Welcome! This site will focus on what at one time had been called the "Tide Mill District" (or neighborhood), which includes the land/waters from the Blue Hill Falls and the Sedgwick Town Line to Bragdon Brook. It was an area of Plantation #5 first settled in 1762 on Mill Island.  
     Who were these first settlers in the Blue Hill area? They were mainly of English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. The rocky coast and close access to good fishing and hunting must have appealed to them. There were also trees for building materials. In 1763, John Roundy and Joseph Wood built a small mill adjacent to today's Mill Island, an Island nestled between what is now Conary Cove, the Blue Hill Falls and a tidal cove, today's Mill Pond. 
     For perspective, the photos below are of the area known as Blue Hill Falls (north & west of the Falls Bridge). The land south of the falls is the Blue Hill Neck and was known as such well into the 20th century, but has come to be referenced as South Blue Hill. The two neighborhoods were effectively separated by water until the first iron bridge was built in 1883, though bridges of wood that were vulnerable to high water and ice existed there for about 30 years prior. The area included two district schools and two post offices - the South Blue Hill Post Office (23 June 1886 to 15 September 1923) and the Blue Hill Falls Post Office (May 1, 1852 to January 8, 2005). 
​     The two schools (SH) are annotated with arrows on the map to the left though neither exist today - nor do the Post Office activities. The old Blue Hill Falls PO building on Conary Cove does exist, but was moved further back from the road as it grew wider and displaced property and buildings. It sits on the Herrick property and has light blue siding. The Blue Hill Falls School at the head of Conary Cove, can be seen in the slideshow below and stood into the 1930's. 
     A map of the area from Annie Clough's book, "Head of the Bay," is shown and the book is viewable and downloadable below.

The Tide Mill Dam (with wooden bridge - angular trusses) and Benjamin Clay's House in Blue Hill Falls. The two masts are a schooner in Conary Cove - loading wood.

Lumber Schooner in the Cove

​     A prominent structure in the area and one that has been well photographed over the years, is the red boathouse on Conary Cove (some know to call it the LeVeque Boathouse), in Blue Hill Falls. It was built in 1924 by the Haskell family who summered in Blue Hill and was for the storage and repair of boats and was not a commercial boatyard. Prior to the early 50's it was white and subsequently modified and repainted red by the LeVeque family. Both photos below were taken by Nevill Smythe.

The LeVeque Boathouse ~1950

The LeVeque Boathouse in the late 1950's

Hancock Country Atlas - 1881

Blue Hill, Blue Hill Falls District and the Blue Hill Neck - from Annie Clough's "Head of the Bay"

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​Something to Read
Want to know more about Blue Hill and Blue Hill Falls - the area once known was Tide Mill District?
     The attached book - Historical Sketches of Bluehill, Maine by R. G. F. Candage, was printed for the Bluehill Historical Society in 1905. It is a great detailed read and may shed light on a few things you might not know. Of particular interest may be the areas known as "The Neck" and Tide Mill District (or Neighborhood) which is specifically referenced on pages 3 thru 30 (1st para.). A quote from Page 14, "The Tide Mill neighborhood began at the Coggin lot (on Salt Pond Rd.) and extended to Bragdon's Brook and just beyond, where the schoolhouse stood in which the writer first learned to lisp his "A B C's." Some discussion on a bridge to the Neck occurred before 1842 and can be found on page 11. 
     Additionally, one of the first settlers whose name was referenced as the location for what is today East Blue Hill, is noted on page 3, the 1st written page of the book. His name, Mr. James McHard (this spelling is correct). "McHards" became known as the village of East Blue Hill in 1871, but that area had always been a part of Blue Hill (and Plantation #5), though almost impossible to get to, as there was no road to that part of the town until the late 1870's. The road then built went down what is now York Rd. and then straight down a steep hill to the Jay Carter Rd. A private house and utility poles placed on the hill to the Jay Carter Rd. exist there now.
     The current RT 176 (East Blue Hill Rd.), from Woods Pt. to the village at the bridge, was a modification of that early road and was completed sometime in the early 1900s to bypass the hill. How things change.... The name "McHard" is also correctly referenced in the 2nd book attached below as an added benefit in getting this far. Please see and enjoy).
A Correction in the book - "Head of the Bay" by Annie Clough, published in 1953.
Page 41. Number 18: Manor House in Blue Hill Falls, was bought by Mrs. Samuel Ashhurst (corrected spelling) in 1926 from Mary B . McCreight, with a small adjacent property to the north purchased in 1927 from Chandler M. Wilson. Both were combined into one property. Mrs. Nevin had sold Manor House to Mary McCreight in 1914.

