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37-463: The home was built in 1688 by Thomas Whittier, pioneer and great-great-grandfather of John Greenleaf Whittier. Thomas Whittier chose the site (originally 148 acres) for its proximity to Fernside Brook, which could both provide water and turn the wheel of a gristmill . The future poet John Greenleaf Whittier was born in December 1807 in the southwest parlor of the farm house, which today remains essentially

74-488: A counterfeit presentation", he wrote. After Whittier's death in 1892, James Carleton bought the farm. Carleton, a boyhood friend of the poet and a former mayor of Haverhill, donated the property to the Haverhill Whittier Club. It was officially opened in 1893, a year after the poet's death. Today, it functions as a hands-on museum dedicated to the poet's memory; visitors are allowed to sit in chairs actually used by

111-413: A husk. This foundation isolated the building from vibrations coming from the stones and main gearing and also allowed for the easy re-leveling of the foundation to keep the millstones perfectly horizontal. The lower bedstone was placed in an inset in the husk with the upper runner stone above the level of the husk. American inventor Oliver Evans revolutionized the labor-intensive process of early mills at

148-516: A machine called a chaff cutter . Like grain chaff, it is used as animal feed and is a way of making coarse fodder more palatable for livestock. Coffee chaff is produced from the so called silverskin , the thin inner-parchment layer on dried coffee beans, in the process of grinding coffee beans. In botany , chaff refers to the thin receptacular bracts of many species in the sunflower family Asteraceae and related families. They are modified scale-like leaves surrounding single florets in

185-412: A mechanical sieve to refine the flour, or turning a wooden drum to wind up a chain used to hoist sacks of grain to the top of the mill house. The distance between the stones can be varied to produce the grade of flour required; moving the stones closer together produces finer flour. This process, which may be automatic or controlled by the miller, is called tentering . The grain is lifted in sacks onto

222-581: A percentage called the "miller's toll". Early mills in England were almost always built by the local lord of the manor and had the exclusive right (the right of mulcture ) to a proportion on all grain processed in the community. Later, mills were supported by farming communities and the miller received the "miller's toll" in lieu of wages. Most towns and villages had their own mill so that local farmers could easily transport their grain there to be milled. These communities were dependent on their local mill as bread

259-486: A photo of it in her book Home Life in Colonial Days and frequently quoting Snow-Bound throughout her writings. 42°48′36.8″N 71°2′15.6″W  /  42.810222°N 71.037667°W  / 42.810222; -71.037667 Gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill , corn mill , flour mill , feed mill or feedmill ) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings . The term can refer to either

296-434: A system that allows the sequential milling of these grists, noting that "a mill, thus constructed, might grind grists in the day time, and do merchant-work at night." Over time, any small, older style flour mill became generally known as a gristmill (as a distinction from large factory flour mills). Modern mills typically use electricity or fossil fuels to spin heavy steel, or cast iron, serrated and flat rollers to separate

333-596: Is probably the Barbegal aqueduct and mill where water with a 19-metre fall drove sixteen water wheels , giving a grinding capacity estimated at 28 tons per day. Water mills seem to have remained in use during the post-Roman period. Manually operated mills utilizing a crank-and-connecting rod were used in the Western Han dynasty . There was an expansion of grist-milling in the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Persia from

370-725: The Ebro River in Spain is associated with the Real Monasterio de Nuestra Senora de Rueda , built by the Cistercian monks in 1202. The Cistercians were known for their use of this technology in Western Europe in the period 1100 to 1350. Although the terms "gristmill" or "corn mill" can refer to any mill that grinds grain, the terms were used historically for a local mill where farmers brought their own grain and received ground meal or flour, minus

407-477: The Roman Empire by the end of the first century BC, and these were described by Vitruvius . The rotating mill is considered "one of the greatest discoveries of the human race". It was a very physically demanding job for workers, where the slave workers were considered little different from animals, the miseries of which were depicted in iconography and Apuleius ' The Golden Ass . The peak of Roman technology

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444-438: The bran and germ from the endosperm . The endosperm is ground to create white flour, which may be recombined with the bran and germ to create whole grain or graham flour . The different milling techniques produce visibly different results, but can be made to produce nutritionally and functionally equivalent output. Stone-ground flour is preferred by many bakers and natural food advocates because of its texture, nutty flavour, and

481-413: The sack floor at the top of the mill on the hoist . The sacks are then emptied into bins, where the grain falls down through a hopper to the millstones on the stone floor below. The flow of grain is regulated by shaking it in a gently sloping trough (the slipper ) from which it falls into a hole in the center of the runner stone. The milled grain (flour) is collected as it emerges through the grooves in

