From Lily Pond to Fulling Mills
by Mary Miles
When you undertake to write a story about something that happened two or three hundred years ago on Nantucket Island, you’re literally asking for trouble. First of all, you quickly learn that if the subject is covered in six history books, you’ll probably read six versions, at least four of them differing substantially about key points—names and dates, for example. Second, there are bound to be several people on Nantucket Island who may have spent much, much more time researching this very subject, and who will read the story and shake their heads, wondering why some poor benighted individual would even try to sort out the facts, when they’re obviously complicated…
BUT—the several versions are bound to be fascinating nonetheless, and sometimes it’s impossible to resist presenting them in all their obfuscation anyhow, risking the irritation of true historians. At any rate, the matter of Nantucket’s early fulling mills is interesting enough to present, and we can only hope that if someone notes any discrepancies, they’ll lest us know so we can set the story as straight as possible.
Starting at the Lily Pond
OK—here it is. A little bit of the story of Nantucket’s fulling mills. Starting at the Lily Pond, of all places—because that was possibly (but not positively) the location of the island’s very first fulling mill.
“Why do they call it the Lily Pond when there’s no pond there?” is a question often asked by island visitors who have strolled through the wide swath cut through that beautiful marshy-green, bird- and bunny-filled area quite near the center of town and now designated as public land. Truth is, there really did used to be a pond there once upon a time. In the early 1600s, it supposedly covered almost three acres; it was sufficiently large to allow modest-sized vessels to enter, thanks to a manmade ditch that led to the harbor waters. (At that time the ocean came up at least to where the Point Breeze now stands on Easton Street.)
It was originally called Wesco Pond (A.K.A. Wesko and Wesquo), and the settlers of three centuries ago decided to put it to practical use by building a mill there in the 1660s. Originally, the citizens voted for a “horse mill,” but in 1665 they opted for a water mill instead. This would suggest that the first mill they had in mind would have been run by wind- and horse-power. Why did the townspeople change their minds? Perhaps they saw that the water flowing into the Wesco/Lily Pond from the ditch and out via Brant Point would provide more power from tidal-flow energy than horse- and wind-power. At any rate, the water mill was built by William Bunker in 1666.
Peter Foulger, that new arrived man who seemed to be able to turn his hand and mind to anything, was designated by the Town to operate the mill. In payment for his duties as miller, Folger was to receive “two quarts of a Bushel for the Labor in grinding.” So it appears that the Lily Pond’s first mill was for grinding grain.
(Note: Folger arrived on Nantucket from Martha’s Vineyard in 1663; he’d been hired specifically as miller, weaver, and interpreter of the Indian language. For this he received a half share of the land. His son Eleazer came along as town shoemaker. Peter Folger was also a preacher, schoolmaster, blacksmith, author and poet, surveyor, and record-keeper.)
In April of 1673, Richard and John Gardner were commissioned by the Town to construct a fulling mill in Polpis, according to one account. They certainly must have been mill-building experts, because twelve years before that they had put up a tide mill at the end of Mill Brook, on the north end of Hummock Pond. It isn’t clear whether that was a grain or a fulling mill. It must have been a very busy year for the brothers Gardner, because the Town records indicate that on September 30, 1673, the Gardners were also appointed “to build a tide Mill upon the Creek behither Wesko somewhere near the place where the old Mill now stands [that old mill was probably the Bunker-built grain mill] and the Town doth also Engage to pay to the said undertakers forty pounds in corn or cattle at price current at such time” It’s possible that this was the first fulling mill at the Lily Pond.
According to legend, the way that early fulling mill just off West Chester Street met its doom provides another interesting side note: Sometime around 1720, a child named Love Paddock, playing one evening near the small dam at Wesco/Lily Pond, innocently dug a few little gutters with a shell, to watch the tiny rivulets of water trickling out. Then she went home, where she was startled awake the next morning by her father’s loud outcries that the pond have been let out by some miscreant, swamping the boats moored there and knocking down the fulling mill. Horrified at what she’d done, Love didn’t reveal her part in this until she was a very old woman.
At this point you’re probably asking, What is a fulling mill, anyway? Well, in those early days of the country, it was an instrumental in the preparation of material produced from the wool of the many sheep kept all over the island. Fulling is defined as shrinking and thickening cloth by means of moisture, heat, and pressure. More on that process later.
