effects on his company were further revealed, as by a July 1896 announcement in the Fitchburg Sentinel indicative of acute cash shortages, continued financial strife, and public embarrassment – another red flag warning of an unpleasant outcome:

Gardner: The sheriff’s sale of property of the Worcester Reed Chair Co., published for next Saturday at 11 a.m., by Deputy Sheriff Turner, does not refer to the claim of Mrs. Ellen L. Pierce, that matter having been satisfactorily settled. It is to enforce another claim of $50, which will also be settled before Saturday. 280

Within that same troubled climate, the separate Heywood and Wakefield companies combined in 1897 to form Heywood Brothers & Wakefield Company – a merger of directly competing rivals driven by financial exigency. Faced with such a dire situation, Colburn must again have taken pause for reflection and personal reassessment. As a practical matter, for a man so well advanced in years, his inevitable “time” had come. After resolving a nettlesome corporate tax issue, clearly realizing that his once ever-reliable fancy footwork had lost a step or two, he relinquished control of – and ceased participation in – his company’s affairs. Seeking “freedom from business cares” (as cited on p. 57), his attention turned to other pursuits; that lifelong dream would remain unfulfilled. 281 For Here, There Once Were Mills 68

Ozro C. Flint, Afterward

And what of Ozro C. Flint? Relocating to Gardner after the 1886 fire, he secured (presumably through Colburn) a position with Heywood Brothers & Co. There, in July 1889, his wife gave birth to a son, Ozro, who died two days later of heart failure.282 By 1893, the Gardner Directory confirmed the young family’s removal to Vermont. His death was reported in August 1898 at the age of 44 in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, with burial in Fort Smith.283

Colburn’s Later Years

In early 1898, following the Troy mill site’s 12-year dormancy, Colburn sold his last remaining New Hampshire holdings, bundled into three separate deeds, and acquired two developed residential lots in Melrose, MA – all transactions executed in direct dealings with a single Melrose rentière.284 The Troy sales would unleash a stunning 11-year flurry of activity among a gaggle of Boston-based speculators involving the mill site and associated tracts, including the Foster House. From then onward, George and Addie would spend a further decade investing in real estate, assembling a small empire of building lots and residences around Gardner; 285 the 1900 Census gave his occupation as “landlord.” He died at home in November 1909 of heart failure (of 10 years’ duration, complicated for seven days by pulmonary edema) 286 at the ripe age of 89 years, having completed a remarkably full life. His contributions were many, his lifestyle varied and colorful, touching countless others. Not known as a particularly religious man, he did nevertheless care for and look after friends and family members alike, including his mother and Sawyer in-laws; arranged employment at Heywood Brothers & Co. for both sons-in- law, as well as for O. C. Flint after the mill fire; and generously provided for both wives. His elder daughter Emma had one son, Ora Colburn Barker, born in St. Paul, MN in 1886 with her first husband, Jerome J. Barker. After being widowed there in 1894, she returned to Gardner and remarried in 1900. Ora was still single in 1917 when, following U.S. entry into World War I, he registered for the draft, but was certified disabled due to having “both feet lost.” As given by the 1920 Census, he lived with his mother and stepfather in Gardner, but by 1942 had moved to Worcester to reside with Barker relatives. Younger daughter Cora bore one child, Alta Louise Bennett, who married Charles Blomquest in August 1908, but died of pulmonary tuberculosis on July 12, 1909, predeceasing her grandfather by four months. Alta lies buried with her mother, who lived until 1934, at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Gardner. Addie remained at their West Gardner residence until the late 1930s; she lived until 1945. As testament to his mechanical aptitude and technical skills, the original application packets for several of Colburn’s patents are archived at the Local History Room of the Levi Heywood Memorial Library in Gardner. On the personal side, he was unusually adept at be- friending and cultivating success-oriented people, talented and accomplished achievers, as both mentors and business associates (“Uncle Joseph” Sawyer, Cyrus Wakefield, Walter and Levi Heywood), and hiring the best available advisers and managers (Francis Faulkner, Byron Leigh- ton, and Ozro Flint). Through the years, he also revealed a knack for negotiating through difficult situations and maximizing financial returns – strategies driven, in all likelihood, toward fulfilling the lifelong dreams of a fatherless child. Raised by a “widow in straitened circumstances,” and shuffled among family members and others until finding his own way, George S. Colburn became the archetypal self-made man, vowing never again to be forced to “depend on the kind- ness of strangers.” He lies buried in a small family plot in Evergreen Cemetery, Leominster, together with his mother and both wives. For Here, There Once Were Mills 69

“Said Premises Were Formerly a Mill Site”

Stanley-Colburn Mill Site

From 1898, the upper mill property passed through a succession of Boston land traders, until one enterprising young man came in 1909 and bought up several contiguous tracts along the brook. His newly formed company installed a small hydroelectric generating station, constructing a penstock that connected the lower pond to a water turbine 1,000 feet downstream from the mill’s ruins.287 The operation would thus utilize essentially the same extant landscape features, including the dual-tiered pond system that had served for more than a century, to capture nearly all of the brook’s 100+ foot elevation drop. That, however, is a different story for another time.

Mill Down the Hill: Flagg Family

Gravestones mark the bounds of people’s lives; they may connote loves and hopes, losses and sorrows: together in life, parted by death, rejoined in eternity. Edwin, Nora, and their two children, Ernest (1876-1887) and Maud (1879-1891), lie buried in the Flagg family plot at Fitz- william’s Village Cemetery, near Benjamin and Hannah Fox, and Nora’s mother and stepfather. Records portray Nora’s personal life as one filled with loss and sorrow. Her parents were married in 1852, when her mother was 15; she was born in 1857; though little is known of her father, he died in a mill accident in Manchester in 1859, and her mother remarried in 1865.288 For a time after her own 1872 marriage – like her mother’s, at age 15 – Nora and Edwin lived in Troy with her grandparents, acquiring ownership of the mill in 1874,289 soon after the town voted that road discontinuance (see p. 53). Following the deaths of her two young children, she was widowed in 1896. Edwin’s death certificate gave his age as 50 years; its cause: “Gunshot wound received at Battle of Wilderness,” 290 a lodged bullet that had pained, discomforted and weak- ened him for 32 years, since serving in Company F, 57th Regiment, Mass. Volunteer Infantry.291 So too are properties documented in deeds and tax records. According to Troy tax rolls, their mill and its machinery were invoiced until 1893, but not thereafter. The site may have suffered severe damage or destruction by the Sea Islands Hurricane, recorded as passing through the region in September of that year.292 That, together with the Panic of 1893, Edwin’s increasing disability, and – on a deeper personal level – the tragic loss of both of their young children, may all have played a part. In any event, no specific details are known regarding the mill’s closure. Through the years that followed, as those speculators flocked about with money and deeds flying, Nora held onto her small property. She finally acquiesced in 1909 when that young entrepreneur swept in with his new vision, needing her land to complete his picture. He bought the site for an undisclosed sum, along with a tract farther downstream, the Foster House, the upper mill site, Perkins Pond dam, and another tract lying easterly of the pond. From 1898 onward, deeds for those other tracts had entirely omitted mention of either mill, giving no hint of these once-proud landmarks. Rather, they uniformly cited antecedent volume and page numbers with the formulaic boilerplate “to which deed reference may be had for a more particular description.” Yet poignantly, as if bidding a fond farewell to a dear and valued family friend of over 40 years’ standing, Nora Fox Flagg’s own deed fully detailed the boundaries of her property, refer- encing both mills and the Stanley name, in the very year of George S. Colburn’s death:

“. . . on a brook about thirteen (13) rods south of what was formerly known as ‘Stanleys Mills’ . . . said premises were formerly a Mill site . . .” 293 For Here, There Once Were Mills 70

Figure 20. Portraits of Nora Fox Flagg and Edwin A. Flagg. Nora died in 1946 in Berlin, MA. Photographic images and personal information courtesy of R. J. Corrette, Fitzwilliam, NH. For Here, There Once Were Mills 71

Afterword

Many share a special interest in (and desire to learn about) industrial archaeology: generally, “the [discovery,] study, interpretation, and preservation of historically significant industrial sites, structures, artifacts, and technology.” 294 Its goal is interpreting, documenting, and preserving our industrial past and heritage. As a cautionary observation, the property hosting the site of this narrative is privately owned; no known provision has yet been made for its historical preservation. It is strongly recommended that, if possible, appropriate measures be taken to safeguard the remains and environs of these mills at Perkins Pond Brook, in order that physical evidence of their history may be preserved and protected for our own and future generations – not irretrievably lost. If something exists, it can be found, potentially comprehended, and ultimately treasured.

“You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.”

As Leonardo da Vinci so much more eloquently stated: “[Science is] the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prediction is the knowledge of things which may come to pass. . . . The knowledge of past time and of the places on the earth is both ornament and nutriment to the human mind.” 295 ______

Almost every human activity has left its trace in our landscape, because almost every human need has been met through the creation of an object. The artifacts of history are everywhere. They can be as enveloping as woodlands, cleared fields, and roadways; as dramatic as hydroelectric dams and factory smoke- stacks; as familiar as houses, schools, and libraries.

Every artifact embodies the story of its creation, but to read and understand that story we often need the help of people who are familiar with the context in which an object was created. With such help, the landscape and the objects in it can convey our history in a direct and tangible way, proving through our own senses that other people inhabited our land and met the challenges of their day as we meet those of our day. The objects through which our predecessors carried out their lives’ work or embodied their sense of beauty and meaning are often among our most accessible windows to history.

The field of historic preservation derives from the conviction that the cultural landscape embodies human life and memory, that this embodied humanity can be understood and savored, and that it conveys meaning. The act of understanding and preserving cultural resources is a form of environmental stewardship, an af- firmation to future generations that we have endeavored to recognize and pass something of value to them. 296

——— James L. Garvin, State Architectural Historian, Division of Historical Resources, New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources. New Hampshire’s Cultural Landscape. For Here, There Once Were Mills 72

Figure 21. Old Mill Road of 1874 approaching Colburn Falls, Troy, NH. Personal photograph by author, August 17, 2006. For Here, There Once Were Mills 73 56 73

Sanctuary, Meditation, Benediction

If you would come into this place, tread gently. Breathe deep, scent of evergreen. Stones speak worlds, listen! Grasses dance, whisper. Living water shrouds, Scours, splashes, smoothes – all the better to reflect stillness in the glisten of a chipmunk’s eye. As without, so within. If you would enter this space, tread gently … For here, there once were mills.

Pax vobiscum.

Exegesis

If you wish to come into my house, please! Surrender your heavy boots of mental baggage at the door. Let your senses take it all in – Pay attention! The brook embodies this place: it acts; it rests; it is. Become one with that chipmunk: “Be still, and know...” Mills came, full of hustle and bustle … killed in anger, conflagration; killed by Nature, inundation. All the blood, sweat, and tears left no child born in this world to carry on, to carry on. Be still, listen: you may yet hear those silent sentinels speak ... “Said premises were formerly a Mill site.”

Peace be with you.

For Here, There Once Were Mills 74

Figure 22. Becalmed, its head spent, the brook flows gently onward. Personal photograph by author, October 16, 2006. For Here, There Once Were Mills 75 58 Appendix A: Murder Most Foul . . . Or Sour Grapes?

Jedediah Foster, the fifth son of Revolutionary War veteran Elijah Foster, was born in 1772 in Bolton, MA, where his grandfather “was a prominent citizen . . . and for many years was town clerk.” 297 In June 1807 he married Lydia, the youngest of six children and only daughter of Alpheus and Lydia (Green) Brigham of Jaffrey, and settled onto her father’s homestead farm. As identified by deeded lot and range numbers, the property was located near the town’s southwest corner, bordering Rindge on what has since become known as Jock Page Hill.298 Oddly, these two men shared the affiliative bond of a common birthday, April 30; within three months the new son-in-law, a “house carpenter,” received, presumably through filial conveyance, title to the nearly 300-acre farm, nominally valued at $2,000. 299 In return, he

covenanted to maintain and support the said Alpheus and his wife Lydia Brigham in sickness and health to provide nursing, doctring [sic] and everything suitable for them in their condition and to treat their friends the same as I [Jedediah] do my own whenever they see fit to visit them . . . 300

He also agreed to pay each of Lydia’s four eldest brothers (who had all moved away, the fifth having “absconded” in 1804) between $40 and $60, as separately named, within four years after Alpheus’ eventual demise. There followed the births of three Foster children: Alpheus (1809), Roxanna (1810), and Sophronia (1816). In that latter year “housewright” Jedediah acquired a one-half interest in two Fitzwilliam tracts,301 but sold them back to the grantor (Robin- son Perkins, Moses’ brother), essentially at cost, three weeks after his son’s tragic death in 1819, “the result of being trodden upon by a horse he was leading to water.” 302 Whether Lydia somehow blamed her husband for that loss, or was herself overcome with grief, the couple produced no more children from then onward, facing him with the prospect of leaving no male heirs. When her father Alpheus died in April 1824, altering the established family dynamic, a familiar age-old scenario unfolded: the ever-popular eternal triangle! 18 months later, at the age of 43, Lydia divorced Jedediah; He promptly executed with David H. Gilmore a bond in the name of Alpheus’ estate for just $200 to be paid to her upon her mother’s demise, collateralized by the homestead.303 A busy fellow, the next month he married Linda Demary, 16 years his junior and also of Jaffrey, further mortgaging the property to Edward Spaulding for $700. 304 Barely two months later, in January 1826, she would deliver a daughter, Linda Sophia, the first of a growing brood (Harriet, 1828; Mary Jane, 1830; Edward S., 1833). Concurrently, Jedediah took on successively larger mortgage loans, deepening his debt on the farm: an additional $500 from Spaulding in June 1826; $1,000 from Elias Page in January 1828, in the instance repaying Spaulding; and $1,300 from John Felt in September 1834. 305 A profile of Jedediah and Lydia’s separate post-divorce living arrangements is given by the 1830 Census, which named the head of each household and tallied its members by sex and age brackets. Jedediah’s new family, now comfortably situated on the farm, included himself (age 40 to 50), Linda (30 to 40), three daughters under 5, and an adult male (20 to 30) – most likely a boarding farm laborer, a common practice of the era. Still in Jaffrey, quartered near Capt. (War of 1812) Oliver Warren (Lot 6, Ranges 8-9) 306 “on the road south of Priest Corners,” 307 resided the dispossessed two-member household headed by Lydia Brigham (80 to 90), with her daughter Lydia Foster (40 to 50). Incidentally, tying in another pertinent family connection, Warren was an uncle of the Stanley Brothers, having married their aunt Abiah Stanley in 1801. A farmer and stonecutter, it was he who had taught nephew James R. the latter trade (see p. 37). For Here, There Once Were Mills 76

Lydia Brigham died in November 1834 at the advanced age of 92, fully nine years after her daughter’s divorce. Cutter made no mention of her death, routinely stating that Jedediah had “settled on the farm of his wife's father, and remained there till 1836, when he left town.” 308 There seems to have been little love lost between Jedediah and his ex-mother-in-law. Her passing may have occasioned minimal notice, but for its lurid description in a relevant tome, The History of the Brigham Family. In all likelihood generated by Lydia Foster herself, and sup- posedly instrumental in nurturing persistent hard feelings within the Brigham clan, that entry has been faithfully and recurrently cited in subsequent genealogical references: 309

