Merchant and Millwright The Water Powered Sawmills of the Piscataqua

By RICHARD M. CANDEE Researcher in Architecture, Old Sturbridge Village

UMBERING in southern is especially interesting because of the saw and during the mills erected by two other English mem- L seventeenth and early eighteenth bers of the Laconia Company. In Decem- centuries parallels the growth of those ber, 1633 the company divided portions colonies. Its development along the tribu- of the Pascataway Grant among the mer- taries of the Piscataqua and rivers of the chant patentees. Captain John Mason re- Maine coast illustrates the complex rela- ceived a tract in Maine beginning at the tionship between traditional English econ- lowermost falls, omy and technology, and the environ- and see upward along the Newichwannock ment of the New World. The early de- River to the end of ye Patent which is estimated velopment here of water powered saw about fifteen miles and a quarter being almost mills raises questions of English familiar- fower miles more than his proportion cometh unto. Yet it is allowed him in regard he is see ity with power milling technology, while farre distant from the Sea.2 the interest of English and colonial mer- chants in northern New England saw On March 13, 1633/34, John Mason mills suggest the importance of lumber- contracted with three carpenters “to goe ing in the economy of the settlements. over unto the said lands” in New Eng- Among the earliest records of New land. James Wall, William Chadbourne, Hampshire is a letter from Thomas Eyre, and John Goddard agreed to one of the English merchants who owned make and build such howses Two mills and the Laconia Patent (Maine and New other frames and things. . . . Thone of Wcn Hampshire), written to Ambrose Gib- mills to be a sawe Mill wen shalbe made and sette uppon good sufficient and workmanlike bons and dated the “last of May, I 63 I .” sort and manner. . . . and thother of the said Gibbon was the agent for the Laconia Mills shalbe a water Corne Mill. . . .3 company at their trading settlement at Newichawannock (present-day South Less than twenty years later, when Berwick, Maine). From London, Eyre Mason’s heirs tried to gain title to New replied to a series of lost letters: Hampshire, James Wall testified that this contract had been fulfilled. The three I like it well that your Governor will have a carpenters were brought to Mason’s grant stock of bords at all times readie. I hope you in 1634 by Henry Josselyn, “Captaine will find something to relade both the rshiusl Pide-Cowe and thewarwicke. I will now put Mason’s agente”, on the sending of you the model1 of a saw-mill and there did builde upp at the fall there that you may have one g0ing.l (called by the Indian name Asbenbedick) for the use of Captaine Mason & ourselves one Reference to a model of a saw mill, sawe mill and one stampinge mill for come most likely a drawing rather than a work- w* we did keep the space of three or foure ing model, sent in I 63 I to the Piscataqua years next after. . . .4

‘3’ 132 Old-Time New England

It appears that John Goddard did not bitious Englishmen in , complete his part of the contract, as nor upon those influential men of the Pis- Joseph Mason brought suit against God- cataqua towns in the 1640’s and 1650’s. dard in 1653 and won. After Captain After the deaths of the major proprie- Mason’s death in I 636, the three carpen- tors, the tight to timber lands and privi- ters moved across the Piscataqua. Wil- leges of erecting saw mills was given by liam Chadbourne appears in Portsmouth, each town. Because few records survive N. H., in 1642, although his son is found for this period, it is difficult to determine as a carpenter and millwright near Ma- whether any other mill grants were made son’s mill soon after. James Wall con- prior to the mid- I 640’s. In all probability tinued building other saw mills in Exeter there were none, as an insufficient labor and Dover, N. H. The quality of his force was matched only by the lack of work, however, may be doubted when in capital. The earliest New Hampshire 1653 he was sued for taking excessive court cases, prior to unification with wages for building a saw mill which Massachusetts Bay in 1642, involved proved insufficient.5 payment in pipe staves and clapboards John Mason was not the only patentee which were hand-riven rather than who contracted with English millwrights “merchantable sawn boards” as became to build saw mills in New England. Fer- common after mid-century.’ dinando Gorges described his own activi- Throughout the seventeenth century, ties in 1623 in his Brief Narration (pub- land grants were made some years before lished in 1658) : the actual site was laid out to the owner. For example, in 1647 Dover granted I sent over for my Son, my Nephew Captain William Gorges. . . with someother Craftsmen 200 acres to Hatevil Nutter and Edward for the building of houses, and erecting of Starbuck “for Accomadation of a saw Saw-Mills. . . .6 mill at Lamperell River” which the two While this saw mill does not seem to men agreed to divide in 1649. Nutter re- have succeeded, Gorges did finance an- ceived the south side of the lower falls other one at the same time that Mason near an earlier grant: sent over his carpenters. Winthrop noted And it is ffurther agred that if one Bulds a mill in his Journal on July 9, 1634 that Sir before the other, that when the Other Bulds Ferdinand0 Gorges and Captain Mason hee shall paye to him that bult firs one halfe the valew of what Indeferent men shall Judg the had sent carpenters “to Pascataquack and mill Dam to be worth at said time of the latter Aguamenticus, with two sawmills, to be Bulding of a mill. . . .s erected, in each place one.“’ As with their other speculations in One such mill was in the process of com- Maine and New Hampshire, too much pletion as the century neared mid-point. rested upon the personal activities of In A ugust, I 649, Gorges and Mason in supplying the Richard Waldren of Quechecho in Piscataq fledgling saw mills at Berwick and granted to James Wall of Exeter Car- to survive beyond their deaths. From the penter all his right for erecting a saw mill at scant early records, however, it is evident Quechecho, together we sixty Acres of land that both mills were operating during the at the ffalls of Quecheco & fifteen hundred of trees. And all work that hath beene done (both 1630’s. What could be foreseen by these timber & yron work) towards erecting the sd English patentees was not lost upon am- mill.*o Merchant and Millwright 133

