Category: Amherst

Meg Gage (left) and Barbara Puffer (right) holding an advertisement for the Golden Gate Ice Company that operated at Puffers Pond.

After going on a tour of the Lower Mill River History Trail two weeks ago, this week I returned to hike up the other way. Once again, the tour was led by the indefatigable Bryan Harvey. It was another fascinating dive into the lost industrial history of North Amherst.

The Mill River History Trail is a project of the District One Neighborhood Association (DONA) in Amherst. (Meg Gage, pictured not holding the sign, is president of DONA.) DONA has received two small infusions of the Community Preservation Act funds to carry out the project. There are plans to put up some interpretative signs and make some improvements to improve the ability to view the remains, and create some public displays of artifacts, documents, and images.

We started in the same place and, this time, walked upstream along Cushman Brook through the other half of Factory Hollow. Barbara Puffer (pictured at left holding an advertisement from the ice business her grandfather ran at Puffers Pond) explained that it’s pronounced “Factory Hallah”.

Above Puffers Pond, there was a whole series of additional dams. The river flows through a fairly narrow gorge which is currently a series of rapids. But in multiple places you can see the stone work for mill wheels, raceways, and the abutments for dams.

stonework for the Roberts Lower Mill

The first dam was for the Roberts Lower Mill. The abutments for the dam are visible under a pedestrian bridge that crosses the river. The current trail probably runs through where the mill building actually stood. There is stonework visible (pictured right) that was where the mill wheel rotated and you can see some indications where the flume and tailrace were. Wikipedia has a pretty good page that describes the operation of watermills that explain some of the terminology. There are indications the mills mostly began with water wheels, but some converted to use turbines. It would be interesting to see what the actual designs were.

Above that was the Roberts’ Upper Mill where, again, the abutments are visible as well as stonework for mill wheel and raceway.

A railroad track crosses the Cushman Brook where the gorge is quite deep. The trail here is impractical to follow for anyone but mountain goats, so the tour returned to State Street and hiked up past the tracks.

Just beyond there is some old housing that may have been originally constructed for mill workers with the foundations of a mill just behind. This area was among the most densely occupied of the mill sites, with four or five different mills in just a few hundred yards. Little remains but foundations and stonework.

At left, a stone foundation is visible on the side of Cushman Brook.

On the other side of Cushman Brook, you can see the foundations of the Barnard Forge (pictured left). It operated from 1830-1860. It manufactured “frogs” for railroad switches and the forge had planned on being in place when the railway expanded from Amherst Center north. A bank panic caused a recession in the 1850s that caused the forge to fail in 1860. The railway eventually reached the area just six years later. The building and site were reused for cotton batting and, later, wool fulling.

State Street ends at Bridge Street. At this intersection, the first mill was sited in 1727. The site was occupied a series of mills that lasted into 1920s. We followed a trail along Bridge Street to the current bridge (constructed in 1972) where you can see the footings of the previous Old Bridge and Silver Bridge and the foundations of the last mill at the site. There is also just barely visible the brick “steam house” constructed over the lip of the gorge that housed the steam engine that drove the mill after it was converted from water power. We didn’t talk about this, but I wonder the extent to which the conversion to fossil fuels (steam and, later, electricity) allowed mills to no longer be sited near water power.

We crossed Bridge Street briefly to look down at the footings of the Silver Bridge and to see the abutments of a final dam that had created Cushman Pond which, at one time, was quite large, perhaps 60% of the size of the Puffers Pond.

On the walk back, Bryan didn’t stop periodically as he had previously. Due to my lung condition, I couldn’t walk fast enough to keep up with the group and fell farther and farther behind. I could sort of hear some of what was said for a few minutes, and it sounded like a lot of it was a reprise of contextual information he’d provided in the tour of the Lower Mill River, so I didn’t feel like I was missing that much. When we reached my car, rather than going to the conclusion of the tour, I just got in and drove home.