[Her father] ALPHEUS, son of Major Asa and Mary (Newton) Brigham; born in Shrewsbury, Mass., 30 April, 1746; died in Jaffrey, N. H., about 1826 [sic: 1824]; married, 1764, Lydia Green, of Westboro, who was killed about 1830 [sic: 1834], “frozen to death” in inhuman quarters “provided” by her son-in-law, Foster, who had been deeded the farm by her husband, Alpheus, in consideration of the care to be bestowed upon them in their old age [emphasis added].310

Nevertheless, life for Jedediah went on undisturbed, if not improved. In March 1835, Warren provided him a mortgage loan for yet another $1,400, 311 but one not destined to turn out well. By 1839, after having left Jaffrey, his escalating tower of debt proved unsustainable. In February of that year, the “blacksmith of Troy” quitclaimed his former homestead property for a nominal $2,400 to Stephen Wheeler as part of a complicated foreclosure settlement, by which Warren was paid $400 to satisfy a judgment in a separate court proceeding.312 The matter closed a year after Warren’s departure for “upstate New York, where [he] invested in two hundred acres of good land with solid water rights and proceeded to erect a dam and sawmill.” 313 Incidentally, personal experience with that mill’s operation would influence Warren’s son-in-law, a footloose young carpenter who, some years later, set off in 1849 on an extended voyage around Cape Horn seeking his fortune in the gold camps of California. To occupy himself during the tedious journey, “he bought . . . three books – a Bible, a millwright’s guide [without question, the ever-popular Evans, then in its 12th edition], and Year of the Heavens, a guide to the night skies of both hemispheres.” 314 Their relative prices offer a rare insight: He “paid $1.00 for the Bible, $2.50 for the millwright’s guide, and $.70 for the book on astronomy.” 315 Foster’s Jaffrey farm passed into the hands of Elias Page via that still-unresolved 1828 mortgage. Within a month (March 1839), Elias conveyed it, fully mortgaged for $2,000, to his son Jonathan “Jock” Page.316 The 1840 Census placed Jedediah’s young family in Troy, soon to be augmented by the arrival of another son, Jonas R., in 1842. After her mother’s death, Lydia moved to Fitzwilliam, where her grandfather, Major Asa Brigham, had served as town moderator and selectman in the 1770s. She boarded there for many years with the Hosea Platts family, living until 1859, and lies buried with her son Alpheus in Jaffrey’s Phillips-Heil Cemetery. 317 Admittedly, Jedediah’s questionable personal dealings and repeated financial strictures, squeezing through one tight spot after another, raise valid concerns about his character; but “killed” is a rather grave accusation. Was he truly such a cruel, perfidious cad, as depicted in the Brigham Family History, exhibiting gross negligence and callous disregard for fulfilling his pledged humanitarian duty? Or was that claim, rather, a bitter lashing out by a vengeful, spurned ex-wife who felt herself, and her mother, deeply wronged – and further, for taking her family’s homestead farm in the process? 318 By other indications, he appears not to have earned an unsa- vory local reputation or the enmity of his neighbors and colleagues; indeed, they seem to have regularly offered assistance throughout his times of greatest need, which were many. 319 For Here, There Once Were Mills 77

Appendix B: Who Burned Down George Colburn’s Mill? Three Hypothetical Scenarios

An Act of Anger and Revenge

From the Cheshire Republican (March 12, 1886): “Troy. Colburn’s chair stock mills, situated in the eastern part of the town, were destroyed by fire about 12 o’clock Wednesday night. Loss about $4,000.” 320 Details were offered a week later, along with the name “Henry Fassett,” who was jailed, then released for lack of evidence after a brief internment (see p. 65).

From Arthur H. Parker, letter to Jim Whitcomb, April 14, 1944:

A disgruntled employee was believed to have set the fire which completely destroyed it many years ago and nothing ever took its place. . . . 321

From Arthur H. Parker’s album (Summer, 1962):

Shall we start with the foot prints found in the deep snow the morning after the combination saw and grist mill was utterly destroyed? It could never be proved whose boots, nor what feet in the boots, made the incriminating tracks in the snow. But it was accepted as a fact that there had been a continuing incentive. The proprietor of the mill had little liking and less respect for a certain individual and the dislike, at least was reciprocated wholeheartedly. The mill was never rebuilt. The old water wheelcasting, pond and penstock still remained. Time, rust, rot and possibly the junkman all had a part in obliterating them through the long years. The high stone foundation walls are still there, in part. And, although there is, ordinarily, no water in the old pond, it needs only a short diversion dike, and a shorter dam at the one-time penstock outlet to restore it to service, if there was anything to serve . . . 322

That “old pond” was Hodgkins’ lower reservoir, still clearly marked by remains of its earthen berms; the wheelcasting and penstock have long since vanished. And Henry Fassett was all but named as that “disgruntled employee” with whom Colburn shared some degree of mutual enmity. As then, so now: this militates toward considering Fassett as our primary suspect.

1. Henry J. Fassett: Cherchez La Femme?

Some basic facts and a conjecture: Henry J. Fassett, adopted son of Jaffrey Selectman Joseph W. Fassett, lived nearby at his father’s house on the turnpike road in Jaffrey (see Figure 16), then called the “Troy Road.” From 1857 the Fassett family had occupied and operated Fas- sett’s Mountain House on Mt. Monadnock, whose ruins lie along the Fairy Spring Trail about ¼ mile up beyond the site of the Halfway House,323 shown on the Location Map (see p. viii). Thus, he may very well have worked at length as the mill boy at Colburn’s in his younger days. Henry and Colburn’s younger daughter Cora, both 22 at the time of the fire, had surely developed an early friendship during eight years together as neighborhood children. They may have met again on Cora’s subsequent visits to her father’s mill and the family’s Foster House residence. Two years before the fire, in May 1884 she had married James L. Bennett of Tem- pleton, son of a longtime Colburn family friend, and given birth to a daughter that November. For Here, There Once Were Mills 78

Tellingly, in April 1885 Henry married his first wife, who had borne an illegitimate son in March 1884, but not named the father 324 – a belated acknowledgment of his own responsibility? These facts were publicly known. They soon divorced; he would remarry in 1890.

Conjecture.

All in all, this is beginning to read like a real-life soap opera! Do the math: Was Cora’s marriage one of necessity to a man deemed acceptable by her father? Had she turned to Henry for comfort following the trauma of her mother’s death? Did he father both children, illegiti- mately with different women, within a year? Had an amorous relationship between the young couple – vehemently opposed by her father – driven Colburn to sell all the mill properties in April 1883 to Josiah Rugg, in a futile attempt to separate them, then contrive Cora’s marriage? Such goings-on would surely have been bruited about the community by gossip and ru- mor, laying credible grounds for suspecting Henry of setting that fire. If these things were so, would he not have nursed a grudge against Cora’s father for forcing them apart and imposing her marriage to another? Was that the “continuing incentive”? And would that “little liking and less respect” not have been strongly mutual? Did “wholehearted reciprocation” culminate in retribu- tive arson? No direct evidence remains; this scenario is reliably plausible, but circumstantial and inferential. For lack of a smoking gun, we cannot answer these questions with certainty.

2. Josiah N. Rugg: A Bitter Lawsuit?

In August 1884 Colburn had brought a foreclosure action against Rugg, alleging non- payment of agreed terms in a mortgage deed; Rugg quickly lost the suit, then relinquished the properties in April 1885, less than a year before the fire. Was there more to this affair than meets the eye? Notably, in the deed’s bond and indemnity clause, Rugg had agreed to:

a bond this day made and delivered by me to said Colburn . . . [I] shall pay all taxes and assessments . . . whether on the granted premises or on any interest therein or on the debt secured hereby, shall keep the buildings on said premises insured against fire in a sum not less than Five Thousand Dollars [emphasis added], for the benefit of [Colburn] . . . in such form and at such Insurance Offices as they shall approve, and shall not commit or suffer any strip or waste of the granted premises or any breach of any covenant herein contained, then this deed as also said Bond of even date shall be void.325

Other than mounting financial stringency, it is unclear why Rugg – and his son, listed as a resident and “Mnfr” [manufacturer] in the 1884 Troy tax roll – simply defaulted so quickly. Could the subsequent fire have been his “parting message” for some other, unknown reason? Curiously, despite Colburn’s 1884 insistence upon a fire insurance clause, none was carried by 1886. Consider a recapitulation of the numerous real estate transactions among the three men, including McNeil, along with relevant property tax notations (1884-6), and the fire itself:

 6/5/1875: Colburn sold Rugg the Fitchburg mortgage deed acquired from his 1874 mill sale. Mortgage deeds were typically held as financial assets and actively traded, most often indi- vidually and separately – not pooled into complicated mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and sliced and diced into tranches (structured finance), as currently practiced.  11/23/78: Colburn bought property in Lancaster encumbered by a mortgage deed of Rugg. For Here, There Once Were Mills 79

 7/3/79: Rugg sold Colburn a 14-acre tract in Lancaster for $400.  4/18/82: Multiple sales by Colburn to McNeil of large-acreage tracts in Lancaster for $5,000.  4/11/83: Colburn sold Rugg seven tracts in Troy and Jaffrey, including the mills, for $5,000.  4/19/83: Rugg sold McNeil a half interest in the same seven tracts, for consideration of “$1+”  Troy Tax Roll, April 1884: Colburn was assessed tax on the mill he had just sold; apportion- ment of that liability, among the old and new owners, is not known; 50% valuation $1600.  5/20/84: Rugg mortgaged his half interest in the seven tracts to Colburn, for “$1+”; take note of the bond and fire insurance indemnity clause included in the deed, cited above.  6/17/84: McNeil quitclaimed to Colburn his half interest in the seven tracts for $2,500; two months later, Colburn sued Rugg for $3,500 in damages concerning the tracts’ mortgage.  10/21/84: The Superior Court in Keene, holding its October 1884 Session, as customary on the “third Tuesday of October,” heard arguments in the case of Colburn v. Rugg. Colburn was represented by attorney Francis A. Faulkner, of Batchelder & Faulkner, Keene.  11/19/84: Colburn won a judgment against Rugg, being awarded $2,808.89. The property was vacated by Rugg and his son, “Charles F. Rugg, his tenant upon the land demanded.”  4/4/85: In lieu of payment for monetary damages, the seven tracts were attached by the Cheshire County sheriff and conveyed to Colburn in satisfaction of the judgment.  Troy Tax Roll, April 1885: Colburn taxed on “Rugg & McNeil Mill,” 50% valuation $1600.  3/10/86: Colburn’s mill destroyed by arson around midnight. Footprints found in the snow.  Troy Tax Roll, April 1886: At his request, the Town voted to abate Colburn’s taxes on the mill property for five years; valuation on mill, machinery, & stock in trade: “exempt.”

Conjecture.

In another regrettable confirmation of the adage “money trumps friendship,” could his loss to Colburn in a bitter lawsuit have prompted Rugg or his son to seek revenge against his former friend and business associate? As with Jedediah Foster and Cyrus Thompson, two previous specimens best given wide financial berth, that old caveat may ring true here: “There are some people you shouldn't lend money to.” As a possible consequence, the elder Rugg returned to Albany, NY, where he died in 1891. This alternate premise is plausible, in a circumstantial sense; but again, without knowing details, we cannot answer the question with certainty.

3. William H. McNeil: Follow the Money?

Some things never change! Bill Black, who helped unravel the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s as Director of Litigation for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board – widely regarded as the ultimate expert in financial regulation – wrote a book in 2005 entitled The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. Presciently, William H. McNeil of Lancaster, MA seems to have done just that in late 1885. This was the same gentleman with whom Messrs. Colburn and Rugg had conducted multiply intertwined transactions involving real estate and mortgages, as summarized in 2. above. Notably, McNeil had gained control of the Lancaster National Bank that year, only to beat a hasty retreat to Canada shortly thereafter. Could he have been “cooking the books” at the bank? Was a year-end audit expected? Indeed, that suspicion arose:

In 1885 the latter [McNeil] secured control of a majority of the stock, elected certain friends of his directors, and placed himself in the presidency, probably in order the better to conceal from the stockholders irregularities in his methods of conducting the business of the bank. At the close of the year he fled to Canada, a defaulter . . . 326 For Here, There Once Were Mills 80

As Sawyer later related, much more than a simple “default” was involved:

Prominent of the Worcester county bank robberies was that of the Lancaster National Bank of Clinton, Dec. 30, 1885. William H. McNeil, president of that institution, wrecked it, and fled to Canada, where he is now living in retirement on a farm in Hatley, Stanstead county, Quebec . . . The wrecking of this widely- known banking-institution caused the greatest financial sensation the eastern portion of Worcester County had ever known.

William McNeil, president of the bank, was one of the most respected citizens in Lancaster, and was the political boss of the town. On the night of Dec. 30, 1885, he disappeared, and with him went cash and notes of the bank aggregating $175,000. It developed that McNeil and Charles H. Veo . . . went to the bank, opened the vault and got the money. Veo and McNeil took the night train for Canada . . . 327

That evening train could have proceeded only along the Cheshire Railroad, passing through (and possibly stopping at) Troy on its way to connect with the Central Vermont Railroad at Bellows Falls. The two men were known to have stopped at Rutland, and McNeil was last traced by two Boston detectives to a French Canadian hotel near Montreal’s Bonaventure depot. The spectacular event was reported in newspapers internationally. McNeil and several associates were indicted the following March in U.S. District Court in Boston, but his whereabouts were then unknown, and he was never returned to the U.S. to stand trial,328 nor were any illicit proceeds recovered.

Conjecture.

Could Colburn, known as a longtime friend and associate of William McNeil, have been somehow involved in that episode – or suspected of being a “person of interest” – 10 weeks to the day before his mill was burned down? We cannot but recall the circumstances of their continuing history of dealings in financial matters. Was certain important “baggage” stealthily offloaded that late December night, as the train made its brief station stop at Troy? The timing is somewhat peculiar. These two intriguing events may be entirely unrelated, but do share curiously coincidental circumstances. Again, we cannot answer these questions with certainty.

A latter-day inquiry.

This story was told at a certain town’s Historical Commission in neighboring Massachu- setts.329 Not too many years ago, a well-known television news anchor, Canadian by birth, is said to have visited Lancaster in search of information regarding his direct paternal ancestor: a local bank president purported to have “honorably retired” from that town and moved to Canada a century before. It eventuated that the visitor shared first and (the more uncommon of his two) middle names with William H. McNeil’s son who had, at some point, acquired an additional “a” after the first letter of his surname. As members of that Historical Commission began to recount for him this particularly relevant episode, the gentleman reportedly interrupted them in medias res, saying in essence, “I’ve heard quite enough, thank you; good day!” Having evidently satis- fied his genealogical curiosity, he arose and departed, perhaps as hastily as that “honorably retired” banker (his great-grandfather?) from that very same town, one night in late 1885. For Here, There Once Were Mills 81

Appendix C: Evolving Industrial Climate; End of the Colburn Era at Heywood Brothers

The ascendancy of large impersonal manufacturing and transportation firms, which characterized the Second American Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, brought sweeping changes to traditional business practices handed down within a long-established agrarian-artisan culture. While Colburn seems to have enjoyed comfortable relations with his employees at Hey- wood Brothers during his years as Manager of the Cane Department, serious labor disruptions would arise after his 1885 departure, reflecting trends on a much broader nationwide scale. Initially, he may well have been credited with providing new employment upon establishment of the Cane Department – creating previously non-existent job openings, then expanding his department to increase its operational activities and responsibilities. In his time, various corporate amenities generally tending to engender a positive psychological sense of “family” and “community spirit,” even if seemingly small or inconsequential, were noticed and appreciated.

