Volunteers Janice Haddock, Brad Craig, and Alexandra Jansen coat shingles with wood preservative at the Mill at Pemaquid Falls.
Eleven volunteers completed a variety of tasks at the first work session of the season at the Old Bristol Historical Society’s restoration project on the mill at Pemaquid Falls on Friday and Saturday mornings.
The main job was to apply wood preservative to cedar shingles which will be used later in the year to re-shingle the facade of the mill. Some volunteers also cleaned out scrap lumber from inside the mill and moved it to the large shed formerly used by Hammond Lumber Co. to store windows. Others removed soil which was making contact with, and potentially rotting out, the wooden sill at the base of the mill building at the south end. Many did multiple tasks.
After trial and error to find the best method to apply the preservative, the Friday crew of mill committee chair Phil Averill, historical society board member Chuck Farrell, and Mary Piasecki developed a smooth routine. Saturday’s shingle-preserving crew included Brad Craig, Nancy Evans, Janice Haddock, Alexandra Jansen and Piasecki. The work is labor-intensive and slow, so many bundles of shingles await future work sessions to be scheduled throughout the summer.
Jefferson building contractor Leon Garrett loaned the mill volunteers some shingle dipping equipment.
In addition to applying preservative to more shingles, a future task will include removing the sliding doors on the front of the building, which are being replaced by historically accurate hinged doors present in early photos from around 1910.
