You are standing on the spot where Benjamin Nye built a dam across a small stream valley in the 1660s to create a mill pond to power his mill. The construction of a mill dam was a mixed blessing. In the days before steam engines were in use, water mills brought increased prosperity and made life easier. On the other hand, a dam radically changed the landscape and altered the ecological balance. Fish and other aquatic creatures could no longer pass up and down stream as they had for thousands of years. Herring runs or fish ladders were built to try to help this situation, but they were no substitute for the original stream bed.
A colonial era mill dam like Benjamin Nye’s was usually begun by constructing a timber framed wall or cribbing, with some sort of a spillway or waterfall for overflow water to pass. The dam was reinforced with rocks if available and, of course, lots of earth. When completed, the pond water flowed under the road through a stone culvert and was carried above ground to the mill through a flume, an elevated wooden channel on posts.
Take a peak at the concrete outlet structure at the edge of the pond. This is a popular fishing spot, with smallmouth bass being the usual catch. There are often Canada geese to be seen, and usually a pair of swans, sometimes with offspring. The concrete structure was the point from which water was controlled and distributed to the trout hatchery through three culverts which pass under the road.
As you face the pond, turn left and walk up the grassy strip to the entrance to the Neck. On the right is an old excavated banking; this is likely where the earth fill for the original dam was obtained.
