CHAPTER V. THE OLD WAYSIDE MILL. "There watching high the least alarms, And marked with many a seamy scar." OY far the most remarkable object to be seen in the vicinity little eminence hard by the road leading from Winter Hill to Arlington, formerly the old stage-road to Keene, New Hampshire. In the day of its erection it stood at the meeting of the roads from Cambridge, Mystic, and Menotomy, a situation excellently adapted to the wants of the settlements. It is the only really antique ruin we can boast of in Massachusetts; and for solitary picturesqueness, in all New England, only its fellow, the Old Mill at Newport, can rival it. Long before you reach the spot its venerable aspect rivets the attention. Its novel structure, its solid masonry, no less than the extraordinary contrast with everything around, stamp it as the handiwork of a generation long since forgotten. We are not long in deciding it to be a windmill of the early settlers. The Old Mill, as we shall call it, belongs to the early part of the reign of good Queen Anne, and was doubtless erected by John Mallet, who came into possession of the site in 1703–04. It remained for a considerable period in the Mallet family, descending at last, in 1747, to Michael, son of Andrew Mallet, by whom it was conveyed in the same year to the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, for the use of "ye Governor, Council and Assembly of said province," with the right of way to and from the high-road. It had, however, ceased to be used as a windmill long before this transfer. So that before Shirley's armada had set sail for Louisburg, its lusty arms had ceased to beat the air. Strange that an edifice erected to sustain life should become the receptacle of such a death-dealing substance as powder! The walls of the mill are about two feet in thickness, with an inner structure of brick, the outside of which is encased in a shell of blue stone, quarried, probably, on the hillside. Within, it has, or had, three lofts supported by oaken beams of great thickness, and having, each, about six feet of clear space between. A respectable number of visitors have carved their names on these timbers. There were entrances on the northwest and southwest sides, but only the latter belonged to the original edifice, the small brick structure on the northwest having been constructed at a recent date. From this southwest door expands a most charming view. The structure is capped with a conical roof, and stands about thirty feet high, with a diameter of fifteen at the base. To find what was an isolated landmark, not so many years ago, now overlooking a populous neighborhood, is strange indeed. Better yet, it is no longer a neglected ruin. Mallet's Mill ground for many an old farmstead of Middlesex or Essex. The old farm-house in which the miller dwelt stood by the roadside, where a newer habitation now is. Ten, thirty, sixty miles, and back, the farmers sent their sons to mill. The roads were few and bad. Oxen performed the labor of the fields. Those that came from a distance mounted their horses astride a sack of corn in lieu of saddle, and so performed their journey. As a historical monument, the mill is commemorative of one of the earliest hostile acts of General Gage, one which led to the most important events. At the instance of William Brattle, at that time major-general of the Massachusetts militia, General Gage sent an expedition to seize the powder in this magazine belonging to the province. About four o'clock on the morning of September 1, 1774, two hundred and sixty soldiers embarked from Long Wharf, in Boston, in thirteen boats, and proceeded up the Mystic River, landing at Ten Hills Farm, less than a mile from the Powder House. The magazine, which then contained two hundred and fifty half-barrels of powder, was speedily emptied, and the explosive mixture transported to the Castle, while a detachment of the expedition proceeded to Cambridge and brought off two field-pieces there. At the time of this occurrence William Gamage was keeper of the magazine. The news of the seizure circulated with amazing rapidity, and on the following morning several thousand of the inhabitants of the neighboring towns had assembled on Cambridge Common. This appears to have been the very first occasion on which the provincials assembled in arms with the intention of opposing the forces of their king. Those men who repaired to the Common at Cambridge were the men of Middlesex; when, therefore, we place Massachusetts in the front of the Revolution, we must put Middlesex in the van. It was at this time that the lieutenant-governor (Oliver) and several of the councillors were compelled to resign. The Revolution had fairly begun, and accident alone prevented the first blood being shed on Cambridge, instead of Lexington, Common. We will not leave the old mill until we consider for a moment what a centre of anxious