Certainly the mill, millhouse, dam, and water wheel, all situated amid towering trees on Wewaka Brook near Lake Lillinoah and the Housatonic River, present a picturesque sight for natives and travelers alike. Beyond that---thanks to the inspiration, dedication, ingenuity, perseverance, and plain hard work of the Garretts---one finds a reconstructed facility devoted to papermaking, with an equipped working hand papermaking museum. In Elmer's words: "our objective was to recreate the pioneering methods of obtaining power from mill streams and to show the old methods of making paper and printing." When the Garretts first laid eyes on the mill in 1950, it was a far cry from its current state. What they saw was a tall building in a state of collapse, many walls covered with black tar paper, and a 13-foot stone dam with very large stones locked into a notch in the bedrock. The whole face of the dam, including the gate opening, was sealed off with concrete and the pond emptied through a bathtub-type drain. Research conducted by Elmer and his wife, Florence, a gifted poet and writer who possessed an equal amount of curiosity and interest in history, revealed that the original mill, consisting of a wooden dam and overshot water wheel, was built by Truman Minor in or before 1796. Originally operated as a sawmill, it was later purchased by Amos Hawley, who fully developed the mill and enlarged it to include a gristmill and cidermill. It was Hawley who built the dam visible today and installed a turbine water wheel. As the property changed hands over the years, the mill continued to operate as a sawmill, gristmill, and cidermill, with a steam powerplant to supplement the waterpower. In 1923, Richard Boleslavsky, an officer in the czar's army at the time of the Russian revolution who had emigrated to the United States and become a prominent theatrical director, bought the property for use as a summer home. Rudolph Valentino was a frequent guest, among other celebrities. After Boleslavsky's death, the Garretts purchased the property in 1950, receiving with it some old photographs showing a sawmill, which had by then disappeared, and a smokestack and high-mounted water barrel, probably part of the steam powerplant which once existed. Boleslavsky had removed the building that housed the saws and steam boiler. By 1950 very little iron machinery was left in the mill; it is conjectured that it was stripped and used for scrap in World War II. One important decision the Garretts faced involved obtaining an authentic water wheel to recreate as much as possible the original appearance of the mill, which had previously worn out several wooden water wheels prior to the installation of the turbine. Elmer managed to obtain a second hand, repaired, steel water wheel (sixteen feet in diameter with a 3-foot face) from the Fitz Water Wheel Company in Hanover, Pennsylvania. In 1954 this was trucked disassembled to the mill at Bridgewater. Elmer made a pit for the wheel, poured concrete foundations, and proceeded with constructing the flume, which was nearly completed in 1960. As another necessary step, Elmer uncovered the original pond opening and installed a large gate valve discarded from the New York City water system. In this task, as well as many other operations of the reconstruction project, it is fortunate that he was a knowledgeable engineer with a talent for problem solving and that he had an indomitable spirit. Up to this time the mill reconstruction, carried out on weekends and vacations, had been slowed by the necessity of commuting from home and work on Long Island. It was further delayed by what turned out to be a very fortuitous event. Elmer, along with Florence, was sent by his engineering firm on a long business trip in 1962 and 1963 to Japan. The Garretts grew to realize that hand papermaking was one of the most important crafts of Japan and that it coincided directly with their individual callings as engineer and poet and their mutual interest in the Bridgewater mill. Through Florence's interest in a Japanese national haiku contest whose subject in 1962 was hand papermaking, the Garretts visited several papermaking villages and met many paper artists and craftsmen, including Eishiro Abe, designated a national treasure by the Japanese government for his papermaking accomplishments. It was in Japan that the Garretts made the final decision about their objective of the Bridgewater mill restoration: to provide an instructional facility where visitors could experience the process of early papermaking and printing and understand at first hand the natural connection of ideas, paper, and printing. The aim was to allow visitors to see the problems and understand how early paper was made, and to show the connection between hand and early machine papermaking to suit the requirements of printing. By background, two more ideal people could hardly have existed for this project. Elmer's family for the previous three generations had owned and operated machine mills in Pennsylvania. Florence's family, on the other hand, had been engaged in printing at the Rome print shop in Brooklyn, New York, where her grandfather, Thomas Rome, set type by hand for the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Upon their return from Japan, Elmer was transferred to Philadelphia, which occasioned further delay in the completion of the restoration. However, after his retirement, the Garretts moved first to Foxbury, Connecticut, near Bridgewater, and a few years later to Bridgewater itself. Since 1968 the mill has been completely restored and papermaking and printing exhibits and demonstrations have been provided, available to interested persons, while the equipment has been used to publish several books, under the imprint of the Flume Press. One of these, The Mill and Us, written by Florence and illustrated by Elmer, documents some of the challenges presented in restoring the mill, from a personal perspective. Many have had tours of the mill at no charge, including hundreds of children. Especially in the late seventies and early eighties, numerous papermaking workshops were held at the mill, in which specialists such as Kathryn Lipke, Coco Gordon, Elaine Koretsky, and Judith Sugarman took part. Indeed, these workshops contributed to the recent increased interest in papermaking as people from all over the country attended them, later returning to their own areas to give workshops themselves. Some years ago, Mildred Fischer, known for her unique handmade paper art, became fascinated by the small beater designed and built by Elmer. This beater, which she bought from Elmer to use for her artwork, is still performing faithfully after many years, and plans are for it to become a part of the collection at the Dard Hunter Paper Museum. In addition to this beater and another built by him, still at the mill, Elmer has constructed a screw-type press and a Japanese-style stamper, the one machine powered by the watermill. Today the mill stands as a landmark of the region and a source of pride for the community and the Garretts, who still operate it, although on a limited basis. They are always eager to welcome visitors by appointment to escort them through the museum, to demonstrate the steps of the hand papermaking process, and to show them how to use the printing presses, including one of the largest Washington presses in the country. Despite their consuming interest and enthusiasm, the Garretts have confided their concern about the long-term future of the mill. They would be pleased to find an interested, self-supporting papermaker to serve as curator and occasional guide for the museum, to make use of the papermaking and printing equipment, and even to sell paper on his or her own behalf. Whether one is an experienced or novice papermaker or printer, or merely a traveler with an interest in history, one will certainly enjoy and benefit from a tour of the Garretts' mill. Appointments to visit The Red Mill can be made by writing to Elmer and Florence Garrett, 40 Hut Hill Road, Bridgewater, CT 06752, or by calling (203) 354-9771. The mill is open from about May 1 to November 1 of each year.