518-482: The " Norse wheel ", as many were found in Scandinavia. The paddle wheel was attached to a shaft which was, in turn, attached to the centre of the millstone called the "runner stone". The turning force produced by the water on the paddles was transferred directly to the runner stone, causing it to grind against a stationary " bed ", a stone of a similar size and shape. This simple arrangement required no gears , but had

555-533: The 3rd century AD onwards, and then the widespread expansion of large-scale factory milling installations across the Islamic world from the 8th century onwards. Geared gristmills were built in the medieval Near East and North Africa , which were used for grinding grain and other seeds to produce meals . Gristmills in the Islamic world were powered by both water and wind. The first wind-powered gristmills were built in

592-580: The 9th and 10th centuries in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. The Egyptian town of Bilbays had a grain-processing factory that produced an estimated 300 tons of flour and grain per day. From the late 10th century onwards, there was an expansion of grist-milling in Northern Europe. In England, the Domesday survey of 1086 gives a precise count of England's water-powered flour mills: there were 5,624, or about one for every 300 inhabitants, and this

629-557: The Haverhill area, including "Fernside Brook", " The Barefoot Boy ", and "The Sycamores". The popularity of Snow-Bound also made the home popular; revived interest in nostalgic kitchens spurred by the poem inspired fans to try to emulate Whittier's kitchen. The poet noted in 1881 that a Cleveland, Ohio resident asked for exact measurements of his Haverhill kitchen in order to recreate Whittier's childhood hearth. "I certainly never dreamed when writing 'Snow-Bound' ... that it could be worthy of

666-901: The belief that it is nutritionally superior and has a better baking quality than steel-roller-milled flour. It is claimed that, as the stones grind relatively slowly, the wheat germ is not exposed to the sort of excessive temperatures that could cause the fat from the germ portion to oxidize and become rancid, which would destroy some of the vitamin content. Stone-milled flour has been found to be relatively high in thiamin, compared to roller-milled flour, especially when milled from hard wheat. Gristmills only grind "clean" grains from which stalks and chaff have previously been removed, but historically some mills also housed equipment for threshing , sorting, and cleaning prior to grinding. Modern mills are usually "merchant mills" that are either privately owned and accept money or trade for milling grains or are owned by corporations that buy unmilled grain and then own

703-453: The chaff from the grain so as to remove it is called " threshing " before " drying " – traditionally done by milling or pounding, making it finer like " flour ". Separating remaining loose chaff from the grain is called " winnowing " – traditionally done by repeatedly tossing the grain up into a light wind, which gradually blows the lighter chaff away. This method typically uses a broad, plate-shaped basket or similar receptacle to hold and collect

740-436: The disadvantage that the speed of rotation of the stone was dependent on the volume and flow of water available and was, therefore, only suitable for use in mountainous regions with fast-flowing streams. This dependence on the volume and speed of flow of the water also meant that the speed of rotation of the stone was highly variable and the optimum grinding speed could not always be maintained. Vertical wheels were in use in

777-634: The end of the eighteenth century when he automated the process of making flour. His inventions included the Elevator, wood or tin buckets on a vertical endless leather belt, used to move grain and flour vertically upward; the Conveyor, a wooden auger to move material horizontally; the Hopper Boy, a device for stirring and cooling the newly ground flour; the Drill, a horizontal elevator with flaps instead of buckets (similar to

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814-804: The family, and the guest register sits on the desk built in 1786 for the poet's great grandfather. The family burial plot is also located on the grounds of the Homestead. Whittier himself, however, is buried in Amesbury. The home was opened as a museum during the Colonial Revival Movement in the United States and was among the first in an emerging trend of restoring homes of writers for tourism. Books in this period by people like Alice Morse Earle particularly emphasized old-fashioned New England ways. Earle herself made an icon of Whittier's hearth by including

851-805: The flour produced. One common pest found in flour mills is the Mediterranean flour moth . Moth larvae produce a web-like material that clogs machinery, sometimes causing grain mills to shut down. Chaff Chaff ( / tʃ æ f / ; also UK : / tʃ ɑː f / ) is dry, scale-like plant material such as the protective seed casings of cereal grains , the scale-like parts of flowers, or finely chopped straw . Chaff cannot be digested by humans, but it may be fed to livestock , ploughed into soil, or burned. "Chaff" comes from Middle English chaf , from Old English ceaf , related to Old High German cheva , "husk". In grasses (including cereals such as rice , barley , oats , and wheat ),

888-510: The flower-head. Chaff as a waste product from grain processing leads to a metaphorical use of the term, to refer to something seen as worthless. In the Bible , such use is found in Job 13:25, Isaiah 33:11, Psalm 83:13-15, and other places. Chaff also lends its name to a radar countermeasure , composed of small particles dropped from an aircraft. Hungarian engineer László Schremmer has discovered that