During Colburn’s tenure: “Tout va bien?”

After start-up, more welcome job openings materialized along the way; from December 6, 1879:

Heywood Bros. & Co., are increasing the capacity of their cane splitting building by an addition of 25x15 feet, and never before has this firm done so much business in all departments as is now being done. 330

Traditional collegial excursions – in midweek, supported by departmental management on a continuing basis – contributed to boosting morale. From January 31, 1885:

The young ladies of the cane shop, with their young gentlemen friends, to the number of forty couples, took their annual sleigh ride, Wednesday, Westminster being the objective point this year. A supper at Landlord Goddard’s and a dance occupied the evening. 331

Even peripheral aesthetic improvements attracted community notice; from March 7, 1885:

The new chime whistle at Heywood Bros. & Co.’s factories is a pleasant innovation upon the usual custom. It is a combined whistle, but the two tones harmonize and produce a musical chord, instead of the usual discord. 332

After his departure: “Après moi, le déluge?”

For a man just turning 65, George Colburn’s heart surely belonged to that earlier era; but conditions would visibly worsen as labor strife spread throughout the nation, most rapidly from the mid-1880s. A defining event – the great 1886 Southwest railroad strike by the Knights of Labor, idling over 200,000 workers – not only affected major transportation lines, but also stimu- lated expressions of labor grievances in other economic sectors, some much closer to home:

The cane workers of the Wakefield rattan works, all females, struck for an increase of 10 per cent., Wednesday [March 10, 1886]. The company told them to finish what work they had on hand and leave, as they would have all of their cane seating done at the Concord reformatory. All the help left Thursday. 333 For Here, There Once Were Mills 82

No doubt inspired by their example, workers at Heywood Brothers’ Cane Department struck the following month. While the Knights of Labor had held several “informational meet- ings” in Gardner shortly before, they claimed no involvement in the unprecedented April strike, as noted below, which occurred less than a month before the infamous Haymarket affair in Chi- cago. Sharp differences in concerns and attitudes were expressed through the two sides’ portray- als of their respective positions, as given in a detailed account published in the Gardner News.

From April 17, 1886:

The Strike at Heywood Bros. & Co.’s. Gardner has had the good fortune in times past to escape any serious strike. Whatever have been the grievances against local manufacturers on the part of their employees they have been speedily adjusted without difficulty. The present week, however, has witnessed a strike at Heywood Bros. & Co. somewhat more serious than any previous one, and if continued for any length will cause the shutting down of the cane shops for some time, at least. The trouble originated as in the difficulty just prior to last Christmas, with the winders, and as far as can be ascertained from patient and careful investigation the dissatisfaction is confined to that class of help. Taking the winders and those in other departments who have been obliged to stop work on their account, there are probably at the present time over three hundred men who are not working, and the number will be largely increased if, as stated before, the continuance of the strike is protracted. The Knights of Labor as an organization have had nothing to do with the matter, and are taking no hand in it. The facts as to the commencement of the trouble are these. A schedule of prices was presented to the company last Saturday accompanied with the request that favorable action be taken upon it by Wednesday at ten o’clock; if not agreed to then the alternative was to be a strike. The answer of the firm was to the effect that Mr. Henry Heywood had in his charge, the fixing of the wages of the employees, and the representatives of the winders were asked to await his return from California, which was expected about May 1st. This the winders refused to do, and as the firm did not care to take any action until Mr. Henry Heywood’s return, they quit work last Wednesday in a body. The News has taken pains to get statements from representatives of the strikers and from the firm, which tell the story from their respective standpoints. This will enable our readers not conversant with the facts, to form their own opinions. Estimating the number of persons out at 300, and their wages to average $1.50 apiece [per day], the actual cost of the strike in loss of wages by tonight will be about $1,800. The Strikers’ Story. From interviews from some of the leading strikers we secured their version of the difficulty, which is about as follows: The present trouble originated some two weeks ago. Two new styles of chairs were introduced and at the prices paid the winders, who nearly all work by the piece, found that they could not make their usual wages, and asked for an increase. They were told in answer that no more chairs of those styles would be given to piece hands. In a few days, however, more of those styles were given out at the original prices. The winders then consulted and prepared a new schedule of prices on all kinds of chairs, making an increase of about fifteen per cent. in the For Here, There Once Were Mills 83

prices. This was transmitted to the company last Saturday accompanied by a notice that if the scale was not accepted by Wednesday at ten o’clock they would go out. The firm requested them to wait until Mr. Henry Heywood and Mr. A. M. Greenwood returned from California. This they refused to do as they understood that the foremen, B. J. Buckman, had power to regulate prices. The average earnings of the winders throughout the year are $1 per day. During a rush of business they will make $1.25 and $1.50, while in the dull times during the summer, 62 cents and 75 cents is the average. Exceptionally quick and skillful workmen can earn $2 per day. With the price of board averaging $4.50 per week, the winders say these average earnings are not enough to comfortably support life. There has been no disturbance of any kind, and the strikers say they are determined to hold out until they gain their profit. The Other Side. Mr. George Heywood of Heywood Bros. & Co., was seen and said that the matter was very simple. The winders last Saturday presented a new scale of prices, with an increase varying from five to seventy-five per cent, on various styles of chairs. Mr. Heywood informed them that he did not wish to deal with them in the matter, as that portion of the business was in charge of Mr. Henry Heywood, who was expected home from California about May 1st, and asked them to drop the matter until that time. This they decided not to do, and accordingly went out. In view of these facts he thought no one was to blame but the strikers. To the best of his belief the men were getting more for their work than was paid in other places, and as much or more than they could earn at other occupations. A quick hand could make $2 per day, or more, according to his skill. The reason why the average wages were somewhat low was because many of the workmen were boys and old men who were slow at their work. In answer to an inquiry about the two new styles of chairs, which were said to be the first cause of the trouble, he said the men refused to try them to see how much they could make, and none were given out until all other styles were out when they were given some of the new ones as an alternative to loafing. He said that the foremen had no power to raise prices, and that the matter of prices had not been gone into at all in connection with the trouble. The firm had simply made the request that they wait until Mr. Henry Heywood should return, which the strikers had refused to do. 334

Afterward, from April 24, 1886:

All is quiet among the striking cane workers. They formed in military order Mon- day afternoon and marched to the office of Heywood Brothers & Co., where they were paid off in full, including the two weeks’ pay which the company usually keeps back. They were somewhat surprised at this, as it indicated the intention of the firm to dispense with the services of the strikers. A few of them attempted to return to work, but were warned by their comrades, and gave up the attempt. Heywood Brothers & Co. are evidently waiting quietly until the excitement is over, when they will fill their winding rooms with a new lot of men. Some thirty of the strikers have left town, a part of them obtaining work elsewhere. 335

Thus, both job actions – at Wakefield, then Heywood Brothers – produced similar results. For Here, There Once Were Mills 84

Appendix D: Jim and Arthur’s Whiz Bang Adventure Crash on the Barrelhead!

Jim Whitcomb and Arthur H. Parker

According to Stone, James Edwin “Jim” Whitcomb was born on October 5, 1888, to Oliver P. and Ellen (Parker) Whitcomb.336 His first cousin, Arthur H(amilton) Parker, had been born on March 11, 1887, to Hamilton (brother of Ellen) and Eunice (Sweetser) Parker.337 Other sources 338 indicate that these two young rapscallions early on discovered (or invented, skirting some fine line imagined to separate invention from discovery) numerous opportunities for what some would call “mischief,” which others might more euphemistically label “exploits of adventure (‘participation in hazardous or exciting experiences’) and mirth.” e Accounts of such adventures, though obscure, occasionally found their way onto paper – fond remembrances of tales told and transcribed into the written language, for which we remain duly grateful. Else, these would long ago have been “consigned to the dustbin of history” and faded away, unnoted. Our task, simply put, is to relate the account of one such relevant incident.

From Arthur H. Parker’s album (Summer, 1962):

The old wooden penstock sloped sharply from the pond to the wheel. There would have been as much as fifty feet [to] the wheel in the casing. . . . The slimy penstock was possibly three feet in its inside diameter, possibly two and a half. There was a time, years after the fire, when young boys considered it a worthwhile experience, fraught with a certain element of danger, to coast, on the seat of their pants, down through its slippery interior. . . .

So here Cousin [Jim] is, just on the point of sticking his feet and legs into the uphill end of the penstock. Care to go with him?

Whoosh! We’re off!

Thunderation! Here’s a contretemps disconcerting and unexpected. Some low down so and so has coasted a barrel down the penstock and it was too big to make the corner. What will happen? Will it bring to a sudden halt the wild flight of Cousin? If so, will they ever be able, or think it worthwhile to bring him to light again? . . .

Jim was going so fast that he went through the barrel like… well, right now I can’t think of a simile I care to use . . . But he was going mighty fast – so dingbusted fast that the heads of the barrel were no match for the boyish projectile. The nails, however, really did a job, and it could be said that Jim started from scratch and ended with plenty more. 339

e One Saturday, two enterprising young students plugged the one-room Troy Schoolhouse No. 3 stovepipe chimney with grass and sod, causing the room to fill with smoke Monday morning. Unsuspectingly chosen to clean it out, they earned 25 cents each and praise for their efforts (Whitcomb, 1968, p. 8). Reportedly, they moved outhouses, painted spots on a neighbor’s wandering stock, and stuffed live chickens into mailboxes … but vandalized nothing.

For Here, There Once Were Mills 85

Figure D1. Portrait of Jim Whitcomb and Arthur H. Parker, Judy’s “Dad & Uncle Arthur,” c. 1918. Original photograph courtesy of Bob and Judy (Whitcomb) Hall, Troy, NH. For Here, There Once Were Mills 86 72

Appendix E: Did Colburn Install a Turbine at His Mill? Vertical (Overshot) Water Wheel vs. Turbine

Figures E1 and E2. Cutaway comparison of a mill with overshot water wheel (left) and turbine (right). Adapted from Figures 39 and 40, The Miller, Millwright and Millfurnisher: A Practical Treatise, by R. E. Grimshaw.340 (Note the diligent mill boy making flow adjustments in each.)

Several evidentiary avenues lead toward the conclusion that Colburn took full advantage of the financial and operational benefits of replacing his old (wooden?) water wheel with a turbine. This trend was clearly the wave of the future, as described in a standard American milling manual by Robert E. Grimshaw, a prolific author of technical books for nearly 50 years. He was also a cofounder of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), in 1880. Two years later he provided this expositive discussion, with shaded cutaway drawings, comparing the vertical overshot water wheel with the turbine. Figures E1 and E2 offer a striking visual contrast, particularly with regard to the efficient space utilization resulting from such a changeover:

[These figures] are intended to show the advantage of a turbine, for high falls, over an overshot wheel. The overshot shown is of 22 feet diameter by 3 feet face, to work under 24 feet head and fall. The bevel wheel B is 12 feet diameter; spur wheel D is 9 feet. The upright, running only 20 turns per minute, must be very heavy—in this case 8 inches in diameter. The shaft H must be at least 4 inches in For Here, There Once Were Mills 87

diameter. It will be seen that all of the parts are very heavy and that friction is necessarily very great, while the cost is excessive. The other cut shows an 11½- inch turbine, which will give more power than the 22-foot overshot. Instead of the 2-foot shaft of the overshot, or an iron shaft of 10 inches, there is simply a 1¾- inch wrought-iron shaft, while there is needed only a 10-inch iron pulley weighing 30 pounds, from which the belt runs directly to the buhrs.f Instead of the 4 to 8 inch shaft H, there is a light 1½-inch shaft. Instead of gearing up for the speed of the smutter,g by a spur wheel M, and the pinion N, and pulley, none of this gearing is required, as the wheel makes nearly 600 turns.341

Grimshaw also relates the advantageous power, cost, and operational aspects of turbines:

Vertical Wheels vs. Turbines.—A gentleman of ample experience remarks: “The first requisite in a good mill is good motive power, and among all hydraulic motors yet discovered none can compete with a good turbine, for the following leading reasons: The turbine is not affected by ice; it is not affected by back water, save the loss of power due to the loss of head; it is much cheaper in first cost; it is more cheaply and easily transported and erected; it is suited for all heads and all locations; and above all, it is more economical in the use of water, for its high velocity dispenses with the cumbrous double gearing which is absolutely necessary with under or over shot wheels, with which, as experience has abun- dantly proved, about one-third of the power of the water is expended in simply obtaining velocity, or overcoming the inertia of matter.” Turbine wheels require a less height of stone foundation than other wheels. The overshot wheel splashes about, and causes rot unless the wood work is quite high; but there are cases where it is not convenient to have the millstones above their splash level, as for instance where it is desirable or necessary to have the stone floor near the road level for teams.342

By way of illustration, he provides “head and fall” considerations for an overshot wheel as compared with an identically situated turbine:

Overshot vs. Turbine.— [Seen below as Figure E3, this] is intended to show why an overshot wheel will not always yield the full power of the water. It shows an overshot wheel and the flume of a turbine to do the same work, the head and fall in both cases being 18 feet (a fair average). Of this it is customary to allow 2 feet for head above the overshot, and 6 inches to prevent the wheel wading in tail water, limiting the diameter of the wheel to 15½ feet. As the wheel begins to empty at some distance above the level of the water in the tail race we may take off another foot of fall as lost, leaving 14½ feet, or only about 80 per cent, of the whole fall used. The turbine being at the bottom of the flume uses every inch of head and fall.343

f A buhr or buhrstone was made of “a tough, silicified limestone formerly used to make millstones. It is typified by the presence of multiple cavities that originally housed fossilized shells” (see Buhrstone, n.d.). g A “smutter” was a “smut mill,” as described on pp. 33-34 of this monograph. Grimshaw provides a more complete description in Ch. XIX, Grain Cleaning, pp. 254-278. For Here, There Once Were Mills 88

Figure E3. Head and fall considerations: overshot wheel versus turbine. Adapted from Figure 38, The Miller, Millwright and Millfurnisher: A Practical Treatise, by R. E. Grimshaw.344

Yet, to play devil’s advocate, in those days such a conversion would not necessarily have been optimal in every instance. According to Reynolds, the miller could have been faced with a difficult choice between an all-steel replacement water wheel and a [small] turbine:

As the superiority of the turbine over the vertical water wheel manifested itself in the mid-19th century, the vertical water wheel began a decline which was to render it all but obsolete by the twentieth century. The overshot wheel was the most tenacious of the vertical species. All-steel overshot wheels could be constructed with an efficiency approaching 90%, much superior to the small turbines they competed against. The efficiency of small turbines seldom exceeded 70 to 75%. Unlike turbines, the overshot wheel was able to run just as efficiently at quarter gate or half gate as at full gate. This gave it an advantage on small streams with highly variable volumes. The simple construction, ease of repair, reliability, and longevity of the iron or steel overshot wheel allowed it to remain competitive between heads of 10 and 40 feet and discharges of between 2 and 30 cubic feet per second.345 For Here, There Once Were Mills 89