​The Mill Pond Dam - Blue Hill Falls, Maine
By Butler Smythe​

     In 1762, Joseph Wood and John Roundy arrived in the district of Maine, then a part of Massachusetts, spending their first night on an island on the western side of the large bay in Plantation #5. That island would be called Mill Island, a part of what would become the Tide Mill District, and eventually Blue Hill Falls, subsequent to the 1789 incorporation of the town of Blue Hill. On the west-northwest side of the island was an unnamed cove that would be known as the Mill Pond. Its waters fed by a large body of water, today’s Blue Hill Bay, and its clear cold tidal waters that flowed in and out of the shallow cove, much as it did in the adjacent cove that became known as Conary Cove. The outgoing tides left a mud flat, great for finding clams, worms, and other hidden treasures below the soft surface. At that time there was no barrier to the full flow and effects of the tides. 
Then came more settlers in the mid to late 1700’s with human activities and needs. After Wood and Roundy’s arrival, others followed and concentrated their lives near those two coves before The Head of the Bay (Blue Hill) was eventually settled. The early settlers determined that the shallow cove’s large opening to the bay would be a prime location for the building of a dam to harness the power of the tides. Though there were two openings to the cove, the one to the south was too small and was limited in its power generation potential, though it could be readily dammed across its full width. The larger opening could be blocked in part, though with greater effort than for the one to the south – but the rewards were greater. Subsequently, a stone dam was raised there over time - extending from each side of the opening and never fully closing the cove off from the bay. The original dam was called Endeavour. Today, the limits of that dam can still be identified almost 200 years later, by the original stone on the sides and the granite center structure with its regulating opening seen at lower tide levels.
     The dam built by the original settlers and operators of the mills that were subsequently built there, supported their immediate needs for wood and food (lumber and grist milling). The water in the cove rose and fell, but with the tidal flow restricted, never fully filling the old cove before the incoming tide reversed itself and the waters receded. At that point in time, and with the various mill structures in place that used the power from the increased tidal pressures at the opening, the cove became a functional pond that was a source of tidal power from both the incoming and outgoing tides. The cove became the mill’s pond – The “Tide Mill Pond” (today’s Mill Pond). 
Bridging the gap in the dam was a necessity for access to the mill that stood on the bay side of the dam and the adjacent Mill Island. Later in the dam’s life, when the mills were no longer viable, the wood “bridge” across the gap was remade to allow ships built in the Mill Pond to be floated out to the bay – much as the ships built in the Salt Pond did through the “unbridged” Blue Hill Falls. 
     Only in later years (late 1800’s), when the mill structure was long gone and vessels were no longer built on the pond, did the opening become further restricted by the placement of granite blocks to bridge the gap - yet an opening still allowed the tides to refresh the Mill Pond’s salt waters. The pond had served many uses over time, including being reserved for lobster pound purposes by Albert R. Conary, the Blue Hill Falls Postmaster from approximately 1916 to 1946. 
     Later, in the ~mid-1900’s, two women decided to occasionally have the opening further restricted (not closed) with a wooden planked barrier on both sides of the dam’s opening, further decreasing the flow of the cold water. That barrier effectively increased the temperature of the pond’s water to allow for more comfortable swimming temperatures, though the negative effect was a dramatic increase in bottom grasses (eelgrass in particular) which thrived in the warmer waters and overwhelmed the pond and its shoreline. The barriers were subsequently removed, in part because the women no longer used the pond to swim and because of complaints from the children using it. My grandmother was one of those two women and I was one of the children.
     The dam was now fully-bridged when compared to the wooden structure that had at one time bridged the gap, by granite blocks, covering stones, gravel and subsequently the asphalt that rests there today. The change was in part because of the increasing demand for a passage to and from the Blue Hill Neck to the south. The related demand caused the building of a relatively short-lived wooden bridge across the reversing falls on the south side of Mill Island. The wooden bridge had been built to overcome the need for the rowing of boats across the gap to the Salt Pond, but was short lived because of the power of the fall’s waters. The failure of that bridge structure and the subsequent replacement by longer-lived iron bridge structures as well as the concrete 1926 Stevens Bridge, changed forever the Mill Pond Dam. Changed again today is the Stevens Bridge of 1926 (Falls Bridge) that has been replaced by another, after almost 100 years, that now crosses the gap of the reversing falls of Blue Hill. 
The granite “bridge” in the Mill Pond Dam spans the gap needed for the mills and ships, and a smaller opening in the dam now regulates the Mill Pond’s water volume. That is what dams do. Over time the depth of the pond has been affected by sediment that is not able to exit the dam’s small opening, with the effect noted by shallower depths at high tide and those especially at a low. You can readily stand (or sink) in the oozy mud bottom at all tides and in most places.

The Nub, The Mill Pond Dam and The Falls Bridge - between Mill Island and The Blue Hill Neck