In looking back, it was probably George Kelley and Walter Chase who finally prodded me into action. George Kelley is engaged in a flourishing insurance business in Hyannis and is very handy and exceptionally good with tools. As a matter of fact, he is better than the usual expert, and has an extensive knowledge of craftsmanship. He is meticulous, patient, and without his assistance I don’t think we could ever have accomplished the project.
Walter B. Chase and his brother, Milton, are two of the last old-school gentlemen left on the Cape, both of them well-known and beloved by everyone and the living examples of young boys graduating from high school and immediately starting in business as a clerk or as an ordinary laborer. One rose to be the Dean of Massachusetts Town Clerks and the other rose to be the President of the Hyannis Trust Company, the largest commercial bank on the Cape. They represent a living contrast to the average youth of today, the product of our so-called schools.
These gentlemen, through their own efforts and by virtue of the simple, ordinary and basic fundamentals learned in their school days, made a complete success of their lives and are vigorously engaged today in directing the affairs of two banks. Both are in their 80’s, alert, and enterprising, as were their contemporaries, young men of 18, 20 and 22 who became masters and captains of deep-sea sailing vessels going all over the world, purchasing cargo, handling all kinds of men, and making money and profit for their employers.
I mention this because of the things uncovered in working on the mill to show the sharp contrast of the average youth of today who is taken to school on the bus so that he can engage in physical exercise and who, when graduating from the glamorous schools, hasn’t the slightest idea of fundamental mathematics, of figuring simple interest, or of handling ordinary division or multiplication.
III
Around 1870 the water wheel was disposed of and a so-called “new and improved” metal turbine was installed for a few very good reasons.
The old outside wooden water wheel in the winter became lopsided with ice forming on the paddles and the uneven motion was undoubtedly disconcerting to the miller to feel the building and the machinery wobbling about. Whenever solid ice blocked the wheel, it was useless. Further, the mill pond was limited in its volume of water (“head,” to you engineers), so that when the pond was low there wasn’t very much water to turn a large outside wheel.
Ingenious engineers of that era came up with the so-called “improved” iron turbine to rest under the water and under the mill where ice could not get at it and where there would always be some water in the pond to turn it.
