Stone Dam and Mill site on Crane Mill Brook, Edmunds, Maine
Photograph
View of a stone dam at the head of the tide on Crane Mill Brook in Edmunds, Maine. Here the Bell family built a saw, lath and shingle mill in the late nineteenth century, which operated until 1928. IN 1900, the boundary of Edmunds was changed to incorporate the flowage of Crane Mill Stream into Whiting Bay, through to the tide mill at Bell family farm.
Water from Crane Brook flowing through this stone dam powered a sawmill for long lumber, lath and shingles in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. The squared stones to build the dam were hauled overland by teams of horses from the Dennysville railroad station. While originally part of Trescott, town boundary lines were shifted shortly before the arrival of the 20th century, placing the area where the Bells lived and worked in Edmunds. R.W. Hobart writes, "Although the mill is gone, and the dam no longer in use, great grandsons of Elmer Bell, Robert and Terry, (grandsons of Ralph, and sons of Alton), still are in the wood harvesting business on Bell property."
