Take a Virtual Tour: New York City Tide Mill Sites

“Tide Mills: Green Energy from the Colonial Era” takes viewers around New York City, highlighting local tide mill histories with historical maps, photos and diagrams.

It first became available on YouTube last fall when Brad Vogel teamed up with Stefan Dreisbach-Williams to develop this virtual tour of several tide mill sites in the boroughs of New York City. The 60-minute presentation brings the mill sites to life and places them in context with the larger history of the area.

Brad is a leader of Tide Mill Institute’s New York Chapter and a director of the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club. Stefan is on the tourguide staff of Turnstyle Tours, which conducts public tour programs and research in partnership with nonprofit organizations in New York. Viewers of the presentation will see that both men are passionate and knowledgeable about the region’s history.

Click to view “Tide Mills: Green Energy from the Colonial Era”

Tide Mill Talks: New Tide Mill Institute Speaker Program

Tim Richards of Tide Mill Institute recently delivered an online presentation about a largely forgotten tide mill site in Truro, Mass.

As the national authority on historic tide mills and a center reporting on today’s rapidly evolving tidal energy industry, the Tide Mill Institute is pleased to announce a speaker program — “Tide Mill Talks.”

The Tide Mill Talks program is perfect for historical societies, libraries, museums, community groups, residential communities, and schools. In keeping with the Tide Mill Institute’s mission, Tide Mill Talks are designed to build community awareness and pride in the past, highlight the engineering ingenuity and societal contributions of 17th-19th century tide mill operators, and consider tidal power as a future source of renewable energy.

Continue reading →

Worldwide Tide Mill Data Now Available On Line

U.S. East Coast tide mill sites in the tide mill database.

The Tide Mill Institute has launched its tide mill database, available to the public on line at tidemillinstitute.org. Currently, the database includes locations and detailed data for more than 600 tide mill sites in North America, Western Europe and Australia.

The database is easy to browse, with most sites indicated by markers on a Google map of the world. As with other Google maps, the viewer can zoom in and out and choose a map or a satellite view. Clicking a site marker displays available text information, photos and links to documents and related external materials. Sites can also be searched by name in a tabular view. [Watch introductory video on YouTube]

The information in the database will be valuable to researchers and those curious about tide mill locations and history near them or in other locations around the world.

Continue reading →

Blue Hill’s Early Water-Powered Mills

by Phil Norris

John Roundy and Joseph Wood, the first settlers, arrived in Blue Hill, Maine, in 1762. They may have heard rumors of an exceptional water power somewhere on the coast of Maine east of the Penobscot River. Or they may have stumbled on the reversing falls at the Salt Pond as they nosed into Blue Hill Bay by boat looking for a place to settle. Either way, they must have been amazed at the water crashing in and out with the tide. They must have sat there in their boat, the gears turning in their heads. Here was a power that could run a sawmill and there were giant virgin-growth trees coming right down to the shore.

All the mills of that period were powered by water. Most were on rivers and streams and made use of dams to tap the power of the falling water. But all along the New England coast there were tide mills. These would trap water in an enclosure at the high tide and use the head created by the falling tide to power up-and-down sawmills and grist mills.

Grist mill at Blue Hill Falls, c. 1880. Click to enlarge. (Drawing by Phil Norris.)

Continue reading →

The Truro Tide Mill’s Final Years

by Tim Richards

Author's note: This posting follows three earlier postings on this website to complete the chronology of the Truro (Mass.) Tide Mill from 1790 to 1878, at least partially filling the historical gap. Thus far, the research has been based primarily on maps, histories, census records, deeds, and probate documents. However, if a proposed tidal restoration project proceeds and requires excavation around the mill site, that project could provide an exciting opportunity for an archaeological study of the mill.

Truro tide mill (marked “Grist Mill”) shown on an 1858 map.

Small-scale grist mills powered by the tide had little place in the industrializing economy of the late 19th century. The demise of the Truro Tide Mill, however, occurred earlier than that of most other North American tide mills.

When the proprietors upgraded the Truro Tide Mill in 1844 (see “A Better Mill for Truro” on this website) the Truro fishing fleet and associated industries were prospering. The town’s population had increased twenty-four percent between 1830 and 1840 and was continuing to grow.

To be sure, storm clouds were on the horizon. Truro grain production declined between 1840 and 1850, even as the town’s economy and population grew. Millers should have been the first to spot this development, but perhaps the decline was not apparent by the early 1840s, even to millers.

Continue reading →

Long Island (NY) Tide Mill Restoration: Amazing Progress in 2021

Van Wyck-Lefferts tide mill during 2021 roof work. (Photo courtesy of Van Wyck-Lefferts Tide Mill Sanctuary, Inc.)

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic that crippled work on so many projects worldwide, restoration work at the Van Wyck-Lefferts tidal gristmill in Huntington, N.Y., has made impressive progress during 2021.

In a November 1 letter to friends and supporters of the project, Richard Hamburger, president of the Van Wyck-Lefferts Tide Mill Sanctuary, describes the accomplishments for the year. These include completion of extensive dam repairs and the replacement or repair of damaged building components, including the roof. (During this work, some old wooden gears were found to be still operable!)

The work was funded by grants from The Nature Conservancy and the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation along with individual donations.

The president’s report indicates that much more remains to be done. The organization has goals to repair a bulkhead protecting the mill, implement a plan for vegetation on the dam surface that will withstand salt water, and develop a program to share this site’s remarkable history and technology with the public.

Continue reading →