Wall paid for this mill right with “money from 1645 to 1650. This manufactury received, worke done, & a bill for one C. had been promoted and partially owned thousa foote of merchtable boords.“ll This by , Jr., with various suggests that there was a lack of local English and local shareholders. Caught capital for the completion of the mill, dam between the interference of the English and iron saws. Certainly, lack of sufficient Undertakers of this corporation and the capital may be seen in the mill grants local problems of an infant industry in the made to a number of Massachusetts mer- Puritan state, Leader gave up his post for chants who acquired land in Maine and other occupations. A letter between some New Hampshire at this time. of the investors written on August 28, Edward Gilman emigrated to Hing- 1650, notes that Leader “hath dismist ham, Massachusetts, with his parents and the works by the Consent of the Company their family in 1638 from Hingham, Nor- and is mynded to follow his other occa- folk, England. He was accepted as an in- tions. . . .“I4 habitant of Exeter in I 647 and given I oo By Christmas of I 650, some idea of his acres with mill and timber rights. As Ed- new interest was reported to John Win- ward began to purchase other lands, his throp by his uncle Emanuel Downing brothers John and Moses joined him in writing from Salem. 1648 to help in these activities. The first I suppose you have heard how mr Ledder Late sign of financial difficulties caused by the left the Ironworks, and lives at prsent in Boston, building of Edward’s mills is a mortgage he is about erecting a saw mill at a place nere for ho0 made in 165 I. It was held by his pascattaway that shall work wtb nere 20 sawes at once. . . .I5 father-in-law, Richard Smith, of Strop- ham near Hingham, England. Smith had By March I 650/5 I Richard Leader was lived in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and re- in Kittery, Maine, where he made “ser- turned to England prior to I 65 I when he taine propositions” to the Court “for the provided the needed support for Erectinge of a Mille or Milles for the im- one saw mil, on p Easterne side of ye River, provement of these parts and the advance- & also ye one halfe of three parts of a saw mill ment of trade here amongest US.“” on the other side of the river . . . and ye one Meanwhile, Leader had sailed to Lon- halfe of all my land in Exiter. . . .I2 don, apparently to make an account to It is not known whether the mortgage some of the Undertakers of the Iron- was repaid in London within the year as works, especially John Becx, a Dutch required, but in December, 1652 Edward protestant merchant residing in London sold his brother, John Gilman, one quar- and holding a major share of that com- ter of each of the same mills on either side pany. That Leader made this voyage, of the “River uppon Exiter falls” for while planning the Maine saw mills, is f150.13 testified to by his trial in May 165 I for Across the Piscataqua in Maine, prior speaking out against the Massachusetts to that colony’s submission to Massachu- government “spoken neere about the setts Bay, a similar enterprise was being midway between this & England! “I’ formed which would involve English The site granted by the Maine Court capital. Richard Leader had been the in I 65 I included the abandoned mills of agent and manager of the iron works at Captain John Mason within the 400 acres Saugus and Braintree, Massachusetts, on either side of the at Ne- 134 Old-Time New England wichawannock. Thus, in 1652, Mason’s out fence. . . . The broaken Mill with the Iron heirs brought suit against Leader for & Utensills . . . . trespass and building houses, as well as With a smith’s shop, meadows, falls and cutting timber to erect a saw mill “In or timber grant the whole was valued at Antient possessed place wheron wee f 493.= formerly began & do intend to pceed in While Leader’s Great Works mill ye like work imeadiately.“r8 The suit was never returned the profits which Becx referred to the Massachusetts General and Company must have desired, especi- Court since Maine had submitted to that ally after the expensive bankruptcy of the government, and little action was taken Saugus ironworks, New England mer- on this Masonian claim for some years.l’ chants and millwrights cooperated on If Leader’s mills were being erected in dozens of saw mills in the Piscataqua re- 1652, he must have had immediate finan- gion. Around I 65 5 an anonymous “I.S.” cial problems. In 1653 Leader sold three prepared a map of the “Pascatway River quarters of the mills to John Becx, Rich- in New England” dedicated to James, ard Hutchinson, Colonel William Beale Duke of York, to “Declare (by Mapp) and Captain Thomas Alderne. Becx and how Englands strength doth lye / Un- Hutchinson were London merchants with seene in Rivers of the New Plantations” considerable interest in the Saugus iron- (Fig. I ) . The hidd en strength which the works, and their backing may have been artist illustrated along the interior rivers arranged the previous winter when flowing into the Piscataqua represented Leader appears to have made still another no less than 15 mills, all of which can be voyage to London, acting as an agent of identified as saw mills by contemporary the province of Maine.” Despite the new documents.a4 English capital, the venture proved un- Added to these were the mills built in successful and he was forced to mortgage York and other rivers of the Maine the remaining quarter share in the mills to coast. More than half a dozen can be secure an appearance in London with his identified prior to 1660 in York, Wells, brother George Leader to account to and Saco alone. By the end of the century Becx and Company. The London backers more than 60 mills can be identified be- had already placed Edward Rishworth, tween Hampton, N. H., and Casco, Court Recorder of Maine, as their agent Maine, including the few early ones in the mills. In this capacity, Rishworth which failed (see Appendix). Many of rented the mills in 1655 to Richard these were in the hands of the same Tucker.‘l owners, although nearly all were owned While Richard Leader departed to or mortgaged to merchants other than the Barbadoes to run a saltworks for Thomas original owners. In fact, the bulk of the Broughton, a Boston merchant with nu- financial support for most of these mills merous interests in Piscataqua saw mills, took the form of partnerships between a the Great Works (as Leader’s saw mills millwright or carpenter and a merchant were known) passed into several different from Boston, Salem, or Ipswich. If a mill hands?* By 1669, when an inventory of was built without aid of partnership, it the mills was made at Rishworth’s re- often fell into difficulties and was mort- quest, the site contained gaged to one of these same merchants. A broaken dwelling house ready to fall, & a One of the most illuminating examples barne much out of repayre, Two orchards with- of these practices may be seen in the his- FIG. I. “PASCATAWAY RIVER IN NEW ENGLAND BY 1:s:) ’

