Historic millstone gets new home

Photo:

TON OF HISTORY — Norway Highway Department personnel prepare to lift an historic millstone and guide it to a trench outside the Norway Historical Society on Whitman Street.  Society President Anita Hamilton and Curator Charles Longley look on.

NORWAY — On Friday, November 16, the Norway Historical Society took possession of a huge millstone donated by KEI Power Management and excavated, delivered and planted by Norway Highway Department personnel. The stone is 54 inches in diameter, 16 inches thick and is estimated to weigh 1.25 to 1.5 tons.

The millstone was buried to ground level in the Steep Falls area of Norway, across the street and down the hill from Aubuchon Hardware. The area on both sides of Steep Falls was home to many mills since very early in Norway’s history, due to the water power provided by the sharp drop of the falls.

The first mill beside the falls was built in the early 1800s and the last one closed in the 1930s. The location where this stone was found indicates it may have been used at a paper mill to grind wood pulp. While it is impossible to know exactly where or how the millstone was used, if it was used at the paper mill, it has been there since 1873, when the second of two paper mills on the site failed.

The historical society learned about the stone through Ron Somers, a former Norway resident and water power historian. As a teenager, he explored Norway’s rivers and streams looking for evidence of water powered mills, and noted this stone at Steep Falls.

While visiting Norway 40-odd years later, he returned to the site and recognized the millstone should be saved as an important artifact of Norway’s past.

The historical society is delighted to have this reminder of Norway’s early manufacturing history and is very appreciative of the generosity of KEI Power Management, the assistance of the Somers family and the skillful excavation and delivery by the Norway Highway Department.