solicitude it had become in 1775, when the word "powder" set the whole camp in a shiver. Putnam prayed for it; Greene, Sullivan, and the rest begged it of their provincial committees. A terrible mistake had occurred through the inadvertence of the Massachusetts Committee, which had returned four hundred and eighty-five quarter-casks as on hand, when there were actually but thirty-eight barrels in the magazine. When Washington was apprised of this startling error, he sat for half an hour without uttering a word. The generals present - the discovery was made at a general council - felt with him as if the army and the cause had received its death-blow. "The word 'Powder' in a letter," says Reed, "sets us all a-tiptoe." The heavy artillery was useless; they were obliged to bear with the cannonade of the rascals on Bunker Hill in silence; and, what was worse than all the rest, there were only nine rounds for the small-arms in the hands of the men. In the whole contest there was not a more dangerous hour for America. We have had occasion elsewhere to mention this scarcity of ammunition. At no time was the army in possession of abundance. Before Boston the cartridges were taken from the men that left camp, and fourpence was charged for every one expended without proper account. The inhabitants were called upon to give up their window-weights to be moulded into bullets, and even the churchyards were laid under contribution for the leaden coats-of-arms of the deceased. The metal pipes of the English Church of Cambridge were appropriated for a like purpose. On the lines the men plucked the fuses from the enemy's shells, or chased the spent shot with boyish eagerness. In this way missiles were sometimes actually returned to the enemy before they had cooled. The old name of the eminence on which the Powder House stands was Quarry Hill, from the quarries opened at its base more than a century and a half ago. The region round about was, from the earliest times, known as the Stinted Pasture, and the little rivulet near at hand was called Two Penny Brook. When the province bought the Old Mill there was but a quarter of an acre of land belonging to it. After the Old War the Powder House continued to be used by the State until the erection, more than forty years ago, of the magazine at Cambridgeport. It was then sold, and passed into the possession of Nathan Tufts, from whom the place is usually known as the "Tufts Farm," but it has never lost its designation as the "Old Powder-House Farm," up to the present time. Except that the sides of the edifice are somewhat bulged out, which gives it a portly, aldermanic appearance, and that it shows a few fissures traversing its outward crust, the Powder House is good for another century if for a day. Fortunately the iconoclasts have not yet begun to sap its foundations. Nothing is wanting but its long arms, for the Old Mill to have stepped bodily out of a canvas of Rembrandt or a cartoon of Albert Dürer. It carries us in imagination beyond seas to the H banks of the Scheldt, to the land of burgomasters, dikes, and guilders. There is not the smallest doubt that Washington has often dismounted at the Old Mill, or that Knox came here seeking daily food for his Crown Point murtherers. Sullivan, in whose command it was, watched over it with anxious care. It is pleasant to record the rescue of such a conspicuous and telling landmark as this from the rage of threatened demolition. This fury of progress, which has assailed Somerville in its high places, was here arrested by the joint action of the heirs of Nathan Tufts and of the city fathers, with the result that the permanence of the old building is now fully assured. These heirs, in 1890, proposed to execute a deed of gift to the city, under certain expressed conditions, of the Old Powder House and the surrounding grounds. This being accepted, the city acquired a much larger tract, contiguous to the first, by purchase, and the whole, under skilful and sympathetic treatment, is now converted into a beautiful park,- Nathan Tufts Park alike a credit to those who gave and those whose taste has turned an unsightly stone quarry into a garden spot. Some necessary repairs were made in the old structure itself at this time without impairment of its general appearance to the most critical eye. Following close upon these acts, permission was granted to the Massachusetts Society, Sons of the Revolution, to place a bronze tablet upon the old building, reciting the leading events connected with it, as we know them. A smaller tablet, affixed to the grille closing the entrance, gives the names of the city officials under whose direction the good work proceeded. Thus renovated, this ancient landmark tells its story with a new dignity. Sir Walter Scott has said, "Nothing is easier than to make a legend." We need not invent, but only repeat one of which the Old Mill is the subject. |