Site of Kendall's Pudding Mill from Wallings Map
| David Kendall's Pudding Mill |
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Site of Kendall's Pudding Mill from Wallings Map |
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The first gristmill of any kind in Coventry was built by David Kendall on Day Brook (Mill
Brook) just west of Pine Hill Rd. sometime after 1801. Before this, the first settlers
found that there were no roads, and no gristmill nearer than Arnold's mills in West Derby.
The young men used to carry
grain to here on their shoulders, there being no road that could be traveled by horses. Or they
would have it floated down Barton river and through South Bay in canoes. In the winter they had
an easier conveyance, by hand-sled on Memphremagog. The wheel was an overshot wheel, as the brook was small, and the supply of water sometimes insufficient, the miller was occasionally compelled to supply the lack of water by treading the buckets of the wheel after the fashion of a tread-mill. The stones for this mill were made of the nearest granite, and as there was no bolt in the mill, the meal which it made was of the very coarsest kind. Pudding and milk was the principal food of the settlers, and this mill, which furnished the more solid part of their fare, was called "the pudding-mill.(1) |
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References: 1. History of Coventry, Vermont, Pliny White 1858, Irasburg, VT |