925-426: The grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding . The Greek geographer Strabo reports in his Geography a water-powered grain-mill to have existed near the palace of king Mithradates VI Eupator at Cabira , Asia Minor , before 71 BC. The early mills had horizontal paddle wheels, an arrangement which later became known as

962-496: The old wheel mills. In most wheel-driven mills, a large gear-wheel called the pit wheel is mounted on the same axle as the water wheel and this drives a smaller gear-wheel, the wallower , on a main driveshaft running vertically from the bottom to the top of the building. This system of gearing ensures that the main shaft turns faster than the water wheel, which typically rotates at around 10 rpm . The millstones themselves turn at around 120 rpm . They are laid one on top of

999-414: The other. The bottom stone, called the bed , is fixed to the floor, while the top stone, the runner , is mounted on a separate spindle, driven by the main shaft. A wheel called the stone nut connects the runner's spindle to the main shaft, and this can be moved out of the way to disconnect the stone and stop it turning, leaving the main shaft turning to drive other machinery. This might include driving

1036-586: The poetry of Robert Burns . It was Whittier's sister Elizabeth and his mother Abigail who particularly encouraged his literary interests as a boy. His father John, on the other hand, was more economy-minded and insisted that his son's farm duties were more important than education or writing. Whittier's first poem, "The Exile's Departure", was published by the Newburyport Free Press on June 18, 1826, by editor William Lloyd Garrison . Garrison helped young Whittier attend Haverhill Academy, tuition for which

1073-418: The process. Evans himself did not use the term gristmill to describe his automatic flour mill, which was purpose designed as a merchant mill (he used the more general term "water-mill"). In his book his only reference to "grist" (or "grists") is to the small batches of grain a farmer would bring in to have ground for himself (what would be generally called barter or custom milling). In his book, Evans describes

1110-417: The ripe seed is surrounded by thin, dry, scaly bracts (called glumes , lemmas , and paleas ), forming a dry husk (or hull) around the grain. Once it is removed, it is often referred to as chaff. In wild cereals and in the primitive domesticated einkorn , emmer and spelt wheats, the husks enclose each seed tightly. Before the grain can be used, the husks must be removed. The process of loosening

1147-416: The runner stone from the outer rim of the stones and is fed down a chute to be collected in sacks on the ground or meal floor. A similar process is used for grains such as wheat to make flour, and for maize to make corn meal . In order to prevent vibrations from the millstones shaking the building apart, they were usually placed on a separate timber foundation, not attached to the mill walls, known as

John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead - Misplaced Pages Continue

1184-416: The same as it was in that year. Growing up, Whittier lived the hard-working life of a farm boy. Amid strenuous labor, he suffered chronic headaches and fatigue and attended Quaker meetings or school infrequently. He also learned he was color-blind when he was unable to differentiate between ripe and unripe strawberries . Here, he developed his love of reading thanks to a modest family library which included

1221-595: The use of a conveyor but easier to build); and the Descender, an endless strap (leather or flannel) in a trough that is angled downward, the strap helps to move the ground flour in the trough. Most importantly, he integrated these into a single continuous process, the overall design later becoming known as the Automatic (or Automated) mill. In 1790 he received the third Federal patent for his process. In 1795 he published "The Young Mill-Wright and Miller’s Guide" which fully described

1258-424: The winnowed grain as it falls back down. Domesticated grains such as durum and common wheat have been bred to have chaff that is easily removed. These varieties are known as "free-threshing" or "naked". Chaff should not be confused with bran , which is a finer, scaly material that is part of the grain itself. Chaff is also made by chopping straw (or sometimes coarse hay ) into very short lengths, using

1295-522: Was a staple part of the diet. Classical mill designs are usually water-powered , though some are powered by the wind or by livestock. In a watermill a sluice gate is opened to allow water to flow onto, or under, a water wheel to make it turn. In most watermills the water wheel was mounted vertically, i.e., edge-on, in the water, but in some cases horizontally (the tub wheel and so-called Norse wheel ). Later designs incorporated horizontal steel or cast iron turbines and these were sometimes refitted into

1332-618: Was paid with food grown at the family farm. For a brief period, he was editor of the Haverhill Gazette . Whittier lived in the home for 29 years. He moved to Amesbury, Massachusetts in 1836 and sold the family farm. The home he moved to, the John Greenleaf Whittier House , is also open to the public. The homestead is the setting for Whittier's best-known narrative poem Snow-Bound , published in 1866 and an instant bestseller. Whittier also set many of his other poems in

1369-515: Was probably typical throughout western and southern Europe. From this time onward, water wheels began to be used for purposes other than grist milling. In England, the number of mills in operation followed population growth, and peaked at around 17,000 by 1300. Limited extant examples of gristmills can be found in Europe from the High Middle Ages . An extant well-preserved waterwheel and gristmill on

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