Internal evidence indicates a date between I 654 and I 659. The key locates fifteen sawmills by letters “H” through “R”. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum, 136 Old-Time New England tory of the mills at (Dur- Clark was already part owner of two ham, N. H.) within the town of Dover. saw mills in York, while Paddy became Sometime prior to I 649 Valentine Hill, a a partner with Hill and Richard Leader Boston merchant, purchased 500 acres in a mill on Lamperill River in I 65 7. “uppon Pascataq river neere the Oyster Such business contracts provided profits river. . . .“25 In November of that year for each of the partners. As owner of the the town of Dover granted a mill right to saw mills, Hill could provide the mer- Valentine Hill and Thomas Beard, a local chantable lumber to the trading firm, carpenter who undoubtedly constructed while maintaining another third of the the mill. Briefly mortgaged in that year, profit in the sale of both goods and pro- the land was in Hill’s hands again by I 65 I duce. Clark and Paddy, on the other when he mortgaged “all that my graunts hand, had a monopoly on importation of of land made to me by the Towne of goods to Hill at Oyster River. In effect, Dover at the oyster River & the Sawe they may have acted as the sole suppliers mills standing and erected thereuppon. to the community which developed about “26 These were mortgaged to his the mills. brother-in-law, Thomas Cobbett of A clearer picture of how such a com- Lynn, Jane Skipper and Joshua Scottow munity would be supplied by the mill of Boston. In a society without banks, owner acting as shipping agent for the family loans and the funds of unmarried transportation which carried lumber from women or those of merchants were the the mill to Massachusetts is found in the most common forms of raising capital. mills on the Cape Porpus River in Wells, Repayment of 250 sterling to Mr. Cob- Maine. This mill was built by Henry Say- bett and Miss Skipper was to be in equal word, a millwright and carpenter of York currency, but merchant Scottow was to who owned several saw mills and died be repaid by June in “good merchantable in I 679 amid a morass of mortgages. One pine boards.“” third of his estate was claimed by Henry Hill maintained this and interests in Webb, who placed his lawyer .Jonathan other mills, but did not rely solely upon Corwin of Boston in charge of the opera- the milling of lumber after settling at tion of the Cape Porpus mills. The town Oyster River. In I 656 he entered into an of Wells confirmed the grant formerly agreement with Captain Thomas Clark made to Sayword into the hands of Cor- and William Paddy of Boston “Concern- win, who proceeded to hire loggers and ing ye Enacting of a Trade in Pascata- sawyers. The mills were placed in the qua River. . . .” By the terms of this con- management of Edmund Littlefield, a tract, Clark and Paddy supplied more Wells sawyer, in 1680.~~ than f50 yearly “of such suteable goods Among Jonathan Corwin’s papers in as may be for ye use of ye people of ye sd the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachu- River” to Hill for three years. In return, setts, is a ledger for several months dur- Hill acted as their agent, buying what- ing 1679-1680. In it are listed the goods ever “goods as the River affords, as boards supplied by Corwin to nearly 40 inhabi- planke pipestaves hog-staves trunells & ye tants of Wells. Debts for food, clothing, like” and taking one third of the clear hardware and other items were paid with profit from both the imports and ex- either local produce or, most commonly, ports.” work done in supplying the mill with logs, Merchant and Millwright 137 sawing of boards, or other services. One subject of an order of the New Hamp- f2 account for salt, nails, molasses, rum shire Governor and Council in 1683: and other goods was paid by “4 dayes Whereas frequent complaints are made by the worke done at the mills” and “2 dayes Merchants. inhabitants of Tamaica. Barbadoes. helping goods ashore” plus a small note of and Leeward Islands, and other his Majesty’s credit.30 plantations, to which pine boards are exported from this said Province, of the unreasonable Such debts for a three month period thinness and uneven and wavy edge of boards range from less than f I to f I 5 per person. Corwin also supplied Jeremiah Storer, an- it was ordered that no pine board would other Wells saw mill owner, with “Goods be accounted as “merchantable” that was sent from Salem at several times” to be not “one full inch in thickness, and square repaid in sawn boards the next spring. edged.“33 Ships returning from Cape Porpus car- This order indicated that Piscataqua ried the milled products, such as the lumber was shipped in quantities enough “7000 foote of m’chantable boards ptt to warrant frequent complaint from other aboard” one ship by several of the loggers. English colonies in the West Indies. That Some idea of the mill’s activities can be New Hampshire was considered a major obtained from an account of its produc- milling colony is also suggested by the tion from March I 7, 168 I, to June 3, Council’s fear that poor quality boards 1682, which totaled 59,320 feet of sawn might “prove of great detriment to the boards.31 trade of the Provinces, and loss of The ambidexterous nature of these trade.“34 A similar view was reported in merchant mill-owners created what later 1701 by Lord Bellomont in a letter to would come to be called “company the Lords of Trade. Describing the saw towns,” profiting from decreased opera- mills in New York, he wrote: tional costs in supplying workers as well They have got about 40 saw mills up in this as the export of sawn lumber. While Province [N. Y.], which I hear rids more work English merchant capitalists seem to have or destroys more timber than all the saw mills in New Hampshire. Four saws are the most in been disappointed in their success in Pis- New Hampshire that work in one mill, and here cataqua saw mills, their Massachusetts is a Dutchman lately come over who is an ex- counterparts acquired increasing interests traordinary artist at those mills. Mr Livingston in nearly all the mills in the region. As told me this last summer he has made him a mill that went with I 2 saws.3s suppliers, carriers and owners they might profit on each transaction, even if the If Bellomont’s information may be capital expended resulted in foreclosure. trusted, it confirms the impression that The importance of the mercantile aspects Leader’s “Great Works” mill never may account for the fact that most mill achieved the nearly twenty saws that he mortgages were concluded in cargos of had envisioned in 1650. This report also lumber. Henry Sayword’s mortgage of indicates that by I 700 New York saw the “Mill I am now Building at Wells” to mills had made great strides in the tech- Robert Gibbs was to be repaid in f4oo’s nology of water powered saw mills by the worth of lumber, or 200,000 “foote of importation of a Dutch millwright. Such Mrchtble square edg’d pine boards.“32 comments raise questions concerning the The quality of the sawn boards ex- origins of saw mills on the Piscataqua, ported from the Piscataqua mills was the and their method of construction and op- 138 Old-Time New England