To answer this question concerning Colburn’s particular choice, we turn to the evidence at hand; though sparse, it is sufficient to permit a definitive conclusion, based upon several complementary lines of investigation. These include (a) inspecting land and stone features between the lower pond control gate’s position and that of the wheel pit; (b) parsing written descriptions provided in 1962 by Arthur H. Parker, a technologically literate observer 346 familiar with the site; and (c) identifying relevant physical artifacts to assess their functional role. Presently strewn with large stones, a straight well-defined corridor traverses a downward slope of about 30 degrees from the berm’s gate notch toward the northeast (rear) corner of the mill’s foundation. From there an angled elbow, bending toward the right, would have led to the wheel pit. This ground-proofing observation matches Parker’s description (p. 84): “The old wooden penstock sloped sharply from the pond to the . . . wheel in the casing. . . . it [a previously coasted obstructive barrel] was too big to make the corner.” That steep penstock slope is characteristic of an enclosed (watertight) turbine feed line. By contrast, an open sluice following a similar course to the top of a typically larger-sized water wheel, whether wooden like that first installed by Hodgkins, or its potentially iron or steel successor, would have exhibited a much smaller elevation drop requiring a correspondingly flatter (and unremarkable) slope of descent. More subtly, existing physical remains of the shallow wheel pit, in contrast to a deeper pit with higher shaft support bearing blocks for a significantly larger water wheel, are further indicative of structural reconfiguration for support of a much smaller turbine at near-grade level. Parker’s use of the term penstock is instructive. The words sluice and penstock may appear to be equivalent, but a finely nuanced difference exists for hydraulic power applications. While the former generally implies the sense of a trough – an uncovered or open channel – the latter indicates a sealed pipe, conduit, or duct, as shown in Figure E2, capable of transmitting fluid at pressures greatly different from external ambient conditions.347 Upon conversion from water wheel to turbine, a mill’s original sluice would have been either modified (enclosed), or replaced by a penstock, to facilitate watertight delivery of full pressure head to the turbine casing. Parker’s description of its interior clearly fits that of a cylindrical tube: “The slimy penstock was possibly three feet in its inside diameter, possibly two and a half.” Had the chute been an open trough, the boys would surely have seen the obstruction and removed it beforehand. He also alludes to the difficulty of extricating his hapless cousin from the dark confinement of that secluded space: “. . . will they ever be able, or think it worthwhile to bring him to light again?” Importantly, the terms water wheelcasting (p. 76) and wheel in the casing (p. 84), perhaps obscure to the modern layperson, were technically and historically consistent with (and in fact specific to) turbine component descriptions of the era,348 as opposed to those of traditional water wheels (either wooden or all-metal). Finally, consider the artifacts shown in figure E4. The hoop-lock and its associated elements constituted one of several such assemblies that wrapped the penstock: circumferential bands or rings spaced at intervals along its length, snugly tightened against its outer face. Their purpose was to prevent undue leakage and ensure feeding reservoir water under head pressure to the turbine, a function vital to its efficient operation. Long since abandoned, and now held fast by heavy tumbled stones, these last remaining hardware relics provide decisive physical clues. Taken together with topographical and written descriptive evidence, these artifacts thus confirm that Colburn (or “the proprietor[s]”) did indeed install a water turbine at the mill. For Here, There Once Were Mills 90

Figure E4. One of the last known hardware remnants at Stanley-Colburn mill site: an iron hoop-lock connecting threaded ends of a hoop-rod. This circumferential hooping wrapped the penstock to hold its fitted (kerfed) and tarred wooden staves in place against the force of internal water pressure. The square end nuts could be adjusted as needed, to prevent bulging or leakage. The penstock led from the control gate, located at the lower pond berm’s notch, down to the mill’s turbine. This rectangular artifact measures 6½” long x 3¼” high x 2½” deep at ends, 2¼” deep at center (inner face curved to fit cylindrical surface of penstock); wall thicknesses ½” at ends and ⅜” upper and lower; hoop-rod ¾” diameter; square nuts 1⅝” x ½” thick. Personal photograph by author, April 3, 2012. A similar nine-foot length of ¾” curved iron rod, with associated hexagonal end nuts and 3”-diameter beveled washers, has been recovered from the site and placed with the Troy Historical Society. For Here, There Once Were Mills 91 77

Appendix F: Demise of the Small American Country Watermill

While conclusive reasons can only be inferred, Colburn chose not to rebuild his mill, despite initial declarations to the contrary. Seven years later, Edwin and Nora Flagg abandoned operation of their “mill down the hill.” In making these individual decisions, our proprietors may not have recognized the Second Industrial Revolution as a primary causative factor. Nor, on a far-reaching scale, did thousands of other millers caught in similarly distressing circumstances. Even so, the passing of these two facilities clearly falls under the broad rubric of demise of the small American country watermill, a sweeping transition shaped by disruptive effects of technology, economics, and time – interrelated aspects of a pervasive theme benignly termed progress. We discern something deeper: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new.” 349

Technology

Their age-old dominance of stationary power generation notwithstanding, small country watermills were subject to inherent physical/technological limitations and deficiencies: 350

 Geographical inflexibility: fixed locations & travel distances;  Natural restriction of capacity: quantitative site-specific physical resource limits;  Irregularity & unreliability: uniform flow conditions disrupted by flooding, drought, icing;  Competition for water usage: nearby mills and factories; navigation; regulatory ecosystem concerns, fish migration; recreation; diversion for canals, irrigation, municipal water supply;  Growing industrial demand exceeded capacity: accelerated from the Civil War onward.

Like the legendary John Henry, small-scale waterpower would come to be superseded (killed?) by steam power, in conjunction with railroads (burning wood, then coal) – and, carrying into modern times, electricity.

Steam power.

Revolutionary advances in steam power provided mobility and independence from the geographical limitations and vagaries of streamflow. Steam power could be generated virtually anywhere (with abundant coal delivery at affordable rates) in sufficient quantity to meet rapidly growing industrial demand, thereby supplanting waterpower. And, it made the railroad happen.

The use of steam power took a sharp upward surge in America in the 1850s. Within thirty years of the Steam Engine Report of 1838, stationary steam power moved from the fringes to the center of the industrial scene. Within another thirty years, by 1900, steam power had reduced direct-drive waterpower to a minor and steadily declining part in American manufacturing, persisting chiefly in the small- scale, traditional mill industries. Before 1860 steam power had been identified chiefly with transportation, and it was through steam navigation and railways that it helped effect the conversion of a pioneer subsistence economy to one in which regional specialization and commercial interchange were the dynamic elements. Beginning in the 1850s, however, steam power became a central factor in the industrialization of the American economy in what was in effect a sequel to the transportation revolution of the preceding decades.351 For Here, There Once Were Mills 92

Railroads.

Infrastructural evolution, with better roads and new turnpikes, towpath canals (in regions south and west of Cheshire County), and (especially) railroads, obviated the need for countless smaller mills located near their suppliers and customers. These advances enabled large central- ized manufacturers to easily obtain raw materials from, and speedily and reliably ship products to, formerly remote locations at increasingly greater distances. Steam engines, operable wherever coal could be cheaply and efficiently delivered, served most visibly as the fabled “iron horses” of railroad traction. As the price of American coal plummeted against that of wood, its production soared, essentially doubling each decade between 1850 and 1900.352 Even smaller regional lines such as the Cheshire Railroad were driven by financial considerations to convert. From 1884:

The Cheshire freight locomotives have lately been changed from wood to coal burners. The low price at which an excellent quality of coal is obtained will result in materially lowering the fuel expense of the road.353

Convenience, efficiency, and growth became bywords of the day. The railroad’s arrival overcame small mills’ long-entrenched local geographic advantages. Too, in a broader context, it opened communication corridors for telegraph lines and boosted existing settlements and their businesses, while seeding new ones. Towns vied for selection as budding rail lines were routed and built, becoming the dominant mode of overland travel. As with the layout and construction of our modern Interstate Highway System, those bypassed often shriveled up and/or disappeared.

Electricity.

From Reynolds:

While the cost and other advantages of the water turbine had made the vertical water wheel a second class prime mover by the late nineteenth century, what finally rendered even high efficiency overshot and breast wheels obsolete was the emergence of electrical power generation and transmission [emphasis added] between 1880 and 1900. In electric generators high rotational velocity is critical to cost, efficiency, and output. The turbine was able to develop high shaft speeds with high efficiency. The vertical wheel could not without elaborate, costly, and inefficient gearing or belting. And as the use of electricity spread and electric motors became available, the last remaining footholds of the vertical water wheel – pumping plants, small industries, mines – were lost.354

From Hunter and Bryant:

The power carried in these electrical networks was still waterpower and steam power. In this country it was – and still is – about one-third waterpower and two- thirds steam power. (The fuel may change from wood to coal to oil to uranium, but the working fluid usually remains steam.) The waterpower has come mostly from very large hydroelectric plants, ten or a hundred times the size of the typical water mill described in the first volume, and almost all the steam power has come through the steam turbine, successor to the classic steam engine of the second volume.355 For Here, There Once Were Mills 93

Economics

Early rural American watermills came into being to fulfill vital needs that could not be met competitively by other means, within an environment of scarce energy and transportation resources. As to the latter, delivery of goods to (and from) remote, newly settled communities was impeded (thus kept expensive and unreliable) by difficulty of travel over challenging terrain, typically worsened by unsparing seasonal weather conditions. So much so that the cost to transport heavy, bulky goods by land could rival that of long-distance transoceanic shipping, whence came that well-worn New England catch phrase, often accented:“You can’t get there from here!” Thus, early distant suppliers could not match the price and availability of products and services offered by local millers. As long as nearby residents remained willing and able to meet the miller’s terms, with no ready competitive alternative, he could survive and potentially thrive. By taking a custom toll on ground grain, he further disadvantaged faraway cash-only providers. Yet, long-lasting stability would prove elusive, as turbulent economic conditions upset lives and businesses alike – notably, operating enterprises such as watermills. Financial crises, aptly called panics, and their consequent deflationary depressions repeatedly inflicted harshly distressing conditions, with episodes recurring about every 20 years, in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893. Even the habitual advantages of custom toll or barter trade could be overwhelmed and reversed in hard times, bringing the vulnerable miller an ever-growing surplus of what he already had in abundance (grist, lumber, finished woodenware) and not enough of what he – and everyone else – most needed: cash money in hand. Such stringencies were exemplified by Cyrus Thompson’s 15,000 white-elephant mop handles, given up as collateral during the Panic of 1857. Treating both innovation through technological advances (together with more efficient business models), and the transient downside of economic cycles, economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the term creative destruction to describe this darker face of progress. Caught on the wrong side of history, the beleaguered small country miller saw his margins being squeezed by:

 Rising local cost of raw materials: As seen by the miller, formerly stable input prices increased due to demand pressure from distant manufacturers served by improved transportation infrastructure; even as delivery costs between cities fell, his basic material costs rose.  Competing energy costs: Small-scale production came to be undercut by large producers’ utilization of steam power, economies of scale; later displaced by electric grid penetration.  Cost of maintaining aging, deteriorating, damaged physical plant and equipment: Older, smaller rural facilities bore higher unit costs of continuing maintenance, including repairs (or equivalent replacement), upgrade substitution, and never-ending competitive modernization.  Falling market prices: Competing efficiently, distant industrial producers undercut prices of finished goods (woodenware) and products of services (flour, animal feed) traditionally offered by small country mills; these, in turn, repositioned their product mix away from purely local retail trade toward supplying larger manufacturers, but were broadly driven to close.  Increasing population and encroaching development: Evolving socioeconomic growth altered water, land and facility usage and values; shifting demographic and political trends brought legislative and administrative public policy changes, increased tax and regulatory burdens; newly favored competing water users, such as large regulated hydroelectric power producers, could seize mill privileges (with “compensatory provision”) by eminent domain.  Resultant diminished customer base: Held mainly by noneconomic nostalgic ties, fewer loyal customers remained; small mills were redirected toward education, novelty or display. For Here, There Once Were Mills 94

In the end, each of these factors would help destroy the miller’s once-dependable “old economy.” Bottom line: In the real world of business, the bottom line is king. From Reynolds:

All that remained by the 1920s and 1930s were a few very small-scale grist mills operated, often, by conservative millers whose affection for the old prime mover outweighed considerations of economy and efficiency. Thus, by the mid-twentieth century the vertical water wheel, once the mightiest industrial prime mover available to the Western world, was a curiosity, operating more often for display than for production.356

Time

Hunter cites the poignant lament of a respected veteran hydraulic expert near the turn of the 20th century:

All through the United States . . . may be seen relics of old mills . . . located upon streams of little capacity except during the spring of the year or during heavy rains. These were very useful in early times, but now almost every want is supplied by large manufacturers at a lower price than raw material would cost at these isolated places, hence few of them continue in operation, and such as do bear the marks of a lingering old age going to seed.357

Together with advancing technology and evolving economic conditions, societal trends (e.g., generational attitude shifts) served collectively to “paint the canvas of history" during the heyday of America’s small watermills. Time acts as well in a different context, regarding the dynamics of mechanical systems: these tend to run down and cease to function unless work is performed (or energy added) from outside. Like biological creatures, watermills function, in the description of chemistry Nobelist Ilya Prigogine, as “dissipative structures that can exist as long as [they are provided] a continual flow of energy or matter through the system.” 358 For an engineer, chemist, or physicist, these phenomena are manifestations of the second law of thermodynamics. Over sufficient time horizons, mechanical systems – without exception – fall into increasing disorder and disrepair. Despite endless attempts to disprove this intuitive observation,359 no one (not even the inventive genius of Figure F1) has yet succeeded in actually doing so: “Never try to fight thermodynamics; thermodynamics always wins.” 360 Here, we simply enlist time as a crucial factor in the demise of the small American country watermill. Indeed, in time, “things fall apart.” 361 Its ravages lie starkly revealed when one inspects the physical remains of a former mill site (see Figure 13, p. 29). Day in and day out, working mills aged physically and, by the unforgiving calendar, grew old. Many once-supportive communities shrank or disappeared altogether. Beyond the hand of man, landscapes were altered by storms, erosion and silting, beaver dams, avalanches; old streams dried up. Mill components wore out in the course of operation, suffering cumulative impairment in myriad ways, leading to increasingly vexing malfunctions and shutdowns. These demanded and received heightened attention and correction, but only for as long as someone found it worthwhile to persist. Most decisively, as at Perkins Pond Brook, such catastrophic events as fires and floods struck, bringing immediate closure and permanent abandonment; but sudden death or slow, the unrelenting tide of time would prove unstoppable. Too, let us not neglect the effects of time on mill people themselves – owners, workers, and families, who had acquired and internalized lifetimes of hands-on experience basic to staying For Here, There Once Were Mills 95

Figure F1. Norman Rockwell’s Perpetual Motion (magazine cover). Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 97, No. 4 (October 1920), Bonnier Corp., New York. Adapted from http://www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/27_Popular_Modern- Realism/Rockwell/Rockwell.htm on in their chosen (and familiar) pursuit. Depletion of their numbers was characterized by attrition, in the definitional sense of “a gradual, natural reduction in membership or personnel, as through retirement, resignation, or death.” With a nod to mills’ inherently hazardous working environments, we might fittingly add injury and debilitation. Over time, practitioners aged and passed on, taking with them a strong work ethic of diligence, mastery, and responsibility, having earned community trust and respect; once lost, they would ultimately prove to be irreplaceable. As successive generations migrated westward in increasing numbers, seeking new opportunities, all too often no local successor could be found to step forward to pick up the reins and continue – be it investors, surviving partners, employees, or descendants. Amidst a spread- ing dearth of willing, qualified, and experienced managers and hired hands, there came a point when, upon undergoing protracted outages intended and assumed as “temporary,” progressively more small mills remained shuttered, a condition from which they would not recover. Buildings were vacated, left to deteriorate and eventually collapse, in tandem with their owners’ good hopes and fading resolve. Reusable critical components were, in large part, lost to scavengers. Looking back to favorite scenes from those times, we find retrospective images of contemporary life heavily distorted – airbrushed over, tailored to arouse emotional sensitivities, art- fully adapted to attend commercially popular themes. Smaller, older mills offered a particularly attractive setting. The romantic appeal of an overshot wooden water wheel and its gaily splash- For Here, There Once Were Mills 96 ing pond gained iconic status, providing the quintessential backdrop for young lovers posed in silky soft summer quietude. Such idyllic calls to “those halcyon days of yore” are epitomized by the original sheet music cover of Tell Taylor’s immortal sentimental classic, Down by the Old Mill Stream (Figure F2). First published more than a century ago, it has sold millions of copies through the years, and is still favored as a staple of the traditional barbershop genre. 362

Figure F2. Original sheet music cover: Down by the Old Mill Stream (1910). Adapted from https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/8464/151.162.000.webimage.JPEG?s equence=9

In the inevitable fullness of time, untold multitudes of small American country watermills – abandoned to scavengers, vandals, and the forces of Nature – would vanish. Those remaining dwindled down to a few quaint relics – for the most part, functional showpieces repurposed into museums, shops, inns, restaurants. Some yet retain a serene rural ambiance; but all sit far removed from their once-vital roles as sawers of wood and grinders of grain for pioneering settlers staking out new lives in virgin lands. Regrettably, the central importance of the small American country watermill has long ago been pushed aside, relegated to a bygone era, and almost flip- pantly replaced with stylized imagery, never to recapture the soul of its former true glory.

