History of the The Rensselaerville Grist Mill

Before any mills were built, the first settlers in the Rensselaerville area crushed corn, buckwheat and rye grain by using crude mortars made from large logs with a cavity burned out. Feed for animals was made by grinding corn cobs with some of the corn left on.

As more settlers arrived, various mills were established to serve their needs: grist mills to grind grain to flour and for animal feed, fulling mills to process wool for clothing, and sawmills to furnish lumber for building homes, churches and stores. The mills were located alongside falls and creeks to harness water power to run the mill machinery. Because of abundant water power, settlement naturally clustered around falls and swift-flowing streams and the five hamlets comprising the Town of Rensselaerville grew.

The first mills used undershot or overshot water wheels, with the water channeled under or over the wheel and the flow of the water causing the wheel to turn. This rotary motion was transferred through a system of belts and pulleys and gears to operate the mill machinery. Later water powered turbines were used instead of mill wheels.

The first mill in the hamlet of Rensselaerville was built in 1789 by Samuel Jenkins from West Stockbridge, Mass. Zadoc Brown, then his son Harvey were the first millers. The mill was located approximately where the present Grist Mill is and was much smaller than the present mill. It had an overshot wheel about 25 feet high made out of wood. In winters ice often froze on the wheel and had to be chopped off before the wheel could turn.

The millstones were imported from France and brought from the southeast overland by oxen from the Hudson River. They were made of sections held together by an iron band. From time to time new grooves had to be cut in the faces of the stones. This was done by hand, using steel tools. Some of these tools and stones may be seen on display at the Rensselaerville Grist Mill which is open on Sunday afternoons and Wednesdays during summer months.

The mill was rebuilt in 1830 by Daniel Conkling. In 1865 the miller was D. Severson who lived in the "mill house" at the bridge (now the headquarters of the E. N. Huyck Preserve, Inc.). By 1869 the mill was owned by F. Bouton and operated by Francisco Barton. Little is known of this period of the Grist Mill’s history.

In 1879 the Grist Mill burned to the ground. The only thing that was saved was the wheel which was saved by letting more water out of the gate of the mill pond next to the "mill house". When the mill was rebuilt in 1880 by Francis C. Huyck and George L. Bouton, the overshot wheel was replaced by a turbine run by water power. Wood from the wheel was used to construct the steps to the basement and the steps at the front loading dock below the road level. The new mill is much larger than the one it replaced, but it occupies very nearly the same site as the first mill of the village.

There were nine levels of activity inside the mill. The water was led from a gate (at the left side of the bridge as you face the mill), through a cylindrical cedar flume on the creek side of the mill, down an iron raceway to the lower level of the turbine where the rushing water turned the turbine. A series of belts and pulleys and gears transferred energy from the water’s force to turning the machinery which operated the mill. (See drawing.)

Most of the top floor was used for storage. The lower floors had most of the complicated and expensive machinery that made up the mill workings. An office for the miller’s records was on the first floor. Customers could bring their grain to one of two loading docks, one on the street level (second floor of mill) and one below the road level (first floor of mill). Grain was then weighed on the large scales near these doors, and each customer’s information, including weight and type of the grain, was recorded.

The grain was then poured through an opening in the floor down into hoppers in the basement of the mill and from there carried to different locations in the mill by small scoops attached to conveyor belts. Two stones for grinding buckwheat separated the shuck from the kernel for buckwheat flour. A "bolter" which had a fine mesh silk screen sifted the flour to remove impurities and stray hulls. Stock feed was ground with a steel grinder and a corn cracking machine ground both corn and cob.

After the grain was reduced to flour or animal feed, it was carried again by scoops on conveyor belts to the bagging station where it was poured into grain bags to return to the farmer.

When the mill was running the water level in the mill pond next to the "mill house" would drop but it would recover to its original height overnight.

On the upper level of the mill are some charred beams, remnants of a fire which happened early in December of 1897. (Date authenticated by a note in the December 1997 Altamont Enterprise column "Back in Time" which reports on the grist mill fire in Rensselaerville in its December 10, 1897 issue and says it was the first fire after the new fire company had been formed and equipped, and they saved the mill after fighting the flames for two hours.) A hose cart and hose attached to a fire hydrant were used. Lewis Becker was the fire chief. Damage to the building and machinery was about $1500. The area around the bolter on the second floor was apparently damaged the most severely, as the beams in that immediate area are much newer and uncharred -- no doubt replacements for burned ones. We are told that clouds of very fine flour were created in the area of the bolter by the sifting action of that machine, and that this "dust" is quite flammable, so it is probable that the fire started here.