eration. While direct information on each came from Norfolk, Thomas Beard em- of these aspects is scarce, individual igrated from London, and Captain threads gathered from many different John Pickering left Warwickshire. One mills may be woven into a reasonably hypothesis to be drawn from these facts complete composite picture. might be that the source of the Piscataqua The technological source and origins saw mills erected by the English carpen- of the saw mills erected along the Piscata- ters was a similar type of sawmill in Eng- qua involve obscure questions of architec- land. tural history and technological influence. Except for the few references to water The 163 I letter from Thomas Eyre power saw-milling in England prior to sending a model of a saw mill to the La- emigration, published herein by Mr. conia Company’s agent that he might Forman, the evidence suggests that wind- “have one going,” followed by the erec- power was more commonly harnessed to tion of Mason’s and Gorges’ mills in this purpose. A few Englishmen follow- 1634, illustrates the interest of English ing the lead of Dutch “paltrok” windmills merchants in water powered saw mills. invented c. I 5 92 erected “Paltrok” mills, Mason’s contract of 1633/4 with three tower windmills with sides built out to English carpenters would seem to argue support timber lengths, which appear in for their familiarity with the construc- England by 1658. A view of Lambeth, tion of such saw mills. London, published in 1660 shows one of James Wall, who erected the corn these wind saw-mills surrounded by piles stamping mill and saw mill with William of sawn timber.” Chadbourne in 1634, as well as the I 649 That the Dutch adaptation of wind- Cocheco (Dover) saw mill, is thought to mills for sawing may not have been com- have come from Devon. William Chad- monly attempted in England for 40 years bourne was born in Winchecomb, after 1592, in a period of active trade and Gloucestershire, while his son was born communication, suggests that there were in Tamworth, Warwickshire. John God- social reasons rather than a simple lag in dard, who contracted to build Mason’s technology. Indeed, the application of mills, is unidentified prior to that English power milling in England was opposed contract. Whether or not he actually for more than a century by the hand completed his work for Mason, he died in sawyers, who felt their work endangered 1666 owning 3/s of “pascassick mills” by this form of automation. The threat of valued at X120. It may be assumed that unemployment for what must have been he constructed and operated the mills for a great number of hand sawyers in a peri- the Gilmans, as his inventory contained od when England’s forests were diminish- his “bed & two Ruggs & 2 blanketts at the ing may account for the fact that some of mill.“3e the “paltrok” windmills in England were Of the other first generation mill- burned down by the sawyers.” wrights whose origins have been identi- While the application of power saw fied genealogically, there is a wide range milling proved socially unacceptable in of southern and central English counties. England, there is little doubt that Eng- Henry Sayword was from Essex, the Gil- lishmen could (or did occasionally) har- mans were from Norfolk, the Littlefield ness either wind or water power for that family was of Hampshire, Robert Page purpose. The mechanical differences be- Merchant and Millwright tween milling of grains and sawing of saw that conditions in New World were timber were small, and England had a exactly the reverse of those in England. long tradition of grist mills.” That other Rather than an abundant labor supply countries, without the island’s labor prob- based upon traditional pitsawing, the lems, had solved problems of water-pow- population of the colonies had neither an ered saw mills by the seventeenth cen- organized body of sawyers nor an over- tury (perhaps as early as I 530) is seen in abundance of labor. Reports of navigable an English tract of 1650 which illustrates rivers with many tributaries, each con- a water-powered saw mill with the fol- taining several waterfalls in the midst of lowing explanation (see Fig. 2) : virgin forests obviously interested these merchant capitalists. The very absence of This Engine is very common in Norway and Mountains of Sweden, wherewith they cut great those factors which hindered England’s quantity of Deal-bords; which Engine is veq technological advance in sawing may necessary to be in a great Towne or Forrest, have suggested the first experiments. to cut Timber, whether into planks or other- While financial support passed into the wise.‘l hands of New England merchants by It is equally interesting to note that this mid-century, English interest in the tim- English pamphlet was written to en- ber resources of the Piscataqua continued. courage emigration to the Carolinas by An undated map of New Hampshire and the introduction of silk-worms and saw- Maine drawn c. 1700 by an anonymous mills to bolster the economy. “LB.“, is entitled “A Survey of Piscata- The evidence suggests that while the qua Riv[er]” (Fig. 3). The survey is a hand sawyers prevented any form of timber survey, locating stands of oak, power milling to become common in pine and hemlock as well as where “Great England, saw mills powered by wind or Masts are floted Down” the river. The water like English grist mills were known location of this survey map in the draw- by Englishmen of the first half of the ings which were deposited in the Public seventeenth century. Whether the model Records Office by the old Colonial Office sent to the Piscataqua by Thomas Eyre suggests that the primary interest at this was based upon a Scandinavian or con- date would be the masts for the Royal tinental mill or upon some unrecorded navy. However, the careful location of English experiment may never be known. several mill sites among the notations However, it would have been merchants of tree woods may indicate an interest in such as those who financed the earliest the sawn lumber exported from the Piscataqua saw mills who might be ex- colonies. In addition, it provides (in the pected to have known of European de- lower right-hand corner) the only known velopments through their trade. As equal contemporary sketch, albeit crude, of the members in the Laconia Company, it is Newichewannock mills indicating three not impossible that Eyre’s model was water wheels. These wheels may have shown to Mason and Gorges for the justified the name of “Great Works” in erection of their mills, although Gorges comparison to the single-wheel mills later claimed to have tried to have one drawn at Exeter, Dover and Ports- built in New England in 1623. mouth.” In any event, English merchants such Although these, and all other saw mills as Eyre, Mason, Gorges and Becx fore- of the first colonial century have long dis- FIG. 2. WATER POWERED SAWMILL FROM E. WILLIAMS, VIRGINIA: MORE ESPECIALLY THE SOUTH PART THEREOF, RICHLY AND TRULY VALUED . . . (ZND EDITION) LONDON, 1650 This edition contains an appendix described as “The making of a Saw-mill, very useful1 in Merchant and Millwright 141

appeared, their construction may be in- How this Massachusetts carpenter, ferred from a series of documents. Most later identifying himself as “Millwright,” important are the papers compiled during came to build a mill in New Hampshire the litigation over a mill built for Captain may be inferred from other contemporary Walter Barefoote and Robert Wadleigh records. As early as 1660 his name ap- of Kittery on lands along the Lamperell peared on a deed of the Wadleighs, while River between Dover and Exeter. Al- a court record of September, 1664 places though Barefoote appears to have believed Woolcot in Captain Barefoote’s house in that he had purchased the land and tim- June of that year.45 What other busi- ber rights from Samuel Symonds of Ips- ness relationships may have been shared with, it is certain that he had received no by these three men is unrecorded, but by deed. Thus, Symonds’ son sued to re- Woolcot’s own testimony he was Bare- possess the lands and mills which Wad- foote’s guest six months before the con- leigh had built upon them.43 tract to build a saw mill was drawn. Among the supporting evidence sup- Payment for the construction of this plied by Mr. Wadleigh in his own de- mill was to be f4o of English or Bar- fence is the building contract for the con- badoes goods less than two months after struction of the mill and the list of ex- work was to begin and another fqo in penditures for the years 1664 to 1668. merchantable boards when the mill was The two owners contracted with John completed. Woolcot was to begin the mill Woolcot of Newbury, Massachusetts, on “at or before the loth day of March” December 16, 1664, 1665.~~ On March 6 he recruited Wil- liam Neph of Haverhill to help build the to build a sufficient saw mill . . . at or upon Lamperele river . . . wch mill is to be sixty & mill. According to later testimony, he four-foote in Length and 28 foote in brehth promised Neph his diet and three pounds wth floome & water whele and all other things per month in cotton and English wool. for the Carpinter worke there unto belongiig If Neph did not like the wool, he could for to saw except bordeing the sd hows. . . . have his pay in boards at 40 shillings per The owners agreed to thousand which Barefoote was to deliver as fina payment. Neph accepted the offer provide Iron worke for ye aforesd saw mill, & to draw the timber in place when it is hewed, and worked either eight or nine weeks and suflicient helue to raise Ve so frame. and to in building the saw mill “above Poska- finde all planks’ bordes and nailes as shalbe taque.“‘7 nessisary for ye sd mill, & bring small timber With Woolcot was his seven-year-old in place unhewed when it is Cutt . . . and to provide dyet for him and his Company while servant, William Harrison, who added they are a building ye so mill.” one footnote to Neph’s employment.

