_The Story Of
THE RESTORATION OF BAXTER’S MILL_
_The Baxter boys they built a mill,
Sometimes it ran--
Sometimes stood still.
But when it ran, it made no noise,
Because ’twas built by Baxter’s boys._
_By_
A. HAROLD CASTONGUAY
1962
_Copyright 1962
by_
A. HAROLD CASTONGUAY
_Sketches by Gordon Brooks_
_Printed on Cape Cod
by_
THE WAYSIDE STUDIO
SOUTH YARMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
[Illustration:
_This_
OLD WATER MILL
_Is Being Restored_
(IT IS HOPED)
BY
TWO LOCAL CHARACTERS
]
I
_Time goes, you say:
Ah, no!
Time stays--
We go!_
--DOBSON
A few days before Christmas of 1961 we will raise a pen gate in a flume
adjoining the Mill Pond in West Yarmouth, on Cape Cod, and a 250-year
old water grist mill will again grind corn into corn meal.
And so, a vanishing part of Americana, especially old New England
dating to our colonial days, has been restored. Hundreds and perhaps
thousands of people have been going by this little old building,
especially in the summer, without giving it a thought but the mill’s
visitors from now on, growing up in our modern world of television, jet
airplanes, and high-powered automobiles, to say nothing of electric can
openers, will get a glimpse of early America, a view of the simplicity
of the mechanism, and the quiet dignity of the building itself.
The mill is the only one of its kind on Cape Cod, the few others being
either windmills or outside water wheels.
The original mill was probably built about 1710 by John and Shubael
Baxter, sons of Thomas, who arrived in Yarmouth from Rhode Island after
the close of King Philip’s War. Originally a mason, the loss of a hand
in the war made it impossible for Baxter to continue his trade, and he
became a millwright. His will, probated in 1714, disposes of fulling
mill equipment. This equipment was from the fulling mill which he built
on Swan Pond, now Parker’s River, in West Yarmouth.
He probably offered no more than advice to his sons when they built the
grist mill near the South Sea neighborhood, but it is undoubtedly these
sons who are immortalized in the little verse on the frontispiece of
this saga. The poem was already old when Amos Otis reproduced it in his
1880 _Genealogy of Barnstable Families_.
The Baxter mill passed from John and Shubael to their children, Richard
and Jennie, first cousins who were wed. From them, it went to their
son, Prince, and from him to his son, Prince, Jr., whose guardian,
David Scudder, sold one-half of the mill to Timothy Baker and his son,
Eleazer, and the other half to Alexander Baxter, a remote cousin of
Prince, Jr., through their common great-grandfather, John.
Extensive repairs were made to the Baxter mill around 1850. It is
likely that Prince, Sr., who inherited the mill on the death of his
father, Richard, in 1785, either made the repairs or caused them to be
made.
After about two hundred years of continuous operation, the mill was
finally abandoned around the turn of the century, the last miller being
a man aptly named Dustin Baker, who earned the magnificent sum of 68¢
per day for his work.
The mill did lend itself as a gift shop and a lobster stand in the
past few years, but as it stands today, completely restored in all
authenticity it is doing exactly the work it did originally, with the
same machinery, except the turbine which had to be replaced.
[Illustration]