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Top photo: Tom Campbell of Pomfret’s Old Wood Workshop and Andy Quigley, a Chamberlin Mill, Inc, board member, with millstone recently donated to Chamberlin Mill by Campbell. 

 

 

Millstone

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WOODSTOCK --- For several years, Andy Quigley and other Chamberlin Mill, Inc. volunteers  have been searching for a grist millstone known to have come from the Chamberlin site along the Still River in West Woodstock, and identified with the property’s early combined grist and sawmill operations.  While the site has become recognized today for its 19th century sawmill currently under restoration,  early deeds confirm that in the late 1700s, Manasseh Hosmer owned  both a grist mill and sawmill at this location. 

Andy Quigley and the Chamberlin family remember when the millstone was a feature of William Lonsdale and Pearle Chamberlin Tayler’s garden, across the river from the current Chamberlin Mill.  They also remember its sale at auction following the Taylers’ deaths in the mid-1990s.  But its location was uncertain, until last fall when, after following many leads, Quigley learned that the millstone might be among a collection of antique stones that had recently been sold to Tom Campbell of Pomfret’s Old Wood Workshop. 

Andy Quigley wasted no time in contacting Tom Campbell, whose  Old Wood Workshop (www.oldwoodworkshop.com) specializes in antique original 18th and early 19th century flooring, antique iron hardware, and antique stone.  Campbell had recently purchased the Woodstock grist mill stone from an Eastford collection of assorted antique stones.  An inscription on the reverse of a photograph taken by the prior owner positively identified the millstone as from the Chamberlin site.

“You can only imagine how happy I was to find this stone, intact, and available to Chamberlin Mill, Inc.,” said Quigley.  “I remembered it from the time when, as a young man, I helped the Taylers build a small outbuilding.  Bill Tayler told me about betting a fellow with a new tractor that he couldn’t retrieve the mill stone, then lodged in the river bed, and bring it up to his garden.  The fellow won the bet and the Taylers won the stone. “

Very generously, Tom Campbell offered to donate the massive millstone to Chamberlin Mill, Inc. for display at the Mill once it is fully restored.  In the meantime, the stone will remain in safekeeping. Chamberlin Mill, Inc. is extremely grateful to Tom Campbell for this important and irreplaceable gift.

“Andy’s timing on tracking down the stone was perfect because we had just listed it for sale on our website,” says Campbell.  The stone is large and in great condition even though it had been moved several times in the past 100+ years. I was happy to return the mill stone to its original location at the Chamberlin Mill. It’s a piece of local history that now everyone can enjoy.”

Andy Quigley, a Pomfret resident,  has been a stalwart member of the Chamberlin Mill restoration effort since its beginnings, and a board member of Chamberlin Mill, Inc., the non-profit corporation formed in 2013 to preserve and sustain the mill and its unique story for generations to enjoy.  Quigley brings a voracious native curiosity to this work, as well as expertise in the reconstruction and operation of antique circular saws. He owns and operates his own 19th century Lane #1 circular saw, very similar to the one belonging to Chamberlin Mill.

In the early years of European settlement of New England, grist mills like sawmills were common along many streams and rivers.  The central elements of grist mills were two matching grooved millstones, which rotated one atop the other, grinding corn and other grains into flour.   The recently located stone is one of such a pair.  The location of its mate remains a mystery, though there is speculation that it may now be part of the roadbed for Old Turnpike Road which runs by Chamberlin Mill.  The stone recently donated to Chamberlin Mill, Inc., will be in safekeeping until the Mill restoration is complete.

Three examples of early publicly accessible gristmills remain nearby in Pomfret and Storrs, and in the reconstructed gristmill at Old Sturbridge Village.   Besides Chamberlin, the only other accessible early sawmill in Connecticut is the Ledyard up-and-down operation.  Together with the reconstructed up-and-down sawmill at Old Sturbridge, the Ledyard and Chamberlin sites tell of 19th century technological development toward the greater efficiency of water-powered sawmills, and to the eventual displacement of water power by fossil fuels, in the form of Chamberlin Mill’s 1928 Studebaker engine, brought to the site following a major flood in 1936 to keep the sawmill operational through the 1960s.  These old small mills, each unique, have much to say about how earlier inhabitants of our region sustained themselves before the era of supermarkets and big box stores.

Anyone interested in being part of the effort to preserve Chamberlin Mill or with leads about Lane # 1 circular saw parts, or a Civil War era Muzzy shingle mill that may have come from the Chamberlin site, is invited to contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or860-428-0656.