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain…”

——— Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, in Blade Runner.363 For Here, There Once Were Mills 97

Index of Names

Baker, Abel ...... 38, 43, 44, 50, 118n166 Hodgkins, Augustus ...... 38, 54 Bemis, Edmund ...... 25, 44 Hodgkins, Christopher ...... 31 Bemis, Edmund, II (grandson) ...... 38, 44, 46 Hodgkins, Hezekiah ...... 15-25, 27, 35, 89 Bigelow, Benjamin ...... 6 Hodgkins, Pelatiah ...... 24, 38, 44 Blake, Amos J...... 9, 53 Jackson, Andrew ...... 32 Bolster, Aaron ...... 44, 54, 60 Jackson, William & Harriet (Haskell) ...... 42 Brigham, Alpheus & Lydia ...... 75-76 Lawrence, John ...... 35, 38, 41 Buttrick, Edwin ...... 45 Leighton, Byron D...... 60 Caverly, Dr. Abiel M...... 43 Marshall, Benjamin F...... 57 Chapman, Luther...... 43 McNeil, William H...... 60, 61, 78-80 Colburn, Addie I...... 61, 63, 68 Minot, Mirriam ...... 24 Colburn, Cora ...... 50, 51, 60, 61, 68, 77, 78 Murdock, Elisha ...... 31 Colburn, Emma ...... 49, 60, 64, 68 Oakes, (Frederick) Warren ...... 51 Colburn, Frances (Sawyer) ...... 49, 50, 54, 60, 68 Olsen, Iver & Dorothy ...... iii, 10 Colburn, George S...... 2, 43, 46-69, Parker, Arthur H...... 1, 2, 38, 71, 84-85, 89 76-79, 81, 86, 89, 91 Parkhurst, Luke ...... 35, 42 Colburn, Susan (Stone) ...... 47, 49, 68 Perkins, Moses ...... 25, 26, 33, 75 Crosby, Alpheus ...... 43, 46 Perkins, Moses S...... 26, 39, 44 Cutting, Daniel, Jr...... 41-42 Perkins, Robinson ...... 25, 33, 75 Cutting Sisters ...... 37, 42 Priest Family ...... 35 Dickenson, Dea. Joseph ...... 47, 48 Proctor, John B...... 58-59 Fassett, Henry J...... 65, 77 Putnam, Gen. Israel ...... 25, 26 Fassett, Joseph W...... 44, 77 Putnam, William ...... 26, 35, 51 Faulkner, Francis A...... 58-59, 61, 68, 79 Ries, Kernell G., III ...... 18 Felt, John ...... 41-42, 59, 75 Roberts, Richard ...... 14-15 Fife, Silas ...... 13, 39 Rugg, Josiah N...... 57, 60, 62, 79-81 Flagg, Edwin & Nora (Fox) ...... 45, 69-70, 88 Sawyer Brothers ...... 49, 52, 55 Flagg, John ...... 38, 44, 45, 46 Sawyer, Joseph ...... 49, 50, 68 Flint, Ozro C...... 63, 65, 68 Stanley Brothers ...... 34, 36-47, 51, 75 Flood Family ...... 35 Stanley, Abner ...... 36-38, 41, 44, 45 Foster, Edward ...... 43, 46, 47, 74 Stanley, Alva ...... 36-37, 44, 45 Foster, Jedediah...... 35, 43, 47, 75-76, 79 Stanley, James R...... 36-37, 42-46, 54, 60, 75 Foster, Linda (Demary) ...... 43, 47, 75 Stone, David, Jemima, & Phineas ...... 49 Foster, Lydia (Brigham) ...... 75-76 Swett, Asa ...... 57-59 Fox, Benjamin & Hannah ...... 44-46, 53, 54, 69 Thompson, Cyrus H. & Eliza Ann Fox, Dr. John...... 46 (Haskell) ...... 42-45, 79, 93 Fourneyron, Benoît ...... 30 Thoreau, H. D...... viii, 16, 40, 44, 118n166 Francis, James B...... 30 Tolman, Thomas ...... 6, 13 Frost, Joseph ...... 14-15, 18, 24, 25, 35 Wakefield, Cyrus ...... 48-58, 68 Gary, Jonas ...... 25, 37 Wakefield, Eliza and Hannah ...... 50, 59 Gilmore, David H...... 27, 32-35, 39, 43, 75 Warren, Oliver ...... 37, 75-76 Goodenough, Daniel ...... 13-14, 36 Wentworth, Ralph ...... 2 Hall, Bob & Judy ...... 2, 50, 85 Wheeler, Stephen ...... 32-35, 36, 39, 76 Harrington Family ...... 13, 122n317 Whitcomb, Jim ...... 2, 10, 77, 84-85, 89 Haskell, Joseph ...... 34, 35, 39, 42-47 Whitcomb, Oliver & Ellen ...... 2, 50, 84 Haskins, Alfred...... 60 Whitney, Baxter D...... 31 Heywood, Levi ...... 49, 55, 64, 68 Whitney, Dr. Charles W...... 26-27 Heywood, Walter ...... 26, 49-50, 52, 55, 66, 68 Williams, John ...... 26 Hodgkins, Aaron & Rhoda ...... 25-27, 31, 33 For Here, There Once Were Mills 98

References Adams, J. (1844). Extension of the Fitchburg Rail-way. Keene, N.H.: H.A. Bill, Printer. Re- trieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=0icxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_selected_p ages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false Adams, J. L. (2009a). Something that didn’t happen – in 1886. Troy Town News, 17(5), 16. Adams, J. L. (2009b). Collateral? Howza bout ... 15,000 mop handles? Troy Town News, 17(10), 10. Retrieved from http://www.troytownnews.com/content/collateral-howza- bout%E2%80%A6-15000-mop-handles Adams, J. L. (2010). Let there be light: 100 years ago in Troy. Troy Town News, 18(10), 10. Adams, J. L. (2012). The grand squabble of 1856: A case of “common” law. Troy Town News, 20(5), 13. Annett, A., & Lehtinen, A. E. E. (1934a). History of Jaffrey, New Hampshire: Vol. I. Narrative. Jaffrey, NH: Town of Jaffrey. Annett, A., & Lehtinen, A. E. E. (1934b). History of Jaffrey, New Hampshire: Vol. II. Genealo- gies. Jaffrey, NH: Town of Jaffrey. Attrition. (n.d.). In The Free Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/attrition Bailey, E. (1879). Fitchburg. In A. P. Marvin (Ed.), History of Worcester County Massachusetts (pp. 444-504). Boston: C. F. Jewett & Co. Retrieved from http://archive.org/details/historyofworcest01marv Baker v. Haskell, 47 N.H. 479 (Cheshire, 1867). In Hadley, A., Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of New Hampshire (Vol. XLVII, 1869, pp. 479-482). Concord, NH: B. W. Sanborn & Co. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=E9YaAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs _ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Bassett, W. (1884). History of the Town of Richmond, Cheshire County, New Hampshire. Bos- ton: C. W. Calkins. Bates, M. J. (2001, Summer). The mill on the Bark. Wisconsin Magazine of History, 84(4), 34- 47. Retrieved from http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wmh/pdf/summer01_bates.pdf Bemis, C. A. (1881). History of the Town of Marlborough. Boston: Press of Geo. A. Ellis. Bennett, R., & Elton, J. (1899). Section I. Watermills. In History of corn milling: Vol. II. Watermills and Windmills. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/details/historyofcornmil02bennuoft Brandon, C. (2007). Monadnock: More than a mountain. Keene, NH: Surry Cottage Books. Breed, D. P. (1982). Gender and Legal History Paper Summary: Conflicts of Interest: The Evolution of Married Women's Property Rights in Nineteenth Century New Hampshire. For Here, There Once Were Mills 99

Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved from http://www.law.georgetown.edu/library/collections/gender-legal-history/glh- summary.cfm?glhID=9AEED347-C0F6-9E16-0BEA2B836166F31A Brigham, W. I. T. (1907). The history of the Brigham Family: A record of several thousand descendants of Thomas Brigham the emigrant, 1603-1653. New York: The Grafton Press. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/historyofbrigham01brig Brookmire Economic Service. (1918). Economic Trends of War and Reconstruction, 1860-1870. New York: Brookmire Economic Service, Inc. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=BkgoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA15&source=gbs_selected_ pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false Brown, Azby. (2010, March 29). Bent by the Sun. In AIGA (formerly American Institute of Graphic Arts), Design Observer: Essays. Retrieved from https://designobserver.com/feature/bent-by-the-sun/12958 Buhrstone. (n.d.). In The Free Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/buhrstone Callenbach, E. (2012, August 22). Posthumous essay. In M. Berman, Ernest Callenbach (1929- 2012). Retrieved from http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/ Carter, A. (1883). Sawyers in America: A history of the immigrant Sawyers. Worcester: Press of Edward R. Fiske. Retrieved from https://ia802704.us.archive.org/30/items/sawyersinamerica00cart/sawyersinamerica00car t.pdf Caswell, L. B. (1917). The history of the Town of Royalston Massachusetts. Royalston, MA: Town of Royalston. Retrieved from https://ia802606.us.archive.org/17/items/historyoftownofr00caswuoft/historyoftownofr00 caswuoft.pdf Caverly, A. M. (1859). An historical sketch of Troy. Keene: N. H. Sentinel Office. Chandler, C. H. (1914). The history of New Ipswich, New Hampshire: 1735-1914. Fitchburg, MA: Sentinel Printing Co. Chase, H. (1969). Short history of Mill Hollow: The early industrial center of East Alstead, New Hampshire, 1753-1968. Springfield, VT: Edmund & Mary Hurd Printers. Cheshire County Registry of Deeds (CCRD). Keene, NH. http://www.co.cheshire.nh.us/Deeds/ Warranty deed: Daniel Goodenow [sic] to Richard Roberts, 23 December 1777 (filed 31 December 1792), Book 20, page 365. Warranty deed: Richard Roberts to Joseph Frost, 7 March 1794 (filed 21 September 1801), Book 38, page 51. Warranty deed: Joseph Frost to Hezekiah Hodgkins, 6 September 1802 (filed 30 January 1810), Book 54, page 457b. For Here, There Once Were Mills 100

Warranty deed: Alpheus Brigham to Jedediah Foster, 30 September 1807a (filed 23 No- vember 1808), Book 54, page 155. Mortgage deed: Jedediah Foster to Alpheus Brigham, 1 October 1807b (filed 3 February 1809), Book 56, page 76. Warranty deed: Hezekiah Hodgkins to Edmond [sic] Bemis, 1 December 1807c (filed 4 February 1810), Book 57, page 505. Warranty deed: Jonas Gary to Moses Perkins, 31 March 1814 (filed 20 June 1822), Book 92, page 26. Warranty deed: Robinson Perkins to Thomas Howe and Jedediah Foster, 16 September 1816 (filed 17 September 1816), Book 82, page 125. Warranty deed: Jedediah Foster to Robinson Perkins, 3 February 1819 (filed 28 April 1821), Book 87, page 404. Warranty deed: Moses Perkins to Aaron Hodgkins, 7 April 1825a (filed 29 April 1825), Book 94, page 415. Mortgage deed: Estate of Alpheus Brigham [by Jedediah Foster, Executor and Adminis- trator] to David H. Gillmore [sic], 18 October 1825b (filed 28 October 1825), Book 100, page 134. Mortgage deed: Jedediah Foster to Edward Spaulding, 4 November 1825c (filed 9 No- vember 1825), Book 100, page 160. Mortgage deed: Jedediah Foster to Edward Spaulding, 7 June 1826 (filed 10 June 1826), Book 104, page 74. Mortgage deed: Jedediah Foster to Elias Page, 12 January 1828 (filed 5 February 1828), Book 108, page 160. Warranty deed: Moses Perkins & Moses S. Perkins to John Williams, 23 June 23 1829 (filed 8 October 1829), Book 109, page 379. Mortgage deed: Aaron Hodgkins to Charles W. Whitney, 14 March 1831a (filed 15 March 1831), Book 113, page 435. Warranty deed: John Williams to Aaron Hodgkins, 30 August 1831b (filed 31 August 1831), Book 115, page 212. Warranty deed: Jacob Osburn to Luke Parkhurst, 2 April 1832a (filed 11 May 1833), Book 120, page 109. Warranty deed: Aaron Hodgkins to John Williams, 11 August 1832b (filed 13 August 1832), Book 116, page 407. Mortgage deed: Aaron Hodgkins to Charles W. Whitney, 1 April 1834a (filed 8 May 1834), Book 123 page 71. Warranty deed: Luke Parkhurst to Josiah Parkhurst, 3 May 3 1834b (filed 23 May 1834), Book 123, page 116. For Here, There Once Were Mills 101

