Manufacturing in Locke’s Mills

A Historical Overview

Goose Eye No. 2 (2022)

Manufacturing in Locke’s Mills

A Historical Overview

Blaine Mills

In 1816, what we now know as North, South, and Round Ponds were just three small ponds connected by a few streams and collectively known as the Alder River Ponds. That summer, the area around the ponds experienced a lot of thunderstorms and lightning strikes. Most of the shoreline around North, South, and Round Alder River Ponds was scorched. They were fast moving fires and it was mostly the brush that burned, but the tall timber was still standing. It was scorched and it was dead, but it was good enough to cut into lumber. A year later, in 1817, Samuel Barron Locke, Sr., from Bethel, decided to take advantage of the situation. He bought up most of the land around the ponds, intending to harvest the trees before the lumber rotted.

At that time, the area around the village was a howling wilderness. The only access was a blazed trail from Bean’s Corner to the village. It was kept open by trappers coming from the Androscoggin River over here to trap the three ponds. In the spring of 1819, Locke started building a dam. The dam was built near the top of the hill in Locke’s Mills (behind where Mellen Kimball’s house later stood), about 300 feet upstream above the present dam. He also built a small sawmill just below the dam on the north shore. It was powered by a tub wheel. A tub wheel is laid on its side in a flat tub and operates when the water is let into the tub through a gate at the bottom of the dam. It spins the wheel and powers the machinery up in the mill.