Upon reflection, I realized that they’ve really missed an opportunity to brand the tours, though. Clearly it should be called, “Grist for the Mill: Another Dam Hike with Bryan Harvey.” Once again, it was interesting, entertaining, and informative. Well worth the time and cost of admission.

Bryan Harvey stending in front of Puffer's Pond.

Shortly after I moved to Amherst, I saw a map that marked the area around the Mill River in North Amherst as “Factory Hollow.” There are no factories there now. Most of the area is conservation land and some has been re-developed. But there are a variety of tantalizing features still remaining to show how it was used historically.

I had spent a while looking years ago to see if anyone had written a history of Factory Hollow, but had come up empty. I was delighted when I found that the Amherst Historical Society has organized walking tours of the Lower and Upper Mill River to talk about the history of the factories and mills that were present. And the people built and worked in them.

Today, I attended a tour of the lower Mill River. It was led by Bryan Harvey, a former administrator at UMass Amherst who I’ve known for many, many years. He did a fantastic job pointing out where various structures were, how they were used, and what evidence remains today. He also pointed out a number of names of families that were involved: Puffer, Dickinson, Jones, Wheelock, Roberts, Hobart, and others, many of whom have roads or features named after them. A few are still active in the area.

We began at Puffer’s Pond. There was an ice house at the site of a current beach used recreationally by families today. Steve Puffer, who was still active in town when we arrived was (I think) the grandson of the men who created the pond that was used to power many of the mills. He was also instrumental in getting much of the land conserved. His grandson was in attendance for the tour and told a number of stories, including that a driving force behind conserving the land was that his wife was “the original NIMBY” and was opposed to having more people in the area.

We walked downstream from Puffer’s Pond and went by the elegant Wheelock house. It sits right on the edge of the dam and is the only house with frontage on the pond. It was originally built by one of the textile mill owners. It is currently owned by Cassandra Clare, a best-selling author.

An oak tree on the property was recorded as the largest in Amherst in 1845, with an amusing story behind it. Supposedly, the owner wanted it cut down, but the son (perhaps on orders from the wife) drove iron spikes into the tree making it infeasible to fell.

The Wheelock House
the dam at Puffer's Pond

The dam that creates Puffer’s Pond is probably the third dam constructed at that location. Earlier dams were probably made with timbers. Although you can’t see it in the picture, there is a round pipe visible at the left side of the dam through which water flowed for a penstock that powered the mills in the hollow below. There were also two mills that were originally situated at the dam: a sawmill on the north bank and a grist mill on the south. In 1863, the dam failed and the resulting flood destroyed most of the mills in the hollow.

The mills in factory hollow were mostly on the north side of Mill River. Currently, this area has been rebuilt as housing, with a set of apartments and a line of single-family homes along the street. When the mills were present, there was a canal along the north side of the river that powered the mills. Little remains of the canal now, except a depression in ground where the canal ran. In some places some stonework can still be seen, but it was not visible from where we were.

The mills sprang up largely due to trade issues related to the Napoleonic wars. In response to British interference with shipping — and impressing sailors to serve on British warships — the United States passed the Non-Importation Act in 1806. The Act was ineffective, but caused the price of textiles to rise. Local entrepreneurs saw an economic opportunity to make a profit and the first mill opened in 1809. After the war of 1812, the Act was repealed and many of the textile mills became unprofitable.

We walked the Julius Lester trail (named for another local author) that runs through conservation land on the south side of the river to the recreation area. There we looked at a water control structure that directed water into a canal to power the Old Grist Mill on Montague Road, one of the only historic mill buildings still standing in Amherst. Evidently, past this mill there was yet another mill farther down. I know there is a Mill Road in Hadley that is also along the same river probably had yet another mill.

Water control structures at Mill River Recreation Area

At the conclusion of the tour we walked back to the starting point. I’ve registered for the Upper Mill River tour on November 1st. There is another whole set of mills on the streams above Puffer’s Pond. I’ve walked this trail before and seen the remains of foundations and water control structures. It should be fun!