Virginia, for cutting the Timber and Clapboard to build withal1 . . . .” The letters “‘A” and “B” designate weights substituted for a rag wheel to move the wood along the carriage. The mirror image of this illustration appears in G. A. Bockler’s Thatrum Machinarum Nowum with letters “A” through “H” designating each part of the sawmill. The text for the Bockler plate (number 63 states the mill “ist eine Frankostsche Manier,” which suggests a common undiscovered French source for both the Wilhams and the Bockler illustrations. The added description in the Bockler text (first edition t 662, twelve years after Williams’ edition) notes “The experienced craftsman however is free to improve this type and to add or subtract from it as the convenience of the place and circumstances permit.” FIG. 3. “A SURVEY OF PISCATAQUA RIV [ ER] BY: I B I”, ABOUT 1700

This map of Maine and New Hampshire indicates the varieties of timber located about the Piscataqua, as well as the location of several sawmills, including Great Works sawmill (lower right). Courtesy of the Public Record Office, London. Merchant and Millwright 143

Harrison testified one year later that To ye Ireon worke for ye other Woolcot was paid two yards of broad- frame ~0-00-00 To the running geares of ye cloth at 14 shillings per yard and offered other frame 17-t o-005s cotton wool and sugar. However, as he could not have his whole pay in cotton That other mills in the region were es- wool, Neph “went his way” and sued sentially constructed of similar parts is at- Woolcot for debt the next year.48 tested to in those deeds which describe It is apparent that Woolcot received their main features. John Wincoll re- the first portion of his compensation in ceived a Kittery saw mill grant on the May, undoubtedly the broadcloth, cot- Salmon River in 1659. By 1673 he and ton and sugar he offered Neph. Accord- his partners released the property to ing to Wadleigh’s account for the three George and John Broughton, Boston years before the ownership of the mills merchants, for debts they had paid carry- went into court, Woolcot was paid “for ing the mills. According to this deed Win- wages [f] 40-15-6.” Besides this, sev- coil had eral other entries indicate Wadleigh’s built & Erected Two saw Mills, & made dams, expenses in fulfilling his part of the con- flumes, & all other necessary Towles, & Uten- tract: sills, with running Gears for the same. . . .sl

for bords and drawing them to The illustration based upon Scandina- ye place 03-t 8-00 To 2 galls liquor for ye work- vian saw mills published in 1650 by Ed- men 00-16-00 ward Williams in Virginia . . . Truly for time & charges in transport- Valued . . . shows how their American ing of goods to ye place St ex- counterparts may have operated (Fig. pences or-to-00 2). Here the saws are worked by a special To one pair of hinges oo-03-00 To 5 dayes time of IZ oxen & undershot wheel which became common a men OS-00-00 to later saw mills known as a flutter To zoo’ bord nailes 00-08-00 wheel. Whether this form of wheel was . . . used in saw mills other than tidal mills in More for other helpe to rayse ye mill 01-10-00~s York and Portsmouth is difficult to say. Where mills were powered directly from Much of the account for the next few waterfalls, it may have been used, but years consists of “wages & dyet” for log- nearly all deeds for saw mills located on gers, sawyers and carpenters. Other ex- grants near a falls indicate a dam and penses indicate the components of the flumes. This suggests that either overshot mill itself, as well as an extension made or breast wheels may have been more to the original 64-foot building: common in the Piscataqua region. Cer- for makeing ye running gear for tainly, without written documentation, one frame 8-00-00 the “LB.” map of t. I 700 (Fig. 3) in- . . . dicates large wheels nearly as tall as the for planks & bords & nails aboute ye dam and ffloome IT-00-00 buildings in their diameter. These To my owne pt of Ireon worke 2,-00-00 sketches, taken in conjunction with the for drawing of timber for ye fact of milldams and flumes found in dam 01-18-00 each of the saw mills for which there for drawing of timber for ye floome and to lengthen the are building records suggest that the mill 08-05-00 small.er and longer flutter wheel was not 144 Old-Time New England as common here as it later became. The While more than one saw might be only physical evidence of a New England ganged within a single frame, such as the water wheel of the seventeenth century “one Saw vizt. the hithermost Saw in the which has survived is that discovered in old Saw Mill” described in the will of the excavation of the Saugus ironworks. Ichabod Plaisted, it seems that a second This was a six-spoked overshot wheel be- frame of saws might also be built. Wad- tween sixteen and seventeen feet in di- leigh’s accounts for the building of his ameter and two feet wide. As the furnace mill, previously quoted, show that the powered by this wheel was erected while original mill was lengthened and “ye Richard Leader was running the iron- other frame” with its own ironwork and works, one might wonder whether he did running gears were added.56 not employ similar wheels in his “Great Mills with one to four saws, produc- Works” saw mill a few years later.52 ing hundreds of thousand feet of sawn The wheels were fed by flumes from lumber annually, could not help but af- a dam. Two workers who helped in “ye fect the building trades of the region. building of a Saw Mill & Gristmill” in In Kittery, when Nicholas Shapleigh 1716 stated: dammed Sturgeon Creek for a saw mill in I 65 2, he signed an agreement with the we proceeded in ye work till ye Mills were both inhabitants of that Creek promising to raised the floodgate made & ready to hang ye Sawmills going Gears put in the Aprons laid raise the “wast gates” upon their re- . . . and as far as we understood Could not quest. Furthermore, proceed any further for want of ye Dam. . . .53 what boards the sd inhabitants of sturgion Cricke shall want for their necessary building, Thus, a floodgate from the wooden dam I prom&e them and theires to deliver them at led through wooden flumes to a water Three shillings per hundred. . . .57 wheel. The wheel connected to the “run- ning gears” which transformed the circu- Other agreements and deeds indicate lar motion into vertical movement by the variety of sawn timber available to means of a crank shaft. Connected to the the inhabitants of the region as well as the rising shaft, as Seen in the 1650 illustra- merchants who would export building tion was a “frame” which held the iron materials. The price of one half of a saw saws. mill in Wells which Thomas Paty sold to John Goddard’s inventory of 1666 Henry Sayword in 1670 was the right included “2 Saws 4 doggs 2 Small rings to bring logs to be sawn for one year and small buttons to hang the Saws free boards of these logs. Paty was also $;;I 3 . . . .“ 54 These were used to provide granted the right to cut pine logs the proper angle in hanging the saw. for all tyme afterwards . . . & the sd Sayword When John Hill, a former military com- to saw them or cause them bee sawn . . . & the mander at Saco, went into partnership boards soe sawn of such Loggs or planke or slit worke, to be equally divided. . . .5s with a millwright there, it was agreed: The variety of tools involved in trans- sd John Hill shall after he hath had a con- forming the logs into sawn “boards venient Oppertunity of being Instructed bv a plank or Joce [joists]” can be seen in the workman how to Kilter ye saws and keep them in Due order, he sd Hill is hereby Ingaged to inventory of Valentine Hill’s estate, taken whet & keep them in good order, . . .55 in 1661. Listed beneath the “Houses and Merchant and Millwright

