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 iscover the history of The Old Schwamb Mill.
Here is a chance to learn about the beginnings of the community
along the brook — how Charles Schwamb purchased a 200 year
old grist and saw mill and converted it for woodworking purposes,
building a successful family-owned and operated business that
continued for 105 years.
The
English Puritans who settled in Cambridge in 1630 brought with
them from England the waterpower mill technology that took hold
on New England streams. Mill
 Brook, running to the Mystic Lakes from the
Great Meadow in Lexington, was the focus of Arlington's early
industry. The stream drops more than one hundred sixty feet in
two and a half miles, and its steady flow powered mills of various
kinds. The earliest water powered grist mill within the limits
of colonial Cambridge was established in 1637, and the second
soon after. A mile and a half upstream at The Foot of the Rocks,
the third watermill power system of pond, dam, mill, and mill
race was laid out c. 1684. It is the oldest continuously operating
mill site in the United States. On April 19, 1775, the first
day of the American Revolution, Minutemen here at the Foot of
the Rocks attacked the British soldiers returning to Charlestown
from Concord.
The
Old Schwamb Mill is now a 19th century woodworking mill-museum
operated by a non-profit historical and educational trust which
maintains the mill's traditions. In the present structure, re-built
in 1861 on seventeenth century foundations, hand-turned oval
and circular hardwood frames are made much as they were made
in 1864. The Old Schwamb Mill is the oldest picture frame mill
in the country and is listed in the National Register of Historic
Places. |
