A video produced and shown to selected audiences earlier this year is now available on line via the Tide Mill Institute’s YouTube channel. Sponsored by the Tide Mill Institute and Kennebunk Savings, the one-hour video, “The Tide Mills of the York River,” explores the remains of several York, Maine, tide mills using aerial drone photography and interviews with historians. The video includes an explanation of how tide mills work by Bud Warren, co-founder of TMI.
The first tide mill was erected on the York River in the early 1600s when Fernando Gorges sent men to the area for the purpose of building grist mills and saw mills. Tide mills continued operating on or near that river until the late 1800s or early 1900s.