Blue Hill’s Early Water-Powered Mills

John Roundy and Joseph Wood, the first settlers, arrived in Blue Hill, Maine, in 1762. They may have heard rumors of an exceptional water power somewhere on the coast of Maine east of the Penobscot River. Or they may have stumbled on the reversing falls at the Salt Pond as they nosed into Blue Hill Bay by boat looking for a place to settle. Either way, they must have been amazed at the water crashing in and out with the tide. They must have sat there in their boat, the gears turning in their heads. Here was a power that could run a sawmill and there were giant virgin-growth trees coming right down to the shore.

All the mills of that period were powered by water. Most were on rivers and streams and made use of dams to tap the power of the falling water. But all along the New England coast there were tide mills. These would trap water in an enclosure at the high tide and use the head created by the falling tide to power up-and-down sawmills and grist mills.

Roundy and Wood landed on what came to be known as Mill Island and built two log cabins that summer. They returned to Beverly, Massachusetts for the winter and returned with their wives and families in the spring of 1763. They established a working homestead on that 24 acre island. Living there, between the fore-falls and the back-falls, they must have gained an intimate knowledge of the tide and how to tap it. By 1765 they had a sawmill up and running. They built a low dam out of mud and stones at the inner end of the back falls and a much bigger dam, a causeway actually, at the outer end. Thus they turned the back-falls into a mill pond. The causeway had moveable wooden gates that would allow the sea to flow in but would close when the tide turned. The sawmill was a complete success and enabled the settlers to saw out studs and boards for houses and timbers for ships. This causeway has survived to the present day and the state highway goes over it.

The settlement grew quickly then. Wood and Roundy, not ones to rest on their hands, then built a grist mill at the other end of the causeway and sold shares to local entrepreneurs. Many people owned shares in the mill at one time or another. The grist mill had an ingenious structure that extended out over the causeway. A farmer could pull a wagon up under it and have his bags of grain hoisted up to the top of the mill using water power. From there the grain was fed to the grinding stones by gravity. The grist mill was still operating as late as 1880.