Jun 13, 2016 · Often a gristmill and a sawmill shared power from a single water wheel. Archeologists have uncovered evidence that Romans used a water-powered saw to cut stone …

Sash-type sawmills have been known for centuries starting in continental Europe in the 13th or 14th century, and were a feature of the New England landscape since the earliest years of European settlement—the first water-powered sawmills in New England were built near Berwick, Maine in the 1630s.

The Hierapolis sawmill, a water-powered stone sawmill at Hierapolis, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey, then part of the Roman Empire), dating to the second half of the 3rd century, is the earliest known sawmill.

It would have a sawmill and a gristmill: there would also be mills for making cider, salt, flax, plaster, linseed oil, tobacco, barrel staves, axes, bone meal, mustard, and on down to smaller mills that turned out simple necessities of everyday life.

The first English sawmill was built in Maine in 1623 or 1624 and the first sawmill was erected in Pennsylvania in 1662. By 1700 there were about 70 water powered sawmills in New England and 100 years later there were 250.

The earliest type of sawmill, or lumbermill, was the sawpit. The sawpit was a pit over which the log was positioned and held in place by saddle blocks. The “top” sawyer would balance himself atop the log, and guide the blade for accuracy. This required strength, stamina, and skill.

Sep 7, 2017 · The early sash mills were slow — 60 to 100 strokes per minute — due to the heavy saw-gate, which was twice the width of a 4-foot-diameter log, and rarely exceeded 1,500 feet …

From the beginning of the colonial era in the mid-1600s to the late 1800s, the hundreds of streams and brooks that flowed across New England and New York powered thousands of small gristmills, sawmills, and fulling mills. Country mills were integral parts of the preindustrial American economy.

The early colonists built and operated sawmills one hundred years before there was one in England. However, the wood-working industry was highly developed in that country long before the first sawmill was erected.

The invention of sawmills in the late 18th and early 19th centuries revolutionized the production of boards and lumber, making it faster, more efficient, and capable of producing larger, more consistent pieces.