Tide Mills
New Castle, with its surrounding islands and eight to twelve foot tides, is an ideal location for a tidal mill. During the 1700s, New Castle had two functioning tide mills: the Bell/Ritson Mill and the Abraham Trefethan Mill, both located in the back channel. Substantial physical evidence of these tide mills still exists today. The mill ponds created by these man-made earthen dams connected the islands and the mainland. Built into these dams were two wooden vertical wall-like gates. The mill only operated two times a day when the tide falling. As the tide rose outside of the mill pond, it pushed the gates open and entered the mill pond. The gates closed as the tide began to go out. Captured water from the mill pond was slowly released via a sluice system under the mill house. The water from the sluice system was directed over a turbine water wheel which powered the mill.
Note: These dams and adjacent islands are available for marine research and nature walks via the acquisition a few years ago by the town of New Castle, with the help from the town, a Conservative Trust and private donations.
Note: These dams and adjacent islands are available for marine research and nature walks via the acquisition a few years ago by the town of New Castle, with the help from the town, a Conservative Trust and private donations.
Please click below to see our dynamic video of a working Tide Mill in action
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SIGN FOR MILL STONE, currently in the garden on the front lawn.
by Bill Drew Due to an unusually high tide a few years ago, a fragment of a broken mill stone used in the operation of a grist/gunpowder/lumber?? mill appeared on the property of the New Castle Historical Society. Apparently, its original resting place was in the mud nest to a shed, that does not exist anymore, located next to the dam. The dam. with the beautiful stone wall. is adjacent to Mill Island on which "Jump'in Rock" is located. This fragment came from the stone of a two stone horizontal mill. It is called the runner stone. Seen is a squarish cutout near the center for a key and a large diameter hole. This stone was affixed to a large diameter shaft. perhaps 8-10" in diameter, where its rotation was achieved by a connection to a water wheel driven from the head of water in the Mill Pond. The bottom stone beneath it. but not touching, is called appropriately the bed stone. It sits in a stationary fixed position. Into the facing surfaces of each stone, grooves are cut. The patterns on the stones working together, runner and bed, act like a pair of scissors cutting the grain as the runner stone rotates. Raw grain is fed through the center of the runner stone, and drops down onto the bed stone. then the grooves of the surfaces of each stone force the grain to be ground up and move to the outside circumference of the stones where it is manually collected. |
Mill Stone from river bed
Sign from our Mill Stone display
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