Eldridge Settlement – Abandoned Community

Eldridge Settlement The road in to Eldridge Settlement is in better shape now then it was ten years ago thanks mostly to the gravel thrown in some of the worst spots by I guess the logging operations who use it to access their lands. The old coach road didn’t look too driveable where it crosses the Eldridge Settlement road but it looked like it would make a good hike.The March 31 flood seems to have breached a weak spot in the west arm of the stone dam and exposed the internals of the structure. It is faced with large stones but is filled with much gravel and rubble. The central heavy stone center portion of the dam was undisturbed by the flood. Perhaps as a result of human flood cleanup operations the upstream side of the dam is exposed better than I have ever seen.

The stone roofed sluice that drains the pond was easily visible. A rusty iron bracket was jammed between the rocks and looks like the kind of bracket that would have held an upright 4X4 timber as part of a slotted gate. The iron does not seem of great age and I suspect it is a modern add on to try to re-rehabilitate the dam and not part of the original design. The bracket to me resembles the type of device loggers sometimes drive into logs so they can attach a line to the log or link several together to make a boom.

At the north corner of the dam I did notice
a hill of stones that looked man made. A closer inspection revealed a trench at the foot of the stone pile that could have conducted water were it to have a connection to the upstream pond. There is currently no connection between this trench and the pond the road runs right across the dam there. No sign of an opening or sluice was seen in the dam’s west arm. I had not noticed this possible structure on previous visits but without foilage to obscure it does not take much to see a spot where a mill could have been set up to take advantage of the head of water built by the dam. I remembered the tape measure. Eleven feet from the top stone of the dam to the water on the downstream side. Eight feet from the upstream pond side. The largest stone I measured was five feet by three feet, many were a cubic meter size. The large stone next to a foundation above the car wreck stone foundation reminds me of a barn foundation stone used like a loading dock for the ox cart.

We located the long stone wall and when tracing the west most end of it we discovered two more well built deep stone foundations. Nearby we found a large midden . Two surface finds from this mixed debris were fragments of bottles that as you will see from the photos were not made yesterday or even in the last century.

Tracing the walls to their other end brought us to a small brook that runs into the dam’s pond.
It too had been trenched it seemed and stone walls built on its side to create a sluice for additional control of this small watershed.

On the way out we stopped at a steep ravine and visited a small but sprightly waterfalls almost under the road. A terrible juxtaposition greeted us as a decaying illegal dump mouldered on one side of this ferny mountain ravine.
The rusty 49 Chev Slopeback looked not so out of place but the freshly upturned discarded microwave reminded us that there are still many with little respect for this land.

I hope others will visit Eldridge Settlement and present their views on the possible mill site at the north arm of the dam.

I guess the questions I have about the site are :

1. Was there a mill there?
2. Was the dam built at the time of the 19th century settlement?
3. Was the dam built by Acadians? Is this the mill of French Mill Brook ?
4. Was there any other known mill on this brook? Perhaps closer to the Avon?
5. Was the dam built after the 19th C settlement as part of the Falmouth
watershed ? How long has Falmouth had town water?

- Ashley Lohnes, May 7, 2003