Mills
Colonial Mills Industrial Mills
Introduction
Mills were an early and enduring piece of the Lamprey valley’s settlement, commerce, and industrial development. Within the first few river miles from Great Bay were four important falls: the lower falls, or Lamprey River falls in Newmarket where the Macallen Dam now stands, separating salt and fresh water; Packer’s Falls, the second falls in Durham; Wiswall’s Falls in Durham just upstream of Packer’s Falls; and Wadleigh’s Falls, variously known as the upper falls, Island falls, and Wadley’s Falls in Lee. The first of the falls to be harnessed for power was in Newmarket sometime around 1650. Others followed at the important falls, and at lesser falls at Hook Island, Lee Hook, Epping Village, at Blake Road in West Epping (the Lower Tuckaway Grant), and at the present Bunker Pond Dam in West Epping.
The Wiswall mill (above) is a good example of a colonial mill. The photograph above shows the mill when it was used for processing wood. You can see the stacks of lumber, and a cow in the foreground. The mill at Wiswall’s Falls was originally constructed in 1835, when Moses and Issachar Wiggin built a dam and sawmill on the river. Over the years, the mills here produced many goods: saw logs, grist and flour, cloth, knives, hoes and pitch forks, wooden measures, nuts and bolts, bobbins, axe handles, carriages and sleighs, chairs, and matches. In 1853 a paper mill was constructed and operated by Thomas Wiswall & Co, who leased water power from Moses Wiggin's dam. Later that year, Wiggin died, and Wiswall became the sole owner of the properties. Fire, a common plague for early mills, destroyed the Wiswall mills in 1883. Later, J.W. Burham (of Newmarket Light, Heat and Power Co.) bought the property and built a power station, bringing electricity to Durham for the first time. This station was bought by the Newmarket Electric Company in 1912, but as the University of New Hampshire grew, it became the focal point of the Town of Durham and economic interest in the Wiswall site waned. Now, although the buildings have been destroyed, visitors to the site, owned by the Town of Durham, can still see foundations and the sluice way (originally built in 1954). The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the “best remaining example in Durham of the town’s nineteenth century manufacturing base.” These remains were restored in 1999 by the LRAC and the Town of Durham with funding from the Wild & Scenic Rivers Program. In 2000, Eagle Scout Andrew McDowell with troop 154 placed picnic tables and an informational sign at the site (information from the sign was used in this description).
There were several colonial mills on the Lamprey. Examples have been found at various locations. At the site below, part of the original mill building still exists, and an original millstone was also found.
One of the most spectacular examples of a Waltham-type cotton textile manufacturing. It is at this site that the Newmarket Manufacturing Company located its textile mills . The first Newmarket Manufacturing Company mill was built in 1823. Textile mills operated continuously at this site until 1929 (Newmarket Mills are pictured in the photograph at the top of this page). They dominated community life and life on the river. At one time or another during the first two hundred years of European settlement, dams for powering a variety of mills occurred throughout the watershed. The Newmarket Manufacturing Company also built and controlled dams at Pawtuckaway and Mendums ponds. Water releases from the ponds supplemented flows in the Lamprey during dry periods and guaranteed power in Newmarket year-round.
Included with the mills was housing for the mill workers, built by the Newmarket Manufacturing Company. The seven textile mills, a machine shop, office, storage buildings, agent’s house, and multifamily residences built for the workers – some 140 sites in all - are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They represent “a unique example of a New England mill town developed as a Waltham-type cotton textile manufacturing community.” The granite mill buildings are among “the most beautiful of all textile factories of the period” and are the best preserved examples in New Hampshire. They are well worth a visit.