Old Mill (Massachusetts)
| The Old Mill | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
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| location | West Tisbury , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 41 ° 22 ′ 55 " N , 70 ° 40 ′ 20" W | ||
| Built | circa 1848 | ||
| Architectural style | Form follows function | ||
| NRHP number | [1] 84002303 | ||
| The NRHP added | March 29, 1984 | ||
The Old Mill is a historic water mill in West Tisbury in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . It was built around 1848 and entered on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1984. The building is currently owned by Martha's Vineyard Garden Club.
Building
The mill was built on a site that had been used for industrial purposes since the 1650s. It is two and a half stories high in the main part, has a one and a half story extension and was built directly next to Edgartown-West Tisbury Road into a steeply sloping embankment to the south . On the other side of the street is the mill pond , from which the three watercourses Mill Brook , Factory Brook and Red Brook are led under the street. The Red Brook runs under the mill and most likely originally served as a power source. Inside, each floor consists of a single room. The first floor is accessible via a wooden staircase on the north side, the second via a folding staircase also on the north side .
history
The site of the mill was already used by the Indians before the arrival of the first European settlers . Around 1650 three English settlers from Edgartown - among them Josiah Standish, son of Myles Standish - bought the property from the Indians and built the first mill there. After several changes of ownership, David Look acquired the building in 1809 and converted it to the production of textiles - especially semi-atlas - which were in great demand from the island's whaling industry . With the decline of this industry in the 1870s, the profitability of the mill continued to decline. In 1845, Look's widow sold the building to Thomas Bradley for $ 1,800 (approximately $ 37,800 today).
Bradley, who had become prosperous from whaling, had the old building demolished and replaced by the structure that still stands today. The purchase of the mill was just one of several development projects by Bradley, which, among other things, acquired land above Holmes' Hole and developed it further as building land for residential buildings. These now form the core of the William Street Historic District, which is also registered in the NRHP . In 1879 the mill had finally become unprofitable, so that the machines and the iron mill wheel with a diameter of 6 ft (1.8 m ) were sold. From 1897 to 1937 the building was used for a wide variety of purposes, including a tea house , art gallery and auction house. The current owner, Martha's Vineyard Garden Club, rented the building from 1937 and finally acquired it in full in 1942.
See also
literature
- Fitch, Virginia A .; King, Louise T .; Halperin, Marion: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. ( PDF ) National Park Service , February 22, 1984, accessed on June 2, 2015 (English, accessible via the "NR" button).
Individual evidence
- ^ National Register Information System . In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . Retrieved April 15, 2008.
- ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 3.
- ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 4.
- ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 5.