learned something new "watermills", embarrassed to say
 

This seems like something that I should have known, and may have heard in school, but it never stuck.

Watermills aren't just for "milling flour".

Duh!

In the last week or two I've been reading about old industry in the UK, and kept reading about "cotton mills," and forges that were located on a river next to cotton mills, and then finally, it clicked when I saw a video about a saw mill that was located on a river.

The only watermill that I'd ever known about was a flour mill.

But it only makes sense that ANY function that is repetitive and can be mechanized and powered can be powered by a mill that's powered by a water wheel.

A forge can use the wheel to pump the bellows and hammer the steel and whatever other repetitive functions are needed.

A saw mill can process entire trees from timber to lumber.

Etc - like I said, major "you're a dumbarse, masraum" moment for me.

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it's been said, "every day's a school day"....

water drove "factories" in pre-industrial revolution Europe and America. Growing up in CT we had a school trip to a historic watermill in third grade. neat stuff.

Anything that can turn a shaft, and especially if it can turn a shaft with some torque, can do work. Humans are pretty clever. And resourceful.

There is an old grist mill just north of me that's been in operation nearly 250 years .... Still grinding flour and grits like back then :). Cool as can be it is.... The Old Mill of Guilford.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1669512430.jpg

They're probably not very common in the dry flat lands of the plains.
We have one in Clifton, Ohio (birthplace of Woody Hayes!) that was built in the mid-19th century (after the original mill in that location burned down). It has always had a vertical shaft water turbine for power. It was turned into a tourist attraction a few decades ago. So many people asked where the water wheel was that the owner gave up trying to explain what a water turbine was and built an electric motor-powered wooden wheel with a water pump that pumps enough water up to it to make it look authentic.

You can see the phony sluice and the "water wheel" in the upper right of this picture.

https://www.findingohio.com/2021/12/clifton-mill-lights/

The Franklin Cider Mill has used a water mill to crush apples for cider for more than 100 years. Used to go every fall when I lived in MI.

Alexander Hamilton used the Great Falls in my hometown to power Paterson's factories of the time.

https://www.tripsavvy.com/paterson-great-falls-2502804

As the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton took the first steps in securing America's economic independence in founding the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.) in 1791. In 1792, the Town of Paterson was established by the society, which saw the Great Falls as a remarkable power source for America's first planned industrial city.

Hamilton enlisted Pierre L’Enfant, the architect and civil engineer who designed street layout plans for Washington D.C., to design the canals and raceways that would supply power to the watermills in town. Unfortunately, the society thought L'Enfant's specific ideas were too ambitious and replaced him with Peter Colt, who used a simple reservoir system to successfully flow water in a single raceway to the mills. Later, a system similar to L'Enfant's original plan was put into place after Colt's system developed problems.

Due to the power, the Falls provided, Paterson can boast many industrial "firsts": the first water-powered cotton spinning mill in 1793, the first continuous roll paper in 1812, the Colt Revolver in 1836, Rogers Locomotive Works in 1837, the Holland Submarine in 1878, and the birth of Flatbutt in 1952 (though the connection of the birth to water power is undocumented).

Killhope in Cumbria in the northern UK is the site of a lead mine. The water wheel driving the mill processing the ore looked to be about 30 feet in diameter. Shafts and pulling running through the overhead spaces. Impressive as all get out.

Best
Les

Yeah, that clicked for me. "duh, industry existed before ubiquitous electrical power grids and steam power, water ran everything."

Yep. Very cool.

I'd love to really KNOW how they did stuff back then. The pyramids, Stonehenge, etc....

Very cool!

That's just sad, but not that surprising.

Interesting page on water turbines, or, at least, the "John Tyler Water Turbine."
https://www.ledyardsawmill.org/water-turbines/tyler-turbine-at-the-ledyard-sawmill

Clinton (not Clifton NJ) maintains one as a museum attraction.

https://www.nj.com/galleries/BQA3DXRN3FEJVLNB62KRZORKSM/

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1669567430.jpg

Troy NY was the center of industry in the USA as it had great amounts of water power. Canals were built every other street so you had water for power on one side and street access on the other.

It was mostly textile mills, some started in the early 1800s. Troy is home to the oldest school dedicated to Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Troy began to fall apart because of steam power and then electricity. Trains didn't help either, as water transport was supplanted. Troy is at the most northern end of the navigational part of the Hudson river.

cool, more stuff for me to read up on.

You may find this of some interest.

Samuel Colt Gun Mill

Absolutely, thanks!

I'm trying to find information on it....

The town I lived in, West Stockbridge MA, had a water operated saw mill around 1800. The boards in our 1824 farmhouse were cut in that mill. The cool part, the mill used an up/down motion, not a spinning blade. That type of machine was not developed until later.