Lands att ye Mills” were the implements order by the mill’s blacksmith cut the logs used to transport the hewn logs: into lumber. As most of the mills were up smaller two Mast Chaines 010:00:- two pr Mast wheels, wa Iron tributaries, perhaps above other falls, the Workes, 3 pr logg wheels one newly cut lumber had to be transported pr Carte wheels 040:00:- to a point of distribution. In 1669 one saw mill owner agreed to run About the saw mill at Oyster River were the hand tools and ironwork of the mill a covenient high way, for carting of boards which fashioned the timber: or anv manner of Sawn worke from Ve sd Falls or mill . . . to some convenient place, for 4 Iron Crowes, two Eligers, one boates yt come from sea to take them in. . . .” sledg, 5 sawes 008 :05 :- 2 Catt blocks . . . 13 old sawes In this way the union between merchant . . . 14 Iron doggs . . . 004: -:- and millwright formed a complete cycle. 9 beetle . . . olde Iron, 1 I filles, Together they often shared ownership of five axes for wheles [? ] ooJ:Io:- the means of production as well as the 6 barres of steel1 . . . a Canoe . . .oos:oo:- means of distribution, providing the two Hill also owned many tools in the hands northern colonies with an expanding of the mill laborers, including, “One tim- economy based upon the building needs ber Chaine . . . five Axes. . . one spade; of other colonies. A survey of the inven- one broad Ax . . . [and] 2 Crosse Cut tories of Maine and New Hampshire saw sawes.” In the hands of William Pitman, mill owners indicates that those who the mill’s blacksmith, were “A p’ of maintained major interests in one or more smiths bellowes, an anvill, a beckorne of these mills died with an estate in the [? ] a vice, a sledg” valued at seven upper five percent of their colony’s pounds.” wealthiest men. Even individuals with From this and other contemporary ac- smaller part interests in local saw mills counts, a composite mill settlement can be left estates valued above the norm, usual- drawn. Located near a waterfall on one ly in the upper twenty-five percent of of the many tributaries of the Piscataqua recorded inventories. The success of the or nearby rivers a dam fed the waters to mills, which placed several merchant- a mill wheel through flumes constructed owners among the elite of provincial SO- of wood. Logs were hauled or floated to ciety, fully justified the earliest interest the mill site, pulled by chains and wheels shown by the original proprietors of the to the long rectangular shed of the mill colonies in the I 630’s. itself. A series of saws, kept in working

APPENDIX

A Checklist of Sawmills in Maine and New Hampshire, 1633 to 1700

Bishop’s 1868 list (I, 97-102) is so concentrating upon original town grants inaccurate as to be irrelevant to the fore- and the earliest deeds of sale. Later re- going study, which attempts to correct placements and additional mills on the the most glaring errors. A serious effort same sites have, however, been included. has been made to eliminate references to Although an attempt has been made the same mills under different owners, by to be comprehensive, this checklist is un- 146 Old-Time New England doubtedly incomplete. The loss of town Dec. 5, 1652 grant to R. Walderne for north records, court records, and other manu- side, second falls at Cochecho. scripts especially for the area north of Dec. 5, 1652 grant to W. Furbur, W. Went- worth, H. Langley, T. Canney, to Fresh York, Maine, common to all studies of Creek. this period makes this list of value as a Dec. 5, 1652 grant to Ambrose Gibbons on suggestion of the scope of the lumbering Johnson’s Creek. industry throughout the century. Dec. 5, 1652 grant to J. Austin on Little The mills have been arranged within John’s Creek. the six towns which granted the mill- May 3, 1669 grant to R. Wadleigh at “Ile- right or in which the site was located. For land Falls” on Lamprey River (see text). this reason many mill sites are not de- EXETER, N. H. : Unless otherwise stated, scribed by the present town in which the dates are cited from the first volume of site may fall, and in a few cases may be the Exeter Town Records. Asterisks (*) represented by two citations when two indicate identical grants made by Dover towns laid claim to a common river and Exeter on the Lamprey River claimed boundary. by both towns.

DOVER, N. H.: Unless otherwise noted, Nov. 4, 1647 grant to erect saw mills on any river in Exeter, made to Edward Gilman each of the sawmills listed below are re- and Anthony Stanyon. corded as sawmill grants in the Dover *Nov. 19, I 647 grant to Nutter and Starbuck Town Records under the dates cited. on Lamprey River (see text).

The original manuscript exists on micro- March 22, 1649 grant to E. Hilton, James film, while the references below are pub- Wall, and others for a saw mill at Pas- lished in H. Hurd’s J&tory of Rocking- cocke, running into Lamprey River. ham and Struford Counties (Phila., Erected by 1652. March 22, 1649 grant at the falls “above the 1882). wigwams” on Lamprey River to N. Lissen, July I, 1642; Aug. 30, 1643 grants to Rich- G. Barlow and others. Erected by I 652. ard Walderne on the south side of May IO, I 652 grant “by the bridge” on Lam- Cocheco lower falls. The mill is urev River to the Gilmans. E. Colcord. and called “old” in I 649, the year James ‘H. Wilson. Erected by 16;3. ’ Wall was building a new saw mill *Aug. 7, 1652 grant to Valentine Hill for there (see text). south side of Lamprey River. Dec. 27, 1647 grant to Nutter and Starbuck By 1656 “saw-mills in ” of on Lamprey River (see text). Capt. Thomas Wiggin, perhaps those in Oct. 23, 1649 grant to Wm. Pomfrett, T. Dover. (Fitts, J., History of Newfields, Layton and John Dam on the Bellamy N. H. [Concord, 19121, p. 197.) River. May I I, I 657 grant on Exeter Falls to Ed- Nov. 19, 1649 grant to V. Hill and T. Beard ward Hilton, Jr. on Oyster River. Saw mill erected by 165 I *June 3, 1669 grant to R. Wadleigh at “Ile- (see text). land Falls” on Lamprey River (see text). July I, 1650 grant to T. Wiggin & S. Brad- POR’TSMOUTH, N. street on Quamphegan. Erected by 1659 H.: Recorded in Vol- (see “I. S.” map). ume I of the Portsmouth Town Records. July 4, 1650 grant to Wiggin and Bradstreet April 7, I 65 I grant to Ambrose Lane on Sag- on the second falls at Cochecho. amore Creek. Saw mill erected by I 655. July 7, 1652 grant to V. Hill on Lamprey Feb. 21, 1658 grant to John Cutt and others River. Erected by 1657 (see text). on Fresh Marsh Creek. Merchant and Millwright

