Chase's Mill will reopen in late Spring 2024.

 Historic Sites in Mill Hollow and Self-Guided Tour

Welcome to Mill Hollow and Chase's Mill. Below this map is a short history of Mill Hollow that lists (in bold) a number of historic sites. If you were directed here with the QR code on one of our historic signs, scroll down to read about that and other historic sites at Chase's Mill and in the surrounding Mill Hollow Village. The locations of these sites are visible on the map shown here and on the map mounted on the shed wall at Chase's Mill. (Please Note: All of the historic signs will be installed by April 2022, once the ground thaws).

The Mill is located on the northwest corner of Lake Warren. Physical Location: 801 Forest Road, Alstead, NH.

Historic Sites on Mill Hollow Map

 Chase's Mill.  Alstead’s early town government charged Timothy Delano with building the town’s first gristmill in 1767. It was probably powered by an overshot wheel to grind oats, rye, corn, and barley for local farmers. Later the upstairs housed a carding machine to comb out and align wool fibers in preparation for spinning. Revolutionary War veteran Levi Warren owned the gristmill and a sawmill further downstream when Mill Hollow was identified as “Warren’s Mills” on an 1806 map. By 1800 a Fulling Mill stood on Warren Brook opposite Chase’s Mill, powered by a tall overshot wheel. Handwoven woolen cloth was immersed in vats filled with water and fuller’s earth (diatomaceous clay) to be agitated and beaten by wooden mallets. This fulling process thickened and strengthened the fabric making it warmer and more durable. Ezra Kidder (1781-1847) bought the fulling mill in 1800, and in 1824 he built a small Spinning Mill further downstream that spun two threads at once. The introduction of Merino sheep in 1810 began a sheep boom that made woolen manufacture a profitable business lasting through the Civil War.

Around 1858 William Messer converted the old gristmill to a woodworking mill. By 1880 he had installed a 30-inch Leffel turbine capable of generating 37 horsepower. Messer’s son Frank continued woodworking here and manufactured shingles, chair stock, and pail and knife handles until the early 1900s. Water-powered lathes turned dowels that were then smoothed by rotating them in huge barrels filled with sand. Architect Hartley Dennett bought the dilapidated Messer Mill and erected the building now known as Chase’s Mill between 1917 and 1919. The 250-year-old stone foundation, the dam, and the lower portion of the Mill wall beside Warren Brook likely date back to the 1700s. Dennett’s stepson, Heman Chase, owned the mill that bears his name between 1936 and 1988. For much of the past century neighbors also used the Mill’s waterpower and woodworking machinery and held social gatherings upstairs. In 2016 the nonprofit Mill Hollow Heritage Association purchased the building, undertook an extensive rehabilitation, and operates Chase’s Mill today as a living museum and learning center.

The Privy - 1919 is a wooden waterless toilet. At the rear of the Mill between the new lift tower and Warren Brook you can see why the privy jutting out is also called an outhouse.

Mill Stones - 1770-1858 ground grain in the old gristmill. Grooves in the upper stone, or runner, and the stationary bedstone crushed the grist and channeled it outward to be collected and bagged. The miller could raise or lower the runner to regulate the fineness of the grind. The runner had holes drilled into its sides so that it could be lifted off and turned over to be sharpened.

High Water - 2005 Alstead Flood On October 8-9, 2005 about 10 inches of rain deluged Alstead. A culvert on Warren Brook two miles downstream from Chase’s Mill gave way, destroying roads, homes, businesses, and taking 4 lives. The book Too Much Water, Too Much Rain details the history of this disastrous flood. Chase’s Mill was spared major damage, but remains of other mills on Warren Brook and the Cold River were extensively damaged and are now hard to imagine.

Chase’s Mill Pond Dam - 1767, 1919, 2019 The earliest dams on Warren Brook were built and rebuilt of dry-laid stone to power Timothy Delano’s gristmill and the early fulling mill that stood on the opposite side of the stream. The downstream side of the present dam shows some of the ancient stonework that likely dates back to the 1700s. Hartley Dennett and his brother Vaughan covered the upstream surface of the old dam with reinforced concrete and marked the date, 1919, at the northwest edge of the dam. In 2019 the Mill Hollow Heritage Association completed re-surfacing the upstream side of the dam with new concrete and marked the new date beside the original one. The present dam extends beneath the mill yard and several feet beneath Forest Road, which was reconstructed after the 2005 Alstead Flood. At that time, the state highway department installed the bypass culvert under Forest Road (NH Route 123) that will divert high water past the millpond in times of flood.

