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This Old Mill: In Honor and Memory of Bruce Humphries

Posted on January 1, 2011

I often drove by an old building on the outskirts of Pine Plains and wondered about what it used to be.  As it was beside a small pond I naturally assumed it was some kind of abandoned water mill.   When I saw some activity going on around it (actually more underneath it) my curiosity got me to pull over.

I got into a conversation with the mason.  He turned out to be an interesting guy as was the whole project he was working on.

They were  shoring up the foundations of this old mill. Looking underneath, I saw that some of the pulleys and belts seemed fairly intact.

I wondered about the rest of the building — was any of the mill equipment still intact? What was its history?  Its name?

Patchin’s Mill was what everyone called it, but those in the “know” call it Patchin Mills because at one point there were actually two mills there. So take your pick but be warned that whichever one you choose could make you vulnerable to being corrected.

As is the way of things in a small town, it did not take much to wrangle an invitation to take a tour of the interior. 

I brought Bruce Humphries over to go through it with Susan Drury Patchin so I could videotape the tour for the sake of some history.  He was the only person I knew who would be familiar enough with the milling equipment and the turbine.  This was the first time Bruce had been in the building!

The Tour of the Mill

2 thoughts on “This Old Mill: In Honor and Memory of Bruce Humphries”

  1. Karen Schoessel says:
    December 28, 2021 at 8:24 pm

    Thanks for the wonderful memory and reminder of Bruce who provided such great knowledge so that we can retain and remember our history. We will miss Bruce–a member of our close-knit family.

    Reply
  2. Anna Russo says:
    December 28, 2021 at 3:27 am

    That was very nice to see him again

    Reply

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WHY THIS WEBSITE

I came to Pine Plains by choice, not by chance of birth.

But the small-town rural community I chose is changing. The farmers have, for the most part, sold to people from the city and fields are becoming lawns.

And, like the land, people, too, are becoming subdivided as difference breeds distance rather than discourse.

I have been making these videos to preserve and reconstitute what I can of a changing way of life and to share it with the community.

On a more personal level, I am making this website as a way of holding on to the reasons why I came here.

Stan Hirson

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