360 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



In the boarding house presided over 

 by Mr. and Mrs. George Caldwell, sixty 

 men could be accommodated. There were 

 very few married men employed. Near- 

 ly all were imported from the "Emerald 

 [sle," good, hard working men, at wages 

 about one-third those paid to-day. At 

 fust the upper mill was used to roll the 

 iron to be drawn at the lower mill, hut 

 at'terwar.N the upper mill was changed 

 [raw larger wire, such as rake teeth, 

 ami the rolling was transferred to Still- 

 water. 



( »n the east side of the pond they had 

 a sawmill where all the timber for the 

 mills and houses at Roxhury and Still- 

 water was sawed, being cut from their 

 own woods. 



All the soft coal used at Roxbury was 

 imported from the Provinces and carted 

 up by ox teams, the advantage of water 

 power compensating for the cost of cart- 

 age, and then, too, the price of all 

 kinds of manufactured iron was very 

 high as compared with that of to-day. 



The Mill River at Roxbury at this 



time was alive with trout which would 

 come up to the gate of the wire mill 

 flume to be fed by the men when they 

 ate 'hen- dinners at noon. The writer 

 during his time has taken many a fine 

 string of the "speckled beauties," and at 

 one time saw one caught in the tailrace 

 of the wire mill which tipped the plat- 

 form scales at four pounds. 



Stock spindle iron was rolled at Still- 

 water, carted to Roxburv. annealed and 

 drawn through steel plates by a rope 

 over a wooden drum on the water wheel, 

 quite differently from the present pro- 

 cess which must draw it to one-hun- 

 dredth of an inch. 



In the boarding house. Mr. Davenport 

 had apartments fitted up for himself and 

 lived there. He drove to town occasion- 

 ally with his fine team of black horses to 

 visit his parents who lived in the Daven- 

 port mansion, part of which is now 

 owned by Mechaley Brothers on Sum- 

 mer Street. At a party here he met the 

 charming Hattie Chesebrough whose 

 family had fled from the city on account 



BETWEEN THE UPPER AND THE LOWER MILLS. 



