Frye Village Stories: "Mill privileges" and "Flowage rights"
A Shawsheen Village 100 Story
Before Shawsheen Village Frye Village Stories: “Mill privileges” and “Flowage rights”
“Mill privileges" and "Flowage rights”
The history of Andover and New England is tied to these two terms. I first encountered the terms mill privileges and flowage rights while researching the early industries of Frye Village.
In 1765, a mill privilege on Hussey's Pond was deeded, and in 1824, John Smith, one of the three founders of Smith & Dove Manufacturing, purchased an "unoccupied mill privilege" in Frye Village for the location of the company's first mill. It was the "unoccupied mill privilege" that intrigued me.
The terms raised so many questions! What are flowage rights and mill privileges?
“Flowage rights” for a dam ensured a pre-determined level of water behind the dam to ensure a steady flow of water serve mills located downstream.
A mill privilege conferred the right of a mill-site owner to construct a mill and use the power from the stream to operate the mill with due regard to the rights of other owners along the stream’s path.
There are a few concepts wrapped up in those two definitions.
Early New England settlements and towns were based on the practices and legal structures settlers brought with them from England, including the use of common land. For example, towns like Andover were built around a central Common where residents could let their animals graze.
The same approach applied to common use of rivers and streams. Long before the English settlers arrived, the native residents relied on waterways for transportation and drinking water, and were an important source of food.
English settlers continued to use waterways in these same ways. Settlers followed the English Common Law concept that “water flows and ought to flow, as it has customarily flowed.”
In New England, however, English settlers’ need for building materials and grain conflicted with this practice of the common waterway.
Every settlement needed sawmills and grist mills. Mills were expensive to build and required special skill to maintain. To attract millers, towns and settlements offered land and cash rewards to anyone who would build and maintain a mill in their town for use by residents.
This natural monopoly was governed by the social contract that in return for the miller’s investment and mill privilege residents would be charged reasonable rates for the use of the mill.
The associated flowage rights assured that the miller could build a dam or change the flow of the stream to meet the needs of the mill. In return, he was responsible and legally liable for the effects of his actions on people upstream and downstream from him. If the miller’s dam caused a farmer’s fields to flood, for example, the miller was responsible for reimbursing the farmer for his loss.
By those same rights, residents upstream and downstream from the mill could legally break the miller’s dam and return the stream to its natural course until the issue was settled in court. Everyone had equal rights to the waterway.
In Andover
In Andover, as in other New England towns, mill privileges and flowage rights were granted by the town's governing body and were included in property deeds, as we see here with the Shawsheen River and Hussey’s Pond.
As early as 1682, Andover Town Proprietors granted a “mill privilege on the Shawshin near Roger’s Brook to any inhabitant willing to build a sawmill.”
In October 1765, “flowage rights” and a grist mill at Hussey’s Pond were included in a deed from Capt. James Parker to Samuel Frye for whom Frye Village was named.
Among other locations around town, mill privileges in Andover were granted at what would become the town’s four mill districts along the Shawsheen River: Ballardvale, Abbot Village, Marland Village, and Frye Village.
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution changed people’s relationship with the land and waterways of New England. Early mill privileges and other local corporations served the public good of town residents. As time went on, industry and the use of water power changed from local village mills to massive city-based textile factories.
By then, mill workers in New England cities relied on the success of the factory to receive wages, which itself came to be seen as a public good.
For more information about waterways, mills, and the Merrimack River area, I suggest this chapter from American Environmental History.
