In the 1700Õs as English settlers began moving into the Springfield Precinct of Dedham they found Noanet Brook at a place we now call Noanet Woodlands in Dover. The brook was a lively stream that rushed down through the valleys and ravines between Noanet and Powisset Peaks. In some places it fell in rocky rapids and falls and it was just a matter of time before someone harnessed its power.
Sometime about 1750 a young man named David Wight began building a dam on the brook for a water powered sawmill. The spot he selected was where the stone dam is now between the first two downstream ponds. Unfortunately, Wight died before he could finish the work and his administrators sold the unfinished dam and mill privilege.
Two hundred feet downstream from the Wight-Richards' dam Noanet Brook fell about twenty-five feet in a rocky ravine. The spot probably had long been recognized as a good site for a water powered mill, but because the valley was relatively wide it required an expensive dam. There already were two sawmills operating nearby - Capt. Fisher's a half mile upstream and one at Charles River - so there was no need for another sawmill. Besides that, any new mill would have be on a fairly large scale and work year round to make the most of the limited power in the brook. And anyone who wanted to build such a mill would have to buy WightÕs old dam and the watershed land upstream. All that required large capital investment and none of the local farmers could afford to develop the site.
Then, in the early 1800Õs, the site at the ravine finally became feasible when a group of investors pooled their resources to build to build a state-of-the-art iron rolling and slitting mill at the site. Most of the investors were local men but the project also attracted men from Medfield, Boston and Newton.
Records do not show who came up with the idea for an iron mill at the site but Frederick Barden of Dover may have been one of the prime movers . On December 19, 1810 he bought the ancient Wight-Richards sawmill lot and privilege from Richard Richards for $100.00. The parcel was a square piece measuring 231 feet on each side and situated so that the stream was near the center:
Ò....a certain parcel of land containing one acre and nine rods of land lying in said District near a place commonly called and known by the name of Powisset it being Thomas Richard, deceased, sawmill lot joining land of Joseph Richards on all sides: said land laying fourteen rods square the stream near the center of said land and bounded agreeable to the original plan given to Thomas Richards at the time of his receiving his deed with all the privileges and appurtenances thereunto belonging...Ó
Barden had a grander mill privilege in mind when he bought it because a week later, on December 26, 1810, he bought another parcel joining it to the north and also centered on the brook, from Joseph Richards for $105.00 - the iron mill lot.
Ò.... a certain parcel of land in Dover containing one acre and a quarter of an acre and bounded as follows... Southerly on land formerly of Thomas Richards reserved as a sawmill privilege and now belonging to said Frederick Barden.. there measuring thirteen rods, thence northerly on land of said Joseph Richards on both sides and of the width of thirteen rods till it makes the said acre and one quarter of an acre. The lot to be so laid out that on the northerly end the brook is to be in the center of the premises.....Ó
Barden may have had plans for a rolling and slitting mill when he bought these parcels. Or, knowing it was a valuable piece of real estate he may have been speculating on his own. Or he may have been acting for others in buying the property.
Whatever BardenÕs plans it took five years to assemble the technical and financial resources and establish a company to build a new dam and a state of the art iron rolling and slitting mill on Noanet Brook. The water flow was much less than in the river so the machinery had to make the most of it.
8/11/00