HAMPTON, N. H.: Recorded in Volume 1669 grant on Cape Neddick; saw mill erected by 1672. (Deeds, II, 67) I, Hampton Tozun Records. 1700 building contract for J. Pickering to Dec. 26, 1656 grant to Robert Page on Tay- build a saw mill “where the old saw mill lor’s Creek. Saw mill erected by I 658. stood” (see text).

KITTERY, MAINE: References to Maine WELLS, MAINE : saw mills are published in the early vol- 650 grant to Rev. John Wheelwright to the umes of the York County Deeds unless I Ogunquit Falls. (Deeds, I, 12) otherwise cited. Double asterisks (**) 1660 Little River grant sold to F. Littlefield, indicate grants made along the disputed mills erected by ,663. (Deeds, I, I 26) Dover-Kittery boundaries by both towns. c. I 670 H. Sayword grant on Cape Porpoise j erects Mousam Mills (see text). ~633-34 building contract for a sawmill at Asbenbedick Falls, Little Newichwannock c. 1680 Gilbert Endicott has mill on Cape River, erected for Capt. John Mason in Porpoise River by 1682. (Me. Ct. Rec- 1634/5 (see text). ords, III, 163) c. I 648 grant to H. Gayle and W. Ellingham, By 1682 Wm. Frost’s mill (Me. Ct. Records, sawmill erected by 1651. (Deeds, I, 15) III, 163) By 1682 Kenebunk mill (Me. Ct. Records, I 649 grant to N. Shapleigh, saw mill erected after 165 I (see text, Deeds, I, 13). III, 163) 1651 grant to Richard SACO, MAINE : Leader (see text). **1652 Grant at Quamphegan to Wiggin and Sept. 27, 1653 grant to Roger Spence j saw- Bradstreet. (Deeds, I, 18) mill erected by I 659. (Town Rec., v. I) By I 654 Saw mill below Great Works, erected 1653 grant to John Davis for forge and saw by H. Chadborn (see text). mill. (Town Rec., v. I) L659 Grant at Salmon Falls to John Wincoll, 1661 grant to W. Phillips. (Deeds, I, I 23) who has two saw mills there by I 671. By 1682 Mr. Blackman’s saw mill (Me. Ct. (Deeds, III, 1) Records, III, 163) By I 681 Saw mill at Spruce Creek, sold in By 1682 Thomas Doughty’s saw mill (Me. 1681. (Deeds, III, 127) Ct. Records, III, 163) YORK, MAINE: References to York By 1685 Robert Booth’s saw mill (Me. Ct. Records, III, 214) Deeds, unless otherwise noted. ,686 mill grant to F. Backhouse and J. Hill. ,634 F. Gorges erected a mill on what be- (Deeds, IV, 16 I ) came “Old Mill Creek” (see text). 1651 grant on Cape Neddick River to E. CASCO : Rishworth j sawmill erected by I 652. 675 Wescustogo, , grant to H. (Deeds, I, 15) c. I Sayword and Benj.” Gedney j saw mill 1652 grant to H. Gayle and W. Ellingham erected by 1676. (Deeds, II, 188) on Gorges Creek. (Deeds, I, 14 f) c. 1680 Walter Gyndall’s saw mill, erected I 65 2 Two mills erected by Gayle, Ellingham, by 1682. (Me. Ct. Records, III, 163) T. Clark, H. Webb and Rishworth; one c. 1680 Samuel Webber’s saw mill, erected on Old Mill Creek, another on Gorges by 1682. (Me. Ct. Records, III, 163) Creek by 1653. (Deeds, I, 35, 36) 1655 grant to Henry Sayward on New Mill FALMOUTH : Creek; three mills erected, including that burned in ,669. (Deeds, I, 59) ,680 grant to J. and G. Ingersol “where the 1669 rebuilding on 1655 grant above (see old sawmills were,” erected by I 683. text). (Deeds, III, 125) 148 Old-Time New England

