Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1889-04-23
HISTORICAL RUINS.
Destruction OF tho 0ldest Saw Mil In thA
United States.


United States.
What remained of the Oldest saw
mill in the country has been torn down
and upon its site is building a new
grist mill. the property of E. E. Bill
lihgs. This historic spot, situated in
the town of Rocky Hill, has long been
a faVeHte trysting place for lovers of
the antique, aud the visitors who have
paid their respects to the place by de.
facing the crude logs arc numbered by
the thousands.
But the mill will be visited no more.
1t was known fur and wide as the old
Ephraim Goodrich saw-mill and was
OF the most pristine construction
Imaginable. The saw was q cumber-
some horizontal affair, set in u mon
strous wooden frame, propelled by u
natural waterfall upon big wooden
wheel, ain invention of past ages. When
the machinery was set in motion the
earth for miles around revcrberated
with the most hideous noises, and the
work was slow. 1t is told of old
Ephraim that. after starting
prodigious log upon its road
of separation, he used to lie down
upon tho carriage and sleep tho drcary
hours away, awakening when the log
had run its race by the comparative
stiffness of the ruiH. He became
afflicted, SO the story goes, with o
peculiar disease, contracted by this
habit, which prevented him from slecp-
ing in a quiet spot, and he then took
to running his saw-nill at the dead Of
night for his own personal benefit, and
to the detrimcnt Of iethargy of his
nc5ghbors, who, unable 10 stand it any
longer, swooped down upon the old
man and his mill one dark and gloomy
night, and spiked the water-wheel
down. That was 1850, a year after the
mill had been founded.
Old Ephraim, who was fast becom-
ing aged, finally deserted this indus
try, and his son, also bearing his
fathers name. took the business and
ran it to the satisfaction Of the Plebes,
his ncighbors. But the mill out-lived
the family, and in 1929, tho Goodrich
stock having become depleted, it passed
into the hands of william and Thomas
Tryon. These men vera the Connec-
ticut lumbermen of their day, but after
some five years they too deserted the
mill, and let it fall into q state Of desue-
tude. Then camo the great Morus-
Multicaulu5 craze. Thousands of mon
became inbucd with the idea that
they were to make their fortunes by
raising silk worms. and the greatest
~ 10. ant Il 4
was planted with mulberry trees.
9ear-o!d shoots bearing one bud were
sold for one dollar apiece, and worms
were imported by tho Thousand. Rev.
Israel Williams, Captain William But
Ter and several others were among the
most enthusiastic, and they at once
seized upon the Goodrich mill and
were to build an extensive addition to
it, preparatory to turning it into a silk
mill. But the craze fell through boz
fore one log OF the old mill had been
displaced, with nothing but the stone
foundation OF tho extension erected,
and at an enormous loss TO hundreds
of people. Since that time the prop
erty has remained in statu QUO, cher
ishcd by tho descendants of the set
tiers of Rocky Hill as a monument to
the noble docds of their ancestors, the
pride of antiquarians and the idol OF
ftinerant skotchors and embryo artists.
But tho only thing which now remains
TO identify it with the past is tho old
wheel, almost rotted away, which lics
upon high embankment, q few hun
a utY
was washed by last years Good. Nor
wich Comm Letter.
80
DEPARTMENTAL INrOh1Ec