Mills through Melvin Mills, Roby, Waterloo & Warner Village

MELVIN MILLS

Lt. Stephen K. Hoyt built a sawmill and gristmill in 1798 in Melvin Mills. Both mills were later

purchased by members of the Melvin family which added the manufacture of shingles. John

Rogers manufactured chairs, bedsteads, and milk can stopples. Robert Thompson operated

an evaporator for drying apples in the late 1880s. Carl Cutting made baseball bats in the

1920s. Dowling School Supply took over the Sawtell Grange building to convert huge rolls of

paper shipped from the Brown Paper Company to make various school supplies.

Below: Early stereopticon view of sawmill at Melvin Mills and sawmill and mill pond

abovethe dam.

The Dowling Paper Mill was in operation from 1946 thru early 1960s. Prior to that time it

was used for the manufacture of chair stock and bedsteads, and an apple evaporator. The

Sawtell Grange held meetings and social events on the upper floor.

The railroad station and village is pictured above.

Bird’s Eye View of Melvin Mills showing river and dam. White building on the right of the riv-

er is the Sawtell Grange. Melvin Mills school pictured below.

Between Melvin Mills & Roby.

Originally Stevens tub and pail shop. Bartlett Excelsior Mill 1871-1928. Three mill buildings

burned on this site and were rebuilt. Excelsior was used for packing material, baseball

gloves, and furniture, etc.

My grandfather built his new barn right on the bank of the river below the excelsior mill.

Cords of poplar wood used to create excelsior piled along the bank or the river.

Upriver from the trestle at the excelsior mill. Chapin Pierce mill located below

the three houses on Laing Bridge.

Adams & Bartlett Woolen Mill during the Civil War. Chapin Pierce manufactured clothespins

after the war. The foundation of the mill still exists in the Gorge.

Chapin Pierce’s chair factory now the site of Peter Ladd’s. An example of a Chapin Pierce chair.

Redington Hub Factory 1850s thru 1909. The mill was then used to manufacture clothespins

and later crutches. The buildings burned in 1937.

Mill site below the bridge in Roby used as a sawmill and later a cotton factory.

The Gould family operated an up-and-down sawmill and later manufactured shingles at their

mill site located behind their twin houses. Their mill was located in the Sutton part of the

Warner river.

The Great Falls at Waterloo. Nathaniel Bean erected a saw and grist mill here in 1798.

There was also a tannery, carding mill, trip hammer, and paper mill located in Waterloo.

The site of the paper mill located downriver from the falls.

George Gaffney manufactured wood alcohol, charcoal and acetate in the early 1900s. Later

the American Cyanamide & Chemical Co. manufactured dyes to color cloth.

Ela grist mill on the left and the sawmill on the right were located upstream from the bridge

that crosses the Warner River in the village.

Ela gristmill in the foreground. Turner’s blacksmith shop is the dark building by the bridge

and Dow’s Lumber Mill in the background with the smokestack. It later became the Henniker

Crutch Factory.