1 6 Forestry Quarterly 



on the 2ist of the third mouth 1652, namely at Ashbenbedick 

 Falls, a corn-mill and a saw-mill being run for 3 or 4 years.* 



The short life of these mills may have been occasioned by a 

 freshet as may reasonably be inferred from the following deposi- 

 tion of Mr. James Johnson aged 50 3'ears "or thare abouts : this 

 deponent saith that upon the steep falls beyond Thomas Spencer' 

 house there stood part of a mill which was said to be Capt. 

 Mason' 16 years since, to the best of my remembrance and farther 

 saith not." 



In corroboration we find the depositiouf of Thomas Small of 

 Piscataqua in New England, planter, aged 65 years, who states 

 that he hath lived in New England upwards of fifty years — and 

 " that the deponent doth very well remember that Capt. Mason 

 sent into this country eight Danes to build mills to saw timber 

 and tend them, and to make potashes ; and that the first saw- 

 mill and corn-mill in New England was erected at Capt. Mason's 

 plantation at Newichwannock upwards of fifty years — where was 

 also a large house and conveniences of outhouses, and well forti- 

 fied with store of arms. That about forty years since the said 

 house and buildings were burned to the ground, but by what 

 means the deponent doth not know — Sworn 8th Sept., 1685, at 

 Portsmouth." 



The next saw-mill of which we have any record was erected 

 by Major Richard Waldron at Dover, N. H., about 1640. He 

 built other mills in 1648. These mills were located on the falls 

 near the head of tide-water on both the Cocheco and Bellamy 

 Rivers. 



About this time grants were made of timber lands on all the 

 branches of the Piscataqua. Just then there was great activity 

 manifested in the development of lumbering as an industry. 

 Saw-mills began to multiply and their capacity was enlarged. In 

 1650, a mill carrying eighteen saws moved by one wheel was 

 erected on the Assabumbedeck Falls, the site of the saw-mill and 

 corn-mill erected in 1634, which was the first gang saw-mill of 

 which we have any account on this continent. 



We learn from the Kittery Records that in 1650 the following 

 grant of land was made to Richard Leader, who had been elected 

 a councillor of the province in 1646. "Whereas at a court held 



*Belkijap's Hist. N. H., p. 428 and Provincial Papers, N. H. Vol i, p. 89.. 

 IFrom New Hampshire Provincial Papers, Vol. i, p. 45. 