NOTES

r N. H. Provincial Records, I, I ; the origi- by I. S.,” MS. map c. 1655, British Museum, nal MS. is lost, but was first published by Jeremy Crown Collection, Topography, CXX, 27. Belknap in The , 25 Suffolk Deeds, I, 106. vol. I, Appendix II (Phila., I 784). 26 Ibid., 1, I 8 2. 2 John S. Jenness, ed., Transcripts of Origi- 2i Ibid. nal Documents in English Archives Relating to 28 Mass. Historical Sot., Misc. Bound MSS., the Early History of the State of New Hamp- Vol. a, MS. p. 5. shire (N. Y., 1876), p. 18. 2RLibby, et al., op. cit., p. 6 I o ; York Deeds, s Mass. Archives, III, 437. III, 40: Curwin Family MSS., Essex Institute, 4 Mass. Archives, III, 444. Vol. 4, Confirmation of Town Grant March 5 Libby, Noyes, Davis (eds.), Genealogical 25, 16793 Articlesof Agreement July 16, 1680. Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (Portland, r928-1938), pp. ,33-34j‘ George Vo;P ly;k Eager” Curwin Fami1y MSS” F. Dow, Records and Files of the Quarterly 31 Ibid., pp. 13, 38 j “Account of all the Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts (Salem, kCo~&nthFa;~;~$; sav”,; . ; (L sp”i ’ 3, I 68 2, rgrr-,921), I, 281, 202. .) . . . 6 Ferdinand0 Gorges, Briefe Narration . . . 32York Deeds, II, I 14. (London, r658), quoted in J. P. Baxter, Sii Ferdinalzdo Gorges and His Province of Maine 33 N. H. Provincial Records, I, 3 5 8. (Boston, 1890), II, 58. 34 Ibid., I, 57. 7 John Winthrop, Journal (Savage ed.), I, 35 Ibid., I, 358. 129. 36 N. H. Probates, No. 15 j Libby, et al., op. 8 N. H. Provincial Deeds, I, 3-6. cit., pp. 7’4, x33-134. a N. H. State Papers (Concord, I 867- ), “Ibid., pp. 610, 262-264, 437, 55’5 see XL, 124 f. also Charles E. Banks, Topographical Diction- lo Suffolk Co. (Mass.) Deeds, I, 109. ary of 2885 English Emigrants to New Eng- land. 3rd ed. (Baltimore, 1963), pp. 46, 63, I1 Ibid., I, tog. “7, 174. aa Arthur Gilman, The Gilman Family (.41- 38 I am indebted to Dr. A. L. Cummings for bany, I 869), pp. 35-3 7 j Norfolk Co. Deeds lending me his notes on power saw mills pro- (Salem, Mass.), I, 17-18. vided by G. J. Eltringham of the Univ. of Not- I3 Norfolk Co. Deeds, I, 41a. tingham, who has studied the subject of English I4 Essex Co. Deeds, I, I 8 j quoted in E. N. powered sawing. Also the correspondence be- Hartley, Ironworks on the Saugus (Norman, tween Dr. Cummings and Mr. L. J. Turner of Okla., 1957), P. 134. Hertfordshire has indicated the known sources of English and Dutch wind-driven “Paltrok” ls Winthrop Papers, MSS., Mass. Historical mills. The first English wind-powered saw sot., II, 39. mill of I 633 is noted in Rex Wailes, The Eng- ls Province and Court Records of Maine lish Windmill (London, 1954), p. 144. The (Portland, 193z), Vol. I, p, I 61. 1592 Dutch invention of Cornelius Cornelioz I7 Hartley, OP. cit., pp. 65-66, I 35 j N. B. is described in F. Stokhuyzen, Th.e Dutch Wind- Shurtleff (ed.), Records of the Governor and mill Eng. ed. (London, I 963)) p. 5 3. Mr. Tur- Company of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, I 85 3), ner notes that Schenk’s view of London may be III, 227, 257. seen in K. G. Farries and M. T. Mason, T/ze rs Dow, op. cit., I, 25 I. Windmills of Surry and Inner London (Lon- don, 1966), Plates 55 and 57. I9 Ibid,, I, 251 j York (Me.) Deeds, IV, 153. 3g Mr. Turner notes the opposition of saw- *O York Deeds, I, 57, 74. yers to power saw mills in Farries and Mason, 21 Ibid., I, 103. op. cit., p. 234. 22 Ibid., X, I I 3. 4o The construction of sub-medieval wind- *3 Ibid., II, 69. mills in Essex, dating up to 1683, is to be seen 24 “Pascatway [sic] River in New England in Cecil Hewett, “Some Developments in Car- Merchant and Millwright 149 pentry, Illustrated by Essex Millwrighting,” 43 Mass. Archives, LIX, 955 N. H. Court The Art Bulletin, L (1968), 70-74; water- Papers, I, 231-252. powered gristmills are noted throughout Medi- 44 N. H. Court Papers, I, 237. eval England, such as the “duo molendina ” York Deeds, I, ,265 DOW, OP. cit., III, aquatica” (two water mills) listed in the “Ex- 196 n. tent of the Manor of Chaddesley . . .” (Wore.), 46 N. H. Court Papers, I, 237. I 290 A.D., translated in J. W. Willis-Bund, Inquisitiones Post Mortem for Worcestershire 4i Dow, op. cit., III, 347 n. (Wore. Historical Sot., 1894), XX, 30. 48 Ibid., III, 348 n. 41 [E. Williams], Virginia: . . . Ric/zZy and 4s N. H. Court Papers, I, 249. truly valued . . . , and ed. (London, 1650), so Ibid., I, 249. i\ppendix (n.p.). 51 York Deeds, III, I. I am gratefully indebted to Mr. Edwin Battison, Assistant Curator of the Division of 52 Hartley, op. cit., p. 183. Also, see deeds Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the for the full or partial role of saw mills as cited Smithsonian Institution, for pointing out early in other footnotes for reference to dams and published sources for saw mills. There were two flumes. hand and pendulum powered saw mills illus- 53 York Deeds, VIII, 223. trated in F. Beroald, Theatre Des Instrumens 54 N. H. Probates, No. ‘5. Mathematiques @ Mechaniques de Iaques Bes- ss York Deeds, IV, 161. son Dauphinok . . . (Lyon, 1578). Mr. Batti- s6 N. H. State Papers, op. cit., XXXI, 759 5 son’s own research indicates that this French N. H. Court Papers, I, 249. work was known in England during the seven- teenth century. si York Deeds, I, 17. Works such as this could easily have been 58 Ibid., II, I 64. the “model” used in the I 630’s to provide con- 5o Inventory of Valentine Hill, Mass. Ar- struction information to English carpenters un- chives, Vol. I gB, pp. I 6-t 8 5 York Deeds, VI, familiar with building saw mills. 127. *s Public Record Office, London, Document 6o York Deeds, III, I 03. No. CO 7oo/N,Hamps. 7. - Continued from page I 30 head of water,” which means that their estimate sQ The Records of the Town of Cambridge, represented a maximum output, and suggests Massachusetts, 1630-1703 (Cambridge, ‘90x), that during the “season,” a mill might indeed p. ZOI. operate 24 hours a day. Richard Currier, who 6o Quoted in John Robinson, The Flora of “had a mill upon the same river,” as the one Essex Cowzty, Massachusetts (Salem, 18 80)~ about which Greeley and Allen gave testimony, PP. 95-96. deposed at the same time that his mill had 61 Q CR, VIII, 253. “sawed the past spring about five or six thou- 13sResearch conducted by Charles F. Hum- sand feet of boards a week for three months.” mel, in the files of the curator of the Winterthur (0 C R, VIII, 374.) Museum, would suggest a date of construction ss The author is greatly indebted to Mr. of the Seth Story house as r684. A room from Gordon Saltar, wood anatomist at the Henry the house has been installed in that museum. Francis duPont Winterthur Museum, for the 6s See the unpbl. Account Book of Hananiah precise identification of the woods discussed in Parker, second signature, p. 32, in the MS. col- this article. lections of The New England Historic Gene- 56 History of Hadley, Massachusetts (Spring- alogical Society. field, t905),~~.430-43t, 295. 64 See Ralph Edwards, The Shorter Diction- si Ellicott/Evans, Pt. V, p. 90. ary of English Furniture (London, t964), p. 403. s* This principle is acknowledged in Jacques 6s Douglass, II, 55. Besson, Theatrum Instrumentorum et Machi- narum (Lyon, r58a), Plate XIV, where an un- 66 Douglass, II, 69. believably handsome crosscut blade is illus- si Manual of the Trees of North America, z trated. Vols. (New York, 196r), I, 255-256.