This is the type:

https://www.ledyardsawmill.org/exhibits/the-up-down-sawmill

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Interesting… I never knew any of them were used for milling flour…. I thought they were all saw mills!

Yeah, I saw a couple of videos like that. Crazy.

Pretty much any time I hear about or see images of mills for "stone ground flour" it's almost always a reference to a water driven mill.

^^^^ The one near me has been for grinding corn & flower into meal & grits... that pic I posted earlier in b&w is older. Though still a working mill, it's on the historic registrar and is quite picturesque ... gets painted a lot :). Very close to my house is an area that was known for producing long rifles prior to the Revolutionary War .... It's location is also on a small river ... I'm sure they used the H2O flow but don't really know the details....

Of course Tabby knows all about the rifles :)

I haven't had a chance to peruse it yet, but maybe FB's link above has more info about a water powered gun mill.

It's a start at least. The Great Falls in Paterson powered a lot of mills and factories during the industrial emergence of the US. Hence Paterson's old nickname "Silk City". It hasn't deserved such an elegant sobriquet in ...well a very long time.

Tangentially, (pretty sure this is common knowledge, but it bears repeating), the idea for the IBM punchcard came from textile and rug mills that were more often than not powered by a shaft running off a waterwheel.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1669659496.jpg
This is the Bale Grist mill in the Napa Valley built 1846 still grinding flour to this day. They can't sell flour legally though. Non USDA approved equipment ya know and this is California ya know. I guess the mill stones that have been grinding away for 176 years could be contaminated? Really cool to walk through and see in action. If you give them a $10. donation they'll "gift" you a bag of flour as a thank you

Just saying after reading Wiki. It definitely mentions the loom control cards from the early 1800's.

The idea of control and data storage via punched holes was developed independently on several occasions in the modern period. In most cases there is no evidence that each of the inventors was aware of the earlier work.

Interesting read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card

Nope, not common knowledge, and I'm pretty deep in IT. I'm familiar with the idea of punchcards and "patching" and have seen pictures, but that's it. I'll have to look that up!
At least it's available. That's great, and very cool.

My first few Computer Science classes were on IBM punch cards in the late 70s... You did NOT want to drop a box (mebbe 15" of cards) of 370 Assembler instructions and let them get out of order :D. Then CRTs appeared and it was all down hill from there ;)!

what a great thread!

I just came out of a "rabbit hole" :)....

Within just a few miles (a couple were VERY close by) there were about 60-80 gunsmiths making Jamestown Long Rifles starting in the late 1700s for around 100 yrs here. It seems that most (if not all) were using water powered mills .... live & learn.

I know Tabs is familiar with these rifles from a thread some years ago .... interesting stuff :)!

Mrs Aerkuld and I were in Wales a few weeks ago and visited a 12th century watermill - really interesting! It was a 14'6" diameter wheel, and the gears were wooden, with individually formed wooden teeth wedged into holes in the wheel. There was one main shaft on which the wheel was mounted, but different drives could be taken off that shaft, either by a belt, or by engaging / disengaging the gears. The power of the wheel could be regulated by an adjustable flap called a launder which works just like a throttle butterfly.
As other have said, the power from the mill was used for everything. There was a flour mill, a sawmill, wood turning, and woolen mill, all on the one site, all powered by the one water wheel. There was a blacksmith shop in the same complex too. Apparently, the farmers would bring their grain to this mill and, for a small fee, it would be ground for flour. That little mill must have been the center of local industry, if not everything. Pretty much anything you'd need you could go there for.

Some of my ancestors ran a mill in Georgia back in the 1800s and the restored remains are in a private museum near the original site. I need to get down there and see it some day. As I recall the mill would process wheat and corn, cut lumber, and power other mechanical tasks depending on need.

From the site:

"The old Peeler mill was rather a pretentious establishment in its day and generation. It turned the wheat and corn of the community into flour and meal, it sawed its timber, it served as a home where raw material was turned into clothing, it served as a community center of the first class, a clearing house for neighborhood news and political and religious discussion."

A little off topic, I grew up a mile away from this house, the Thankful Arnold house in Haddam, CT that was built in 1794. Even 40+ years ago it was a historic building and we took a field trip there in 3rd grade too (did a lot in 3rd grade now that I am thinking about... went to a local castle, made candles, spun yarn... all kinds of 1700s stuff, as part of class. What's funny is my best friend lived right next door to this house which was built the same time. Not a historic building, just a house. Homes built back them were quite different than today. Great memories.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1669674880.jpg

I learned that lesson the hard way when learning Fortran. :(

Sometimes even the miller's daughter. :D