Now, after the machinist has repaired and fixed up the old coupling,
and other parts of the old turbine which could not withstand our
battering, it becomes necessary to drop the turbine in place and hope
everything will work.
First, we have to pull out the temporary retaining walls next to the
tailrace, dig down below the pool, and put in a brand new wall, so
that the rush of water will not tear away the earth next to the State
Highway which would stop all the dear people from dashing about on the
State Highway, especially the tourists.
I have often wondered what I would do if this mill doesn’t work when
we get through. All sorts of suggestions have come from skeptics, the
practical ones being to install a gas engine or electric motor to turn
the stones. I doubt very much that we will ever do this. We are still
convinced that if the early settlers and tenacious people could make
this work with their cumbersome and crude tools, we can do the same
thing with our so-called improved modern equipment and tools.
So now the flume is finished, a good solid bridge is built over it, and
we must go and dig out and repair the tailrace and get ready to place
the new turbine in its position.
This tailrace runs from underneath the building, from the bottom of
the turbine out to the pool near the State Highway and then under the
State Road into Lewis Bay. All the rocks which attempted to retain the
embankment adjoining the State Highway were merely dumped there by
someone hoping they would shore up the embankment. The result was, over
the years they were gradually disturbed and found their way into the
pool, and, of course, a lot of the dirt and sand from the embankment
slipped off into the pool and the bottom of the tailrace.
So we again call in our stout and genial mason, Joe Carapezza, and a
machine to dig out the rocks, dirt and mud. Putting the rocks back into
a firm and complete wall turned out to be a little more of a job than
we planned on.
Every one of the rocks, some of which weighed from five hundred to a
thousand pounds, had to be handled manually, as there was no room for
cranes and the like to lift them up and work them around. After about
two weeks of this, we finally managed to build a fairly solid retaining
wall next to the tailrace.
Just about this time the herring began their annual migration to their
spawning ground, so we had to raise the level of the mill pond so that
nature could take her course.
It would seem that every time a weekend came around there was either
rain, snow, drizzle, or some other sort of foul weather, which didn’t
help things along a bit.
In browsing through some old pamphlets by one Daniel Wing, a school
master who taught school in Yarmouth about 1900, I ran across the
following interesting paragraph:
“The old gristmill directly opposite the Captain Baxter residence
was known as Baxter’s mill. It was at one time owned by Captain
Timothy Baker, Senr., (born in the first half of the eighteenth
century) and later by his son, Captain Joshua Baker, born in
1766. The mill pond was fed by several streamlets which came down
from the north, but its work having been completed, the dam has
been allowed to wash away; and, there being some question as to
ownership, we learn that this once beautiful and interesting spot
is now grown up with rushes. _It seems as if the water power here
might, in this day of improved machinery, be made again to serve a
useful purpose._”