In 1708, Benjamin Swain was awarded the rights to a stream for the purpose of setting up still another fulling mill for the town. Starbuck’s big Nantucket history book says that in a Town Meeting vote on March 12, the Town granted him “the liberty of that stream of water which runs by John Folgers house to dam it up & to sett up a fulling mill on it one [sic] the Conditions he shall Injoy the same so Long as he shall resionabbly comply with ye fulling for their Cloath they paying for the same.” But apparently Swain didn’t fulfill his contract. So in 1721, at about the time Love Paddock perpetrated catastrophe upon the Lily Pond, a similar arrangement was made by the Town with Sylvanus Hussey and Stephen Coffin. The agreement in those days was usually made for the builder to also maintain the mill and produce sufficient wool cloth for the town.
The sheep population was increasing, and more fulling mills were needed to treat the woolen cloth spun by virtually every household on the island. On March 23, 1768, it was voted “that the Town will Grant fifty Pounds lawful Money towards Defraying the charges of erecting a fulling mill and putting the same in order for the Dressing of Cloth.” Where that one was and by whom built, isn’t mentioned. And in 1772 yet another fulling and coloring mill was bult near a small running stream in Polpis by a Scotsman named Nichols—that one was operated until 1796. Another account tells of a fulling mill built at about that time on what was later named Fulling Mill Creek at Shawkemo, east of Quaise. This was likely the last fulling mill in use, since several histories say that the one put up in Shawkemo in 1770 was operated until about 1830.
In those days, the clever island builders didn’t merely erect the mills; they also moved them, which must have been some trick. (But then, Nantucketers have never shirked when the possibility arises to move something—they’re still hoisting houses and transporting them to new locations!) John Swain sought and received permission in 1786 to move a mill that had been at “Podpis [Polpis] Neck” for 23 years to sit beside one he was using elsewhere; it seems he wanted to operate them in tandem. He was required to keep both in bood repair at his own expense, and was allowed to use them for 7 years.
Now, exactly how did the fulling mill fit into the wool-manufacturing process on the island? A book called The Glacier’s Gift, written in 1911 by Eva C.G. Folger, explains that many Nantucket homemakers hand-loomed the cloth from the wool of their own sheep. The bolts thus produced were usually 4 feet wide and quite loosely woven. It was at the fulling mill that all this material was shrunk down to a width of one yard. The book offers the following description:
“A bolt of cloth, say 30 yards long, was put into the fulling box and given a both of soda, ash and soft soap. A belt was connected with the wooden pulley on the main shaft and the two fullers [hard pine boards about 2.5 feet long, 2 feet high, and 1 foot wide] started a back and forward motion alternately, causing the cloth to turn over constantly… When the cloth was taken from the fullers all steaming it was folded over a large wooden peg attached to the fulling mill box, then it was carried out and hooked on the tainter bars, which were built along the side of the a lane near the mills, so it could dry without wrinkles. When dry it was brought in and put in a shear, a machine with a long twisted knife, that took off all the fuzz and long wool or hair, then it was taken from that and put in a napper, a machine with a long brush, which brushed the nap on the cloth all one way…”
Those first fulling mills on Nantucket, the book continues were crude but efficient. “The working parts were simple, consisting of large wooden pestles moved by wind or water… [they] working up and down in a wooden trough, into which the cloth to be fulled or shrunk was put, together with water, sometimes soap, fuller’s earth or other substance that served in those days to cleanse. The cloth immersed was worked and pounded for about two days and then dried, often being passed between large wooden rollers, which served to straighten and smooth it. This process rendered the cloth thicker, firmer and warmer, enhanced its wearing qualities and in the heavy weaves made it almost felt-like.”
The fulling mills could be run by either water or wind power. A dam and sluiceway directed the water into the mill wheel. Usually the mill itself was a building about 25 feet square; it “backed up to a milldam and floor several feet below the level of said damn…In some cases the dams were thrown across a bank where there was a slight fall of water, usually in a swampy place, and frequently a dike was constructed partially around the pond, to retain the water, though in most cases the natural banks were sufficient.”
Them Days Are Gone Forever
Well, gone are the days of thousands and thousands of sheep on the island; and gone also are the heydays of the picturesque and useful mills, of which there were supposedly no fewer than twelve running at one time during the 1800s. But for those who think that all of Nantucket’s well-known mills were built for grinding grain, that the first Nantucket mill was built in 1723, and that all of the famous power-producing structures existed on what were once called the Popsquatchet Hills (where the one remaining mill stands today), the story of the very early fulling mills built by the enterprising and industrious Nantucketers may be surprising information. Confusing though the accounts may be, it’s a certainty that in the 1600s, islanders began erecting a number of fulling mills to produce wool material for clothing.
Mary Miles was a talented writer and dear friend who wrote articles for Yesterday’s Island for nearly twenty years. In honor of Mary and to celebrate our 40th anniversary, we are reprinting some of her classics.
