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The Stationary Mill John Putnam: Stationary Mill set there, right there. You say you was on Broad Brook last Sunday? You crossed the bridge, down there where the mill use to set? And, on the right hand side… a pond, little pond there? Well that's where they had a saw mill. Right out… right over that dam and they had, right down in… just the right hand side of that bridge, actually across it, right over in here, there was a boiler room made of brick, boiler run that engine. The caller was a stinker…Sawyer. Oh, he didn't have no use for me I guess. No, he'd wait till the God dam logs got piled up on the skid way before he'd start up. Then he'd start up and oh, he'd rip ‘em like a son-of-a-gun and I had on a sweater and the sleeve was a little ragged and I got caught on a carriage. I hollered like a son-of-a-gun and he _______ and dropped me right to my feet. What I should of done right then and there, took my cant hook and hit him over the head (Laughs) God Damn Right! Another time after that he got a sawing like a devil and when the carriage came back he picked up this dawg and set it right, right end to. Well… he thought he'd be smart and he set it up wrong and I put down the wrong end, see. Neal went right into it, sawed right into it. He followed the saw! Cripes! Well…before we got the job done, Fisher, a fella over in the mill. He says "Are you going over to the next lot with me?" I said "No" He's like, "Why?" "That fella right over there." He says, "He ain't going". He says, "I want you to go" There was gonna be a mill loading down off of Broad Brook on the east side of it. He had a big lot down there. Nice, oh, there was nice pine. Gosh. Old Ed Benton done the sawing and you… he liked his drink – just as often as he could get it. (Laughs) So we went in one morning and he was cocked when he'd come and he'd brought a jug of cider. He set it down into a saw box down below. Now…he's to it. He could saw, by golly he could saw ______ but he couldn't hardly stand up. (Laughs) He could hang on to that handle. He could saw just as… Whitehead didn't come that morning and we had another fella in to take away. Never took away before. I sit at the loom and I took my dinner pail and I went home. That shut the mill down right off quick. (Laughs) But…he could saw. Well, one day Fisher Cliff done the logging there. He thought he could bury us up with logs. Oh, they were nice logs. Old ________ opened up and boy oh boy, did he saw lumber. We sawed 5,000' then an hour. I rolled it. My God, that's a lot of lumber right there for a saw mill, yup. East side of Broad Brook. Down home I'd been half-a-mile below the old settlement. We use to walk it. That's the time I lived over on Broad Brook when Dorothy had her baby. Way back, way back. I couldn't have been more than 15, 16 probably, maybe a little more. So it might have been 1900? Could have been. |
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