Park Road Mill Operated for Centuries

The Mill at Park Road is registered on the National Register of Historic Sites.  It served as a water-powered mill for over two centuries.  The first known reference was its sale as a mill in 1747.  It served as either a gristmill, cider mill, or saw mill from 1747 until the death of the last mill operator, Joseph Montriski, in 1965.  It is believed to have been the second-longest continuously operating mill in the country.

Captain John Wooster purchased the mill about 1750.  He also operated the Captain John Wooster Tavern on the Oxford Turnpike.  Part of the story of the took part on this property.

Subsequent owners and operators included Edward Pritchard, Mark Lounsbury, Lillian and Sheldon Church, and Edward Hoadley.  Joe Montriski purchased the mill in 1926.  He constructed the main part of the present-day building.  He converted the old gristmill to a sawmill.  He also added a cider mill able to produce up to 25 fifty-gallon barrels of cider a day.

Just as early Oxford farmers took their grains to be ground at the gristmill, residents would bring their apple crop to the mill to be crushed into cider.  Apple orchards were plentiful in Oxford during those years.  Crushing apples into cider allowed the preservation of the apple crop for the coming year.  In addition, many homes built in Oxford during the Montriski years used lumber milled at the property.

Montriski was a talented mechanic.  His designs enabled the complete operation of the mill entirely with waterpower.  While the mill used a traditional water wheel during the early years, Montriski used an antique turbine cast in Bristol to power the entire mill.  He located the power unit in the sub-cellar inside a wooden case.  When he purchased the property, the turbine was in the mill but the casing had rotted away.  He purchased some cypress wood to build the new housing.  Cypress wood resists water-caused rot better than any other wood.

The Bristol Water Wheel Works made the wheel more than a century ago.  The wheel contains two flat metal disks set about 8 inches apart.  There are intervals between the disks with metal walls, dividing the wheel into a series of compartments, like the spokes of a wheel.  Water rushes into the horizontally places and rotates the wheel.  (The mechanics of the reaction wheel are described at http://www.exege.com/water-mills/reaction-turbine.)  The rush of the water causes the wheel to turn.  A vertical shaft is attached to the wheel that runs from the sub-cellar to the ground floor.  This shaft was connected to a variety of gears that provided the power for all the equipment.

The water that powered the mill was impounded on Little River.  A stone dam, built without any concrete, consisted of two dry walls with a layer of hard-packed clay between.  This held back the water and raised the water level.  The intake grate at the dam was about 20 feet higher than the turbine.  The water would come down through the chute, go through the turbine, and return down slope further back into Little River.

Montriski also built a mill - a long cradle that rolled forward to advance the log onto the revolving circular saw blade.  Logs were rolled onto a hand-pushed truck and then onto the mill, aided by the used of a Peavey stick, a lumberjack's hook on a pole.  Montriski devised hand-operated cranks to activate gears to move the log out for a new cut as the saw sliced off a plank.

The sawmill was operated on a contract basis.  Area residents would bring in logs and Montriski charged fees for making them into usable lumber.

Montriski built his residence above the mill, where he raised his daughter, Mrs. Evelyn McCarthy.  Evelyn writes of her childhood:

"I can remember the busy noisy humming of the saw blades. The sound carried for miles on Route 67. The roaring thunderous water is ingrained in my memories. My father would take me for rides in the bucket dangling high across the waterfall, powered by a diesel old truck engine. He had hopes to rebuild the dam in the 1960's but died in 1965 before finishing the work.

"One summer activity I had was to clean the debris from the cypress wooden tunnel barrel feeding into the turbine. My father would tie a rope around my waist, give me a bucket and light and lower me into the man-size hole of the turbine to collect the branches & stones that got caught there.

"Apple cider making time leaves a sweet thought in my mind.  The apples were brought to the 'apple room' from area orchards. Truckloads would be put in wooden bins to be put on the conveyer belts and fed into the square grinding machine to be squeezed downstairs and as a result gallons of sweet cider were processed and sold."

After Montriski's death, the mill was put on the market.  Mr. and Mrs. William Emerson purchased the mill in 1971.  They completed a very imaginative conversion of it into a home. Today the house still has many of the original walls, and much of the original sawmill machinery and parts of the mill have been retained. The water that powered turbines to operate the saw mill still runs under the house, past the headgate, down the turbine, and out the sluiceway. From the kitchen of the house, the six-foot diameter turbine, with its pulleys and gears, is still visible through the heavy chestnut beams that surround it.

Both the Emersons are now deceased.  Their children have put the mill on the market.  Valentine Real Estate, Inc. lists the home at $399,900.  Details of the offering are available at http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/10-Park-Rd_Oxford_CT_06478_M47334-46016?ex=CT527925789