TALES OF TAFT Millstone Story - Grafton, MA


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From the book: "Tales of Taft"  An Oral History of a New England Village
-By Norman Mortimer Taft  1995


TALES OF TAFT

A Special Millstone

We discovered some years ago after the great 1955 flood, that there was a millstone buried in the gravel because it had become exposed. We called in the state archaeologist to find out what the devil it was. He came up to take a look and said, "My Goodness, that's one of the few natural granite stones found in the Commonwealth." The grooves they cut into millstones had to be hand chiseled and this one was chiseled in granite which is very impervious and tough. Later, when millstones were more commonly used, a softer stone was imported from France. It was much softer to recut the grooves. As the stone wore, those grooves or slats had to be re-cut so that they would grind. Well anyhow, there it is. You can still see that mill stone. We recognized it and brought it to the attention of the town. It is now set up on Brigham Hill Road at the entrance of Lake Ripple as a monument to our early beginnings. It is one of the prime artifacts that this town owns. And consequently it'll stay there, we hope, for another couple hundred years. We've since had the dam completely rebuilt so we're all set. We had the potential to saw lumber to build homes, to grind corn and grain for food after the fields were cleared. So now what?

Previously, we laid heavy emphasis on the influence of the Little Quinsigamond River because it's where the early proprietors in 1736 looked around for a mill site. They found it, or what they thought was "It" right over at the bottom of Lake Ripple. I hope you can take a weekend in the pleasant weather and go down there to view that ancient site and it's millstone which we rescued. Look at the reconstructed dam which has much improved. The place has a long, long history.

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