Woodward's Mill Pond

Whenever you turn from Pleasant Street onto Pond Street and see Woodward's Mill Pond, it is easy to picture the history of the place, which was recorded in Dunstable Village, one of the Dunstable history books that are available at the Dunstable Library.)

Woodward's Mill Pond was named after one of the original families of Dunstable. Thomas and John Woodward fought in the French and Indian war. Benjamin and Jonathan Woodward fought in the Revolutionary War under Capt. Oliver Cummings who led the Dunstable.

Woodward Home, 1889

Woodward's Mill Pond was named after one of the original families of Dunstable. Thomas and John Woodward fought in the French and Indian war. Benjamin and Jonathan Woodward fought in the Revolutionary War under Capt. Oliver Cummings who led the Dunstable Company under Colonel Simeon Spaulding. In peace time, the Woodwards were millers, living on Pleasant St. The Woodward homestead, across from the pond on the north side of Pleasant Street, has been around for a long time.

Woodward Sawmill

Woodward's Mill Pond may have been created back in the early 1700's, when the stream that feeds the pond, Black Brook, was dammed up to power the saw and grist mills of the Woodward family. The grist mill was behind the house on the north side of the stream, and the saw mill was on the south side of the stream. The Woodward family also ran a cooper shop across the street and a wheelwright shop and a blacksmith shop up the hill toward the center of town.

The Woodward sawmill had an up-and-down saw and was never modernized to the extent of having a circular saw installed. Nevertheless, they did very well, because logs and lumber were sometimes piled on either side of the road, leaving barely enough room for a wagon to go through.

When the history of the mill was recorded in Dunstable Village, Mr. James E. Kendall, one of the history tellers, recalled that the up-and-down sawmill was said to be "a deliberate affair in which the sawyer could sit on the log and consider his sins as the blade worked its way from one end of the log to the other." Apparently Thomas Woodward was not a sawyer to sit on a log and consider his sins, especially the sin of sloth, for as Mr. Kendall continued, "The story goes that he would start the saw into a log, put a bag of grain in the hopper of the gristmill, and go across the road to the cooper shop and drive a few hoops onto a barrel - while he watched fish lines set on the ice of the pond."