Sorting Out 60-Year-Old Tide Mill Research Notes

TMI members (from left) Ron Klodenski, Bud Warren and Deane Rykerson sort through Dr. Meigs’ research materials, recording what they find in Excel spreadsheets for later organization and analysis. (Photo by Hannah Kelner.)

Last week a small team of TMI members continued cataloging tide mill research materials gathered by historian Peveril Meigs III (1903-1979) in the 1960s and 1970s. Donated recently to TMI by the Meigs family, these materials consist of five large boxes of file folders containing an estimated 4,000 or more total pages of letters, notes, photos, newspaper clippings, maps, pamphlets and sketches. Dr. Meigs intended to write a comprehensive history of tide mills from Nova Scotia to Florida, but he died before completing the volume he envisioned.

During a recent six-hour work session, the three-person TMI team continued systematically inspecting the boxes and folders and recording their contents in Excel spreadsheets for later review and analysis. After this cataloging step is finished, the materials will be organized for eventual deposit in an academic museum archive. Meanwhile, a professional archivist has volunteered to advise TMI workers about proper archiving procedures as they proceed further.

So far, cataloging team members have remarked about the number of friendships Dr. Meigs forged during his research. The folders are full of warm, good-humored letters exchanged between Meigs and historians, historical society leaders and private citizens up and down the East Coast. Unfortunately, most of Meigs’ correspondents have passed away by now, since his research was conducted so long ago when he lived in Wayland, Mass.

The cataloging work is tedious and still only 20- or 30-percent complete. But the anticipation of possibly finding something new and exciting keeps the team moving forward. While no great surprises have been uncovered so far, an exhilarating revelation could be waiting in the next folder to be opened.

If you’d like to help the effort and have a computer with Microsoft Excel, please contact Tide Mill Institute.

One thought on “Sorting Out 60-Year-Old Tide Mill Research Notes

  1. Two of us from the Greenland Historical Society have been sorting the Hughes Family Collection that was donated at the time of Paul F. Hughes death in May 2018. It is a responsibility, to say the least, but we will soon be at the point where we can think about how best to share this trove of documents with the public. Good to read what another group is doing.

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