Mortgage deed: Jedediah Foster to John Felt, 6 September 1834c (filed 8 September 1834), Book 123, page 435. Mortgage deed: Jedediah Foster to Oliver Warren, 25 March 1835a (filed 28 March 1835), Book 124, page 478. Warranty deed: John Williams to William Putnam, 16 October 1835b (filed 31 December 1835), Book 125, page 480. Warranty deed: Aaron Hodgkins to David H. Gilmore, 1 December 1835c (filed 14 De- cember 1835), Book 127, page 229. Warranty deed: Oliver Warren to David Spaulding, 4 April 1836 (filed 5 April 1836), Book 127, page 569. Mortgage deed: David H. Gillmore [sic] to Stephen Wheeler, 7 March 1837a (filed 10 March 1837), Book 132, page 63. Warranty deed: Aaron Bolster to James R. Stanley, 3 April 1837b (filed 15 April 1837), Book 132, page 307. Warranty deed: William Putnam to Henry Priest, 13 May 1837c (filed 10 February 1841), Book 140, page 447. Mortgage deed: David H. Gillmore [sic] to Moses Perkins, 26 June 1837d (filed 30 June 1837), Book 132, page 635. Quitclaim deed: Jedediah Foster to Stephen Wheeler, 7 February 1839a (filed 15 Febru- ary 1839), Book 137, page 19. Warranty deed: Jedediah Foster to Stephen Wheeler [attached by Esekiel White, Deputy Sheriff], 8 February 1839b (filed 8 February 1839), Book 137, page 7. Warranty deed: Elias Page to Jonathan Page; mortgage deed: Jonathan Page to Elias Page, 7 March 1839c (filed 13 March 1839), Book 136, pages 559-560. Warranty deed: David H. Gillmore [sic] to Alva Stanley, 22 March 1839d (filed 12 June 1839), Book 138, page 402. Warranty deed: David H. Gillmore [sic] to Stephen Wheeler, 1 April 1839e (filed 9 April 1839), Book 138, page 159. Warranty deed: Stephen Wheeler to John Lawrence & Joseph Haskell, 20 May 1839f (filed 22 February 1842), Book 145, page 256. Warranty deed: Henry H. Priest to Joseph Haskell, 6 February 1841a (filed 10 February 1841), Book 140, page 449. Warranty deed: Joseph Haskell to Silas & Franklin Priest; mortgage deed: Silas & Frank- lin Priest to Joseph Haskell, 9 February 1841b (filed 10 February 1841), Book 140, pages 450-451. Warranty deed: Charles A. Jewell to James R. Stanley, 15 December 1841c (filed 5 January 1842), Book 145, page 89. For Here, There Once Were Mills 102

Warranty deed: John Lawrence & Joseph Haskell to Jedediah Foster; mortgage deed: Jedediah Foster to John Lawrence & Joseph Haskell, 5 February 1842a (filed 22 February 1842), Book 145, pages 257-258. Warranty deed: Stephen Wheeler to James R. Stanley & Abner Stanley, 1 April 1842b (filed 5 April 1842), Book 145, page 501. Warranty deed: Jedediah Foster to Luther Chapman [attached by Brown Nurse, Deputy Sheriff], 24 December 1842c (filed 10 March 1849), Book 161, page 557. Warranty deed: Franklin Priest to Silas Priest, 21 August 1843a (filed 29 August 1843), Book 149, page 24. Warranty deed: Silas Priest to Luke Parkhurst, 12 October 1843b (filed 24 May 1844), Book 151, page 215. Warranty deed: Luther Chapman to Alpheus Crosby, 23 December 1843c (filed 10 March 1849), Book 161, page 558. Warranty deed: Luke Parkhurst to Cyrus H. Thompson, 6 April 1846a (filed 8 April 1846), Book 156, page 289. Warranty deed: Stephen Wheeler to Luke Parkhurst, 9 April 1846b (filed 8 June 1850), Book 168, page 317. Quitclaim deed: Joseph Haskell to James R. Stanley & Abner Stanley, 5 September 1849a (filed 6 September 1849), Book 164, page 247. Execution deed: Cyrus Merrifield to Luther Chapman, Judgment rendered 22 September 1849b (filed 8 May 1852), Book 173, page 5. Warranty deed: Moses S. Perkins to Abner Stanley, 20 August 1852 (filed 1 September 1852), Book 174, page 429. Warranty deed: Alpheus Crosby to Edward S. Foster, 13 October 1854 (filed 27 June 1856), Book 188, page 8. Mortgage deed: Edward S. Foster to Elijah Bowker, 26 June 1856 (filed 27 June 1856), Book 188, page 9. Mortgage deed: Cyrus H. Thompson to Joseph Haskell, 13 July 1857 (filed 14 July 1857), Book 191, page 157. Warranty deed: Abel Baker to Lindy [sic] D. Foster, 19 July 1860 (filed 22 August 1860), Book 201, page 233. Mortgage deed: James R. Stanley to John Fox, 4 June 1864a (filed 1 July 1864), Book 211, page 342. Warranty deed: Augustus Hodgkins to Thomas Upton, 18 August 1864b (filed 28 September 1864), Book 211, page 552. Warranty deed: Abel Baker to Walter Heywood Chair Company, 5 April 1865 (filed 14 April 1865), Book 214, page 63. For Here, There Once Were Mills 103

Mortgage deed: George S. Colburn to Walter Heywood, 11 April 1866a (filed 13 April 1866), Book 217, page 258. Warranty deed: Walter Heywood Chair Co. to George S. Colburn, 11 April 1866b (filed 18 April 1867), Book 220, page 575. Warranty deed: Thomas Upton to Edmund Bemis, 12 April 1866c (filed 19 November 1866), Book 219, page 159. Warranty deed: Heirs of Joseph Haskell to Stephen B. Farrar, 13 July 1866d (filed 7 February 1867), Book 220, page 417. Warranty deed: George S. Colburn to Leonard Osborn, 17 April 1867 (filed 20 May 1867), Book 223, page 31. Warranty deed: Leonard Osborn to Ellen Whitcomb, 9 January 1868a (filed 29 January 1868), Book 223, page 461. [Original document retrieved from NH State Archives, Concord, NH.] Warranty deed: Joel Oakes to George S. Colburn, 15 June 1868b (filed 17 October 1868), Book 225, page 547. Warranty deed: Linda D. Foster to George S. Colburn, 31 August 1868c (filed 31 August 1868), Book 225, page 308. Warranty deed: Edward S. Foster to George S. Colburn, 31 August 1868d (filed 31 August 1868), Book 225, page 309. Warranty deed: James R. Stanley to George S. Colburn, 6 November 1868e (filed 25 November 1868), Book 227, page 106. Mortgage deed: George S. Colburn to Cyrus Wakefield, 25 January 1869 (filed 25 January 1869), Book 227, page 270. Probate bond: George S. Colburn to Edward P. Kimball & Leonard Farrar [Administra- tors, estate of Daniel M. Farrar], 5 November 1870 (filed 7 November 1870), Book 234, page 276. Warranty deed: Augustus M. Smith to George S. Colburn; mortgage deed: George S. Colburn to Monadnock Savings Bank, 22 July 1871 (filed 31 July 1871), Book 237, pages 146-147. Warranty deed: George S. Colburn to Antoine J. LeRock; mortgage deeds (2): Antoine J. LeRock to Monadnock Savings Bank; Antoine J. LeRock to George S. Colburn, 28 March 1874a (filed 31 March 1874), Book 246, pages 310-312. Warranty deed: George S. Colburn to Benjamin F. Marshall, 2 November 1874b (filed 26 January 1875), Book 250, page 382. Warranty deed: Benjamin F. Fox to Edwin A. Flagg; covenant deed: Edwin A. Flagg to Benjamin F. Fox and Hannah S. Fox, 23 December 1874c (filed 30 December 1874), Book 250, pages 365-367. For Here, There Once Were Mills 104

Warranty deed: George S. Albee to Juan W. Swett, 28 January 1875b (filed 2 February 1875), Book 250, page 409. Warranty deed: Benjamin F. Marshall to Asa Swett, 8 February 1875b (filed 12 February 1875), Book 250, page 439. Warranty deed: Asa Swett to Benjamin F. Marshall, 9 February 1875c (filed 3 August 1875), Book 250, page 457. Execution deed: Asa Swett & George S. Colburn to Francis A. Faulkner [Administrator], Judgment rendered 19 October 1875; deed executed 9 February 1876 (filed 10 February 1876), Book 254, page 45. Quitclaim deed: Asa Swett to John B. Proctor, 16 February 1877 (filed 2 May 1878), Book 259, page 204. Warranty deed: Francis A. Faulkner [Administrator] to George S. Colburn; Probate Court authorized sale 3 August 1877; deed executed 2 May 1878 (filed 15 August 1878), Book 261, page 153. Warranty deed: Town of Jaffrey to George S. Colburn, 1 December 1881 (filed 14 March 1882), Book 270, page 486. Warranty deed: James R. Stanley to George S. Colburn, 27 March 1882a (filed 8 April 1882), Book 272, page 99. Warranty deed: Thomas L. Hazen to George S. Colburn, 11 April 1882b (filed 19 April 1882), Book 271, page 569. Quitclaim deed: John B. Proctor to George S. Colburn, 31 May 1882c (filed 14 June 1882), Book 273, page 132. Warranty deed: George S. Colburn to Josiah N. Rugg, 11 April 1883a (filed 23 April 1883), Book 276, page 53. Warranty deed: Josiah N. Rugg to William H. McNeil, 19 April 1883b (filed 21 June 1884), Book 279, page 308. Mortgage deed: Josiah N. Rugg to George S. Colburn, 20 May 1884a (filed 23 May 1884), Book 279, page 255. Quitclaim deed: William H. McNeil to George S. Colburn, 17 June 1884b (filed 21 June 1884), Book 279, page 310. Warranty deed: Cheshire County Superior Court [E. Farrar, Clerk] to George S. Colburn, Judgment rendered 19 November 1884c (filed 4 April 1885), Book 282, page 145. Warranty deed: Edmund Bemis to Emma J. Haskins, 13 May 1887 (filed 31 May 1887), Book 285, page 461. Warranty deeds (3): George S. Colburn to Nan A. DeCoster, 3 February 1898 (filed 5 February 1898), Book 315, pages 425a, 425b, 427. For Here, There Once Were Mills 105

Warranty deed: Nora F. Flagg to Jaffrey & Troy Electric Light Company, 17 April 1909 (filed 21 May 1909), Book 353, page 54. Cheshire County Roads & Sessions (CCRS) Records. Photocopies available at Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court, Cheshire County Courthouse, Keene, NH; original documents retrieved from NH State Archives, Concord, NH. Highway petition, Jaffrey & Troy (1827). Vol. I, pp. 317-320. Highway petition, Jaffrey & Troy (1848). Vol. II, pp. 422-425. Petition of Troy to discontinue a highway (1852). Vol. II, pp. 466-467. Petition of Troy to discontinue a highway (1875). Vol. III, pp. 246-248. Cheshire Republican. (1884, October 25). Retrieved from HSCC Library, Keene, NH. Cheshire Republican. (1886, March 19). Retrieved from HSCC Library, Keene, NH. See also 3/12 (first report, midnight); 3/26 (Colburn requested tax abatement); 4/16 (abatement granted); 4/30 (future plans). Child, H. (1884). Gazetteer and business directory of Windham County, Vt., 1724-1884. Syra- cuse, NY: The Journal Office. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=wWraIepDq4gC&pg=PA136- IA3&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q=o.%20c.%20flint&f=false Child, H. (1885). Gazetteer of Cheshire County, N. H. (1736-1885). Syracuse, NY: The Journal Office. Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/download/gazetteerofchesh00chil/gazetteerofchesh00chil_bw.pdf Chused, R. H. (1983). Married women's property law: 1800-1850. Georgetown Law Journal, 71, 1359-1425. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1279&context=fac_articles_c hapters Chused, R. H. (1986). Married Women's Property and Inheritance by Widows in Massachusetts: A Study of Wills Probated between 1800 and 1850. Berkeley Women’s Law Journal, 42- 88. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=bglj Colburn, G. S. (1858). U.S. Patent No. 19,110. Washington, DC. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/patents/US19110.pdf Colburn v. Rugg, 108 O. T. 1884, Cheshire County Superior Court (1884, October Term). Retrieved from NH State Archives, Concord, NH. Crane, E. B. (1907). Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester County (Volume III). New York: Lewis Publishing Company. Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/download/historichomesins03cran/historichomesins03cran.pdf Cronon, W. (1983). Changes in the land: Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. For Here, There Once Were Mills 106

Cutter, D. B. (1881). History of the Town of Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Concord, NH: Republican Press Association. Dealey, M. (Producer), & Scott, R. (Director). (1982). Blade Runner [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Brothers. Emerson, W. A. (1887). Fitchburg, Massachusetts, past and present. Fitchburg: Press of Blanch- ard & Brown. Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/details/fitchburgmassach00emer Escher, M. C. (1961). Waterfall (lithograph print). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_%28M._C._Escher%29 Estate of Joseph Haskell, Cheshire County Probate Court (1868, May). Retrieved from NH State Archives, Concord, NH. Evans, O. (1795). The young mill-wright and miller's guide (1st ed.). Philadelphia: Oliver Evans. Also, Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 13th ed. (1850); 1st ed. (1795) to 15th ed. (1860) reprint, Wallingford, PA: Oliver Evans Press (1990); reprint of 13th ed., New York: Arno Press (1972); reprint of 13th ed., Salem, NH: Ayer Co. (1984). Fagan, L. (1859). Map of Cheshire Co., New Hampshire (1858). Philadelphia: Smith & Morley. Familysearch.org. (2011). Death of O. C. Flint. Retrieved from https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XZH1-329 Familysearch.org. (2012). Death Certificate of Edwin A. Flagg. Retrieved from https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-11782-29188- 75?cc=1601211&wc=MMBR-WMT:1490585452 Familysearch.org. (2014). Death Certificate of George S. Colburn. Retrieved from https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-12455-63831-9?cc=1463156 Findagrave.com (2012). Luke Parkhurst: Memorial no. 95712238. Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/95712238/luke-parkhurst Findagrave.com (2013). Lydia B. Foster: Memorial no. 110181355. Retrieved from http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=110181355 Fitchburg [Daily] Sentinel. (Various). Retrieved from Fitchburg Public Library, Fitchburg, MA. Gardner, Massachusetts Marriage Registry. (1884). James L. Bennett and Cora B. Colburn. Retrieved from https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-12600-5843- 61?cc=1469062

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Gardner Weekly News. (1883, May 19). p. 2. Retrieved from Levi Heywood Memorial Library, Gardner, MA. Garvin, J. L. (2006, Fall). New Hampshire’s cultural landscape. The Old Stone Wall, E- Newsletter of the NH Division of Historical Resources, 14(2), 1, 4, 6. Division of Historical Resources, New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources. Retrieved from http://www.nh.gov/nhdhr/publications/stonewall/documents/fall2006.pdf Gentleman. (n.d.). In The Free Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gentleman Gibbs, J. D. (1850). Map of Jaffrey N.H. Boston: B.W. Thayer & Co. Retrieved from http://www.jaffreyhistory.org/06maps/historic/1850Gibbs/1850GibbsHigh.pdf Gordon, G. A., & Coburn, S. R. (1913). Genealogy of the descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn. Lowell, MA: Walter Coburn. Gould, J. M. (1883). A treatise on the law of waters: Including riparian rights, and public and private rights in waters tidal and inland. Chicago: Callaghan & Co. Gray, A. (1804). The experienced millwright. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable. Grimshaw, R. (1882). The miller, millwright and millfurnisher: A practical treatise. New York: H. Lockwood. Retrieved from http://archive.org/details/millermillwright00grim Hagen Family Files (Genealogical website). (2014). Retrieved from http://hagen.familyfiles.info/5/9581.htm Hazen, T. R. (1996a). A history of the Fitz Water Wheel Company. Retrieved from http://www.angelfire.com/journal/millrestoration/excel.html Hazen, T. R. (1996b). Pond Lily Mill Restorations: Main menu page. Retrieved from http://www.angelfire.com/journal/pondlilymill/menu.html Hazen, T. R. (2000). A mill-wright miscellany. Retrieved from http://www.angelfire.com/journal/millrestoration/millwright.html Herrick, W. D. (1879). Gardner. In A. P. Marvin (Ed.), History of Worcester County Massachusetts (pp. 505-524). Boston: C. F. Jewett & Co. Retrieved from http://archive.org/details/historyofworcest01marv Heywood, W. S. (1893). History of Westminster, Massachusetts: 1728-1893. Lowell: Vox Populi Press: S. W. Huse & Co. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/historyofwestmin00heyw/page/n5 Heywood-Wakefield Company. (1926). A completed century 1826-1926: The story of Heywood- Wakefield Company. Boston: D. B. Updike, Merrymount Press. Hodge, A. T. (1990, November). A Roman factory. Scientific American, 263(5), 106-111. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1190-106 Hulton, S., & Lehane, J. (1998). Labor at Slater Mill. In Slater Mill. Retrieved from http://web.bryant.edu/~ehu/h364proj/fall_98/hulton/Labor.htm For Here, There Once Were Mills 108

