BLUE HILL FALLS, MAINE

Hancock Country Atlas - 1881 (Blue Hill Falls District is West & North of Blue Hill Neck. South Blue Hill not referenced at the time)

Current Topographical Map from www.topozone.com

Welcome!
     This site's focus is on Blue Hill Falls, Maine, the area of Blue Hill that had been called the "Tide Mill District" (or neighborhood), many years ago and includes the land/waters from the Blue Hill Falls and the Sedgwick Town Line to Bragdon Brook. It is the area of Plantation #5 first settled in 1762 on Mill Island. In 1763, John Roundy and Joseph Wood built a small mill adjacent to today's Mill Island, which is nestled between Conary Cove, the Blue Hill Falls and a tidal cove. The cove was dammed to create the Mill Pond - in its many forms and functions.
   Blue Hill Falls is home to the oldest structure still in continuous use (albeit for different purposes over time). That is the Mill Pond Dam (AKA the Mill Dam or Tide Mill Dam and it was once called - the Tide Mill Bridge). It is not a causeway. The dam's basis, which still exists today, was built in 1765 as Endeavour as a tidal dam which restricted the flow of water to generate power for grist milling & lumber related work (see page 24 of Annie Clough's Book - Head of the Bay). The damage to it has increased exponentially in the last 25 or so years in particular due to the increase in traffic - especially large trucks - and the speed of vehicles that pound/bounce on the dam's structure. The Bridge has been weight limited but the fragile dam has not.
For perspective, the photos below include Blue Hill Falls (north & west of the Falls Bridge). The land south of the falls is the Blue Hill Neck, which more recently has been referenced as South Blue Hill. The Neck and Blue Hill Falls (The Tide Mill District) were effectively separated by water until the first iron bridge was built in 1883, though bridges of wood had been attempted after the mid-1800's, were vulnerable to the current, high water, and ice. They did not last long.
     Those two areas at one time included two district grammar schools and two post offices.
Post Offices
1. South Blue Hill Post Office (on The Neck) operated from 23 June 1886 to 15 September 1923.
   2. Blue Hill Falls Post Office operated from May 1, 1852 to January 8, 2005.
a. In 1946 the Postal Service work moved from Blue Hill Falls to the Blue Hill Neck, though still operating as the Blue Hill PO. In 1963 it got its own Zip code (04615) when that system was first introduced.
b. The old Blue Hill Falls PO building on Conary Cove exists today, but has been moved back from the road, sitting on the Herrick property - with light blue siding.
Schools
Grammar schools (SH) are annotated by "SH" in the 1881 maps. Neither structure exists today.
1. The Blue Hill Falls school was located at the head of Conary Cove (see slideshow below) and though it closed in 1908, it was still standing in the early 1930's
2. The Blue Hill Neck school was located just north of the South Blue Hill Cemetery. The date of its closing is not known.
The Blue Hill Academy was founded in 1803 in the Blue Hill Village for upper (secondary) school students under the "guardianship" of the Congregational Church - with the Rev. Jonathan Fisher as its board president. That board eventually merged with the George Stevens Academy (founded 1898) which was incorporated as the Blue Hill-George Stevens Academy in 1943. It was not until 1968 that it became solely known as the George Stevens Academy. The original Blue Hill Academy wood structure was sold and moved in 1832 with a replacement brick structure completed in 1833 (see duffy-wescottpost95.org). That structure is currently having its own revival of sorts.
     For more information from Ester E. Wood on The Blue Hill Academy and George Stevens Academy, see: https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1671612231/georgestevensacademyorg/asuooo1mefqushjyj0uf/GSA_History_by_Esther-Wood.pdf.
The last map of the area below is from Annie Clough's book, "Head of the Bay" and the book is viewable and downloadable below.

A prominent structure - one that has been well photographed over the years, is the red boathouse on Conary Cove. Some know it as the LeVeque Boathouse. Built in 1924 by the Haskell family who summered in Blue Hill, it was for the storage and repair of boats and was not a commercial boatyard. Prior to the early 50's it was painted white. It was subsequently modified and repainted red by the LeVeque family, as it remains today.

The Tide Mill Dam with bridge & angular trusses on left and the Benjamin Clay House to the right. Two masts are on a lumber schooner in Conary Cove. See related photo to the right.

Schooner loading lumber on Conary Cove pre-1907. Taken from vicinity of Blue Hill Falls School. Manor House is to the right. Note there is no boathouse on the cove!

The LeVeque Boathouse ~1950 by Nevill Smythe

In the late 50's - by Nevill Smythe

Hancock County Atlas - 1881, Mill Pond Center Right, School House (SH) & Grist Mill (GM)

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

Something to Read (can't see the documents - they're attached to download)
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 the current 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 the 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. Some in the area still remember walking up that hill.
The current RT 176 (East Blue Hill Rd.) - from Woods Pt. Rd. to the village at the bridge - is 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 Annie's book attached below, as an added benefit in getting this far. Please see, read and enjoy.
Note: A correction (mine) to the book - "Head of the Bay" by Annie Clough, published in 1953.
On 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.

blue_hill_sketches.pdf
File Size:	17476 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

headofbaysketche00clou.pdf
File Size:	4876 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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 not able to exit the dam’s 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.

The Nub (islands), Mill Pond Dam and Falls Bridge (between Mill Island & Blue Hill Neck)

The Tide Mill's Dam - with a bridge - after the Tide Mill was removed

Mill Pond Dam from Manor House (granite area where bridge spanned)

The Mill Pond Dam - Outgoing tide (granite facing only on Bay side)

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

Please Visit Again Soon!

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