The small annex extending off the right of the Grist Mill building at the first floor level (where the meeting room and Research Room are now located) was not part of the mill. It was a laundry, owned by the Huycks and operated by Mrs. Bryant and her daughter.

According to mill records, during the calendar year 1886 the miller was George L. Bouton and F. C. Huyck insured the mill, the buckwheat and other grains. They were insured for $1,000 for a premium of $20. Four years later, Van Ness Huyck (a relative of F. C. Huyck’s) lived in the mill house, operated the mill, and insured it for three months for $13.60. Other millers (not necessarily in chronological order) were Daniel Miner, Mr. Borst and Reuben Baker. Mr. Baker and his family lived in the mill house; he operated the mill until he died in 1912. He was followed by Charlie Smith who was the principal miller until it closed.

In the early days, the Grist Mill operated all year round, and during buckwheat season it ran day and night. It had a reputation for the best buckwheat in the country. During the 1920’s the mill season was from April to September and the work day was from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Although Charlie Smith was the miller, he had another day job, so Ernie Rivenburg operated it during the days when it was open. In 1933 the mill brought in $10,015.16 and expenses were $9,455.43.

Frank Huyck died in 1907 and his son Edmund Niles Huyck and Edmund’s wife Jessie operated the mill some years at a loss in order to provide a place for local farmers to grind their grain. The mill finally ceased regular operations on November 1, 1945, ending 156 years of mill history for the village on that spot although it ran occasionally for several years after that. A major effort was launched in 1974-1980 to restore the Grist Mill to working order and much volunteer labor went into the project. Today, though far from totally renovated, the Grist Mill can grind grain when water power is sufficient, although the wooden flume spouts large leaks. On two different days during the summer of 1996, special demonstrations were put on and plans are to continue these periodically in the future.

OTHER MILLS IN RENSSELAERVILLE

Each of the hamlets in the Township of Rensselaerville had at least one fulling mill, one grist mill and one sawmill.

Fulling mills prepared wool cloth by washing and shrinking it and removing the animal oils. Fuller’s earth, a highly absorbent claylike substance, was sprinkled on the cloth and then beaten into it; then the cloth was washed again and the nap raised by fulling was sheared off to make the cloth soft.

There were two grist mills in Cooksburg (one is now a restaurant in Connecticut). One located in a field near the intersection of Rt. 81 and Rt. 145 had three turbines in series.

Just below Jenkins’ mill (present site of Rensselaerville Grist Mill), a sawmill was built in the early 1790’s by the Crockers and Howard, John and Reuben Frisbee, using the same falls as the grist mill. Another mill, the "Upper Mill", was built in 1794-95 by Reuben and John Frisbee, Samuel Hatch and Hans Winegar. This was probably a flouring mill at first. Later it was the site of a fulling mill, then a woolen mill, then H. Waterbury & Co. It closed in 1878 when Henry Waterbury went to Oriskany and his partner, Francis Conkling Huyck, opened Kenwood Mills on the Hudson River south of Albany. The foundation of Waterbury and Huyck’s mill is visible on the left side of The Falls, just across the first footbridge. Some of the first felts made in America for the papermaking industry were manufactured here. A model of this mill and the gorge where The Falls are is on display at the Grist Mill.

About 1801 William and Uriah King built a mill for fulling, dressing and dyeing cloth below the Grist Mill, near where Jim Tigner’s house is today. Carding machinery was added later by Hollister and Miner and the mill became known as "The Machinery House". It was run for many years by Alpheus Dwight and his brother Lyman.

Two more grist mills were added to the hamlet about 1803. They were called the "Middle Mill" and the "Lower Mill". It is unclear whether the "middle mill" grist mill was a conversion of the Crocker/Frisbee sawmill or whether the sawmill had burned or been torn down and a grist mill erected in its place. In any case, a map of the town dated 1820 shows A. Simmonds as miller of the "middle mill" which seems to be at the Crocker/Frisbee sawmill location. Simmonds lived in the "middle mill cottage" which is owned today by John Geritz, the red house across the road from the foot of Pond Hill.