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Endnotes

1 Photograph from Troy Master Plan, 2007 Update: Introduction, p. 5. 2 Pfister, Savenije, & Fenicia, 2009, p. vii: quoted in Foreward by Jeffrey J. McDonnell. 3 Hunter, 1979, pp. 3, 8. 4 Malone, 2005, p. 23. 5 Thoreau, 1906/1925, p. 140. 6 Cheshire County Registry of Deeds (CCRD), 1909. 7 Parker, 1962. 8 Bob served aboard the submarine USS Parche in the Pacific during World War II. His experiences are recounted in Stephen L. Moore’s Battle Surface: Lawson P. “Red” Ramage and the War Patrols of the USS Parche (2011), available at the Gay-Kimball LIbrary in Troy. 9 CCRD, 1868a. 10 Merrifield, 1976, p. 4. 11 Thorson, 2002. 12 For clarity, a hydraulic engineer might use the technical terms static pressure head and fluid flow rate. 13 Escher, 1961. 14 Schurr & Netschert, 1960, p. 486. 15 Reynolds, 1979, pp. 223-226. 16 Smeaton, 1759. 17 Evans, 1795/1850, p. 425. 18 Norton & Whittemore, 1888, p. 416. 19 Stearns, 1875, p. 295. 20 See, e.g., the National Geographic video, Dam Beavers, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5StWadbCeSs ; the documentary Leave it to Beavers, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyBZ1mdg2c ; and Beavers: The Engineers of the Forest, at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beavers-the-engineers-of-the-forest- 11145929/; all are accessible online. 21 Cronon, 1983, pp. 106-107. 22 Lord, 1983, p. 14. 23 Cronon, p. 119. 24 See Rainford Restorations, 2014, for an enlightening video of the up-and-down sawmill at the Taylor Mill State Historic Site in Derry, NH. 25 New Hampshire Secretary of State, 1917, pp. 428-429. 26 Gray, 1804. 27 Callenbach, 2012. 28 Ibid. 29 Murphy, 2013. 30 Murphy, 1961. 31 Murphy, 2013. 32 Maddigan, 2010. 33 See, e.g., Steinberg, 1991. 34 New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, 2012. 35 Bemis, 1881, pp. 27-28; Caverly,1859, pp. 28, 34; Norton & Whittemore, pp. 414-416; Stone, 1897, p. 284. 36 Caverly, pp. 235-236; Stone, p. 158. 37 Caverly, p. 35. 38 CCRD, 1777. 39 CCRD, 1794. 40 Wright, 1889, p. 41. 41 Recall the earlier Continental Currency Crisis; see, e.g., T. Jefferson, letter to E. Carrington, May 27, 1788: “With only twenty millions of coin, & three or four hundred million of circulating paper, public & private, nothing is necessary but a general panic, produced either by failure, invasion, or any other cause, and the whole residuary fabric vanishes into air & shews that paper is poverty, that it is only the ghost of money, & not money itself.” 42 Wikipedia, 2017 43 Caverly, p. 246; Stone, p. 246. 44 Bemis, p. 493. For Here, There Once Were Mills 116

45 Ibid., p. 272. 46 Stone, p. 32. 47 Bemis, pp. 535-536; Caverly, p. 105; Chandler, 1914, p. 470; Child, 1885, p. 481. 48 Notably in this regard, Reynolds (1983, p. 191) cites a brief 1747 description of millwrighting: “The Trade is a Branch of Carpentry (with some assistance from the Smith) but rather heavier work, yet very ingenious, to understand and perform which well a person ought to have a good Turn of Mind for Mechanics, at least to have some knowledge in Arithmetic, in which a lad ought to be instructed before he goes to learn this Art . . . ” According to Bemis (p. 536), Hezekiah’s brother Amos “was an ingenious mechanic.” 49 Thoreau, p. 165. 50 See Brandon, 2007, pp. 289-290. New England native Alan Hovhaness composed Monadnock, Op. 2a; the mountain may also have inspired his well-known Symphony No. 2, Mysterious Mountain, Op. 132. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbOIe1GuhI 51 CCRD, 1802. The present relative value of all dollar-denominated amounts from 1774 onward may be estimated by consulting Williamson, 2017, at https://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.php . 52 U.S. Geological Survey, 2012. 53 Chase, 1969. 54 Annett & Lehtinen, 1934a, p. 534; Stearns, 1875, pp. 299-300. 55 Hodge, 1990; Reynolds, 1983, pp. 38-43. 56 For dating the facility, see Kevin Butcher, The Roman Mill at Barbégal, accessible online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMlj2L7dwro. Interestingly, recent evidence identifies it as possibly “the world’s oldest biscuit factory,” making “ship biscuits” for sailors: see http://wsbuzz.com/science/roman-biscuit- factory-powered-by-water-wheels-made-food-for-sailors/ 57 Lord, p. 77. 58 Woodbury, 1948, p. 94. 59 Evans, p. 294. 60 Hunter, 1979, p. 104. 61 Evans, p. 128n. 62 Hulton & Lehane, 1998. 63 See Thorson, p. 188. 64 Documented in Cheshire County Roads & Sessions (CCRS), 1827, p. 320; see also Figure 16 ( “J.R. Stanley”). 65 CCRS, 1848, p. 424; CCRD, 1864b; CCRD, 1866c. 66 Caverly, p. 228; Stone, p. 149. 67 Troy Master Plan, 2007 Update: Color map, Bedrock Geology. 68 Bemis, p. 315. Peter Breen, who organized the Troy Historiette Group (2009-2010), loved this story. 69 Minot v. Hodgkins, 1815. 70 CCRD, 1807c. 71 Caverly, p. 106; Stone, p. 69. 72 Caverly, p. 107. 73 Norton & Whittemore, p. 580; gives “ab. 1808”; Caverly, p. 107, gives 1809, but misidentifies a previous owner. 74 CCRD, 1814. 75 See also http://www.rs41.org/jhs/TownHistory/perkins.pdf . The Fitzwilliam Historical Society owns one of Perkins’ grandfather clocks, kept on display. 76 Annett & Lehtinen, 1934b, p. 582. 77 The Marlborough Plan of 1762 is shown in Bemis, p.20. This practice was followed for each of the four towns that ceded territory to Troy upon its incorporation, including two such sets of “lots and ranges” from Swanzey, for a total of five. The town later adopted its own unified system of map and lot numbers. 78 Annett & Lehtinen, 1934b, pp. viii-ix. See also pp. 35, 36-37 of this monograph. 79 CCRD, 1825a. 80 CCRS, 1827, Vol. I, p. 317. 81 Ibid. 82 See also Kidd, 2009, p. 120. 83 CCRS, 1827, Vol. I, p. 320. 84 CCRD, 1829. 85 CCRD, 1831b.

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86 See https://edsgenealogy.weebly.com/john-williams.html; see also Norton & Whittemore, p. 413. Mary and Nancy’s father was “Richard Foster, who lived in the east part of the town [Fitzwilliam] near the residence of Mr. A. W. Gowen, made spinning-wheels.” 87 CCRD, 1831b; 1832b; 1835b. 88 Stone, p. 271. 89 CCRD, 1831a; 1834a ; 1835c. 90 See Investopedia, 2014: “A market economy is an economic system in which economic decisions and the pricing of goods and services are guided solely by the aggregate interactions [empahasis added] of a country's individual citizens and businesses.” 91 Macaulay’s The New Way Things Work (1998) provides a fascinating illustrated, easy-to-read introduction to the principles and applications of many of these various types of machinery and their components. 92 For an instructive lesson on the susceptibility of wood to the effects of time, water, and temperature, see Brown, 2010, a delightful brief essay regarding design and function. 93 Reynolds, 1983, p. 306. 94 Hazen, 1996a; Rodney Hunt Company, 1987. 95 Hunter, 1979, p. 455. 96 The Navier-Stokes equations, familiar to few non-technical people, are discussed in Stewart’s 10th chapter. 97 Wikipedia, 2014b; however, see also Bennett & Elton, 1899, pp. 28-30 . 98 Reynolds, 1983, p. 342. 99 Malone, 2005; National Park Service, 2013. 100 Malone, 2009. 101 Winchendon Historical Society, 2014. 102 VintageMachinery.org, 2014. 103 Crane, 1907, p. 375. 104 See L. Carroll, Through the Looking Glass: “Now, here you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” 105 Bemis, p. 181. 106 Joslin, 2012. 107 Hunter, 1979, p. 3. 108 Taibbi, 2010. 109 Wikipedia, 2012a. See also endnote 41: some things never change. 110 See Jackson’s veto of the Bank bill of 1832: “... the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves [as “the rich ... and the potent”], have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.” Retrieved from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ajveto01.asp 111 CCRD, 1835c. 112 Cutter, 1881, pp. 347-348. 113 CCRD, 1837a; 1837d ; 1839e. 114 Ibid. 115 Hunter, 1979, pp. 171-172. 116 Rapalje & Lawrence, 1888, p. 568 (“gentleman”), p. 1372 (“yeoman”). 117 Gentleman, n.d. 118 Stone, p. 545. 119 CCRD, 1842b. 120 Stone, p. 545; Hagen Family Files, 2014. 121 CCRD, 1835b; 1837c; 1841a,b; 1843a,b. Parkhurst is treated in greater detail on p. 42. 122 As a note of interest, Franklin was mentioned in the December 26, 1874, Gardner News: “Mr. Franklin Priest of the West Village caught a pickerel in Bickford’s Pond, on Saturday, weighing five pounds.” 123 Bemis, pp. 609-610. 124 Hazen, 2000. 125 CCRD, 1839f; 1842a. 126 CCRD, 1842b; the deed names all three brothers as grantees. 127 Stone, p. 528. 128 Ibid., p. 527. 129 Norton & Whittemore, p. 409. For Here, There Once Were Mills 118

130 Bemis, pp. 455, 461; Merrifield, p. 81; Stone, pp. 285-287. This was the same location as Sibley’s peg mill, and later Farrar’s mill/pail shop for several decades in the late 1800s (see “Farrar Pd“ on the Location Map, p. viii.). 131 Alvah’s second son, Henry A., became a noted Boston-area photographer, active in leadership of the Boston Y. M. C. Union Camera Club; a large number of his glass plate negatives were acquired for the renowned photo negative collection of Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Dennis Brearley. 132 Stone, p. 528. See also Annett & Lehtinen, 1934b, pp. 728-729. 133 Stone, pp. 527-528. 134 Ibid., p. 300. 135 U.S. Census Bureau, 1850. 136 Brookmire, pp. 10-13. Average prices approximated for 1860, using standard weight conversions. 137 CCRD, 1837b; 1839d; 1841c. 138 CCRD, 1849a. See also endnote 179 regarding changes in naming the upper mill pond. 139 CCRD, 1852. 140 As described in CCRD, 1866d. 141 Adams, 1844. 142 Thoreau, pp. 125-171. 143 Troy v. Cheshire Railroad Co., 1851. 144 Gould, 1883, pp. 623-624. 145 See, e.g., M. A. Foster (1968). Transportation. In Keene History Committee, Upper Ashuelot: A history of Keene, New Hampshire, p. 396: “When trains began running on the Cheshire Railroad, objection was made to the blowing of the engine whistles. The noise was not only an intolerable nuisance, many said, but it would frighten the cows in the pastures so they would not give milk!” Accessible online at http://keenepubliclibrary.org/sites/default/files/transportation.pdf 146 Caverly, p. 209; Stone, p. 180. 147 Kidd (pp. 25-28) gives a thorough history of this entire road. See also Gibbs, 1850; this segment connects the SPNHF trailhead in Lot 1 Range 6 with the junction (“Lebourveau residence”) in Lot 1 Range 7, both in Jaffrey. 148 Bemis, p. 462; Stone, p. 72; see also Caverly, pp. 114, 131, 142-187 passim. 149 CCRS, 1848, Vol. II, p. 422. 150 Ibid., pp. 423-424. 151 Stone, p. 180, from Caverly, p. 209. 152 CCRS, 1852, Vol. II, p. 467. 153 Findagrave, 2012; Seward, 1921, pp. 1316-1317. 154 CCRD, 1832a; 1834b; 1843b; 1846a,b; Stone, p. 285. 155 Adapted from Adams, 2009b. 156 CCRD, 1857. See also CCRD Book 157, page 478; Book 164, page 2; and Book 185, page 39. 157 Troy Town Record of Personal Deeds, 1857, p. 221. 158 Baker v. Haskell, 1867, pp. 479-480; this was one of several cases involving Haskell’s estate. 159 New Hampshire Heritage 1861-1865, 2010. 160 CCRD, 1842c. 161 Stone, p. 283. 162 CCRD, 1849b. 163 CCRD, 1843c. 164 CCRD, 1854. See also CCRD, 1856: $165 mortgage deed on this property, Edward S. Foster to Elijah Bowker. 165 CCRD, 1860. See Breed, 1982 [re: New Hampshire]: “In 1840, the legislature addressed the issue of married women's property rights for the first time ... The court provided further protection, establishing that a husband's creditors could not reach his wife's property unless the husband had reduced the property to his possession.” 166 Thoreau, p. 140. See also Brandon, pp. 228-229. Thoreau’s anonymous “old man” of June 2,1858 (Thoreau, p. 126), was most assuredly Abel Baker, then 61. He owned the 153-acre homestead farm sold to Walter Heywood, in 1865, as well as large tracts on the western side of Mt. Monadnock acquired in 1829 as a filial conveyance from his father-in-law, Caleb Perry. 167 Troy Town Record, 1862, p. 191. See also Douglas Harper, Northern Draft of 1862, accessible online at http://www.etymonline.com/cw/draft.htm 168 "An Act for enrolling and calling out the national Forces, and for other Purposes," Congressional Record. 37th Cong. 3d. Sess. Ch. 74, 75. 1863. March 3, 1863. 169 Adams, 2012. For Here, There Once Were Mills 119