The iron Butterfly Gate - 1936 was installed by Heman Chase during his period of ownership. Using the rack and pinion mechanism atop the dam, the gate could be turned to lower or empty the millpond.

The Penstock installed in 2018 is a steel pipe 20 inches in diameter that carries water from the millpond down to the two turbines underneath Chase’s Mill. It replaced an earlier steel penstock that had rusted out.

Jones - Banks Mill - 1770-1900s Israel Jones built a sawmill on Warren Brook in 1770. He also owned the former Delano gristmill and is credited with increasing the available waterpower by raising the dam on Great Pond, now Lake Warren. Gardner Banks (1829-1904) bought the sawmill in 1859 and produced lumber and shingles in the 1870s and 1880s using a 36 inch turbine that generated 33 horsepower.

Kidder's Mill was located about 200 feet downstream from the Jones-Banks mill. Ezra Kidder operated a starch factory here into the 1850s. Bushels of potatoes were ground into a pulpy mass that could be dried like potato flakes and then sold. Housewives reconstituted the potato starch with water and dipped clothing into it before hanging clothes out to dry. Starching collars, cuffs, women’s caps, aprons, and other items made them stiffer and somewhat resistant to stains. Erastus Kidder (1840-1922), a later descendant of Ezra, sawed lumber and shingles and manufactured rakes and dowels here from the 1870s until around 1920. His 30 inch Leffell turbine generated 30 horsepower using a 16 foot head - or fall - of water. He invented and patented a shingle saw and other machinery. Components manufactured of green wood were heated and dried nearby in Kidder’s Dry House. The site shown as E.P. Kidder & Hatch on the map of Mill Hollow was the home of Erastus Kidder, his daughter Myrtie, and son-in-law, Carroll Hatch, who continued mill operations until about 1940.       

Wheelwright Shop In his Short History of Mill Hollow, Heman Chase notes that the wheelwright shop ran on water from the flume of Erastus Kidder’s Mill but gives no further details.

Hatter's House Gideon Delano, whose brother Timothy built the gristmill, is said to have manufactured hats upstairs in the mill, and may have lived at this nearby site.

Blacksmith Shop 1850s - 1960s Mill owners William Messer and his son Frank owned the blacksmith shop located between Forest Road and Warren Brook and convenient to travelers coming from all directions. The Brook supplied water to temper newly forged horseshoes and wagon wheels. The shop also manufactured parts for machinery needed in nearby mills.

Paint Shop - 1850s Joel Mayo’s house that once stood on the slope beside Chase’s Mill was later moved across the road to serve as a paint shop owned, like the blacksmith shop, by Frank Messer.

Lake Warren Dam - 1770 This body of water was first known as the Great Pond. Sawmill owner Israel Jones is credited with raising the height of the dam in 1771, thereby increasing the reservoir of water that powered his and other mills on Warren Brook.

New Dam - 1961 Built by Heman Chase to create a shallow pond called Lake Edith in honor of his wife. The dam provided a space for children to experiment with waterwheels, boats and other toys made in Chase’s Mill.         

Mill Hollow preserves two millowners’ houses, as well as its remnants of old mills and other industries. Ezra Kidder built the handsome Kidder Brick House across Forest Road from his fulling mill in 1820. The Warren House was built by millowner Levi Warren in 1790 and was used as an tavern and gathering place until 1827. In the mid-19th century, millowner Gardner Banks and his wife Ella Partridge opened their home as a boardinghouse for summer visitors and rented boats on the Lake. The Banks’s Pavilion offered shelter for summer picnics and dances. Visitors’ teams of horses were housed nearby in Banks's Stable. The boardinghouse closed after the death of Ella Banks in 1917. The house is owned today by members of the Hartley Dennett family.

The Sheep Barn that stood at this site from the 1830s into the 1960s was an integral part of Mill Hollow’s woolen manufacturing that included the nearby fulling mill and spinning mill. The sheep boom that lasted through the Civil War left Alstead’s landscape denuded of trees and marked by the stone walls of sheep pasture.     

The Hill Shed  was built in 2021 to store items not part of Chase’s Mill’s historic collection. It was constructed by volunteers in a timber framing workshop using recycled materials and those left from the 2016-2021 rehabilitation of Chase’s Mill.             

Cupola House - Messer - Nostrand During the Civil War mill owner William H. Messer built the large house that was distinguished by a rooftop cupola. Frank Messer’s wife, Nettie, ran a boardinghouse here together with manager John Goode. They built a dance pavilion just east of the house. Later it was the home of the Nostrand family pictured in Heman Chase’s Short History of Mill Hollow. It burned in the 1990s.