Coping with drought at the Hanford Mills Museum

Above: The Mill Pond at the Hanford Mills Museum looking pretty dry. Last week, the level of the water in the pond was about three feet lower than it normally is at this time of year.

This morning's thunderstorms must have been welcome at the Hanford Mills Museum in East Meredith, where the water was so low last week that the huge Fitz Overshot waterwheel that powers the mill's machinery was shut down for the first time in over a decade.

This season's dry weather is undoubtedly a bummer for Hanford Mills, but with modern electricity at their convenience, the museum is still giving demonstrations of the old sawmill and woodworking equipment for visitors. Over a century ago, when the mill was run solely on waterpower, a drought like this would have brought the machinery to a halt.

But at this time of year, a Hanford Mills blogger writes, sawmill owner D.J. Hanford would have been thinking more of his farm fields than his sawmill during a bad drought:

From 1846 to the mid-1880s the mill was powered solely with water, using a combination of wooden waterwheel (for the up and down sash saw) and a turbine (for the gristmill).  During this time D.J. Hanford would have operated the Mill mostly during the spring when the runoff from winter snows allowed the pond to be refilled quickly.  As spring progressed into summer and the water level became less reliable, D.J.’s focus would turn to his farm, where a drought would be much more destructive than at the Mill.  During a drought in June 1895 the Delaware County Dairyman newspaper noted: “Rain is the one thing needful.  Pastures are drying up; water is very low; gardens are at a standstill and our well-kept lawns are brown and dying; the hay crop is already past redemption, and unless we get rain soon the result will be empty barns and storehouses…”

To see more photos of this year's historic drought at Hanford Mills, check out their 2012 Drought photo album on Facebook.

Below: The museum's Fitz Overshot waterwheel out of commission. Photo taken July 19 by program coordinator Kevin Gray.