Farther downstream the "lower mill" was built by Jonathan Jenkins and Asa Colvard, and quite a bit further downstream another sawmill operated by a man named Sweet is shown on the 1820 map.

The Gazeteer of the State of New York for 1824 says that the village of Rensselaerville had three of the six grist mills and two of the eleven sawmills of the township of Rensselaerville. The hamlet also had four "clothers’ works" but one was probably "The Machinery House" and the others shops instead of mills.

DAMS

As the forests were cut down, the water flow became uneven and diminished to where the stream was not able to support all the mills all year. So a four-foot-high log dam was built but it was destroyed by a flood and a stronger dam built. This formed the body of water which today is known as Lake Myosotis. At first it was called "The Pond" which is why the road from the village to the lake is known as "Pond Hill Road".

In 1836 the dam was repaired with seven cubic yards of stone blocks, four feet long and one foot thick. Fifteen men worked a total of 79 and a half days to repair the dam. A man and a team of horses were paid one dollar a day for labor. In 1839 more work was done on this dam, but this time only six men worked for a few days each.

Sometime between 1824 and 1839 two more grist mills were built on Ten Mile Creek above the Rensselaerville Falls, not far below the lake because a map in a New York State atlas for 1839 shows two grist mills located there. Further information about these mills is not known but they were no longer in operation by 1866 as they are not shown on a map of that year.

The Annals of Albany 1854 lists the village of Rensselaerville with three grist mills, two sawmills and one clothing work, but Jay Gould’s 1854 map of the hamlet of Rensselaerville shows only the "upper mill" (by then the woolen factory), Jenkins’ mill, and Sweet’s sawmill. The "lower mill", the "middle mill" and the "Machinery House" were gone; by 1854 the town had passed through its prime and started an almost steady decline.

By 1866 a map of the township no longer shows Sweet’s sawmill. It does, however, show a sawmill on Lincoln Pond (northwest of Lake Myosotis on the Ten Mile Creek). And the mills of the village can no longer be distinguished.

THE WOOLEN MILL

New mills did appear in spite of the decline. In 1860 Henry Waterbury came to Rensselaerville from Watervliet where he had worked with his father and uncle manufacturing clothing woolens, called "cassimeres". He opened the Rensselaerville Woolen Mill on the site of the "upper mill" which had already been a woolen mill when he purchased it. Waterbury’s mill contained two sets of machinery and processed about 50,000 pounds of wool annually.

The purpose of the woolen mill had been to receive wool from neighboring farmers and card it into shapes called "rolls". These were then returned to the farmers to be spun into yarn and woven into cloth. The cloth was again sent to the mill to be fetted or fulled and finished, after which it was returned to the owners and made into family clothing.

About 1869 or 1870 Henry Waterbury started working on a new enterprise. He began making plans to establish a mill for manufacturing papermaker’s felts on the site of his woolen mill. Papermaker’s felts were flat strips of felt used to squeeze moisture from the pulp and flatten it into thin sheets. Then the paper was set to dry in lofts. Waterbury learned the use of the felts; then discovered with the help of his wife, Mary Stephens Waterbury, a method of connecting the ends of the felts to form an endless belt, making it possible to dry the paper by machine.

Waterbury then asked Francis Conkling Huyck to become his partner in the manufacture of these items. Huyck was advised against this venture by his family and friends but he explored the possibilities by visiting mills in the area to inquire about felts, where they obtained them and what the price was. In 1870 he entered into the partnership with Waterbury and brought to the venture his talents as a good salesman, good business vision, and $10,000 capital. He had not enjoyed being a storekeeper in his father’s general store on Main Street. His father, John S. Huyck, loaned Frank the $10,000.

H. Waterbury & Co. became the name of the partnership formed in the old woolen mill (the buiding had been rebuilt in the early part of the nineteenth century on the "upper mill" site). The foundation can be seen at the foot of the Rensselaerville Falls. This was the fourth established felting company in America. Before this period felts were imported from Europe and the making of them was almost unknown in this country.

In 1870 a flood ("freshet") destroyed the dam at Lake Myosotis and the mill dam and washed away the dye house of the H. Waterbury & Co. mill. The dye house was recovered but the dams had to be rebuilt.

