Built: c. 1772–1780

Before Auburn emerged as a center of large-scale textile manufacturing along the Androscoggin River, its economy depended on a dense network of small, water-powered mills situated on local streams and brooks. Among the most significant of these early enterprises was the grist mill located on Taylor Brook at the present-day crossing of Minot Avenue in Auburn, Maine.¹ Dating to c. 1772–1780, this site represents the earliest phase of Auburn’s industrial development, when milling was closely tied to agriculture, local self-sufficiency, and community survival.

The mill was originally constructed by members of the Stevens family, who played a central role in developing early milling operations along Taylor Brook.² They took advantage of the approximately thirty-foot drop from Taylor Pond toward the Androscoggin River, a natural gradient that provided reliable waterpower for grist and saw mills. At the Minot Avenue site, the original structure functioned as a grist mill, grinding locally grown corn, barley, and buckwheat for surrounding farms and forming a crucial link between agricultural production and household consumption at a time when transportation networks were limited and communities were largely self-reliant.³

Grain processed at the mill was converted into essential household products that formed the basis of daily diets in rural Maine. Corn was ground into meal for cornbread, porridge, and johnnycakes; barley was milled for flour used in bread and soups; and buckwheat was processed into flour for pancakes and griddle cakes, staples of nineteenth-century New England households.⁴ Bran and middlings, byproducts of the grinding process, were also used as livestock feed, further integrating the mill into the local agricultural economy.

The history of the Minot Avenue mill also illustrates the adaptability of early milling sites as Auburn’s economy evolved. In 1875, the property was sold to Parsons and Willis and converted into a carding mill.⁵ Carding mills performed a critical preparatory step in woolen textile production: raw wool was washed, cleaned, aligned, and combed into continuous strands, or slivers, suitable for spinning into yarn.⁶ This process transformed locally produced fleece into a standardized industrial material, allowing farmers and small manufacturers to participate in the expanding regional textile economy even as larger mills began to dominate production along the Androscoggin River.

Although smaller than later textile factories, the carding operation likely employed between 10 and 25 workers, including men, women, and sometimes older children.⁷ Employees typically worked long hours—often ten to twelve hours per day—operating carding machines, feeding raw wool, maintaining equipment, and handling finished slivers. Despite this shift toward textile processing, the site reportedly continued grinding grain for local use well into the mid-twentieth century, roughly sixty years prior to the article’s publication, demonstrating the persistence of traditional milling functions alongside newer industrial activities.⁸

This pattern of adaptive reuse was not unique to Taylor Brook. Similar transitions occurred along Foundry Brook and other small waterways in Auburn, where early grist mills were supplemented—or replaced—by sawmills, tanneries, and textile-related operations. Together, these small mills formed an interconnected local economy that supported population growth, shaped transportation routes, and laid the groundwork for Auburn’s later emergence as an industrial center dominated by large brick textile factories at Great Falls.⁹

Although the Minot Avenue mill no longer stands, physical remnants of the dam and mill works remain visible at the site, offering tangible evidence of Auburn’s earliest industrial landscape. As an archaeological and historical resource, the Taylor Brook mill site provides valuable insight into eighteenth- and nineteenth-century milling technology, water management practices, and the economic transition from subsistence agriculture to industrial production.¹⁰ The story of this modest grist and carding mill helps explain how Auburn’s early milling economy established the foundation for the city’s later industrial prominence.¹¹

Footnotes

1. Dave Sargent, “River Views: Mill loss hits area,” Sun Journal (Lewiston, ME), August 25, 2009.

2. Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., “Early Industrial Development in Auburn,” Maine History 29, no. 2 (1990): 87–89.

3. Ibid., 88.

4. Judith A. McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801–1885 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 22–24.

5. Shettleworth, “Early Industrial Development in Auburn,” 90.

6. Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826–1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 41–43.

7. Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Annual Report (Augusta: State of Maine, 1885), 97.

8. Sargent, “River Views: Mill loss hits area.”

9. Robert M. Frame Jr., Maine Industrial Buildings (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979), 61–64.

10. Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., “Early Industrial Development in Auburn,” 94.

11. Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), 34–36.

Bibliography

Cohen, Ronald D. Workers and Reform in Maine, 1870–1920. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981.

Dublin, Thomas. Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826–1860. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

Frame, Robert M., Jr. Maine Industrial Buildings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979.

McGaw, Judith A. Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801–1885. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.

Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics. Annual Report. Augusta: State of Maine, 1885.

Sargent, Dave. “River Views: Mill loss hits area.” Sun Journal (Lewiston, ME), August 25, 2009.

Shettleworth, Earle G., Jr. “Early Industrial Development in Auburn.” Maine History 29, no. 2 (1990): 85–101.

Sheriff, Carol. The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress. New York: Hill and Wang, 1996.