170 Estate of Joseph Haskell, 1868. 171 Stone, p. 567. 172 CCRD, 1874c. 173 CCRD, 1864a. 174 Troy Town Record, 1868, p. 333. 175 According to the NH Department of Environmental Services [NHDES], Perkins Pond presently covers 31 acres. Its dam [State No. 238.11], is of concrete wall construction; installed in 1922, it remains in good condition. Its spillway consists of three bays, each 5.5 feet wide, for a lateral flow width of 16.5 feet; flashboards, when in- serted, are of a type called “removable stop planks.” Surprisingly, the dam’s overall length is ~120 feet, with flanks buried in earth, mostly unseen, extending 35 feet westward and 65 feet eastward of the spillway. It replaced a previous timber structure, which was in poor condition, having spillway length 20 feet and overall dam length 250 feet. The pond was used for “Storage. Now recreation.” Data were provided by U.S.G.S., the NH Public Service Commission, and NHDES. N. McGrath, Outreach Coordinator, Water Division, Dam Bureau, NHDES, personal communications, December, 2014. 176 See endnote 179. 177 CCRD, 1868e. 178 CCRD, 1866a,b. For his “atypical mortgage terms,” see p. 50. As a male inhabitant of Troy, beginning with the next (1867) tax assessment, Colburn paid the standard individual poll tax of $2.40. His total property valuation that year was $2,802, for a “reduced (50%) value” of $1,401, on which the “highway tax” was $6.72, and the “state county town & school tax” $41.75; in addition, as a resident of School District No. 3, he was charged $4.62 for the “Resident School House Tax.” 179 CCRD, 1868 b, c, d. The deeds from Joel Oakes and Linda Foster give the first known naming of “the Perkins Pond.” 180 Hurd, 1889, p. 882. 181 Gordon & Coburn, 1913, photo opposite p. 216. 182 See Carter, 1883. If ever there were a large extended mechanically-inclined “milling family” in America, it was the Sawyers; but then, perhaps, that relates to the family name? 183 See Hurd, 1889, pp. 323-327; Wikipedia, 2019. 184 Caswell, 1917, p. 450. 185 Wall, 1994, p. 85. See also Bemis, p. 256; Emerson, 1887, pp. 202-204; Hurd, 1889, pp. 323-325. 186 Hurd, 1889, p. 325. 187 Heywood-Wakefield, 1926, pp. 13-14. See also Wall, pp. 84-90. 188 Middlesex South District Registry of Deeds (MSDRD), 1852. 189 Lancaster, Massachusetts Marriage Registry, 1879. 190 Colburn, 1858. 191 Hurd, 1889, p. 832. 192 Edwin and Frances shared the same great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas Sawyer (1655-1736). 193 Wulff, 1994, p. 78. 194 WDRD, 1860a,b. 195 Gardner, Massachusetts Marriage Registry, 1884, gives date of birth. 196 Marvin, 1879, p. 694. 197 WDRD, 1864a, b. 198 CCRD, 1865. For “the estimable Abel Baker,” see Stone, pp. 336-339. 199 Caswell, pp. 450-451. 200 Joseph Sawyer’s death certificate, 1865. Retrieved from https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7- 9979-DWLM?cc=2061550 201 CCRD, 1866b; WDRD, 1866. 202 CCRD, 1866a. 203 CCRD, 1867. The purchaser, investor Leonard Osborn, had grown up in Troy but resided in Massachusetts. As previously noted (p. 2), the farm would soon be acquired by Judy Hall’s newlywed grandparents, Civil War veteran Oliver and Ellen Whitcomb, in January 1868. 204 See Reynolds, 1983, p. 304. 205 CCRD, 1870. 206 According to granddaughter Alta’s 1909 death certificate, her occupation was “music teacher,” at age 24. Retrieved from https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6P49-S1H?i=1739&cc=1601211 For Here, There Once Were Mills 120

207 Troy Town Record of Personal Deeds, 1870, pp. 447-448. 208 CCRD, 1871. 209 The son of Appleton and nephew of Joel Oakes, Warren may well have served as the mill boy, learning a trade while earning his keep – just as George had done in his youth. Stone provides his admiring biography (pp. 495- 498), but in a likely error gives as his host during this time the Jaffrey “family of Jonathan Coburn,” rather than that of George Colburn, as was authoritatively documented by the 1870 Census. 210 Hurd, 1889, p.834. 211 CCRD, 1869. 212 Wulff, pp. 77, 82. 213 Troy Town Record, 1873, pp. 10-12. 214 CCRS, 1875, Vol. III, p. 247. 215 Troy Town Record, 1874, p. 34. Aaron Hodgkins’ nephew, Pelatiah’s son Augustus, became active in community affairs, serving in the 1860s and 1870s as selectman, state representative, and town clerk. 216 CCRD, 1874a. The discharge was noted on the original mortgage deed: CCRD, 1871. 217 WDRD, 1874a. See Wikipedia, 2016: “Massachusetts passed its Married Women's Property Act on May 5, 1855. It allowed married women to own and sell real and personal property, control their earnings, and make wills.” See also Chused, 1986, p. 43 [re: Massachusetts]: “The first married women's property acts passed in the late 1830s and early 1840s followed the model of the simplest separate estates. They generally contained provisions insulating property held separately by married women from the debts of their husbands.” 218 CCRD, 1874b. 219 Gardner News, June 27, 1874, p. 3. 220 Ibid., February 6, 1875, p. 3. 221 Ibid., March 20, 1875, p. 3. 222 Ibid., March 27, 1875, p. 3. 223 Bailey, 1879, pp. 489-491; Emerson, p. 203. 224 Hurd, 1889, p. 832. 225 Heywood-Wakefield, pp. 9-10. 226 See Heywood-Wakefield, p. 19 for an amusingly illustrative episode. 227 Gardner News, January 8, 1876, p. 3. 228 Gardner Museum, 2017. 229 Herrick, 1879, p. 510. 230 Hurd, 1889, p. 832. Patent Nos. 216,723: Cane-shaving machine; 216,724: Adjusting cutting-disks. 231 Gardner Weekly News, May 19, 1883, p. 3; U.S. Patent No. 277,235: Rattan-scraping machine. 232 Gordon & Coburn, 1913, p. 70. 233 WDRD, 1874b. 234 WDRD, 1875. 235 CCRD, 1875a, b, c. 236 CCRD, 1876. 237 Ibid. 238 CCRD, 1877. 239 CCRD, 1878. 240 New Hampshire Sentinel, September 6, 1877, p. 3; September 13, 1877, p. 4; September 20, 1877, p. 4. 241 CCRD, 1878. See also CCRD, 1877. 242 CCRD, 1882c. 243 Emerson, p. 125. 244 Wulff, p. 82. See also endnote 51, re: Williamson, to estimate the present relative value of these expenses. 245 Child, 1885, p. 372; onsite residence confirmed by 1880 Troy census. In 1870, he had been working at Raymond’s box shop and sawmill in Rindge; see Stearns, p. 305. 246 CCRD, 1887. 247 WDRD, 1877; 1878; 1879. 248 Triplex on Vernon St. between Park and Richmond Sts.; on that single census page, eight people reported “works in chair shop;” five reported “works in cane shop.” 249 WDRD, 1881. This residence was located on the north side of Eaton St. as it becomes Kelton St., eastward of Green St. 250 CCRD, 1881; 1882a, b. For Here, There Once Were Mills 121

251 WDRD, 1882. 252 Gardner News, July 8, 1882. 253 Gardner News, July 8, 1882. 254 CCRD, 1883a. 255 Hurd, 1889, pp. 832, 882. 256 Marvin, p. 609; see also Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1984. p. 7. 257 Marvin, pp. 25, 604-605; 778-779. 258 Pondaven, 2000. 259 Walker, 1886, p. 28A. 260 Hurd, 1886, p. 355. 261 Bassett, p. 389. 262 Child, 1884, p. 225. 263 Luce & Bridge, 1888, p. 100. 264 U.S. Patent No. 325,320; Canadian Patent. No. CA 22684: Boot and shoe blacking. Both patents were issued in 1885, the year Colburn opened his store. 265Gardner News, Centennial Edition, June 27, 1885, p. 5. 266Lithograph trade card by J. Fox: height 2.75 in, width 4.5 in.; one of Colburn’s original cards resides as an artifact in the collections of The Henry Ford: Benson Ford Research Center – Collections, Dearborn, MI. 267 Bates, 2001, p. 44. 268 Cheshire Republican, March 19, 1886, p. 2. 269 Interestingly, the article for Colburn’s tax exemption carried a stipulation: “... provided he rebuild the property recently destroyed by fire.” That condition would not be met. 270 Cheshire Republican, April 30, 1886, p. 2. 271 Adams, 2009a. 272 Gardner News, January 29, 1887, p. 3. 273 Ibid., November 23, 1889, p. 3. 274 Ibid., January 31, 1891, p. 3. 275 Ibid., May 27, 1893, p. 3 276 Secretary of the Commonwealth, 1894, pp. 12, 232. 277 Wikipedia, 2012b. 278 Fitchburg Daily Sentinel, December 6, 1895, p. 5. Sylvester K. Pierce, former proprietor of the S. K. Pierce & Sons Furniture Company in Gardner, had died in 1888; his widow, much younger second wife Ellen L. Pierce, brought this suit. Their Victorian mansion at 4 W. Broadway, which stands to the present day, is reportedly haunted. Their expansive residential complex can be seen at the northwest corner of the interesection of Broad- way, S. Main, and Union Sts.; their industrial properties lay to the east of the intersection; see Walker, p. 27. 279 U.S. Patent Nos. 551,109: Rocking chair; 551,110: Sash holder; 563,567: Child’s carriage. 280 Fitchburg Sentinel, July 29, 1896, p. 5. 281 Colburn went up against the Trust/Cartel and lost. Notably, perhaps as a consequence, his name was purposely omitted from the Company’s self-published retrospective, A Completed Century (1926). Instead, we find a colleague, “inventive genius . . . Gardner A. Watkins [1832-1900], long an employee of the Heywood plant,” credited (pp. 7-8) with many technical aspects of the plant’s success. In charge of Heywood’s Engineering Department, his son invented the Simplex time clock in 1894. Loyalty and family fame have their rewards. 282 Gardner Town Record, 1889, p. 197. 283 FamilySearch.org, 2011. 284 CCRD, 1898; MSDRD, 1898. 285 Some of his earlier West Gardner acquisitions, all bought as empty lots [1882-1883] on which he erected residences, can be seen in Walker, 1886, p. 18: a residence on Lake St., across from the Heywood complex, and one on Vernon St. – both between Park and Richmond Sts.; one on West St. [Rt. 68] at its intersection with Ash St.; and his own “large and elegant residence” at the southwest corner of Graham and Richmond Sts. Such purchases of empty lots for residential construction continued into 1908, the year before his death. 286 Familysearch, 2014; Gardner News, November 13, 1909, p. 1. 287 See also Adams, 2010. 288 Nora’s mother was Rosamond Fox, daughter of Benjamin and Hannah; she married George E. Campbell on October 16, 1852, at age 15, though their marriage certificate gives 18, the minimum legal age, and his as 21, although he was 18. His cause of death was recorded as “accidental, at steam mill” on September 7, 1859, at age For Here, There Once Were Mills 122

25 in Manchester. Rosamond married Nora’s stepfather, George J. Clark, on July 19, 1865; she was buried with her second husband beside Benjamin and Hannah at Fitzwilliam’s Village Cemetery, adjacent to the Flagg family plot. Nevertheless, Nora kept her middle/maiden name as “Fox.” 289 CCRD, 1874c. 290 FamilySearch.org, 2012. 291 R. J. Corrette (great-nephew of Nora F. and Edwin A. Flagg), personal communication, 2006. 292 Wikipedia, 2014a. 293 CCRD, 1909. 294 Society for Industrial Archeology, 2014. 295 Pfister, Savenije, & Fenicia, pp. 14, 85. 296 Garvin, 2006, p. 6. See also http://www.nh.gov/nhdhr/publications/documents/ruins_handout.pdf 297 Pierce, 1899, pp. 140, 164-165, 235. 298 Gibbs, 1850; Kidd, p. 10. 299 CCRD, 1807a. 300 CCRD, 1807b. 301 CCRD, 1816. 302 Annett & Lehtinen, 1934b, p. 97; CCRD, 1819. 303 CCRD, 1825b. 304 CCRD, 1825c. Spaulding’s sister Lydia had married the Stanley Brothers’ uncle, Benjamin Stanley. 305 CCRD, 1826 ; 1828 ; 1834c. 306 CCRD, 1836. 307 Peavy & Smith, 1994, p. 46. 308 Cutter, p. 326. 309 Annett & Lehtinen, 1934b, p. 97; Rootsweb, 2010. 310 Brigham, 1907, p. 159. 311 CCRD, 1835a. 312 CCRD, 1839a,b. 313 Peavy & Smith, p. 46. 314 Ibid., p. 48. 315 Ibid., note 45. 316 CCRD, 1839c. 317 Findagrave, 2013. 318 See Chused, 1983, p. 1365. Their marriage and 1825 divorce pre-dated the “Act of July 2, 1841, ch. 157, 1841 N.H. Laws 533 (deserted wives) and Act of June 27, 1845, ch. 236, 1845 N.H. Laws 235 (real property).” 319 Three of Alpheus Brigham’s siblings married into the (Troy milling) Harrington family; the 1850 Troy Census lists Lydia (Brigham) Foster’s cousin, Brigham Harrington, as Jedediah’s close neighbor. 320 Cheshire Republican, Friday, March 12, 1886, p. 2. 321 Parker, 1944. 322 Parker, 1962. 323 Brandon, pp. 69, 108, 229, 414(map); Thoreau, p. 126. 324 State of New Hampshire, Office of Vital Statistics, March 1884; birth registration. Henry’s marriage certificate retrieved from https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DTP7-9NK?i=2410&cc=1520640 325 CCRD, 1884a. 326 Hurd, 1889, p. 69. 327 Sawyer, 1900, p. 113. 328 Lowell Daily Courier, 1886; New York Times, 1886. 329 M. S. Sczerzen (Chairman, Lancaster Historical Commission), personal communication, May 12, 2009. 330 Gardner News, December 6, 1879 331 Ibid., January 31, 1885, p. 3. For “Landlord Goddard,” see Heywood, 1893, pp. 326-327, 670. 332 Ibid., March 7, 1885, p.3. 333 Ibid., March 13, 1886, p. 2. Coincidently, Colburn’s mill was burned the very evening of the Wakefield cane workers’ strike date! There was no apparent connection. 334 Ibid., April 17, 1886, p. 3. 335 Ibid., April 24, 1886, p. 3. 336 Stone, p. 547. For Here, There Once Were Mills 123

337 Ibid., p. 499. 338 Bob & Judy Hall, personal communications, 2006-2014; Parker, 1944. 339 Parker, 1962. 340 Grimshaw, 1882, pp. 84-85. 341 Ibid., p. 86. 342 Ibid., p. 83. 343 Ibid., pp. 83-84. 344 Ibid., p. 83. 345 Reynolds, 1983, p. 347. 346 Parker, 1962. A “technologically literate observer,” Parker worked in the South Keene Power Station of the Keene Electric Railway (1919-1920) and for 27 years as Chief Engineer at Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, NH. See also Parker, 1958. 347 For clarification of “confusing mill terms” see, e.g., http://www.stockdalemill.org/terms.htm 348 See, e.g., Mead, 1908. 349 See A. Tennyson, Idylls of the King. 350 See Reynolds, 1983, pp. 321-331. 351 Hunter, 1985, p. 251. 352 Schurr & Netschert, pp. 62-63. 353 Cheshire Republican, October 25, 1884, p. 2. 354 Reynolds, 1983, p. 348. 355 Hunter & Bryant, 1991, p. xxiii. 356 Reynolds, 1983, pp. 348-349. 357 Hunter, 1979, p. 496. 358 University of Texas, 2004. 359 See, e.g., Lerner, 2016, which discusses a recent theoretical formulation in quantum information theory, whereby local Second Law violations may occur; however, no actual experimental verification has yet been attempted. 360 The interested reader may consult Stewart’s 12th chapter, “Second Law of Thermodynamics.” 361 See W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming. 362 An excellent video rendition is accessible online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6jzP8--WVQ 363 Dealey & Scott, 1982.