James E. Waterbury was superintendent of H. Waterbury & Co. which employed between 30 and 40 workers. Between one-fourth and one-third were women. Wages for October of 1872 for 36 employees were $565.40, with average wage between ten and twenty dollars for the month, or less than one dollar per day.

The Waterbury and Huyck partnership was dissolved in 1878, the machinery removed, and the felt mill closed because of reduced water power and because of the increased cost of shipping after the railroads were built elsewhere. Rail and water transportation were cheaper than hauling overland, and the mill could not remain competitive.

When Waterbury went to Oriskany, he purchased a plant that stood on the site of the first woolen mill on this continent to produce finished cloth from raw wool. Huyck refused to go to Oriskany because he wanted a better education for his children than what was available there. He rented a mill at Kenwood, a suburb of Albany, and operated his business as "Kenwood Mills" until it burned down in 1894. Then he moved across the Hudson River to Rensselaer. The business was re-named F. C. Huyck & Sons by his sons in 1907 after Huyck died. Today it is The Huyck Corporation.

SAWMILLS

A sawmill was operated at Lincoln Pond prior to 1869 by a man named Lincoln, but the exact dates are not known, nor are the names of any other early sawmill operators there (if any). In 1869 it was being operated by John H. Bouton and Harvey J. Bouton. It was run until a few years before World War I when it rotted and fell down. The last sawmill operator was Myron Bryant who also ran a store in the village. In 1912, after the sawmill had ceased operations, the land around Lincoln Pond was purchased by Edmund Niles Huyck and after his death it became part of the E. N. Huyck Preserve, Inc. Throughout its operating years, the sawmill was run by water power generated by the dam that forms Lincoln Pond.

Shortly after the Civil War a sawmill was located just downstream of the Grist Mill, first owned by John Shultes who had been a prisoner at Anderson Prison during the war. Water power ran a turbine, not a wheel, and the mill sawed lumber from farmers and villagers in the area. Lumber was dragged down to the mill by two different routes and placed about where Jim Tigner’s house is today. One route was down the left side of "middle mill cottage" and the other was down "Murder Lane" at the right of the connected "row houses" (the group of buildings which contains the library). There was also a cider press at Shultes’ mill.

Shultes also made boxes to ship butter in for the creamery which was started shortly after Henry Waterbury left in 1878. When Shultes died in 1912, his son Arthur sold the sawmill to Burt Warner from Gallupville. Warner was also a carpenter, shingle maker and barrel maker. He brought his one-room house to Rensselaerville by ox cart and built a larger house around the one-room dwelling. The original room is now part of Tigner’s basement. Warner left about 1930, moving to Berne to operate another sawmill. One of the reasons he left is because the water flow was insufficient, even though a dam controlled water power and provided an even flow of water through a wooden flume that led to the mill building. The flume was located about 20 feet below the dam and was torn down in 1938 by M. Fritz Sr. and his sons Matt and Joe for beams to build a barn on their farm.

Other sawmills in the Town of Rensselaerville included one located on the Rensselaerville-Durham Turnpike between Medusa and Rensselaerville on Ten Mile Creek (on the present Olson farm on Wilsey Road). It opened in the late 1800’s and was operated by Salem Tallman and his son Fletcher. A basket factory was also part of the operation. Another sawmill was in the village of Medusa, built by Dexter Hand and operated by his son Edward Hand until 1917.

A sawmill was started in 1897 by Stanton Shufelt near his barn on his farm at the intersection of Crocker Road (now Methodist Hill Road) and State Route 85. Four mills were built and two burned down. The first two were built of shingles and also contained cider mills. The first was run by water power and burned in 1907. The second was run by a steam engine and burned down in 1916. The third was also run by steam power, then converted to a gas engine in 1922. In 1938 a fourth mill was built on the site of the third one and also used a gas engine. It operated from time to time until 1961 by Stanton Shufelt, Jr., when the high insurance made it unprofitable to continue.

By Janet Long Haseley, 1996 (revised 1999), adapted from a 1965 paper by Joseph Civalier of the Natural Sciences Institute. Civalier’s paper is in the Rensselaerville Historical Society’s archives in an acid-free box marked "Rensselaerville Mills".

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