The Old Mill Pond

© August '10   photo by smck

On the back gravel road from the East Side to L'Archeveque you pass this small pond that is gradually being filled in with the growth of water plants and fine but continuous sediments building on the bottom.  Long years past, a small dam - the road rides on the crest of it - labouriously built without machinery created the small pond with the diverted water used to turn a large mill stone.  I am not sure how many years the mill was in service but it was long gone when I lived here in the late '70s - all except for two large round milling stones that were nearly covered by soil accumulation.  The stones are now gone, being taken for some road entrance decoration somewhere I'm sure - but I wish they were still here giving further credence to the memory of the mill and the men and women who lived in this vigorous community of the late 1800's and early 1900's - a community that stretched for miles along the shore and inland to lakes and streams, hundred acre lots with house and barn and small hay fields and in each clustered grouping a church, a town meeting building, a small school building - and here and there a mill for flour or for sawing boards and lumber .  A hard life but free.