Gowanus Dredgers Presents “Brooklyn’s Forgotten Sustainable Energy: Tide Mills”
January 30
The public is invited to join a discussion about Brooklyn’s largely forgotten tide mills at the Gowanus Dredgers Boat House, 165 2nd St., Brooklyn, N.Y., on Wednesday, January 30, at 7 p.m. Brooklyn’s Forgotten Sustainable Energy: Tide Mills will be led by archaeologist Alyssa Loorya, historian Eymund Diegel and Gowanus Dredgers Captain Brad Vogel.
The Gowanus Dredgers Boat House is adjacent to historic Gowanus Canal, where mills once harnessed the tides of Gowanus Creek to grind wheat into flour. Discussion participants will look at a largely forgotten piece of Brooklyn history – a tide-powered mill that stood at the center of the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn and continues to influence the local cityscape today.
The idea for the Brooklyn tide mill event appears to have risen from a 2018 conference in Queens, Using New York Tides, organized by the Tide Mill Institute and the Greater Astoria Historical Society. After the conference, several local attendees decided to conduct a similar session of their own. Tide Mill Institute leaders are encouraged by this growing local interest in tide mills. “The seed planted in Queens last year is beginning to sprout,” said Bud Warren, founder of the Tide Mill Institute.
The discussion is sponsored by the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, the Tide Mill Institute, and local restaurant and bakery Runner & Stone, who will provide refreshments. The canoe club is a volunteer organization that promotes stewardship of Brooklyn’s historic Gowanus Canal. Captain Vogel is also a member of the Tide Mill Institute along with Diegel and Loorya.
More information about the event including directions is available in the announcement on the Gowanus Dredgers website. For a preview of the discussion topics with some historical photos, read Susan De Vries’s article, Learn About a Time When Tidal Mills Made Brooklyn Move, in the Brooklyn Life section of Brownstoner.com.
I stumbled on this wonderful story. If any of these mills remain some kind of historical protection should be put on them, and there were many I’m sure. I’m 85 now but I’d like to get back in the water do some underwater exploring but don’t know.
I grew up in Travis, Staten Island. Much of us near water were water rats. I was 11 I think when I made a small box boat and pushed it down Wild Ave to the creek leading into Fresh Kills Lake, we called it. It’s now encircled by the biggest garbage dump maybe in the world. Stories were that there might of been some mills along the creek from Richmondtown farms that emptied into what we called Fresh Kills lake, emptied to Arthur Kills. The one tidal mill documented was one that emptied into Prawls River, south split around Prawls Island; and, opposite Chelsea, the creek called Balls Creek, after the old Ball family from Travis.
Donald Decker, another diver, lived close by. His father had tug business, WO, now at the seaport. He and I were diving at where the mill emptied into Prawls. Our thinking was that workers or builders would loose objects at the mill gate. My discovery was significant: a piece of unusual pottery, partially glazed, with an unusual spout. I loaned it to a museum recently, but they returned it, unable to come up who made it. Your mill outflow settled in the mud might reveal many artifacts also.
I wish I could look to keep your history alive, and keep out the developers, if possible, to prevent destruction of history.