page_title: Mother Brook
section_title: Early mills
hierarchical_section_title: Mother Brook / Early history / Early mills
caption_attribution_description: English: A stone marking the location of the first mill built on Mother Brook in Dedham, Massachusetts.
context_page_description: Mother Brook is a stream that flows from the Charles River in Dedham, Massachusetts, to the Neponset River in the Hyde Park section of Boston, Massachusetts. Mother Brook was also known variously as East Brook and Mill Creek in earlier times. Digging the brook made Boston and some surrounding communities an island, accessible only by crossing over water, making Mother Brook "Massachusetts' Panama Canal."
  Dug by English settlers in 1639, it is the first European-made canal in the United States. Mother Brook was important to Dedham as its only source of water power for mills, from 1639 into the early 20th century.
  Today, Mother Brook is part of a flood-control system that diverts water from the Charles River to the Neponset River. The brook's flow is under the control of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and is used for flood control on the Charles. There are three remaining dams on the stream, plus a movable floodgate that controls flow from the Charles into Mother Brook.
context_section_description: The Town also offered an incentive of 60 acres of land to whoever would construct and maintain a corn mill, as long as the mill was ready to grind corn by "the first of the 10th month"[i.e. December].  The first corn mill was erected in 1641 by John Elderkin, a recent arrival from Lynn, at a dam on East Brook next to the  present day Condon Park and near the intersection of Bussey St and Colburn St.  He was given a tract of land in return.  Elderkin had previously built a mill in Lynn and, in 1642, only months after opening the mill, moved out of town.  This was the first public utility in the nation.  Early settlers could grind their corn at the mill, and in return paid a tithe to help maintain the mill.  The Town relinquished rights to the brook in 1682 and placed an historical marker on the site in 1886.
  In 1642, Elderkin sold half of his rights to Whiting and the other half to John Allin, Nathan Aldis, and John Dwight.  They operated the mill "in a rather stormy partnership" until 1649 when Nathaniel Whiting became the sole owner.  The Town was displeased with the "insufficient performance" of the mill under Whiting's management.  In 1652, Whiting sold his mill and all his town rights to John Dwight, Francis Chickering, Joshua Fisher, and John Morse for 250 pounds, but purchased it back the following year. Whiting and five generations of his descendants ran their mill from 1641 until 1823, when it was sold.
  In January 1653 the Town offered land to Robert Crossman if he would build a mill on the Charles where Shaw had originally intended.  Crossman refused, but Whiting was so displeased by the prospect of a second mill that he offered to sell his mill back to the Town for 250 pounds.  Whiting's performance did not improve, however, and the town wanted an alternative.  Daniel Pond and Ezra Morse were then given permission by the Town to erect a new corn mill on the brook above Whiting's, so long as it was completed by June 24, 1665.
  Whiting was upset by the competition for both water and customers and, "never one to forgive and forget, Whiting made something of a crusade of opposition" to the new mill.  Records show that the Town spent "considerable time" trying to resolve the issue.  After meeting with the Selectmen, both agreed to live in peace and not interfere with the business of the other.  Two years later Morse was instructed to not hinder the water flow to such an extent that it would make milling difficult for Whiting.
  The Town resolved that "in time of drought or want of water, the water shall in no such time be raised so high by the occasion of the new mill, that the water be thereby hindered of its free course or passage out of the Charles River to the mill.  The proprietors of the old mill are at the same time restricted from raising the water in their pond so high as to prejudice the new mill by flowage of backwater." At the same time, Whiting was also told to repair leaks in his own dam before complaining about a lack of water.
  Trouble and disputes, including a lawsuit, continued between the two until, in 1699, the Morse dam at present day Maverick Street was removed, and Morse was given 40 acres of land near the Neponset River at Tiot in compensation.  This seems to have been Morse's idea.  He would go on to open a new mill there, in what is today Norwood, Massachusetts, next to a sawmill that opened in 1644.
  The next mill was constructed in 1682 at Mill Lane.  Originally requested by Jonathan Fairbanks and James Draper, the privilege was granted to Whiting and Draper instead.  This mill was for fulling wool, and was the first textile mill in Dedham.  A condition was attached to this permission, however, that if the Town wanted to erect a corn mill on the brook that they may do so, unless Draper and Whiting did so at their own expense.  This mill, like the one above it, was held by the descendants of Nathaniel Whiting for 180 years.  One of Whiting's mills burned in 1700, and so the Town loaned him 20 pounds to rebuild.
  At some point in the early 1700s a new leather mill was constructed by Joseph Lewis 
caption: A stone from 1886 marking the location of the first mill built on Mother Brook
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